About Performance Translation

TRANSLATION FOR THE

NON-TRANSLATOR/

PERFORMER

David Attrill

University of Western Sydney, Nepean

If  Hamlet  had  been  asked  ‘What  do  you  perform,  my  lord?’  instead  of  ‘What  do  you
read...’ he would not have replied ‘Words, words, words’ but ‘Actions, actions, actions’.
Yet verbal text is often the basis of a translated play.  Translation, especially for the theatre,
is not merely a question of substituting words.  The injudicious use of a thesaurus can, for
example transform the simple everyday phrase ‘Good morning everybody’ into the pseudo-
religious ‘Pious dawning catholicity’ or the pseudo-scientific ‘Palatable premier crepuscule
all aggregated’ or the ghoulish pun ‘Proper morning each corpse’.  This is obviously non-
translation—but who is a ‘non-translator’?There is probably no such being: from infancy
one is structuring one’s own language and mental processes by accommodation and assimi-
lation, redefining and translating external stimuli, expressing the sense of something in, or
into, one’s own language and making inferences from or interpreting signs, etc.  All of this
is essentially a structuring process based on aspects of translation, a structuring that will
also have national, religious and patriarchal (or matriarchal) overtones.

Even a monoglot like myself is capable of translating jargon and disparate linguistic

strands  in  my  one  language  or  of  translating  American  or  Australian  into  my  native
English.  As an actor or director I can also convey or introduce an idea or principle from
one art to another (another aspect of translation).  However, for the purposes of the 1993
Performance Studies project on The Merchant of Venice I was unable to understand the
target languages of spoken French and German.  While, with the help of critical apparatus
such as footnotes, I can follow written French and a few words of written German, in
this  project  I  was  essentially  an  observer  of  a  vaguely  familiar  scene  with  no  ability
to  understand  what  was  actually  being  said  since  spoken  language  and  theatre  when
performed live are transitory—unlike written language, tape, film or video that can be
accessed a multiplicity of times.  I was thus part of an audience and yet not part of the
translations’ target audience/s.

How valid are the thoughts of a mono-lingual person regarding translation for the

theatre? These are my basic premises for the purposes of this paper.

(1) The basis of theatre is action.
(2) In the past play translations have been regarded as literature.

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(3) In the past a particular translation could be accepted into that culture’s hierarchy as an

original, but this is no longer the case for modern translations.

(4) Translation for theatre is very different from literary translation.
(5) It covers all three types of translation: translation proper, transmutation and rewording (I

have never rehearsed a translated play without some rewording).

(6) Canonisation in the source culture has meant that often a reasonable translation has been

subverted by direction (i.e. methods of playing Pirandello, Chekhov etc.).

(7) Each playtext has inbuilt paralinguistic aspects—sometimes inaccessible in another

language (Bassnett 1980, p. 132).

(8) Each playtext has inbuilt undertexts. Bassnett terms this ‘gestural text’ (Bassnett 1980,

p. 132).

(9) A translated text only becomes theatre when performed.
(10)

The idea of an author’s intention in theatre is dead.

(11)

It is impossible to produce a definitive translation.

(12)

Translation has only recently been accepted by British audiences (Polish ITI

Centre 1985, session 2), who were regarded as insufficiently interested in other cultures—
(although this might now be affected by EEC membership) and who gave their translators
scant regard.

(13)

Whether this is also the case in Australia is more debatable but translation is still

in its infancy when compared to middle European countries.

It is evident that it is impossible to produce a completely satisfactory translation but

there are also three differing opinions, apparently all valid, as to what a theatre translation
should  produce.    Pavis  cites  all  three:  Vitez  says  that  a  great  translation  contains  its
own mise en scène as the ‘...art of selection among the hierarchy of signs’ (Vitez 1982,
cited Pavis 1992, p. 32); Sallenave disagrees, saying that the text should ‘...maintain its
mystery...yet to hear speaking voices, to anticipate acting bodies’ (Sallenave 1982, cited
Pavis  1992,  p.  32);  Deprats  (whose  1987  French  translation  was  used  in  the  project)
suggests  a  mid  point  ‘...animated  by  a  specific  rhythm  without  imposing  it’  (Deprats
1985, cited Pavis 1992, p. 32).

