An Investigation and Critique of Abu al-Fath al-Busti Nuniyyah’s Translation to Persian based on the Quantity Maxim

Theoreticians have regarded poem translation as the most challenging types of translation. The term ‘untranslatable’ is the title, which implies a challenge in this literary work. The challenge is due to the occurrence of major changes in the form and structure of poetry translation, which departs it from the original text. The literary elegance and intricacy of the poem have encouraged the translation theorists to evaluate the translation from the equality and balance gate regarding the form and structure and pay special attention to the different linguistic forms of two languages (source and target) in the translation process. In this article, using a descriptive-analytical method and comparing the source and target texts, we aim to examine the principle of quantity as one of the important principles in creating equilibrium and equality between source and target texts. At that point, the concept ‘quantity’ in Abu al-Fath al-Busti (4th century) Nuniyyah’s translation from Arabic to Persian is evaluated. This elegy has been translated to Persian by Badredin Jajarmi - semi-free translation - in the 7th century. The results indicate that; although the translator has attempted to keep quantity, the linguistic system features of target language have led him to quantitative increasing. The quantitative increase is evident in two levels of lexicon and semantics in the translation.