Roger Gerald Moore, St. Thomas University
The first part of Cervantes’s edition of, and commentary on, the translation by an anonymous Moor of Cide Hamete Benengeli’s History of Don Quixote was published in Madrid, by Juan de la Cuesta in 1605, under the Spanish title El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha.[1] The second part (same publisher) appeared in 1615. In 1611 (1612 according to some authorities), an otherwise unknown Englishman called Thomas Shelton[2] published his translation of Part I. Thus begins the long dialogue between English literature and what has been called by many the first modern European novel.
The original author of Don Quixote, Cide Hamete Benengeli, has long been famous for his sense of humor; but that humor is not always easy to understand, although it has been the subject of much study.[3] Thus, in the opening chapter, our Moorish author seems unaware of his hero’s proper name, calling him Quijada, Quesada, and Quejana, in spite of the fact that, on his death bed, don Quixote refers to himself as Alonso Quijano the Good (II: 74). In a similar miscarriage of memory, Cide Hamete makes Sancho Panza unaware of his wife’s name, forcing him to call her first Juana Gutiérrez and then, in the very next breath, Mari Gutiérrez (I: 7). Cide Hamete in fact gives various names to Sancho’s wife. Here, Juana Gutiérrez; in the next sentence, Mari Gutiérrez; later, Juana Panza, “because it is usual in La Mancha for women to take the surnames of their husbands” (I: 52); and then Teresa Cascajo or Teresa Panza (II: 5).
The anonymous Moorish translator faithfully translated from Arabic to Spanish the various names given to Sancho’s wife, but Burton Raffel does not. Thus, in the translation according to Raffel, “por lo menos, Juana Gutiérrez, mi oíslo, vendría a ser reina” becomes “at the very least, my old lady Teresa, would get to be a queen” (37).[4] One does not have to speak fluent Spanish, although it does help to have access to the Spanish text tradition, to see that Raffel has introduced a textual change of some importance into what might already be a very corrupt text (remember that the original Arabic text of Cide Hamete Benengeli has not been seen since Cervantes paid a young Moorish lad to translate it).
Raffel, in his footnote to Teresa’s name, makes no mention of Cide Hamete Benengeli, the original historian, but accuses Cervantes of making these mistakes: “Cervantes later calls her Juana. Even Homer nods” (37). This rather patronizing statement denies the authenticity of Cide Hamete Benengeli and returns to the old heresy (still accepted by some) that Cervantes was indeed the author (father), and not merely the editor and commentator (stepfather), of Cide Hamete Benengeli’s original text. Is Cide Hamete Benengeli merely nodding? Or is this confusion over names part of the humor of the Quixote? This question is of secondary importance when compared to the next one: should the original text be respected in translation or should it be deliberately changed, with the translator offering what some might consider amendments and improvements? It is at this stage that we must lament the disappearance of the original Arabic from which Cervantes had his own translation made, for a tripartite comparison, Arabic with Spanish with English, is what this masterpiece really merits.
In this same passage, Sancho refers to his wife as “mi oíslo”; Raffel offers us “my old lady” (37). But what does “mi oíslo” mean exactly? Oís means “you hear” or “do you hear?” or “hear up now”; oíslo means “you hear it” or “do you hear it?” or “hear this now!” In context, then, we are dealing with a phrase that approximates to Rumpole’s SHE[5] (short for, and borrowed from, the She who must be obeyed that Sir Henry Rider Haggard[6] edited from Allan Quartermain’s personal diaries). Clearly, Rumpole’s SHE is also his “old lady”; but there is a world of difference between Raffel’s “my old lady,” Rumpole’s “SHE who must be obeyed,” and Sancho’s “my ‘do you hear me clearly now?’”! One wonders at this point what exactly was written in the original Arabic.
How have other translators dealt with the evident problem of turning “mi oíslo” into English? Here are some examples: Shelton (1611) writes “my wife”; Peter Motteux[7] (1712) “my Whither-d’ye-go?”; Ozell’s revision[8] of Motteux (post-1712) has “my Whither-d’ye-go?” Charles Jarvis[9] (1742) offers “my crooked rib” but also “my duck” (in a different edition of supposedly the same translation, but one in which the translator is referred to as Charles Gervas[10]). Samuel Putnam[11] (1948) uses “my old lady”; J. M. Cohen[12] (1950) gives “my poppet”; and Walter Starkie[13] (1964) proposes “my chuck.” Clearly, the answer to the problem varies with the epoch as epithets of marital endearment change so rapidly with time; there are enormous changes between the spirit and language of, say, the translations of the eighteenth century and those of the twentieth century. It is fair to make this same comment about regional English, for the spirit, language, and ideals of Great Britain are certainly not those of Australia or New Zealand, and even less so those of the United States or of Canada. Equally clearly, there are many ways to solve the translation problem.
