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Unread 10-08-2013, 01:32 PM
Roger Slater Roger Slater is offline
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I think this is a solid effort, but my opinion is probably closer to Adam's than to DG's. My overall complaint is similar to Adam's, namely that the sonnet in English is much more difficult to understand than the sonnet in Spanish. I think the clarity of the original is elegantly conveyed in Richard Wilbur's version.

Here are some quasi-random thoughts:

(1) "squabbling" -- The word suggests arguing over trivial concerns, like bickering, but that's not what Borges is saying here at all. The word "algarabía" means lots of people or voices are speaking at one time, producing a confusing din, but as far as I know it doesn't suggest discord or triviality. Since the word is used here in a very important role -- to characterize nothing less than the history of the world as we know it -- I think it's too great a liberty to introduce the suggestion (not found in the original) that the history of the world amounts to trivial bickering.

(2) "that we call history" -- The Spanish says that it is "the history of the world," not merely that "we call" it that. Perhaps this doesn't matter much, but it strikes me as an important distinction and one that would be easy enough to tweak the English into reflecting. I'd also like to see "of the world" or something to that effect in the English.

(3) "its shadow gravitate today in this clear keen blue needle" -- I'm not sure what it means for a shadow to gravitate "in" a needle. I think that perhaps the temptation to translate "gravitar" as "gravitate" should have been resisted, since "gravitar" also means things like "loom over," or "be a burden on," "threaten," or even "rotate."

(4) I think the meter and one of the rhymes depends on pronouncing "babbling" and "squabbling" as three syllables each, but I stumbled at first because they more naturally (to me) seem like two-syllable words.

(5) I think "clear keen blue" piles on the adjectives too much (three in a row). I would also question "clear," since I don't think that's what lúcida means in this context. I think it's something closer to graceful or elegant. In fact, I thought at first that the use of "keen" was meant to be a translation of lúcida (as it is in the Wilbur), but that would mean that "clear" is the translation of "leve," and "leve" doesn't mean "clear" but "light" (as in not heavy, or not serious).
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