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Quaderns. Revista de traducció 3, 1999 81-99

Comprehension and interpretation in the multiple

translations of Federico García Lorca’s
Poeta en Nueva York
Juan C. Sager
UMIST. Manchester

Abstract

It is well known that there are never two identical translations of a single text. In literary
translation each version can be said to correspond to a different interpretation of the work.
An analysis of some poems of Lorca’s Poet in New York demonstrates the different modes
of comprehension and interpretation of different translators through the polysemy of sym-
bols used in surrealist poetry. The extension of meaning of Lorca’s relatively simple voca-
bulary is a particular feature of these translations.
Key words: Federico García Lorca, Poet in New York, translation, poetry, English, com-
prehension.

Resum

És ben sabut que no hi ha mai dues traduccions idèntiques d’un únic text. Es podria dir que
en traducció literària cada versió respon a una interpretació diferent de l’obra. Una anàli-
si d’alguns poemes de Poeta en Nueva York de Lorca demostra les diferents maneres com
diversos traductors els comprenen i els interpreten mitjançant la polisèmia dels símbols
utilitzats en la poesia surrealista. L’extensió del significat del vocabulari relativament sim-
ple de Lorca és una característica d’aquestes traduccions.
Paraules clau: Federico García Lorca, Poeta en Nueva York, traducció, poesia, anglès, com-
prensió.

There are basically three types of poetry translations. On the hand we have
poets who translate other poets as a form apprenticeship, or as homage, or in
order to maintain an important tradition. This is a practice quite common
in other art forms: musicians, painters and sculptors have always imitated what
they considered to be models for their art or style1.

1. For an example of a discussion of adaptation, see Sager (1966).

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82 Quaderns. Revista de traducció 3, 1999 Juan C. Sager

The second type of poetry translation attempts to convey the poet’s mes-
sage as closely as possible, accepting that there will have to be compromises of
either content or form. They often appear in bilingual editions with original
and translation on opposite pages. These translations can be described as
attempts to transmit the poet’s sensibility through the medium of another lan-
guage as far as this is possible. The translations discussed here are mainly of
this type. They generally aim at retaining the rhythm of the original text but
usually at ehd expense of rime or metre. The poems chosen for analysis are
written in a free verse form so that the question of rhyme and metre does not
arise. Where translators have provided notes or introductions, they do not com-
ment on the poetic form they have chosen though some versions vary the line
distribution and hence the rhythm of the original.
The third type of poetry translation concentrates on the content of the mes-
sage at the expense of its form by converting the poetic form into prose. These
prose translations are usually characterised by being printed in smaller type at
the bottom of the page, following the original2. Some of these translations are
indistinguishable from the second type of translation.
These various types of translation are exclusive to literature. We omit the
first from serious consideration because adaptations and imitations pursue
a different objective. The existence of the other two types is justified becau-
se of the ambivalent position of literary translation with respect to the sour-
ce and the target cultures. By being removed from the orbit of their language
and culture of origin without entering the orbit of the target culture, trans-
lations of novels, plays and poetry are an intercultural type of literature which
lies outside the canot of either culture and hence outside evaluation by cri-
teria of either culture. Lorca’s Romancero Gitano, for example, is part of the
Spanish literature of a particular historic period. The Gipsy Ballads, as some
translators have called the English translation of this book of poems, are no
longer part of Spanish literature, nor will they ever form part of the English
literature canot. The recognition of this situation is most important for trans-
lators because it frees them from the pressure or temptation of imitating lite-
rary forms of the target culture3. It follows from these observations that
serious readers of literary translations will always be conscious of the fact
that they are reading a translation. For serious translators this means that
they do not try to convert their translation into a work of the target cultu-
re, nor that they will maintain overly obtrusive characteristics of the source
language, such as associations and allusions which would be incomprehen-
sible to target readers.
The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it is an attempt to discover what
it means for translators to understand a poem so that they can produce a tar-
get language version which conveys as close an impression as possible of the

