# ατμίζεται



## OssianX

Sorry to use this excellent list as a dictionary, but my others (wordreference.com, others online, *and* the Oxford Learner's) have all failed me.  Ritsos: "…κι ατμίζεται η σκιά της γάτας."  I can't find a verb ατμίζω or ατμίζομαι, and though I thought this might be (yet another) case of syncope, I can't find ατεμίζω, ατημίζω, or anything else--except ατιμάζομαι, and to think of the cat's shadow disgracing itself is a little too much even for me.  Any help appreciated, as always.


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## orthophron

OssianX said:


> Sorry to use this excellent list as a dictionary, but my others (wordreference.com, others online, *and* the Oxford Learner's) have all failed me. Ritsos: "…κι ατμίζεται η σκιά της γάτας." I can't find a verb ατμίζω or ατμίζομαι, and though I thought this might be (yet another) case of syncope, I can't find ατεμίζω, ατημίζω, or anything else--except ατιμάζομαι, and to think of the cat's shadow disgracing itself is a little too much even for me. Any help appreciated, as always.


It's a pleasure for all of us. 
ατμός means steam. ατμίζω means to steam, to send out steam. More often the synonym αχνίζω is used in Modern Greek.
So, ατμίζομαι must mean to be steamed up (not as an idiom).


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## OssianX

Well, I see why I couldn't find it!  I guess I still can't see how the shadow of the cat can be steamed up, but that's my poetic problem, not a language one …

These variants do make life difficult.  I struggled for a while with καμένα σπίρτα until I remembered χαμένος.  But that's how language is.

Many thanks!


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## orthophron

OssianX said:


> I guess I still can't see how the shadow of the cat can be steamed up, but that's my poetic problem, not a language one …


 Go on, I trust you! 
P.S. shadow evaporated maybe?


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## OssianX

Very ingenious suggestion!  Would that feel plausible?  What I mean by asking is that if I'd thought of it, I wouldn't trust myself on it.  But it does make the right kind of sense for these moderately surrealist poems.Would a native speaker use that word for things that in English might be said to evaporate?  (Ghosts, perhaps?  And maybe σκιά could mean "ghost" here?) Things that fade out like smoke or steam?  Ah, maybe I could use "vaporize."  A delicious puzzle.  Thanks again!


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## orthophron

OssianX said:


> Very ingenious suggestion! Would that feel plausible? What I mean by asking is that if I'd thought of it, I wouldn't trust myself on it. But it does make the right kind of sense for these moderately surrealist poems.Would a native speaker use that word for things that in English might be said to evaporate? (Ghosts, perhaps? And maybe σκιά could mean "ghost" here?) Things that fade out like smoke or steam? Ah, maybe I could use "vaporize." A delicious puzzle. Thanks again!


We generally can say γίνομαι καπνός to mean εξαφανίζομαι (disappear, run away). When it comes to shade or ghosts we might say η σκιά/το φάντασμα διαλύεται (or εξαφανίζεται of course) rather. εξατμίζεται (evaporates) doesn't sound good to me.

What seems hopeful is the following occurence of "ατμίζεται η σκιά" I managed to find (in Ritsos again):
"_Τα βράδια το ζεστό χνώτο απ’ τους τοίχους των σπιτιών ξεχύνεται στο δρόμο η σκιά ενός πελώριου αλόγου ατμίζεται στο φεγγαρόφωτο_". Here it seems that the breath (χνώτο) coming out of the walls covers a horse's shadow... Naive?


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## OssianX

What a great find--thanks for that, too.  In that poem, there's a line-break after στο δρόμο, and it looks to me as though R. is using that line-break as if it were a period or semicolon.  What follows is (syntactically though not by punctuation) a new sentence.  Does that seem right to you?  I don't see how to parse the whole thing as a single clause; we have two subject-predicate pairs (χνώτο ξεχύνεται and σκιά ατμίζεται).

If that's right, then we have η σκιά ενός πελώριου αλόγου ατμίζεται στο φεγγαρόφωτο, which is closely parallel to the ατμίζεται η σκιά της γάτας that I was asking about.  Apparently ατμίζεται is what a σκιά does, in Ritsos's mind.  The helpful addition here may be στο φεγγαρόφωτο, though I'm still not sure what to do with it.  The moonlight creates the shadow, but may also somehow dissolve or dissipate it?

I'm also starting to doubt seriously whether, in both these passages, σκιά means ghost (shade) or shadow).  This is part of what makes me love translating poetry, though it's a constantly exasperated love.

Many thanks again, orthophron.  I worry about entangling others in my obsessions, but this is all extremely helpful.


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## ireney

A completely different, more "iconic" interpretation: How about something like "wavers the way steam does"? Could it work?