Multiple translations provide the director with textual choices not available to a

director in the source language—but all directors are at liberty to do whatever they like
with the texts to make them ‘playable’.  The first part of the Merchant of Venice project
was concerned with research.  As an actor I know the apparent paradox that when dealing
with a text one often feels one needs to research a role—but when the crunch comes in
performance  one  cannot  play  historical  research.    Consequently,  although  the  breadth
of this initial research was fascinating for me, the performances could only be judged
by the mise en scène, not the maze behind the scene.  As Pavis intimates, ‘...translation
reaches the audience by means of the actors’ bodies’.  Translation will ‘...confront and
communicate heterogenous cultures and situations of enunciation that are separated in
space and time’ (1992, p. 25).

Further, it was evident from comments from the movement-orientated French-

speaking  rehearsal  process  (and  I  use  that  term  advisedly,  as  they  hated  being  called
French)  that  any  preconceived  ideas  based  upon  written  text  were  a  hindrance  rather
than an advantage.  Nevertheless the basic stimulus for each of their three performances
did appear to stem from differences that could only be attributed to differences in the
written texts.  For example, although both groups felt the need for costume and props and

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these were not physically changed in their three translated performances, they were used
differently as a result of slight differences in the text.

My recent thoughts have been concerned with texts translated into English, American

and Australian and whether they contain national characteristics based upon the three quite
different ‘target audiences’.  There is evidence that rewrites have been deemed necessary
when taking British Plays like Churchill’s Cloud Nine to America (Moritz 1985), or, at
a less sublime level, in bringing Nunsense from America to Australia.  Susan Bassnett
reminds us of the following obvious points—firstly, that no two cultures or languages are
exactly the same (Bassnett-McGuire 1981, p. 39).  I would maintain that in performance
this should be extended to no two directors, actors or audience members are the same
and that every live performance is different.  Thus the translated written text cannot be
the  same  as  the  original.    Moreover,  and  this  is  where  the  subjectivity  of  Translation
Studies begins, some translations are easier and more fluent to read than others, some are
‘actable’ and others, though supposedly produced for the stage, are wooden and unusable
(Bassnett-McGuire 1981, p. 39).  One culture’s hero becomes another country’s drudge.
Pirandello was assessed in Britain by Barker as ‘tediously slow and arid, shot through
with splurges of emotional outbursts...a long time spent over little’ (Bassnett-McGuire
1983, pp. 5-6).  As we know, Shakespeare in many countries is regarded as a romantic.
As a non-translator, may I put forward a heresy—if the resulting performance is at odds
with the original text, does it matter?  A set of audacious greetings like ‘pious dawning
catholicity’, or a transliteration with specious footnotes such as that provided by John
Hulme (1981)—included below as an appendix—can make amusing performance pieces
in their own right.

I have seen three productions recently at the University of Western Sydney which I

feel relevant to this topic—a beautifully truncated version of Hamlet (dir. Keith-Kay M.,
1993) an apparently very Spanish production of Lorca’s Blood Wedding (dir. Davis M.,
1993) and the Durang romp The Idiots Karamazov (Durang C., dir. Keith-Kay M., 1993).
These, together with many partly related snippets of research, form the basis for the rest
of this paper.

The production of Hamlet began with an eerie, essentially monophonic, vocal

soundscape  from  all  the  cast  onstage.    Hamlet  was  in  a  wheelchair,  presumably  in  a
mental  hospital,  as  he  acknowledged  three  Gertrudes,  three  Ophelias  and  four  nurses
(actually two pairs of female Rozencrantzes and Guildensterns).  Next he uttered ‘To be
or not to be, that is the question’, and then Act 1 began.  As a student production with
only six males and eleven females available, obviously there had to be some subversion
or adaptation but, interestingly enough, despite the numbers of females on the stage, there
was an incredibly strong adherence, whether conscious or not, to patriarchal values in the
staging, even in the positioning of the women on the periphery of the stage.  Was this an
invalid adaptation of Hamlet? Would it have been more or less invalid if it had been a
translation/adaptation? (Hamlet did leave the wheelchair; was this less invalid?).