Probably the easiest solution is to translate the general meaning; both American-based translators, Putnam and Raffel, use “my old lady.” Another way is to use a similar term of endearment: “my duck,” “my chuck.” Finally, one can attempt to see beyond the easiest rendering and try to recreate humor in the target language; this leads to “my Whither-d’ye-go,” “my crooked rib,” “my do-you-hear-me-clearly-now?” or even to “my SHE who must be obeyed.” It also leads to versions that, while being the most joyous and playful, stray furthest from the wording of the original text while trying to maintain its spirit. In my opinion, none of the translators of the only surviving translation of Cide Hamete Benengeli’s masterpiece have solved adequately the linguistic problems which he sets, and we are still waiting for the perfect English translation of Don Quixote. I should add, at this point, that the spurious Spanish translation bequeathed to posterity by Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda (Tarragona, 1614) sets the contemporary literary historian even more problems with its change of historian, for Avellaneda edits the much-criticized and completely inaccurate, not to mention hitherto equally undocumented, histories of Alisolán, a second-rate Manchegan historian (if ever there was one) who also lacked the services of a reliable translator.[14]
Writing about translators and imitators in general, Cervantes states in his prologue to Part II that imitation, like translation, is extremely difficult; and he gives the following example:
A madman in Seville conceived one of the most amusing obsessions ever dreamed up by any madman in the world. He made a reed pipe, tapering to a point at one end, and then, catching a dog out in the street, or wherever he could find one, he’d hold down one of its hind legs with his foot, lift the other leg with his hand and, as best he could, shove the reed in where, by blowing into it, he could make the dog round as a ball, after which (still holding on) he’d give it a couple of good slaps on the belly, and then he’d let it go, explaining to those who’d gathered around, and there were always a lot of people watching: “You think it’s easy, your graces, swelling up a dog like that?” (351)
By an obvious extension, Cervantes implies two questions: “Do you think it is easy, your grace, to write a book?” and “Do you think it is easy, your grace, to write a translation?”
Cide Hamete Benengeli was also most unwilling to mention his hero’s place of origin by name. Thus, the first sentence in Don Quixote begins: “En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no ha mucho tiempo que vivía …” (I: 1), which I would translate roughly as follows: “In a place in La Mancha, the name of which I do not wish to remember, there lived, not long ago …” When faced with a new translation of Don Quixote, the first thing to do, after checking the title of the book and the spelling of the hero’s name, is to compare the new translator’s first sentence with those of the earlier translators. Burton Raffel begins: “In a village in La Mancha (I don’t want to bother you with its name) there lived, not very long ago … “ (9).
Let us look at other versions of this famous opening line: Shelton (1611): “There lived not long since, in a certain village of the Mancha, the name whereof I purposely omit …” Pierre Motteux (1712): “At a certain village in La Mancha, of which I cannot remember the name, there lived not long ago …” Ozell’s revision of Motteux: “At a certain Village in La Mancha, which I shall not name, there liv’d not long ago …” Charles Jarvis (1742): “Down in a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to recollect, there lived, not long ago …” Samuel Putnam (1948): “In a village of La Mancha the name of which I have no desire to recall, there lived not so long ago …” Walter Starkie (1964): “At a village of La Mancha, whose name I do not wish to remember, there lived a little while ago …”
One thing should immediately be clear: there is no single, set way of translating this sentence. Equally clear to a reader of Spanish is the use of no quiero, “I do not want; I do not wish”: de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, “whose name I do not wish to recall.” This act of forgetfulness seems to be entirely deliberate, and the translation should surely express this fact.
Another passage that should be checked through two or three versions occurs at the beginning of Part II, in Cervantes’s Dedication to the Count of Lemos of his edition of the unknown Moor’s translation of Cide Hamete Benengeli’s true history / verdadera historia. A messenger arrives from the Emperor of China inviting Cervantes to travel to Peking to be the Chief Executive Officer of a small Catholic College of Languages in which the main textbook would be the Quixote. Cervantes replies that the messenger can return to where he came from “a las diez, o a las veinte, o a las que venís despachado” (II, Dedication); the reference in the original Spanish translation is to the speed at which the messenger traveled, ten, twenty, or however many leagues per day.[15] This reference is lost in most English translations, and Raffel has Cervantes tell the messenger that he can leave “at ten o’clock, or twenty o’clock, or whenever you want to” (349).