2. See the translations by J.M. Cohen (1972) and J.L. Gili (1960), cited in the bibliography.
3. For a full discussion of the conditions of literary translation, see Sager (1998).
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original. A second reason was to examine how the imagery of surrealist poetry
represents additional obstacles to this process of comprehension.
Considering the problems associated with translations of poetry in general
and the relative paucity of translations of poetry from other languages into
English in particular, it is surprising to find an abundance of English transla-
tions of most of the works of Federico García Lorca. Without much searching
it was possible to assemble up to seven versions, not of the more popular works,
but even of his most controversial book of poems, Poeta en Nueva York 4, publi-
shed only after his death in 1936. The choice of these poems for this type of
analysis is additionally motivated by the uncertainty surrounding their inter-
pretation in the source language. When translators can fall back on an autho-
ritative interpretation of a particular image or metaphor explaining an obscure
passage, as is the case with a great deal of Lorca’s earlier poetry, they can more
readily find a satisfactory solution to a translation problem. What remains for
discussion then are problems of culture-specific concepts and misunderstandings
or misreadings which have little theoretical interest, as, for example the follo-
wing lines from «Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez Mejías»:

El otoño vendrá con caracolas,

The autumn will come with small white snails
Autumn will return bringing snails
The autumn will come, shepherds blowing conch shells
Autumn will come with its conches*
* (Translator’s note: Horns blown by the shepherds on the hills)
(Alma ausente)

This is a simple case of misreading. Two of the translators did not know
the meaning of «caracolas» or considered it a typographical error, because they
could not associate autumn with conches. The third version is more explicit,
and the last provides a translator’s note to explain what for an English reader
would be incomprehensible. It is, of course, a moot point whether an average
Spanish reader can make the association.

No te conoce el lomo de la piedra, ni el raso negro donde te destrozas

The back of the stone slab does not know you, nor the black satin shroud in which
you crumble
The stone’s back does not know you nor the black satin in which you are crumbling
The back of the stone does not know you nor the black satin in which you
crumble
The saddleback of rock does not know you nor the black satin where you tore
apart
(Alma ausente)

4. See the bibliography of editions between 1940 and 1997 cited.

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84 Quaderns. Revista de traducció 3, 1999 Juan C. Sager

The context tells us in this case that the poet speaks of the tomb of the bull-
fighter Ignacio Sánchez Mejías and that the satin refers to the lining of the
coffin. The first version seems to understand the context; in the second and
third we cannot be sure because they maintain the implicitness of the origi-
nal. The fourth version does not make sense and we must ask what image the
translator was thinking of or how he understood the text.
These examples already show the variations from the original encountered
in poetry but the interpretation seems clear.
This paper does not pretend to come to any conclusion about the quality of
the individual versions of Poet in New York used for exemplification, but exa-
mines several alternative translations in order to discover to what extent indi-
vidual translators’ understanding varies and is specific to poetry, as opposed
to the understanding needed for other types of text. The corpus chosen for
this purpose consist of the three poems which form the second section, «Los
Negros», of the book, containing one of the best-known poems of this cycle,
«El rey de Harlem» and the poem «Aurora», which, according to the different
editions appears in the first or the third section.
Poeta en Nueva York was a new departure for the poet and his readers. here
Lorca speak with a different voice and presents a highly original outlook on
the world. This work has never been subjected to a full commentary which
might guide translators. Critics do not even agree whether this poetry is surre-
alist, symbolist with surrealist elements and images. Besides, there is no agre-
ement —it is unlikely that it will ever occur— about the meaning of many of
the symbols used. We have to accept that certain symbols at times have posi-
tive associations and at other times negative values. There exist isolated com-
ments on individual lines of these poems but no complete line-by-line
interpretation. In his introduction to the translation by Ben Belitt, the Lorca
specialist Angel del Río (1955), speaks of «the obscurity of the text» for which
readers of the translations may be tempted to blame the translator.
Another problem, in this type of text more than in any other, is the uncer-
tainty about the precise wording of the poems. In the introduction to the first
English version in 1940, the translator Rolfe Humphries stated:

