Yo pronuncio tu nombre
en las noches oscuras,
cuando vienen los astros
a beber en la luna
y duermen los ramajes
de las frondas ocultas.
Y yo me siento hueco
de pasión y de música.
Loco reloj que canta
muertas horas antiguas.

Yo pronuncio tu nombre,
en esta noche oscura,
y tu nombre me suena
más lejano que nunca.
Más lejano que todas las estrellas
y más doliente que la mansa lluvia.

¿Te querré como entonces
alguna vez? ¿Qué culpa
tiene mi corazón?
Si la niebla se esfuma,
¿qué otra pasión me espera?
¿Será tranquila y pura?
¡¡Si mis dedos pudieran
deshojar a la luna!!

-federico garcía lorca, 1919

a classic example of why beautiful poetry is often untranslatable—or rather, just shouldn’t be translated to begin with. just by looking at the title, the closest english equivalent to the spanish ‘deshojar’ is ‘defoliate.’ and to be honest, that just makes me think of napalm and agent orange, neither of which have much to do with a heartbreaking meditation on longing. the closest english expression is ‘depetal,’ however that’s not really an appropriate word, per se. i understand that learning a language just so you can read a poem in its purest form isn’t always practical, but when you read a translation it’s no longer the work of the original author, it’s another individual’s interpretation of the piece.

of course, good translations exist; there’s just something that strikes me as a bit sad when individuals love a particular writer but can’t—or don’t—experience him/her in his/her most organic state. though i guess in a more holistic sense it’s nice that translations, at the very least, allow the dissemination of the original author’s ideas to a broader demographic. since all reading hinges on interpretation—at least regarding poetry—you can make the argument that it’s simply a matter of preference. 

anyway, just an area i find particularly interesting. back to work.

I love when “very problematic situations” involve not being able to find a proper Farsi or Spanish equivalent to the iconic “Shake n’ Bake.” J’adore absurd translation assignments and my professor.

Translated, it means “I don’t speak of revenge or forgiveness, el olvido is the only revenge and the only forgiveness.” -Jorge Luis Borges, writer/poet

There is no English translation for el olvido, and I really don’t think that this word exists in other cultures, either. To the Spanish, it is the place where all of your forgotten memories go when they ease through your ears and evaporate into the ether. All of them live together eternally: childhood summers of eating strawberry ice cream every day in the park, the first time you broke someone’s heart (and conversely yours), and even the days you feel like you didn’t even live because so little happened. For Hispanic cultures, though, they always remain. Maybe they live on an island, a valley far away, or even a dense forest. Although, I guess it doesn’t really matter because you can never actually go to el olvido and find them. However, I find it comforting that the Spanish believe that such a place does exist; I find the idea of memory to be quite mystifying, but lingering uncomfortably close to tragic.