Sasha4 May 2004

about the translation of "Si los riesgos del mar considerara..."

In the original it's in perfect Spanish hendecasyllabics. Your translation has hypermetric lines, which aren't a bad idea in and of themselves, but they don't seem like what Juana Inés de la Cruz would have written had she written in english. Also, there's nothing wrong with taking liberties in translation (in my opinion) but why does Apollo become "old?" I think just saying "...like Apollo you" would make the line flow better.


Here's an oddity. Catullus did do that silly sort of thing. He translated Sappho's poem, the one that begins

φαίνεταί μοι κῆνος ἴσος θέοισιν
ἔμμεν' ὤνηρ,

with:

Ille mi par esse deo videtur,
ille, si fas est, superare divos,
qui sedens adversus identidem te
spectat et audit

dulce ridentem, misero quod omnes
eripit sensus mihi, nam simul te,
Lesbia, aspexi, nihil est super mi
<vocis in ore>

lingua sed torpet, tenuis sub artus
flamma demanat, sonitu suopte
tinitant aures, gemina teguntur
lumina nocte.