Myth of Arrival

a new look at neruda’s la united fruit co. (II)

So what did I do wrong? How can I improve? Where can I go from here? In a slightly different world than this one I would have workshopped all my translations with other poets, all of us best friends and fluent in Spanish, to get their points of view on my poor attempts to bring Neruda into the English world. But, in a slightly different world I would also get paid to actually teach poetry to people. Currently I do not, I change adult diapers. I am a nurse aide.

The first, and perhaps most serious charge leveled against me was that I messed up the tense of the poem; I moved it from past to present. In context of what I wrote in my last post I can see my urge to keep the poem in present tense even if it violated the "spirit" of the poem. The jury is still out on that one but I am willing to learn from my mistakes. Here is the poem in its original, wonderful Spanish. Read it out and shout.

La United Fruit Co.
Pablo Neruda

Cuando sonó la trompeta, estuvo
todo preparado en la tierra
y Jehová repartió el mundo
a Coca-Cola Inc., Anaconda,
Ford Motors, y otras entidades:
la Compañía Frutera Inc.
se reservó lo más jugoso,
la costa central de mi tierra,
la dulce cintura de América.
Bautizó de nuevo sus tierras
como "'Repúblicas Bananas",
y sobre los muertos dormidos,
sobre los héroes inquietos
que conquistaron la grandeza,
la libertad y las banderas,
estableció la ópera bufa:
enajenó los albedríos,
regaló coronas de César,
desenvainó la envidia, atrajo
la dictadura de las moscas,
moscas Trujillo, moscas Tachos,
moscas Carias, moscas Martínez,
moscas Ubico, moscas húmedas
de sangre humilde y mermelada,
moscas borrachas que zumban
sobre las tumbas populares,
moscas de circo, sabias moscas
entendidas en tiranía.

Entre las moscas sanguinarias
la Frutera desembarca,
arrasando el café y las frutas
en sus barcos que deslizaron
como bandejas el tesoro
de nuestras tierras sumergidas.

Mientras tanto, por los abismos
azucarados de los puertos,
caían indios sepultados
en el vapor de la mañana:
un cuerpo rueda, una cosa
sin nombre, un número caído
un racimo de fruta muerta
derramada en el pudridero.

Now it gets tricky. Now we must use both our skills as a translator to keep the faith of what Neruda wrote alive, but do so in such a way as to make it beautiful in English. Shelby wrote: a poem that sounds clunky fails as a poem, period, however faithful the translation. I agree with that 100%. Indeed, you might turn the "faithfulness to the poet" argument on its head and question a translator who does a disservice to a poet by not having the fluidity and grace to make the poem sing; sure it is "faithful" translation but no one in the target language wants to read it now.

Up to now I have refused to use other people's translations on my blog. First, it probably violates copyright law somewhere (I know 92% of poetry blogs seem to feel free to cut/paste both other people's poems and art slapdash, many times not even citing whose translations they are posting) but I took the approach: "if I can't put this in my own words then I shouldn't be posting it." But, for this experiment, I am going to break my own rule and post a Jack Hirschman's translation next to my own. This translation comes from Mark Eisner's marvelous anthology The Essential Neruda (2004), pages 95-97.¹ Read both and see where they verge in different directions.

The United Fruit Co. translation by Jack Hirschman	The United Fruit Co. translated by ZJC
When the trumpet sounded, everything on earth was prepared and Jehovah distributed the world to Coca Cola Inc., Anaconda, Ford Motors and other entities: The Fruit Company Inc. reserved the juiciest for itself, the central coast of my land, the sweet waist of America. It re-baptized the lands "Banana Republics" and on the sleeping dead, on the restless heroes who'd conquered greatness, liberty and flags, it founded a comic opera: it alienated free wills, gave crowns of Caesar as gifts, unsheathed jealousy, attracted the dictatorship of the flies, Trujillo flies, Tachos flies, Carias flies, Martinez flies, Ubico flies, flies soppy with humble blood and marmelade, drunken flies that buzz around common graves, circus flies, learned flies adept at tyranny. The Company disembarks among the blood-thirsty flies, brim-filling their boats that slide with the coffee and fruit treasure of our submerged lands like trays. Meanwhile, along the sugared up abysms of the ports, indians fall over, buried in the morning mist: a body rolls, a thing without a name, a fallen number, a bunch of dead fruit spills into the pile of rot.	Then the trumpets bray, and all of earth braces itself and Jehovah deals out the land to Coca Cola Inc., Anaconda, to Ford Motors and other corporations: and The Fruit Company, Inc. takes the ripest for itself, my land's central coast, my sweet hips of America. Then it baptizes it again as a "Banana Republic" country and upon our slumbering dead, upon our straggling martyrs who have usurped heroism, liberty and flags, it colonizes us into a comic opera: it outlaws free wills, gives Caesar's crowns as bounty, unleashes jealousy, plants the dictatorship of the maggot, maggot of Trujillo, maggot of Tachos, maggot of Carias, maggot of Martinez, maggot of Ubico, and these maggots are soggy with humble blood and marmalade, these drunken maggots crawl around our common graves, these circus maggots, these academic maggots, adept as any tyrant. The Company disembarks among the blood-thirsty maggots, our coffee and treasured fruits fill the brims of their sliding boats from our submerged fields like tea trays. Meanwhile, along the sugared gulfs of our harbors, indians fall over, buried under the morning mists: a little carrion rolls about, a thing without a name, a shrunken number, a clot of dead fruit, spilling onto the pile of all this rot.

