Comparing a comical exchange from Love's Labour's Lost in the original and in a Spanish translation, I have tried to see how efficient translation of Shakespeare into Spanish can be (taken from Act 1 scene 1, when Biron hesitates at first in studying with the King):
English-Original
FERDINAND: How well he’s read, to reason against reading! DUMAIN: Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!
LONGAVILLE: He weeds the corn and still lets grow the weeding.
BIRON: The spring is near when green geese are a-breeding.
DUMAIN: How follows that?
BIRON: Fit in his place and time.
DUMAIN: In reason nothing.
BIRON: Something then in rhyme
Spanish translation
EL REY.- ¡Qué sabio es, cuando trata de apostrofar a la ciencia!
DUMAINE.- ¡No se emplearía mejor procedimiento para detener el progreso!
LONGAVILLE.- ¡Arranca el trigo y deja crecer las malas hierbas!
BEROWNE.- ¡La primavera está próxima, cuando incuban los tiernos gansos!
DUMAINE.- ¿Qué se sigue de eso?
BEROWNE.- Que todas las cosas, en su tiempo y lugar.
DUMAINE.- Pierde el concepto.
BEROWNE.- Tanto mejor para la rima
Something interesting: Shakespeare constantly uses the rhythmic iambic pentameter (here with an extra foot): u / u / u / u / u / u as in the phrase: "Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!" in Spanish, however, at least in this translation, the meter goes: u / u / u u / / u u u u u / u u / u / u. Seems a bit longer, and not as patterned, huh?
But, I think the biggest difficulty in translation here comes when understanding is lost due to the lack of rhyming. This exchange is supposed to be funny, since we hear the train of related rhyming sentences (in English) before Biron changes the subject entirely while preserving the same rhyme. He then uses this context to make a statement on the importance of rhyme: "Something then in rhyme", he says. This comment still exists in Spanish, but unlike in English there is no previous rhyming to back it up. We could pretty boldly assert that there has been a very important element of Shakespeare lost.
So, one may ask, is the Spanish [ʧékspir], even Shakespeare?
1 comentarios:
how interesting! I feel like this entire play is a play on words-on the very basis that it's clever in English. And some humor is clearly lost in translation. How unfortunate. It makes me think of all the things I must be missing in other languages! I read Anna Karennina, and I wonder how much better it would have been in the original Russian!
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