I have followed the typescript as closely as I could, sometimes when I was not too
sure it made sense —who can always tell, in surrealist poetry?— but there are some
instances where I have had to try to establish the text.
(Humphries, 1940: 16)

It is important to note that Humphries himself admits to doubts about his

ability to capture the meaning of the text; nevertheless he translates it. How?
This is the fundamental question for which we are looking for an answer in
this study.
In «El rey de Harlem» we find two important occurrences of alternative ver-
sions in the critical Spanish edition, which oblige the translator to choose the
worlds which for him make sense.
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[…] con un rubor de frenesí manchado.

Es preciso cruzar los puentes y llegar al rumor/rubor negro
para que el perfume de pulmón nos golpee las sienes con su vestido de caliente
piña.
[…] to reach the murmuring blacs — the florid black found
[…] to reach the black murmur — to find the negro blush
[…] come to the dark rumour — arrive at the black flush
(El rey de Harlem)

In equal numbers, the translators have opted for one or the other reading and
have tried to make sense out of it. The context does not seem to assist them in
clarifying their doubts.

No hay angustia comparable a tus rojos/ojos oprimidos

a tu sangre estremecida dentor del eclipse oscuro,
a tu violencia granate, sordomuda en la penumbra,
a tu gran rey prisionero, con un traje de conserje.
[…] your oppressed reds — your oppressed eyes
[…] your thwarted vermilions — your oppressed eyes
[…] your crushed reds
[…] your oppressed scarlets
(El rey de Harlem)

Here too, speaking of Harlem, there can be doubts about the words that
would finally have been preferred by Lorca. «Red» can be a symbol for a num-
ber of things. The translator Merryn Williams justifies her translation of «your
crushed reds» by saying that Lorca is here referring to
to black people’s great warmth and vitality and the fact that they are being oppressed.
(Williams 1995: 124)

whilst the first translator, Rolfe Hymphries, found «rojo» incomprehensi-

ble and for this reason opted for «ojos». Elsewhere translators have read «cieno»
(mud) for «cielo» (sky/heaven); cebra» (zebra) for «cabra» (goat) and found
nothing odd in a contextual association of «cabra» with «sierpe» (snake/ser-
pent) and «mula» (nule) which occur nearby. But let us turn from the author’s
own uncertainty to those of the translators.
Homonyms constitute a serious problem for any translator. In the previous
example, «la caliente piña» was translated alternatively by «pine-apple» and by
«pien cone» which oppresses us with its perfume and there is no external guide
to resolve this homonymy. A more serious problem of alternative reading is
the following case:

El preciso matar al rubio vendedor de aguardiente,

a todos los amigos de la manzana y ala arena;
y es necesario dar con los puños cerrados
a las pequeñas judías que tiemblan llenas de burbujas…
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86 Quaderns. Revista de traducció 3, 1999 Juan C. Sager

against the little Jewish women who tremble, filled with bubbles,
the gone little jewesses, in a lather of bubbles:
the little French beans wich tremble, full of bubbles,
the little haricot beans which tremble full of bubbles
the small Jewesses that tremble full of bubbles,
the little jewesses who tremble full of bubbles,
The little Jewesses that bubble over
(El rey de Harlem)

The context, given in the three preceding lines, is tha tof violence against
the presumed enemies of the blacks. We must assume that two of the transla-
tors, Merryn Williams and J. L. Gili, deliberately ignore the context when they
introduce vegetables into this line, presumably influenced by «manzana» (apple)
in the line above. We should exclude the possibility that they did not know
both meanings of the word because any dictionary would have listed both
meanings. Another example of homonymy is «flor» (flower) and «a flor de»
(on the surface of )

el amor por un solo rostro invisible a la flor de piedra.

