Upon Nearly Finishing a Translation

Spurred by the music of Ástor Piazzolla (I made a Pandora station), I have decided once more to try my hand at a translation of that Borges essay on Job I've been attempting to translate for almost five years, now. Again it is worth remembering Eco's dictum that "translation is the art of failure".

Nevertheless, I feel more optimistic this time around. I've managed to root out a few embarrassing errors. (Naïve younger-me glossed los caldeos han atacado su tierra as "droughts have attacked his land", assuming a link between caldeo and caldear, when in fact it is the word for "Chaldean". Well, I told you it was embarrassing.) And I've had more luck in finding some of Borges's more obscure citations, especially in Quevedo (who, it should be observed, is stylistically superior to Góngora). After some peer review and once I've nailed down some last few mysterious references, the translation should be as done as I'll ever get it. I am resolved that I shall never be entirely happy with it, but it is satisfying enough to decipher some of Borges's dizzying erudition. (In a relatively brief lecture on the Book of Job he offhandedly mentions Ezequiel Martínez Estrada, the Authorised Version, Fray Luis de León, Quevedo (many times), Ernest Renan, James Anthony Froude, Milton, Vergil, Leibniz, Max Brod, Huxley, Coleridge, Jung, Aristotle, and Plato. No doubt there are other citations, as I am surely missing some of them.) I'll let you know, dear reader, when I am finally finished.

I need little projects such as this. I have found life outside of a college campus to be rewarding in some ways, but not especially intellectually stimulating. (Perhaps, pace Republicans, there's nothing wrong with a college education.)

On Translating Borges

For what amounts to years, now, I have been attempting to translate a lecture given by Jorge Luis Borges on the Book of Job. (He's got some interesting ideas about it, as it so happens.) Every time I near completion, however, I find myself dissatisfied with the result. It is invariably either unfaithful to the original or awkward-sounding in English. (One will note that often Borges used Spanish words to unusual effect. But the English-speaking reader is not aware of this and will likely attribute it to poor translation.) Consider, if you will, the opening paragraph — insofar as an oral lecture can be divided into paragraphs:

A pesar de la hospitalidad que siento en ustedes me considero un poco intruso. Pero hay dos razones que me hacen mitigar esa impresión. Una de las razones es que yo he sido criado dentro de la fe cristiana y la cultura occidental; la cristiandad, más allá de nuestras convicciones o de nuestras dudas personales, es una malgama de dos naciones que me parecen esenciales para el mundo occidental. Esas son: Israel (el cristianismo procede de Israel) y Grecia. Más allá de las vicisitudes de nuestra sangre, de nuestra múltiple sangre, ya que tenemos dos padres, cuatro abuelos, etc. — en progresión geométrica — y ya que Roma fue una suerte de extensión del helenismo, creo que todos, por el mero hecho de pertener a la cultura occidental, somos hebreos y griegos. De modo que algún derecho me asiste hoy al hablar sobre el Libro de Job, aunque ignore la lengua hebrea y aunque no he podido leer el texto original y los comentarios Rabínicos.

And here is my attempt at a translation:

Despite the hospitality I sense in all of you, I consider myself rather intrusive. But there are two reasons that mitigate this impression of mine. One of them is that I have been raised in the Christian faith and in western culture; Christianity, notwithstanding our personal beliefs or doubts, is an amalgam of two nations that seem to me essential to the western world. They are: Israel (Christianity arose out of Israel) and Greece. Regardless of the vicissitudes of our blood, out of our multiple heritages, since we have two parents, four grandparents, etc. — in a geometrical progression — and since Rome was a sort of extension of Hellenism, I believe that all of us, by the mere fact of belonging to western culture, are Hebrews and Greeks. As a result, I have a certain right to speak today about the Book of Job, though I know no Hebrew and though I have not been able to read the original text nor its Rabbinical commentaries.

What is one to do? Part of the problem is that spoken sentences can be far longer than their written counterparts before becoming excessive; one can nest parentheticals (as I am wont to do) without too badly breaking up the flow of a spoken idea, but when written this becomes tiresome after a while, unless you read lots of James and must therefore enjoy endless sentences.

