File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1998/marxism-thaxis.9803, message 1240


Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 22:05:55 +0200
From: Hugh Rodwell <m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se>
Subject: M-TH: Translating things (was "sunt lacrimae rerum")


Carolus C pontificates:

>*res* (gen.
>plural *rerum*) is untranslatable in many contexts. Perhaps something like
>"Tears flow from the roots of the world" or in the immortal words of
>Jimmy Carter, "Life just ain't fair." More briefly, "Shit happens."

More succint would be "There are tears in things" (things as in nature, the
world, the universe as in Lucretius's epic De rerum natura -- On the nature
of things or On the nature of the universe). It's not the world weeping,
it's people, at the way things go. And the Carter and vox pop are too
dry-eyed. "Shit happens" is cynical into the bargain, which Virgil wasn't
one little bit.

Also, nothing is untranslatable, it's just that some things can only be
translated very awkwardly and unidiomatically, and there's a huge contrast
between the elegance and impact of what's said in the original and in
translation. You might be able to claim that poetry is often untranslatable
as poetry -- advertising jingles and proverbs are buggers as well, not to
mention allusions to such things. But basically, if it can be made head or
tail of in the original, it can be put into any other language (and, as
witness the Bible, this can even be done with texts that can't be made head
nor tail of).

vale,

C=98ovek od rec=B4i




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