Love, by a single, invisible, stone-deep face.
and love, in the lonely, invisible face, on the rind of a rock.
and love by a single invisible face on the surface of the stone.
love, by a single face, invisible on the surface of stone.
love by a single face invisible on the flower of the stone.
Love by a single face invisible on a flower of stone.
(Norma y paraíso de los negros)

We can rephrase the original question and ask what it means for a transla-
tor to understand a poetic text. Who of us can give a definitive explanation
of the image evoked by «llenas de burbujas» (full of bubbles) and its associa-
tion with the preceding noun? Because we ourselves cannot find another inter-
pretation than the literal one chosen by the translators, can we conclude that
this phrase was translated satisfactorly? And therein lies the problem. To unders-
tand a poem is obviously not the same as understanding a technical text, say,
an instruction manual for a machine. To understand poetry amounts to fee-
ling an emotional affinity with the poet, or, more precisely, what we think to
be the poet’s feelings, or the emotive reaction which the poet wants to achie-
ve. For this to succeed it is not necessary that we can interpret every image,
every metaphor or allusion in the sense intended by the poet. All we need is
to approximate the impression he intended to create. This type of compre-
hension is often deepened by repeated readings of the poem, something we
rarely do with a prose text.
In the case of surrealist poetry, or poetry with surrealist images as in Poeta
en Nueva York the ilogical contrast of different nouns (abstract or concrete) or
of unequal realities, creates impressions which we must accept intuitively and
immediately as separate images. The several parts of a surrealist image cannot
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be integrated or merged in a single one; our imagination must perceive them

simultaneously in all their diversity and hold them in balance in the way one
looks at an irrational painting which cannot be reduced to a familiar reality.
Let us try to visualize any image of «El rey de Harlem» which may even exce-
ed the pictorial skills of a Salvador Dalí; painters do not command the supe-
rior power of the word but are restricted to presenting their visions in colour
on a two dimensional canvas.
Un viento sur de madera, oblicuo en el negro fango,
escupe a las barcas rotas y se clava puntillas en los hombros;
un viento sur que lleva
colmillos, girasoles, alfabetos
y una pila de Volta con avispas ahogadas.
(A south wind of wood, slanting in the black mud, spits at the broken boats and
pierces its shoulders with deggers/nails/tracks; a south wind which carries tusks,
sunflowers, alphabets and an electric (Volta) battery with drowned wasps.)

In her study of this book of poems, Betty Jean Craig (1977:46) states that
the immediate impact of this technique is of a two-dimensional world, wit-
hout natural relationships among the objects of the images which gives us the
impression of a world out of time and out of place. For a reader the images of
Poeta en Nueva York are more like a number of superimposed paintings which
have a global impact of a world almost totally separate from nature. As rea-
ders we may be able to accept the advice on translator gives us:
If the reader has difficulty with certain passages, it is best not to worr about the
exact meaning and to concentrate on the images and their emotional power.
(Williams, 1955: 18)

In their first reading, translators may have the same reaction as the reader but
they must go deeper, they have to unravel the images and identify the elements
which contribute to the poetic effect. They have to identify words, phrases
and syntactic structures and replace them by others. Finally, in order to per-
mit the reader the same enjoyment of gradual discovery of the whole meaning,
they have to try to maintain the same complexity of images and the same her-
meticism which the poet has given his text.
But how do translators proceed, how do they choose among the available
words and structures? In a few isolated cases translators can fall back on com-
ments by the poet which allow them to interpret the meaning, as for example
in the following enigmatic line:

los mulatos estiraban gomas, ansiosos de llegar al torso blanco,

the mulattoes stretched rubbed, thinking anxiously of turning their torsos white,
the mulattoes pulled rubber, impatient to gain a white torso,
mulattos chewed gum, trying to get a white torso,
the mulattoes were stretching gum, anxious to reach the white torso
(El rey de Harlem)
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88 Quaderns. Revista de traducció 3, 1999 Juan C. Sager