Finally, there is another favorite passage of mine, from Cervantes’s Prologue to Part II. Here, Cervantes tells the story of the madman from Córdoba who wanders around with a great rock on his head. Finding some poor, unsuspecting dog, usually asleep, the madman walks up to the drowsing canine and unloads his stone on top of the sleeping dog; the dog leaps to its feet and runs away howling, much to the amusement of the many onlookers who follow the madman waiting for the enactment of this singularly amusing event. One day, the unfortunate madman drops his stone upon a pedigree hunting dog, a perro podenco. The owner, a tailor, runs up and beats the madman mercilessly with his measuring rod, telling him all the while: “My podenco? Do it to my podenco? Couldn’t you see it was a pedigree podenco?” When he has recovered from his beating, the madman again wanders around with the enormous stone on his head looking for sleeping dogs; but every time he finds one, he says to himself and the watching crowd: “Look out! It might be a pedigree podenco!” But what exactly is a perro podenco, and how have others translated the term? First, the definition: the perro podenco is an Iberian dog of very old, possibly Arabian, lineage that was used as a sight and scent hound for coursing small game (caza menor), especially hares and rabbits. The breed, although immensely popular in Spain for its qualities of stamina and speed which combine with its ability to work without water for long periods of time, is not well-known in North America. The American Kennel Club, for example, does not, at the present time, recognize the podenco as a registered breed; there is hope, however, that it will be recognized eventually, for its close relative, the podenco ibizenco, is in the process of becoming recognized under its American name, the Ibizan hound. Thus, although we now know roughly what a perro podenco is, we also know that there is no equivalent name in the English language.
How do other translators deal with this insoluble problem? Alas, I do not possess Part II of Shelton’s translation, published in 1620, but here are some other attempts. Motteux: “You son of a bitch, abuse my spaniel! You inhuman rascal, did not you know that my dog was a spaniel?” Ozell’s revision of Motteux: “You Son of a Bitch, abuse my Spaniel. You inhumane Rascal, did you know that my Dog was a Spaniel?” Jarvis: “Dog, rogue, what, abuse my spaniel! did you not see, barbarous villain, that my dog was a spaniel?” Gervas: “Dog! Rogue! Rascal! What! maltreat my dog! A spaniel! Did you not see, barbarian! that my dog was a spaniel?” Putnam: “You dog! You thief! Treat my greyhound like that, would you? You brute, couldn’t you see it was a greyhound?” Cohen: “You dog, you thief! My pointer! Didn’t you see, you cruel wretch, that my dog was a pointer?” Starkie: “Dog thief! My pointer! Didn’t you see, cruel brute, that my dog was a pointer?” Raffel: “My whippet, you son of a bitch! Can’t you see, you monster, my dog’s a whippet!”
In this fashion, the perro podenco becomes a spaniel, a pointer, a greyhound, and a whippet! Other Peninsular dogs are transformed later in this same passage and we read of alanos (large fighting dogs) and gozques (yappy lap-dogs) becoming mastiffs or hounds (Motteux, Ozell’s revision of Motteux, and Jarvis); terrier, mastiff or hound (Gervas); mastiffs or curs (Putnam, Cohen, and Starkie); and finally wolfhounds and Pekingese (Burton Raffel). What a pity that we cannot compare all these breeds with the original Arabic, for then we might find that Cide Hamete Benengeli was actually writing of Salukis and Afghans! However that may be and whether the AKC recognizes the podenco officially or not, we can rest assured that all paid-up members of the Canadian Kennel Club can distinguish between greyhounds, pointers, whippets, mastiffs, hounds, terriers, wolfhounds, Pekingese, and the abominable, non-pedigree curs (who are not even permitted to enter the show ring). But what’s in a name? After all, “A dog is a dog is a dog!” as Gertrude Stein might have phrased it.