The chief problem, I suppose, is that Borges's style is deliberately obscure. In a review of five new Borges anthologies, Martin Schifino (interesting surname, that) explains this well:

[Alfred] MacAdam describes Borges's early style as "tortuous" and his vocabulary as "rarefied". [Suzanne] Levine calls the writing of his essays "radical" and even "bizarre to those who read him in Spanish today". Both are right in general. But it is a matter of detail in which way Borges "replays the Latinate prose of the Baroque era", and perhaps the best way to convey this might not be to "improvise a rococo English" – an intention declared, but fortunately never carried out, by Levine. The baroque influence can be felt, sure enough, in Borges's inkhorn terms, but his rhetorical habits are much closer to home: plain Edwardian. He sounds a little like Kipling, and a lot like Chesterton. His essays are full of Chestertonian throat-clearing and oratorical flourishes. Part of the challenge for translators may be to make new an existing manner that has fallen out of favour. In any case, more resources from the English tradition will need mining if Borges's big voice is to be fully energized.

The best way to translate Borges, then? Read more Chesterton. Borges was famously fond of him, anyway.

Flor Tropical, por D.C. Hawley

En el aro ardiente que ciñe el trópico
un día andaba con la cara al sol
cuando una liana me detuvo el paso,
una liana que llevaba una flor:
flor tan bella que no pude dejarla;
me la llevé de esas tierras del sol,
yo me la llevé a mis llanos helados,
tierras frías calentadas de amor,
y entre las nieves de llanos lejanos
revivía la liana y floreció.

Y ahora que las nieves de mis setenta
largos inviernos cubriéndome están,
soy como la casa en tierras del norte:
mientras más helada, más calor da.
Sobre el llano se amontona la nieve;
dentro aún guardo mi flor tropical.

Santa Teresa de Ávila nos dice:

Nada te turbe;
nada te espante;
todo se pasa;
Dios no se muda,
la paciencia
todo lo alcanza.
Quien a Dios tiene,
nada le falta.
Solo Dios basta.

Hoy he nacido, Amado Nervo

Cada día que pase, has de decirte:
"¡Hoy he nacido!
El mundo es nuevo para mí; la luz
ésta que miro,
hiere, sin duda, por la vez primera
mis ojos límpidos;
la lluvia que hoy desfleca sus cristales
es mi bautismo."

"Vamos, pues, a vivir un vivir puro,
un vivir nítido. Ayer, ya se perdió: ¿fui malo?, ¿bueno?
... Venga el olvido,
y quede sólo, de ese ayer, la esencia,
el oro íntimo
de lo que amé y sufrí mientras marchaba
por el camino"

"Hoy, cada instante, al bien y a la alegría,
será propicio;
y en la esencial razón de mi existencia,
mi decidido
afán, volcar la dicha sobre el mundo,
verter el vino
de la bondad sobre las bocas ávidas
en redor mío."

"Será mi sola paz la de los otros;
su regocijo, su soñar mi ensueño;
mi cristalino
llanto, el que tiemble en los ajenos párpados;
y mis latidos,
los latidos de cuantos corazones
palpiten en los orbes infinitos."

Cada día que pase, has de decirte:
"¡Hoy he nacido!"

Julio, 12 de 1914.

Danza negra, Luis Palés Matos

Calabó y bambú.
Bambú y calabó.
El Gran Cocoroco dice: tu-cu-tú.
La Gran Cocoroca dice: to-co-tó.
Es el sol de hierro que arde en Tombuctú.
Es la danza negra de Fernando Poo.
El cerdo en el fango gruñe: pru-pru-prú.
El sapo en la charca sueña: cro-cro-cró.
Calabó y bambú.
Bambú y calabó.

Rompen los junjunes en furiosa-u.
Los gongos trepidan con profunda-o.
Es la raza negra que ondulando va
en el ritmo gordo del mariyandá.
Llegan los botucos a la fiesta ya.
Danza que te danza la negra se da.

Calabó y bambú.
Bambú y calabó.
El Gran Cocoroco dice: tu-cu-tú.
La Gran Cocoroca dice: to-co-tó.

Pasan tierras rojas, islas de betún:
Haití, Martinica, Congo, Camerún;
las papiamentosas antillas del ron
y las patualesas islas del volcán,
que en el grave son
del canto se dan.

Calabó y bambú.
Bambú y calabó.
Es el sol de hierro que arde en Tombuctú.
Es la danza negra de Fernando Poo.
El alma africana que vibrando está
en el ritmo gordo del mariyandá.
Calabó y bambú.
Bambú y calabó.
El Gran Cocoroco dice: tu-cu-tú.
La Gran Cocoroca dice: to-co-tó.

Un poema por Antonio Machado

XXIX, de Proverbios y cantares

Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino y nada más;
Caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.
Al andar se hace el camino,
y al volver la vista atrás
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante no hay camino
sino estelas en la mar.