As for the second list (which contained terms known only in a very old Italian popular tradition, and that only the learned fury of Camporesi was able to trace), the problem was more serious. Some translators in Latin languages, like the Castilian one, translated a few terms and for the rest adapted the Italian names to their language, as though they were new coinages (falsibordones, affarfantes), or, like the Catalan one,5 left the Italian terms intact. It was an acceptable solution for such similar tongues, and it was as if terms like banderillero or picador were to appear in an Italian translation from Castilian. Kroeber did a similar thing, at most Latinising some words (falpatores, affarfantes, alacrimantes).
Schifano found excellent equivalents in French, like capons, rifodés, francmitous, narquois, archi-suppôts, cagous, hubins, sabouleux, farinoises, feutrards, baguenauds, trouillefous, piedebous, hapuants, attarantulés, surlacrimés, surands. Congratulations.
The real problem came with English. A translation based upon phonetic or lexical similarity was impossible, and the Italian names would sound to an Anglo-Saxon ear like Finnish names to an Italian one. Taking into consideration that there was another list endowed with a remarkable evocative power on the previous page, we decided to cut the second one. It was certainly a loss, but we took all the risks upon ourselves.
Another unavoidable loss occurred with Adso’s dream (or vision) in the chapter ‘Sixth Day. Terce’. To create that dream I was largely using a medieval literary pastiche, the Coena Cypriani, except that I also included clips of Adso’s previous experiences, bookish quotations, images from the whole repertory of the culture of those times and disjointed references to the entire history of art, languages, literature and so on. Among the innumerable quotations there was the first document of Italian language, the so-called Carta Capuana: sao ko kelle terre per kelle fini ke ki contene, trenta anni le possette parte sancti Benedicti, a very clear allusion for Italian readers able to remember the first chapter of their early handbook of Italian literature.
How to translate the quotation in other languages? The Castilian and Catalan versions keep it in its primitive Italian, and obviously no normal Iberian could either understand or recognise it. Schifano turned the sentence into a pseudo-ancient French (Saü avek kes terres pour kes fins ke ki kontient, and so on) with equally infelicitous results. He could have chosen a quotation from the Sarment de Strasbourg, which plays the same role as Carta Capuana in the history of French, but why would Adso have known this text? Besides, considering that Adso was German, he would not even know the Carta Capuana – but I was obviously winking at my readers.
Kroeber had the best chance: since Adso was German, he found a quotation from the Merseburger Zaubersprüche, which represents the oldest document in German (Sose benrenki, sose bluotrenki, sose lidirenki, ben zi bena, bluot zi bluoda, lid zi geliden, sose gelimida sin!). Like me, he trusted the culture of his readers.6
Since Adso would not know the first document of the English language, Weaver, with my approval, decided to cut the quotation. It was, legally speaking, an act of censorship, but not a real loss since in that dream there was such an abundance of ultraviolet and malicious allusions that one more or one less did not make any difference.
Compensations
Sometimes a translator, in order not to miss an important detail, has slightly to enrich the original text. Let me turn to my experiences in translating Nerval’s Sylvie. From now on I shall compare my solution with those of three English translators, namely Halévy (1889), Aldington (1932), and the most recent and (I think) the best one, that is, Sieburth (1995).7
In chapter 11 of Sylvie the Narrator feels embarrassment in talking with Sylvie, whom he has found transformed into a young lady so different from the innocent adolescent he knew years before. They are walking into the woods:
La route était déserté; j’essayais de parler des choses que j’avais dans le cœur mais, je ne sais pourquoi, je ne trouvais que des expressions vulgaires, ou bien tout à coup quelque phrase pompeuse de roman, – que Sylvie pouvait avoir lue. Je m’arrêtais alors avec un goût tout classique, et elle s’étonnait parfois de ces effusions interrompues.
To understand the situation, let us see three English translations:
The road was deserted; I tried to speak of what was in my heart, but somehow I could find only commonplace expressions, or, occasionally, some sounding phrase from a romance, which Sylvie might have read. Then I stopped in the true classic manner, and astonished her by these broken effusions. (Halévy)
There was nobody on the road; I tried to speak to her of the thing I had in my heart; but, I do not know why, I found nothing but common expressions, or else suddenly some pompous phrases from a novel – which Sylvie might have read. (Aldington)
The road was empty; I tried to speak of what was in my heart but, I do not know why, all I could muster were vulgar commonplaces or the occasional overblown phrase from a novel – which Sylvie might well have read. I would then break off into silence in very classical fashion, leaving her somewhat bewildered by my interrupted effusions. (Sieburth)
Such goût tout classique has embarrassed translators, and the proof is that Aldington has ignored it. This is a typical case in which no proposition can guarantee the similarity between original and translation, since the translator feels unable to figure out what proposition the original text was expressing.
The only solution is to figure out what kind of world the original sentence pictures, and then to see what kind of sentence in the destination language can contribute to create the same world-picture in the mind of the reader. Naturally by world-picture I do not only mean a sequence of facts, but also feelings, values, psychological nuances, implicit judgements and so on. Thus I made the hypothesis that this goût tout classique can be understood only by referring both to the historical moment in which the story was written and published, and to the context of the chapter.
Nerval fought the bataille de l’Hernani, that is, he took part in the Romantic movement of his time, when new forms of theatre grew up in opposition to the classical tradition of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; the whole chapter shows a romantic landscape scattered with the remnants of neoclassical ruins; therefore in this passage there is an opposition between the romantic emphasis and the severe tradition of the classical French theatre. Thus what Nerval suggests is that the Narrator, every time he was unable to tell what was in his heart, and feared to use literary commonplaces which Sylvie might have recognised as such, resorted to a sort of theatrical pose which recalled the solemn silences of the heroes of Corneille.
That is why I dared to add something (without, I hope, slowing the discursive rhythm) and I translated thus:
La strada era deserta; cercai di dire quello che avevo in cuore, ma non so perché, non trovavo che espressioni banali, o al massimo qualche frase altisonante da romanzo, – che Sylvie poteva aver letto. Allora m’irrigidivo tacendo, come un eroe da teatro classico, ed ella si stupiva di quelle effusioni interrotte.
M’irrigidivo tacendo, come un eroe da teatro classico means, more or less, I stiffened and was silent, like a hero of classical theatre. I do not know whether the reader will be able clearly to see an opposition between a young Werther and a Horace rigidly and laconically reciting his Qu’il mourût, but I tried: I did my best to arouse in the minds of my readers the same effect that (according to my interpretation) the original text aimed at provoking in the minds of its own readers.
In chapter 3 there is an episode where a translator must not miss a shade of meaning, as it is important not only to understand the opposed psychological attitudes of the two characters who are talking to each other, but also to realise exactly what happens in the following paragraphs. The Narrator, after midnight, decides to go to Loisy (the village of his childhood, of which he has just dreamt) and approaches a fiacre (that is, more or less, a hansom cab) at the Palais Royal.
Hearing that his customer would like him to take him eight leagues out of Paris (Sieburth translates as twenty miles), the driver answers (and the text says he was moins préoccupé than the customer), Je vais vous conduire à la poste. A possible translation could read I will take you to the Post Office, which sounds rather whimsical. Some Italian translators realised that in French courir la poste means to go fast, since la poste was at that time a station where travellers changed their horses. Thus aller à la poste could mean to go at full speed, to run like the wind. But, if such is the promise, why at the end of chapter 7 does Nerval write that the carriage stops on the road to Plessis and that the traveller is obliged to reach Loisy on
