LITERARY TRANSLATION DOSSIER
Translating Leopardi
Ecléa Bosi
Ecléa Bosi is a professor emeritus at the University of São Paulo. She is the author of Memória e sociedade (Companhia da Letras, 2002) and O tempo vivo da memória: ensaios de Psicologia Social (Ateliê, 2003). @ - ecbosi@usp.br
ABSTRACT
The essay presents a version of Giacomo Leopardi's "Il sabato del villaggio" and some comments on the semantic and stylistic aspects of the poem.
Keywords: Italian literature, Giacomo Leopardi, Translation, Literary theory.
O SÁBADO DA ALDEIA
Giacomo Leopardi
(translated by Ecléa Bosi)
Vem chegando do campo a donzelinha,
Quando se põe o sol,
Com seu feixe de erva e traz na mão
Um maço de rosas e violetas
E com elas enfeita
Amanhã, dia de festa,
Os cabelos e o seio.
Das vizinhas ao meio,
Sobre a escada a fiar, uma velhinha,
Naquele ponto onde se perde o dia;
E recordando vai do seu bom tempo
Quando em dias de festa se adornava
E ainda fresca e esbelta
Costumava dançar entre os que foram
Seus companheiros da idade mais bela.
Já todo o ar se embruma,
Volta azul o sereno e as sombras voltam
Das colinas e tetos,
Ao branquejar da recém-vinda lua.
O sino prenuncia
Que vem chegando a festa
E àquele som dirias
Que o coração conforta.
Os meninos gritando
Na pracinha em tropel
Daqui e dali saltando
Fazem grato rumor:
No entanto volta à sua parca mesa
Assobiando, o lavrador,
Pensando vai no dia do repouso.
E quando em volta toda luz se apaga
E tudo o mais se cala,
Ouve o martelo dar, e ouve a serra;
O carpinteiro vela
Da oficina fechada à lamparina
E se apressa e se esforça
Por terminar a obra antes da aurora.
Este dos sete é o mais amável dia
De esperança e alegria;
Amanhã, tristeza e tédio
Trarão as horas e ao mesmo trabalho
Cada um voltará seu pensamento.
Rapazinho travesso,
Esta idade florida
É como um dia de alegria pleno,
Dia claro, sereno,
Que prenuncia a festa de tua vida.
Goza, menino meu; estado suave,
Leda estação é esta.
Nada mais te direi; mas a tua festa
Não te pese ao chegar mesmo que tarde.
Comment
I dedicate this version to José Paulo Paes, translator of Leopardi.
Based on Leopardi's own reflections on gains and losses, let us see what was maintained in the translation.
"Il sabato del Villaggio" describes a familiar picture of the customs and attitudes of the time: professions, characters, the layout of streets and squares, the world of leisure and work in Leopardi's time. The city - I suppose it is Recanati - becomes comprehensible to us. Moreover, it becomes visible in both the original and, hopefully, the translation.
So much movement in the oppositions!
The translation maintains pictorial elements of the text: the girl coming from the countryside carrying a bundle of herbs and a small bunch of flowers, bringing in her arms the two emblems - work and fun. This is the first contrast.
Next comes the difference between past and present, old age and youth. The old woman indulges in reminiscences while the young lady gets ready for the holiday.
It is the young lady, the donzelletta, who opens the scene and sets, by walking towards the center, the happy mood of the party. And Leopardi, a sober stylist, repeats five times the word festa in this short poem, highlighting the contrast between work and fun.
The old woman spins with neighbors, sitting at the highest level on the sidewalk, at that point where the sun goes out. And they reminisce about old holidays while the night falls precisely behind the old woman.
The shadows drop as the young moon whitens.
The night has come and the field-hand marches home whistling to his modest supper, but the carpenter, closed in his workshop, will work all night, as he needs to increase his savings. Locked up, while the others come out to the square to enjoy the holiday. Perhaps the carpenter is Leopardi himself, who watches lonely, as he admits to us in La sera del dì di festa, Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa....
But he feels the contrast between Saturday and the other days of the week: This is the most kind of the seven days."
Contrast within Saturday itself: it is the holiday and the eve of the end. The Italian Leopardi takes on the serious musicality of the evening. How to translate the strokes of the bow over the cello strings of the last verses? It is impossible. But anything is saved here and there. Some rhymes have remained, to some extent, to compensate for the internal Leopardian music.
There are moments in the translation that may remain in the memory of the reader: E quando em volta toda luz se apaga - E tudo o mais se cala - Ouve o martelo dar, e ouve a serra...(Then all's at peace - The lights are out - I hear the rasp of shavings, and the rapping hammer )
Portuguese is smooth and soft, a language suitable for describing states of nature or of the soul, with delicately changing colors. Italian is a more incisive language, especially Leopardo's Italian, and thus more conducive to maintaining the best Latin conciseness.
The poet chose two characters to open and close the poem: the young lady from the beginning and the lively boy from the end, garzoncello scherzoso, whom he highlights in the playful group. He draws attention to the contrast between the stato soave, the stagion lieta and adulthood. And he ends with a votive prayer for the boy's future:
Godi, fanciullo meio, stato soave,
stagion lieta è cotesta.
altro dirti non vo'; ma la tua festa
ch'anco tardi a venir non ti sia grave.
Some translations seem to cover up a stupendous piece of furniture with rustic fabric. This fabric wears out over time, and through the tears of memory emerges the original, precious padding. The original transpires, unequivocal, in Leopardi's verses.
Over the years the translator forgets his text, but the original verses burn like fire in his memory and propose themselves time and again for as long as he lives.
Received on 11 Sep. 2012 and accepted on 21 Sep. 2012.
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
22 Nov 2012 -
Date of issue
Dec 2012
