Pessoa: Translating Emotion

A Response To Some Of The Points Raised

Verbs of emotion are often difficult to translate, because one has to gauge the level or degree of the emotion described or expressed. Here, with 'pasmo', Pessoa is describing a high degree of surprise, so I think 'I'm always astonished' or I'm always amazed' are better than 'surprised' - too weak - and 'stupefied' and 'horrified' - too strong. 'Pasmar' has more to do with shocked astonishment than with horror. With 'desolo-me', again there is no one perfect translation, since the word implies desolation, distress and sadness. As so often in translation, there is no perfect match, and so choices have to be made as to which nuance must be lost.

Comparing my own version (B) with the other two versions, I notice that I have more of a tendency to move away from the original - instead of 'instinct' I have 'desire', instead of 'inhibit', I have 'prevent', instead of 'This book is my cowardice', I have 'This book represents my cowardice.' I do not believe I made these changes out of a wish to iron out possible linguistic eccentricities, but more out of an awareness of how the text sounds in English. If you keep 'instinct' and inhibit' you end up with a sentence jingling with 'i's - 'instinct … inhibit … finishing anything', which is not there in the original. On the other hand, if I were translating this text now, I would prefer 'This book is my cowardice.' That baldness of metaphor, which I was avoiding, is important.

Mas distraio-me e faço.' I notice that in all the versions there is an expansion of that final verb 'faço' - I make/do/act. It is odd in Portuguese, but somehow too odd in English simply to translate it as 'I do' with no object. Both my version and version C have taken 'faço' to refer back to the verb in the previous sentence 'dar começo' and thus added the concept of beginning.

As regards the sentence that begins: 'O que consigo é um produto…', what is hard here is to reproduce the compactness of the original, avoiding if possible the repetition of 'will', which the neatness of Portuguese syntax can avoid.

'alma', although it does have the primary meaning of 'soul', also has the sense of 'heart' or 'courage' and, given the final sentence, 'courage' is probably closest to the sense here. 'guts' - one of (my not very seriously) suggested synonyms - would simply be the wrong register, that is, level of language, here too colloquial..

A last word

What I hope this workshop has made clear is that while there is no single correct translation or version of a text, that certainly does not mean that any translation will do. Translation is always a balancing act between faithfulness to letter and faithfulness to spirit. You have to understand what the author means not only at the level of denotation, but also of connotation. You have to be aware of the sound of words and their register, as well as the rhythm and sound of the sentence in the translated version, so that the finished product is as cogent, fluent and convincing in the new language as it is in the original.

Top of page

Back to previous page