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## OssianX

An image like heat-waves, perhaps.  "The cat's shadow ripples"?  Not quite, but the direction is interesting.  The idea of something that you can see through, but that interferes with the light, seems right to me--no matter whether it's a shadow or a ghost.

In case anyone wants it, here is more context (the last 40% of the poem):

Γι’ αυτό θα μείνω ξάγρυπνος ώς το ξημέρωμα, μαζεύοντας
καμένα σπίρτα απ’ τους σταθμούς του τραίνου, ώς την ώρα
που ο τροχονόμος μεταφέρει στη μέση του δρόμου το σκαμνί του
κι ατμίζεται η σκιά της γάτας.  Ναι, μ’ αυτό θα σ’ το αποδείξω.


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## orthophron

OssianX said:


> What a great find--thanks for that, too. In that poem, there's a line-break after στο δρόμο, and it looks to me as though R. is using that line-break as if it were a period or semicolon. What follows is (syntactically though not by punctuation) a new sentence. Does that seem right to you? I don't see how to parse the whole thing as a single clause; we have two subject-predicate pairs (χνώτο ξεχύνεται and σκιά ατμίζεται).


Apparently a punctuatiuon mark is missing here.


OssianX said:


> If that's right, then we have η σκιά ενός πελώριου αλόγου ατμίζεται στο φεγγαρόφωτο, which is closely parallel to the ατμίζεται η σκιά της γάτας that I was asking about. Apparently ατμίζεται is what a σκιά does, in Ritsos's mind. The helpful addition here may be στο φεγγαρόφωτο, though I'm still not sure what to do with it. The moonlight creates the shadow, but may also somehow dissolve or dissipate it?
> I'm also starting to doubt seriously whether, in both these passages, σκιά means ghost (shade) or shadow). This is part of what makes me love translating poetry, though it's a constantly exasperated love.


Well I was thinking that, in the dark, it is hard to distinguish the horse from its shadow. So by σκιά*, the writer might mean the horse itself. Breath in cold weather becomes visible and the moonlight helps. So if you ask me I 'd say: _the horse's figure is "drenched" with steam under the moonlight_. (στο φεγγαρόφωτο as prepositional complement).
* σκιά : If one looks it up in a dictionary he will read that it also means something/someone you cannot easily see because of darkness.


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## OssianX

Amazing how absorbing these problems can be, how far into various reaches of the (or a) language they can reach, all to try to decide on a single word.  For the moment, I'm contemplating this solution: "until the hour / when the traffic cop carries his stool to the middle of the road / and the cat's shadow shimmers.  Yes, with this I've proved it."

A thousand thanks to orthophron and ireney.


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## cougr

Sorry for being late to the discussion but I feel (and this is just a speculation) that the word "vaporizes", which has been previously hinted at, might be the most apt in this particular case. So for example the line could read:

"...and the cat's shadow vaporizes, or even, ....bursts into vapor"

This would allude to the idea that the cat's shadow -and whatever its allegorical or symbolic significance might be- has either been obliterated, or transformed or transmuted into something else.


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## orthophron

Look what I came across this morning: Themes to be dealt with by students of high school and guess what... it is Ritsos. 
Here is what is supported:
ατμίζομαι: κατασκευασμένο ρήμα ανάμεσα στο ατμίζω (βγάζω ατμούς) και στο εξατμίζομαι. Further down in the analysis the verb εξαϋλώνομαι is used.


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## OssianX

Another great find!  And in this case the poem ("Moonlight Sonata") is famous enough so that I have a translation, Rae Dalven's in _The Fourth Dimension: Selected Poems of Yannis Ritsos_.  This is the line (83):

έτσι λευκή κι απρόσιτη ν' ατμίζομαι μες στη λευκή μου φλόγα, στη λευκότητα του σεληνόφωτος,

She translates this as "steaming myself white and inaccessible in my white flame" etc.  This doesn't make a whole lot of *English* sense, imagistically.  Perhaps if none of the options I (with all your help!) can think of for κι ατμίζεται η σκιά της γάτας makes easy English sense either, this may correspond to Ritsos's own avoidance of easy sense.


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## cougr

OssianX said:


> έτσι λευκή κι απρόσιτη ν' ατμίζομαι μες στη λευκή μου φλόγα, στη λευκότητα του σεληνόφωτος,



Here the verb ατμίζομαι conjures up an image of "turning into mist", at least in my mind. My interpretation:

....so white and inaccessible/unapproachable, turning into mist amidst my white flame, in the whiteness of the moonlight.


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## OssianX

Yes indeed.  Two lines earlier:

ντυμένος την αχλύ και τη δόξα ένος τέτοιου σεληνόφωτος

So there's a lot of mist around.  I like your translation better than Dalven's, I think.


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