The point, surely, is that when we generalize, we diminish the language, and ashes, oaks, thorns, maples, elms all become trees. In similar fashion, if it has two wings, it is no longer a robin, a sparrow, a finch, a grosbeak, an eagle, an osprey; it is just a bird. “What has a tail that wags, four legs, two ears, teeth, sits in a kennel and barks?” “A dog,” you say, without hesitation, having probably heard the riddle before; “A dog,” you say—not a greyhound, a pointer, a whippet, a mastiff, a terrier, a wolfhound, or a Pekingese. What’s in a name? After all, a perro podenco is nothing but a dog. Occasionally, I suppose, we can recognize a set breed, like the spaniel. But how many of us, I wonder, can still recognize and name correctly the many varieties of what for years was America, Britain, and Canada’s favorite pet? How many can now differentiate between an American cocker spaniel, an American water spaniel, a Brittany spaniel, a clumber spaniel, an English cocker spaniel, an English springer spaniel, a field spaniel, a French spaniel, a German spaniel, an Irish water spaniel, a Picardy spaniel, a Pont Audemer spaniel, a Sussex spaniel, a Welsh springer spaniel, and a Cavalier King Charles? Spaniels all, and also all just plain dogs!
But note, as I said earlier, that all that I have done so far is the work I do after “checking the title of the book and the spelling of the hero’s name.” What’s in a title or a name? Well, in the first place, the original title of Cervantes’s edition of Cide Hamete Benengeli’s history is El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha, which might be translated as The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha; but note that ingenioso also has the meanings of sharp, witty, and resourceful. Note also that the d of don usually appears in the lower case in Spanish while it is usually capitalized in English. On this point, note too that Miguel de Cervantes was not technically an hidalgo, being the son of a lower middle-class surgeon, and is therefore rarely (and usually incorrectly) referred to in Spanish as don Miguel. As to our hero’s name, this is a much more complicated issue.
Don Quixote or Don Quijote? Since the appearance of Shelton’s 1611 translation (1612 according to some authorities), there is a long tradition (underlined by the English adjective Quixotic) according to which the English version of the protagonist’s name is written with an x and is pronounced like the x in English exam; quixotic, Quixote. An alternative tradition, equally well-established, substitutes the letter j in the middle of don Quixote’s name, giving don Quijote—“pronounced key-ho-tay” according to Raymond R. Canon, the modern editor of Ozell’s revision of the translation of Peter Motteux.[16] The name is then pronounced as though it were being said in Spanish rather than English. Unfortunately, this is often the cause of much merriment, descending to the macaronic Donkey Hotay and his churchly companion San Chopanzer.
Sad to say, the true pronunciation is lost. The early years of the seventeenth century saw tremendous changes in Spanish pronunciation, especially amongst what are colloquially known as the shushing consonants, about which Rafael Lapesa[17] has this to say:
As for the g, j, it was pronounced d z, like the English j or the Italian gi; in intervocalic positions and later in other positions too, it was pronounced z, as a fricative, like the Portuguese j. Its unvoiced correspondent was the fricative x, which was pronounced s, like sh in English or like sci in Italian. This state of affairs was changing radically, for at the same time that the g, j, weakened and became devoiced so as to become confused with the x, the articulation point of both phonemes moved backwards to the posterior of the mouth, being converted to the unvoiced velar fricativeX which we now transcribe as j. This velar pronunciation is found from the 16th century, but for a long time it alternated with the palatal form, as is shown by the French Quichotte and the Italian Chisciotto, both taken from our Quixote in 1605. (247; my translation)
In other words, Don Quichotte (Paris, 1614) and don Chisciotte (Venice, 1622) may approximate more closely than either the English x (Quixote) or the Spanish j (Quijote) to the original Spanish sound as heard in Cervantes’s day.
I would like to finish this all too brief treatise on the translator’s art with a reference to Wendy Cope’s fluently modern translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. We are all familiar with Fitzgerald’s old-fashioned, labored, out-of-date translation, which he, too, probably based on a flawed original; here is Fitzgerald’s version of stanzas 7 and 51:
Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
the Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly — and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.
The moving finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.[18]
When compared with Wendy Cope’s wonderfully moving contemporary translation, with its up-to-date references to the Electronic Age and the hardships of modern housewifery, all the weaknesses of the earlier Fitzgerald translation are immediately obvious:
Another Pint! Come, loosen up, have Fun!
Fling off your Hang-Ups and enjoy the Sun:
Time’s Spacecraft all too soon will carry you
Away — and Lo! the Countdown has begun.