Jerzy Sito stated at a Colloquium on Translation in 1985 that there were three main

periods  of  translation  of  Shakespeare  into  Polish—two  echoing  those  of  France  and
Germany, being 18th Century rewrites with bowdlerisation and 19th Century romanticism,
together  with  a  third  resurgence  after  the  second  world  war  as  Shakespeare  became  a
source in a search for order at a time of shattered values and crippled words and ideas.  In
all there were seventeen different translations of Hamlet into Polish by 1985.  Sito also
spoke of the ‘demons of language’ and stated he supported the sacrifice of the ‘literal’ for

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the ‘meaningful’ whenever faced with this dilemma (Polish ITI 1985, session 1). Once
again we have the problem of translation. What does ‘meaningful’ mean literally?

Lauri Sapari noted that in Finland, although the language lends itself to strong lines

and violent emotion rather than bright and sharp wits, the first translations of Shakespeare
were  expressionist,  colourful  and  energetic.    They  also  badly  distorted  the  original.
Between  the  wars  insipid  and  pale  imagery  in  previous  translations  was  flavoured  by
strong political overtones and after the Second World War translations were influenced by
Brecht, then Kott and Sixties’ new Radicalism—all with serious distortions.  He admitted
to introducing a non-existent scene into Hamlet with heavy political overtones in his own
translation, raising the question of whether Shakespeare should be translated or adapted
(Polish ITI 1985, session 1).

Avi Oz outlined the difficulties in translating Shakespeare into either classical

Hebrew, ‘dead’ long before Shakespeare’s time, or the late 19th Century ‘New’ Hebrew
which,  although  mainly  bi-syllabic,  is  full  of  ‘artificially  minted  neologisms’  and  has
no class-inspired modes of speech or tradition of poetic drama.  The usual solution, Oz
noted, was to use ‘New’ Hebrew, but from the previous generation of poets to evoke a
feeling of archaism.  These translations required additional lines, however, lengthening
Shakespeare’s plays even further (Polish ITI 1985, session 1).

After a comparison of tapes of English, Finnish and Hebrew translations and a

dramatised reading from Mr Sito’s Polish translation of snippets from Romeo and Juliet,
a lively debate followed.  Opinions ranged from denouncing the possibility of translating
classics to those advocating that the ‘spirit’ of the original should have precedence over
the  ‘letter’  (Polish  ITI  1985,  session  1).    When  does  a  literal  translation  become  an
adaptation?  Which is closer to the ‘spirit’ of Shakespeare, a postmodern or subverted
adaptation  in  English  or  any  one  of  the  seventeen  Polish  translations?  Does  it  really
matter for any audience?

This session on translating the classics was followed by heated controversy over

‘literal’ translation versus ‘adaptation’ or ‘version’.  The key speaker for this was Dusty
Hughes, a British theatre critic, director and playwright/translator (in other words a writer
from another’s literal translation).  Admitting that British insularity had virtually excluded
foreign plays (except Chekhov’s) from the British stage until the early ’60s, his premise
was that the translator ‘stands in’ for the author in the rehearsal room, guarding the text
against directorial ravages (many agree with Stanislavski, preferring authors to be dead!)
while providing the actor with enough material to build a role without overburdening the
speech patterns with an embarassment of riches.  He noted that what eludes translation
is the relationship of drama to the specific place, time and circumstance of the original
production.    He  also  stated  that  a  playwright  has  an  advantage  over  the  ‘academic’
translator in that s/he knows the capacities of actors in the rehearsal room.  This point
was  queried  by  representatives  of  countries  with  a  history  of  translation  going  back
somewhat further than 1960, objecting to the word ‘academic’.  Possibly this objection
was academic.  There was heated debate over whether situations and contexts should be
translated as well as dialogue and as to the ability of a non-linguist to echo the specific
speech patterns, rhythms and actual sound of the original language.  Hughes responded
that any attempt to reproduce this is doomed to failure and, moreover, denies the play-
wright/translator the flexibility of his/her own language.  To be accurate is not necessarily
to be dramatic (Polish ITI 1985, session 2), although it must be said at this point that
inaccuracy doesn’t guarantee drama either.