The United Fruit Co.
translation by Jack Hirschman

The United Fruit Co.
translated by ZJC

When the trumpet sounded, everything
on earth was prepared
and Jehovah distributed the world
to Coca Cola Inc., Anaconda,
Ford Motors and other entities:
The Fruit Company Inc.
reserved the juiciest for itself,
the central coast of my land,
the sweet waist of America.
It re-baptized the lands
"Banana Republics"
and on the sleeping dead,
on the restless heroes
who'd conquered greatness,
liberty and flags,
it founded a comic opera:
it alienated free wills,
gave crowns of Caesar as gifts,
unsheathed jealousy, attracted
the dictatorship of the flies,
Trujillo flies, Tachos flies,
Carias flies, Martinez flies,
Ubico flies, flies soppy
with humble blood and marmelade,
drunken flies that buzz
around common graves,
circus flies, learned flies
adept at tyranny.

The Company disembarks
among the blood-thirsty flies,
brim-filling their boats that slide
with the coffee and fruit treasure
of our submerged lands like trays.

Meanwhile, along the sugared up
abysms of the ports,
indians fall over, buried
in the morning mist:
a body rolls, a thing
without a name, a fallen number,
a bunch of dead fruit
spills into the pile of rot.

Then the trumpets bray, and all
of earth braces itself
and Jehovah deals out the land
to Coca Cola Inc., Anaconda,
to Ford Motors and other corporations:
and The Fruit Company, Inc.
takes the ripest for itself,
my land's central coast,
my sweet hips of America.
Then it baptizes it again as
a "Banana Republic" country
and upon our slumbering dead,
upon our straggling martyrs
who have usurped heroism,
liberty and flags,
it colonizes us into a comic opera:
it outlaws free wills,
gives Caesar's crowns as bounty,
unleashes jealousy, plants
the dictatorship of the maggot,
maggot of Trujillo, maggot of Tachos,
maggot of Carias, maggot
of Martinez, maggot of Ubico,
and these maggots are soggy
with humble blood and marmalade,
these drunken maggots crawl
around our common graves,
these circus maggots, these academic
maggots, adept as any tyrant.

The Company disembarks
among the blood-thirsty maggots,
our coffee and treasured fruits fill
the brims of their sliding boats
from our submerged fields like tea trays.

Meanwhile, along the sugared
gulfs of our harbors,
indians fall over, buried
under the morning mists:
a little carrion rolls about, a thing
without a name, a shrunken number,
a clot of dead fruit, spilling
onto the pile of all this rot.

Now, when I think of the "crime" of a bad translation, my first assumption is that the translator missed some crucial idea of the poem. For example, had I thought the idea of La United Fruit Co. was a celebration of being turned into a Banana Republic, then it could be argued (and rightfully so) I was not "grocking in fullness" what Neruda was actually saying. Or, in a post I put up yesterday, it was discovered that the translation we have in English of Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex is so terrible the translator took it upon himself to actually re-write the parts of her philosophies he didn't understand into things she never wrote herself. To me, calling a translator on such blunders is needed.

But I did not do that.

Besides changing the tenses (which, if I was going to get this published, I probably would workshop this a dozen more times anyway), there were places where I was more "free" with my word choice. Take, for example, the line la dictadura de las moscas. Mr. Hirschman rendered it as "the dictatorship of the flies," and while I agree that is what the words mean, I wasn't happy with the way the word "flies" sounded to my ear. I chose instead to use the word "maggot," which had a much more "rotting meat and corruption" ring to it. Are either of us wrong? I do not think so. Nothing is lost in the poem by changing the terms; I didn't say "the dictatorship of goldfish," which would have only demonstrated I wasn't reading the poem very well. Again, does the line que conquistaron la grandeza mean "who'd conquered greatness" or "who have usurped heroism" or both? I think a case could be argued that both could be used.

I would argue that word choice seems almost to be as personal to the translator as it does to the poet writing in their native language. I can agree to calling a bad translation out due to a fundamental lack of understanding on what the essence of the poem is about. Calling a translation bad, however, just because it is bit more liberal in its word choice is problematic for me. After all, just look at the ridiculous and bloody history of translating the Bible. Wars, murder and genocide all have been waged simply for holding a differing opinions as to what the authors were trying to say. I may be an amateur translator, but let us keep all of this in context, please.

And if Mr. Eisner or Mr. Hirschman (or anyone really) write in with an angry letter telling me I have no right to post their work on my blog I shall take the transaltion down too … there are a lot of toes one can step on by accident in this poetry world, aren't there? [back]

This entry was posted on Monday, January 2nd, 2006 at 11:11 am and is filed under Translations, Writing Poetry, Spanish Translations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “a new look at neruda’s la united fruit co. (II)”

Laura Says:
January 4th, 2006 at 4:44 pm
Zachary–the poem is biblical. don’t you get the beginning? past tense. this histrory was happening when neruda was writing the poem and he put it in the past tense.

mosca means fly, not maggot
it one thing to chose between something like sleeping and slumbering, but who gives you the right to totally change a principle image of the poem. if neruda wanted to say maggot, he would have said maggot

as to your point that its better to have bad poems then none at all on the web–again, i totally disagree. i dont want someone to read a poem and think thats pablo when its not. its slanderous, libel, or whatever. its a principle thing. do you change english poems when you post them to your own suit and flavor? no

also think that “bannana republic” country sounds completelyl clunky too me

neruda says la dulce cintura, not mi dulce centura–again a totally change of context.

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a new look at neruda’s la united fruit co. (II)

2 Responses to “a new look at neruda’s la united fruit co. (II)”

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