Is That a Fish in Your Ear?

Some critics have argued that a good translation is one that is faithful to its source. The corollary would be that a bad one counts as some kind of a betrayal and therefore justifies to some degree the worn-out and disreputable clichés we’ve tried to demolish. The corollary would be plausible if we knew what we meant in saying that a faithful translation is a good one. Why indeed is the term faithful applied to translation at all? True, a good spouse is a loyal one, and a decent spy is not a traitor. We also used to ask of servants and family retainers that they be faithful to their masters. But translators aren’t married to their originals, nor do they work for the CIA. The repeated insistence on “fidelity” as a criterion of quality in translation has certainly led many to describe themselves as servants of their originals. In so doing, they reenact the historical and prehistoric origins of their profession—the exercise of skills possessed by slaves.

Slavery was abolished in Brazil in 1880. Time to move on.

TWELVE Custom Cuts: Making Forms Fit

Chinese people love to pass around shunkouliu on oral grapevines. These are satiric rhythmical sayings, often consisting of quatrains with seven-syllable lines. The regularity of the form is audible and also visible in writing, because each Chinese character corresponds to one syllable. Here’s a jingle of that kind:

Compact, patterned, dense, allusive, bitter, and humorous … translating a shunkouliu is a tall order. So why bother to try? Yet despite the odds, this barbed rhyme about New China’s old guard can be tailored into a pleasing and meaningful shape in a language completely unrelated to its original tongue. Here’s how it can be done, step by step.

1. Translated character for character

Hard hard bitter bitter four ten years
One morning return to untie release before
Already thus return to untie release before
Just-at year change fate in-fact for whom?

2. Translated group for group

Strenuous, strenuous forty years
One morning return to before Liberation
Given that return to before Liberation
In those days revolution in fact for whom?

3. Explanation, sense for sense

An extremely strenuous forty years
And one morning we [find ourselves having] returned to before Liberation
And given that we’ve returned to before Liberation
[We might ask] who, in fact, the revolution back in those days was for.

4. Plain translation

An extremely strenuous forty years
And suddenly we’re back to before Liberation
And given our return to before Liberation
Who, in fact, was the revolution for?

5. Adding some rhythm

An extremely strenuous forty years
And suddenly we’re back to ’forty-nine,
And since we’ve gone back to ’forty-nine
Who, in fact, was it all for?

6. Matching words to Chinese syllables

For forty long years ever more perspiration
And we just circle back to before Liberation
And speaking again of that big revolution
Who, after all, was it for?

7. Adding rhyme

Forty long years crack our spine
Back we go to ’forty-nine
Since we go to ’forty-nine
Back then who was it all for?

8. First polish

Forty years we bend our spine
And just go back to ’forty-nine
And having gone to ’forty-nine
Whom back then was this for?

9. Adaptation, with double rhyme

Blood sweat and tears
For forty long years
Now we’re back to before
Who the hell was it for?

10. As a word rectangle (6 × 4)