The Moving Telex writes and having writ
Moves on; nor all thy Therapy nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line
Nor Daz nor Bold wash out a Word of it.[19]
It was only with a close intertextual study of both original and earlier translations that Cope was able to produce this verbal magic. I can only call for the modern translator who, with archaeological precision, will unearth from the deepest and darkest archives of La Mancha the original Arabic manuscripts of Cide Hamete Benengeli’s History of Don Quixote. Then, and only then, will we be able to compare Cide Hamete Benengeli’s original text with the unknown Moorish translator’s first Spanish version (edited by Cervantes in 1605 and 1615) and with the various, all of them clearly inaccurate and inadequate, English versions, including that of Burton Raffel.
So, there remains the final question: How do we tell a good translation from a bad one, and by extension, how do we tell whether Burton Raffel has produced a good translation or not? The first test for me, as I have tried to show, is trust and accuracy: Is the translation accurate and can we trust the translator? By applying the tests outlined above, we can come to an immediate yes or no decision regarding both trust and accuracy with regard to all English-language translations of the Quixote. The second question is, how does the translator deal with some of the more complex problems of translation? There are three basic steps, as I outlined earlier: general meaning, contemporary equivalent, creative solution. Penultimately, there is the question of readability which goes hand in hand with contemporaneity and audience. Contemporaneity: we are living in North America at the end of the twentieth century; our translation should reflect this. Audience: our audience is a North American one; again our translation should reflect this. Whether we rate audience over accuracy and contemporaneity over fidelity to text is a choice that we, as translators, make every time we translate. Lastly, there is the question of taste: if you, as a reader, enjoy what you are reading, then de gustibus non est disputandum.
¡Vale!
NOTES
[1]
Miguel de Cervantes, Obras Completas, 1. Don Quijote de la Mancha, edición,
introducción, y notas de Martín de Riquer (Barcelona: Editorial Planeta, 1962).
All references to the Spanish text are to this edition and will be made to Part
and Chapter.
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[2]
Don Quixote de la Mancha, trans.
Thomas Shelton, 61st printing (New York: Harvard Classics, 1968).
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[3]
See, for example, the eight articles on Cide Hamete Benengeli listed by Luis
Andrés Murillo in his edition of Don
Quijote de la Mancha (Madrid: Clásicos Castalia, 1968) vol. III, Bibliografía fundamental 100.
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[4]
Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quijote,
trans. Burton Raffel (New York: Norton, 1995) xviii, 733.
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[5]
See John Mortimer, The First Rumpole
Omnibus (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983).
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[6]
H. Rider Haggard, SHE. A History of
Adventure (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982).
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[7]
The History of the Ingenious Gentleman
Don Quixote of la Mancha, trans. from the Spanish by P. A. Motteux (New
York: Charles C. Bigelow, n.d.). Although there is no date on the copy
currently in my possession, Motteux’s original translation dates to 1712
according to the Advertisement on page v.
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[8]
Don Quixote (New York: Airmont Books,
1967). In the frontispiece, this version is announced as Ozell’s Revision of the Translation of Peter Motteux.
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[9]
Don Quixote de la Mancha, trans.
Charles Jarvis, ed. with an introduction by E. C. Riley (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1992).
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[10]
Adventures of Don Quixote de la Mancha,
trans. from the Spanish of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra by Charles Jervas
(London: Frederick Warne, n.d.).
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[11]
The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote de la
Mancha, trans. from the Spanish, with a Critical Text based upon the First
Editions of 1605 and 1615, Variant Readings, Variorum Notes, and an
introduction by Samuel Putnam (New York: Viking, 1949).
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[12]
Don Quixote, trans. J. M. Cohen
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1950).
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[13]
Don Quixote of La Mancha, trans. and
with an introduction by Walter Starkie (New York: Signet Classics, 1964).
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[14]
Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda, Segundo
tomo del ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, in Miguel de
Cervantes, Obras Completas, 1. Don Quijote de la Mancha 1141-1491. For
studies on the apocryphal Quixote of
Avellaneda, see “El Quijote Apócrifo,” in Murillo 53-54).
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[15]
Riquer 572.
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[16]
Raymond R. Canon, ed., Don Quixote
(New York: Airmont, 1967) 3.
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[17]
See Rafael Lapesa’s essay “Transformación de las consonantes,” in “El español
del Siglo de Oro. Cambios lingüísticos generales,” Historia de la lengua española, 7th ed. (Madrid: Escelicer, 1968)
245-48.
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[18]
Francis Turner Palgrave, The Golden
Treasury of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language (rpt.,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1950) 342-53.
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[19]
Wendy Cope, Making Cocoa for Kingsley
Amis (London: Faber and Faber, 1986) 63-64.
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