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This emphasis on target language (and by implication target culture) contrasted with

the director’s approach to Blood Wedding.  Her process was a variation on the ‘collage’
method of producing a performance text by combining aspects from previous translations.
Reference was made to three different translations and the original Spanish.  Lorca’s own
music was used and on many occasions his original Spanish was used, especially in the
songs and the marriage celebrations.  From the time the audience was confronted by the
two factions performing a flamenco dance as a prologue, the actors worked with very
clear motivation, encouraged to immerse themselves in the source culture.  As an audience
member I felt alienated, but that is not necessarily a negative aspect of the production.

Kruger notes that the meaning of a translated text arises from what one does to it,

not what one can take over from it (Kruger, cited Pavis 1992, p. 27) or, in Pavis’s words
(translated by Kruger), translation is ‘...interpreting the source text...in order to pull the
foreign text towards the target culture and language, so to separate it from its source and
origin’ (Pavis 1992, p. 26).  In this case the director chose to pull the translated text back
towards the foreign text.  As Terry Threadgold implied recently in a paper for the Centre
for Performance Studies at Sydney University, the trouble with models of translation or
rehearsal is that they are never completely adequate (Threadgold, 1993).  Although I am
not over-enthusiastic about Pavis’s model for the translation of mise en jou, I do see value
in the way that he sees some five ‘concretisations’ (sic) on the way to a translated text.
Firstly, there is the source text T(0).  The subsequent stages can be accomplished by one
or more people.  T is the first ‘literal’ translation, usually of the written text, not of the
mise en scène.  Next, this is analysed by the translator—the source text is bombarded with
questions from the target language’s point of view, becoming the initial concretisation
of a workable text in the target language or T(1).  Analysed by a dramaturg or director
this becomes text T(2) which during the rehearsal process becomes text T(3). When it is
finally received by the audience, it becomes text T(4) and, I would suggest, possibly T(5)
after running (Pavis 1992, pp. 29-33).

Hughes probably agrees with Mounin (cited Pavis 1992, p. 28) that a playable theatre

translation is the product of a dramaturgical rather than a literary act. Yet, as Pavis notes,
the majority of translations of drama are only the written text. Actors know that almost
anything can be brought to life by the neglected actor and not quite so neglected director
and Durang plays on this in The Idiots Karamazov where a multitude of twisted literary
references and pseudo-translations are the basis for what can be a hilarious spiking of
literary canons. Once again, does it matter if T(3) or (4) is far removed from T(0)?

Back in 1981 Susan Bassnett highlighted problems of translation in the theatre

(Bassnett-McGuire  1981).    This  included  a  summary  of  responses  to  a  questionnaire
designed  to  find  out  the  opinions  and  work  methods  of  contemporary  translators  in
Europe.  She also noted the results of a conference at Riverside Studios in 1980.  What
did she find?

That translators had lower status in Britain and the USA than anywhere else. That,

unlike originals, translations do not have fixed positions in the literary hierarchy.  That
language is dynamic and that translators translate with the target culture in mind, therefore
the lifespans of translations are short and consequently there is always a demand for new
translations to replace these period pieces.  That there were long lists of ‘bad’ translation
practices but vague ideas as to what were ‘good’ ones.  That at Riverside not only could
the differences between the terms ‘TRANSLATION’, ‘VERSION’ and ‘ADAPTATION’
not be clarified but that there was a case for ‘INTERPRETATION’ to be added and that

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oversimplistic attempts at definitions were misguided. That there were almost equal
attacks on ‘The National Theatre translation policy’ as exemplifed by Dusty Hughes
and on the ‘collage’ method including rewriting and possibly adding new text (Bassnett-
McGuire, 1981). Bassnett quotes from Acosta’s paper at the conference:

Translation is no fancy dress foolery. Freedom in adaptation and the subjective interpretation of the text
will inevitably produce very different versions; even conflicting ones (Bassnett-McGuire 1981, p. 40).

This used totally confused terminology but implying very neatly the impossibility of

control over a theatre text. Bassnett continued in her own words:

The question of the original Author’s intention is just a red-herring...that the shaping process of theatre,
together with the right of every reader to own the ‘text’ read, negates the notion of a single intended
reading (Bassnett-McGuire 1981, p. 40).

