"Things that might have been" - Borges

[k-j]

Things that might have been

Pienso en las cosas que pudieron ser y no fueron.
El tratado de mitología sajona que Beda no escribió.
La obra inconcebible que a Dante le fue dada acaso entrever,
Ya corregido el último verso de la Comedia.
La historia sin la tarde de la Cruz y la tarde de la cicuta.
La historia sin el rostro de Helena.
El hombre sin los ojos, que nos han deparado la luna.
En las tres jornadas de Gettysburg la victoria del Sur.
El amor que no compartimos.
El dilatado imperio que los Vikings no quisieron fundar.
El orbe sin la rueda o sin la rosa.
El juicio de John Donne sobre Shakespeare.
El otro cuerno del Unicornio.
El ave fabulosa de Irlanda, que está en dos lugares a un tiempo.
El hijo que no tuve.

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Things that might have been

I think of the things that might have been, and weren’t.
The treatise on Saxon mythology that Bede never wrote.
The inconceivable work that Dante may have glimpsed,
As soon as he corrected the last verse of the Comedy.
History without the afternoon of the Cross and the afternoon of hemlock.
History without Helen’s face.
Man without the eyes that have granted us the moon.
In the three days of Gettysburg, the victory of the South.
The love we never shared.
The far-flung empire the Vikings declined to found.
The globe without the wheel or the rose.
John Donne’s judgment of Shakespeare.
The Unicorn’s other horn.
The fabulous Irish bird which exists in two places at once.
The child I never had.

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I'm learning Spanish for the purpose of work, so having read Borges's prose "Fictions" in translation, I thought I'd have a look at some of the poems in the original.

One thing that's bothering me is on lines 2, 9 and 15. The literal translation is "didn't write", "didn't share", "didn't have". But I get a strong sense that the meaning would be better conveyed in English by the somehow stronger "never wrote", "never shared", "never had". The problem is I don't know enough about the language yet (and / or enough about Borges) to know whether this is fair.

Then there are the other temptations to subtly move things around. E.g. to have "the treatise on Saxon mythology left unwritten by Bede", which sounds better to me, or (as a published translation has it) "the fabulous Irish bird which alights in two places at once".

Borges seems to like his list poems, and they have the advantage for me of being uncomplicated. From what I've read so far, his poetry is sublime - some amazing sonnets which really defy any faithful translation.

Next up, Don Quixote...

n.b. the title of this one is English in the original - quite strange. Should I translate it into Spanish?! "Las cosas que pudieron ser y no fueron".

[David]

First thought - tremendous. I'm a sucker for this sort of literary musing, and the level of imagination is fantastic. (I realise that, for the moment, I'm talking about the original, rather than what you've done with it, but - with my less than rudimentary grasp of Spanish - I think you've done a very good and faithful job on it.)

Second thought, however - by introducing the references to his own life, is he just indulging in some cheap sentimentality, jazzed up with some fancy learnin' (or imaginin')? Let's leave that one hanging in the region of the rhetorical for the moment.

I do love his imaginary events / artefacts, though. The McGuffin in The Name of the Rose is something very similar, if a little more arcane - I won't say what it is, for fear of spoiling it for anyone, but it honestly doesn't have that much effect on your enjoyment of the story (and that, of course, is what makes it a McGuffin).

As for lines 2, 9 and 15, you're into the problem of the imperfect, aren't you? English isn't very good at making the distinction between the thing you didn't do on one occasion (e.g. the particular child you didn't have at that particular time) and the thing that just didn't happen at all (the child you never had) - and as you can tell from what I've just said, the "never" construction is quite a good way of doing that.

Actually, I don't really speak Spanish at all, although my Italian is semi-reasonable, but I found it easy to follow the original, using your translation as a crib. Spanish looks like a very easy language. (I'm going to regret venturing that opinion, I think.)

Brilliant project though, k-j and this is an excellent first by-product of it.

By the way, I seem to recall reading that you're making your way through his collected short stories. Do you recommend it? I'm just about to embark on the same thing for Kafka - I'll let you know!

Cheers

David

[k-j]

Yes, I've got to say it's an extremely regular language, 100% phonetic too. The only things causing me problems (and only really with regard to writing and speaking) are (i) much greater use of relexive verbs than in English - any solo action uses a reflexive construction in Spanish, e.g. "I fall" is expressed "I fall myself", and (ii) the subjunctive, which we rarely use in English (e.g. "I wish you were here") but which is used a lot in Spanish, wherever there is doubt over something's ontological status and in some other constructions.

The Borges short stories, or "Fictions" / "Ficciones" as he calls them, I finished the other day. They're all very short, none more than 20 pages. Many of them are brilliant, some of them are rather pretentious. There are basically two kinds - the lofty, dreamy, allusive, magic-realist ones which sometimes veer too close to parable for my liking, and the fables of old Argentine / Uruguayan gauchos and knife-fighters. Definitely recommended, but I suspect his poetry is better.

I've not read Kafka's short stories but I have his diaries which I dip into from time to time when I need a laugh. He does a great line in overwrought lamentation. I like them because you can tell he didn't imagine their being published when he was writing them.

[twoleftfeet]

Nice one, K-J.

wrt "never" in lines 2,9, 15

It works for me in 9 and 15 because clearly there is an element of regret and/or failure and/or omission implied by "never".
I found a version on the Web (on several sites) that rendered line 2 as
The treatise on Saxon mythology that Bede omitted to write
- I suppose it all boils down to whether Bede intended to write one or not.
I am no Spanish expert, but if I saw the sentence in isolation I might well render it simply as "didn't write", but of course I could then be implying that there IS a book attributed to Bede but I believe it was written by someone else.
DOH!

Nice one!
Geoff