Apple tree is the best translation for ameixoeira

I have been completing first drafts of the last few poems in Aberto todos os dias by João Luís Barreto Guimarães.

In my experience, translating poetry involves a negotiation between sense and sound. The words I choose need to communicate a meaning close to the Portuguese original, and also a similar rhythm and sound patterning. There’s some adjusting to be done: swapping a word for a synonym with one extra syllable, or with one less. Swapping a word for a synonym whose vowel sounds complement an existing pattern in the line. It reminds me of being a dressmaker making small tucks or opening seams in a garment to get the best fit.

The acrostic is a literary form where such subtle alternations are inadmissible. Guimarães’s poem 'Introdução à poesia' ('Introduction to poetry') describes a group of fruit trees planted so that the first letter of each spells out the word CALMA (in English, CALM): Cerejeira, Ameixoeira, Limoeiro, Macieira, Ameixoeira. Translating this list into English gives: Cherry tree, Plum tree, Lemon tree, Apple tree, Plum tree. Taking the first letters of each fruit tree in English gives CPLAP – the acrostic has evaporated.

My solution was some brutal gardening. I took out the plums altogether, put the apple tree in their place, and planted a medlar. Now I had Cherry tree, Apple tree, Lemon tree, Medlar tree, together spelling out CALM.

The medlar, or Crataegus germanica, has a fine literary pedigree (it is written about by Chaucer, Shakespeare, Rabelais, Cervantes, DH Lawrence) but is almost completely absent from gardens, shops and from people’s diet in both Portugal and the UK. (Eastgate Larder is working hard to grow and distribute medlars and also has a rich source of information about the fruit.) My translation swapped something familiar and well-liked (ameixoeira or plum tree) with something unfamiliar or simply unknown (medlar), in the process making the grove of fruit trees more esoteric and further from our familiar experience. But I kept the acrostic alive.

Phatic rhythm

My boss likes to talk. He doesn’t need an interlocutor, he needs an audience. As there’s not much call to respond during these daily discourses it’s possible to pay attention to how he structures his speech. Linguistics uses the term phatic communication to describe speech that has a social function rather than an informative one. The Open University describes phatic openings to conversations as an ‘invaluable means of establishing relations before getting down to the real purpose of the encounter’. Here are some of the phatic openings that my boss and other colleagues use (I live in Portugal so these phrases are in Portuguese; I've put an approximate translation in brackets after each one): Eh pá (Hey), Pá (Hey), Olha (Look), Ora bem (Well then), Pronto (Ready), É assim (It’s like this). These are often the first thing uttered during an exchange. They request the other person’s attention and signal that things are ready to roll. They mean Please listen to me; I have somethi...

a o a the the the

When translating, there are always textures in the source language which cannot be directly replicated in the target language. Moving from Portuguese to English, gender is one such texture. Every noun in Portuguese is either feminine or masculine (which is the case in many other languages too) while English only has gendered nouns in special cases. I have been translating João Luís Barreto Guimarães’s collection Aberto todos os dias from Portuguese into English. I noticed a pattern at the start of the poem ‘Aquela garça ali’ (or ‘That heron there’) . The first six nouns are alternately feminine and masculine. The nouns are: a garça, o bote, a curva, o rio, a cidade, o fim. (In English this would be: the heron, the boat, the curve, the river, the city, the end). Since every noun in Portuguese – whether animate, inanimate, concrete, abstract – is gendered, gender can seem arbitrary, not carrying significant meaning. To me the gender of a noun stands out ‘as though each ...

Living not at home

Search This Blog