We know what this implies but what did translators think albeit twelve years ago?

Reference to four of her many questions follows. Of course no clear picture emerges.
The answers to Question 25 in her questionnaire were mixed:

When assessing a good translation which of the following would you rank most highly:

(a)   Fidelity to the original in language and structure
(b)   Performability
(c)   Success in reproducing the rhythms of the original
(d)   Reproduction of the ‘Spirit’ of the original
(e)   The creation of a ‘new’ form and /or language

The participants’ answers ranked in that order, slightly more ranking (a) fidelity, first

(but hedging bets by continuing the ranking with (b) performability, (c) rhythms and
an occasional (d) spirit to follow). What was interesting was that those who ranked (b)
performability first usually omitted to note (a) fidelity at all (Bassnett-McGuire 1981, p.
45). Regarding footnotes, Question 13 was interesting:

Where the original text involves reference to laws, customs, traditions, individuals, places, events, etc.
that have no meaning without extensive explanation do you:

(a)   Remove all such references in the final version
(b)   Leave them intact with footnotes
(c)   Attempt to find equivalents
(d)   Assess each case on its relevance to the text as a whole and use any/all the above methods
(e)   Use any other devices

The majority opted for (d) any or all the above methods with only one opting for

footnotes.  One-fifth would remove them all, whereas another one-fifth opted to find ana-
logues (not equivalents—‘analogue’ was obviously the in-word in 1981).  Some would
add further dialogue and some would discuss the matter with directors or actors.  English
translators  pointed  out  the  inadequacies  of  audiences  who  need  everything  simplified
whereas  Eastern  European  translators  suggested  the  sophistication  of  an  intellectually
mixed audience would make obscurantism less of a problem (Bassnett-McGuire 1981,
pp. 42-3).Whether the comments about English audiences were due to lack of experience
with translation or British insularity or a mixture of both is a moot point.  It would also
be premature to equate Britain of 1981 with Australia in 1993/4 but there appears to have
been little research into audience responses to translation here.

Another split between the British and Europeans was in answer to Question 23: Do you

believe that there is such a thing as the ‘spirit’ of an original text that defies description?

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Three-quarters said ‘yes’, one said ‘sometimes’, whereas the rest (including most of the
European translators) said ‘no’. Many said this ‘spirit’ should be defined or should be
able to be described (Bassnett-McGuire 1981 pp. 44-5), but presumably did not attempt
to do so themselves. Question 7 was also of interest:

Do you translate with any of the following in mind:

(a)   Particular actors
(b)   A particular company
(c)   A particular theatre

(d) A particular audience
(e) A particular occasion

Thirty-five per cent said NONE of these—presumably translating ‘on spec’ or as a

purely literary work! Thankfully, over half said they translated for a company and about
half for a particular audience. Lower on the list were translations for particular actors
or theatres with German and Italian translators giving these a higher priority (Bassnett-
McGuire 1981, p. 41).

Once again translation is about differences in the perceptions of cultures (including

their perceptions of theatre) and their languages. If we accept evidence from the
participants in the Merchant of Venice project, why do French productions move faster
than German ones? (Is it because they had an extra foot—or did they have an extra foot
because they move faster? Have I now put my foot in it?)

My conclusions from these considerations are the following:

(1) That, for the mono-linguist, all aspects of accuracy and the original cease to exist and that each

translation can be regarded as a separate play in its own right.

(2) That there is no such thing as an actual target audience or even target language—these are

approximations—although, as Von Ledebur noted, Speer’s translation of Bond’s Saved into
Bavarian Dialect for a Munich audience would come close (Von Ledebur 1992).

(3) That all translation is subjective, hit and miss for a particular audience.

(4) That if given a choice the director will pick a translation that appears best suited to her/his intellect/

intellectualisation of a multitude of factors—the director’s poetic. This assessment is culture-
bound and will result in convergence towards, or divergence from, a ‘target audience’ and/or
source culture.

(5) Finally, it is impossible to try to define the degrees of difference between ‘translation’, ‘version’,

‘adaptation’, ‘interpretation’, ‘after’, ‘loosely based on’, etc. or the degree of collage or subversion
by the director and how to acknowledge this. I have also omitted to mention the roles of props,
design, finance, lighting, music and sound etc. etc. etc...

So what is the bottom line? To quote another actor/artisan: ‘Bless thee Bottom! Bless

thee! Thou art translated.’ (Translation is occasionally a blessing in disguise!)

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APPENDIX

To highlight the problems created for an unsuspecting reader by the extensive use of

footnotes, when I delivered this paper at the Centre for Performance Studies in 1993 I
had one of the participants read aloud the following exquisite transliteration from Hulme
while I interspersed vocally the accompanying footnotes. Requests that it be read aloud
several more times without the footnotes demonstrated that the audience, without the text
in front of them, realised very quickly that this was in fact a transliteration of a nursery
rhyme—much more quickly, in fact, than the actual reader who was still looking at words
in another language. Actions can speak louder than text!

Liesel Bopp

hieb es Schloss der schieb

An Dutzend Noor,

wer zu Feind dem,

Lief dem aal ohn’ an Tee willkomm Ohm;

Brenken

der Teil Spee

ein dem.

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REFERENCES

Akerholt, M-B. (1993) unrecorded interview with Attrill, D. at the Writers Centre Sydney.

Bassnett-McGuire, S. (1980) Translation Studies. London: Methuen.

Bassnett-McGuire, S. (1981) The translator in the Theatre. In New Theatre Quarterly, 10 (40), pp. 37-

48.

Bassnett-McGuire, S. (1983) Luigi Pirandello. London: MacMillan.

Durang, C. dir. Keith-Kay, M. (1993) The Idiots Karamasov. Performances observed at UWS Nepean,

Sydney with sufficient variations in each performance to justify non-reference to the original
script.

Glaap, A-R. (1992) Whose life is it anyway? in London and on Broadway: a contrastive analysis of the

British and American versions of Brian Clark’s play. In Scolnicov, H. and Holland, P. (Eds) The play
out of context: transferring plays from culture to culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hulme, J. (1981) Morder guss reims. London: Angus and Robertson.

Kelly, L. (1979) The true interpreter: a history of translation theory and practice in the west. Oxford:

Blackwell.

Lorca, F. dir. Davis, M. (1993) Blood Wedding. Performances observed at UWS Nepean, Sydney based

on a collage of translations from other sources.

Martin, R. (1990) Performance as a political act—the embodied self. New York: Bergin and Garvey.

Moritz, C. (Ed) (1985) Current biography yearbook. New York: H.Wilson and Co.

Pavis, P. (1992) Problems of translation for the stage. In Scolnicov, H. and Holland, P. (Eds) The play

out of context: transferring plays from culture to culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Polish ITI Centre (1985) Unpublished notes/translation of the report on the colloquium held at Jablonna

palace 26-29 March.

Szeps, H. (1993) unrecorded interview with Attrill, D. at Q Theatre Penrith.

Shakespeare, W. Hamlet, dir. Keith-Kay, M. music Parry, R. (1993). Performances observed at UWS

Nepean, Sydney loosely based on the original.

Yon Ledebur, R. (1992) The adaptation and reception in Germany of Edward Bond’s Saved. In

Scolnicov, H. and Holland, P. (Eds) The play out of context: transferring plays from culture to
culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

NOTES

She may have been a relative of Franz Bopp (1791-1867), a linguist who demonstrated the relationship
between the Indo-Germanic languages. His main work was A Comparative Grammar (1833-1852)

A stretch of shallow water connected to the sea by canals. Liesel had evidently been locked up by her enemy
in a castle surrounded by a dozen of these lakes. She beat and shoved—against the door, presumably—but
there were eels running around the castle and she did not even have a welcome cup of tea to cheer her up.

The eels were electric.

Wooden containers. It seems that Liesel tried to escape in part of one.

Possibly Friedrich von Spee (1591-1635), a Baroque poet; but in the view of the watery setting it is more
likely that Liesel was inspired by the example of Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee (1861-1914) who went
down with his flagship.