In order to approach the meaning of this line we can cite the introduction
Lorca gave to his own reading of the poems in Madrid in 1932.

protesté contra lo mas triste de todo, que los negros no quieren ser negros, que inven-
tan pomadas para alisar sus rizos exquisitos y polvos que hacen sus caras grises…
(I protested against the saddest thing of all, that the negroes do not wan to be
black, that they invent creams for straightening out their delightful curls and pow-
ders that turn their faces grey…)

Sometimes critics try explain the techniques used by translators and we can
confirm what they find from a few examples: Speaking of Rolfe Hymphries,
Angel del Río says:

[…] the two main liberties he has taken are the occasional transposition of terms
in the metaphor when it was required either by the rhythm of the line or the cha-
racter of the language, and the free interpretation of images or concepts which are
far from clear in the original.
(Angel del Río, 1955b, p. XXXIX)

This liberty may be seen in the following examples:

y deambulan intactas las lluvias bailarinas

and the rains dance away undiminished
and the untouched rains dance and stroll
and the dancing rain walks off intact
(Norma y paraíso de los negros)

Un viento sur de madera, oblicuo en el negro fango,

A wooden wind from the south, slanting through the black mire,
A wooden wouth wind, atilt on black slime
A south wind of wood, slanting through the black mud,
An oblique south Wind of wood in the black mud
A wind of wood from the south, oblique in the black mud,
A wooden south wind slants across the black mud

escupe a las barcas rotas y se clava puntillas en los hombros.

spits on the broken boats and drives tacks into its shoulders.
spits upon boatwrecks and tacks down its shoulders;
spits at broken boats, drives nails into shoulders;
spits at the broken boats and pierces nails in its shoulders;
spits upon the broken boats and puts nails in its shoulders;
Spits on the broken boats and is tacked in the shoulders
spits at the wrecked boats and pierces its shoulders with tacks;
(El rey de Harlem)

Reading these versions we must doubt whether it is, indeed, possible to

«understand» poetry in the sense normally associated with this verb. Obviously,
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we can observe several levels and modes of understanding and there is no doubt
that the translators have understood these lines in some way; but each one
seems to have understood it slightly differently. In these cases something other
that understanding is taking place.
Let us see some examples where translators differ significantly in their unders-
tanding and where they have produced quite different versions.

Las muchachas americanas llevaban niños y monedas en el vientre

y los muchachos se desmayaban en la cruz del desperezo.
and the boys stretched their limbs and fainted on the cross.
and the boys lay inert on the cross of a yawn and stretched musccle.
and boys fainted on the cross where they were stretched.
and the boys fainted stretched on the cross of lassitude.
and the boys were fainting on the stretched cross.
And the boys hung swooning outstretched on the rack of the waking yawn.
and youths fainted on the cross of the slow awakening
(El rey de Harlem)

These lines are obviously meant as criticism of the white residents of New
York. All translators seem to have understood the symbols associated with the
«American girls» in a similar way and rendered them more or less aptly, but
the majority was confused by «cruz» (cross), taking it for a concrete object
whereas it simply is the image of the boys extending their arms and leaning
back in a gesture of laziness.
We should be able to reconstruct to translators’ interpretations through the
words and the syntax they have chosen. This would appear to be a simple mat-
ter when it comes to a vocabulary of concrete nouns, but as we have just seen
in the examples of the cross, we cannot even be sure whether a word is used in
a literal or a figurative sense. Comparing the multiple versions of the four
poems of Poeta en Nueva York we are struck by the considerable variety of
words chosen by the translators. For simple worlds like «golpear» (knock),
«dar» (give) «grande» (large) «viejo» (old) we can find up to seven different
versions in seven translations. The present list (table 1) is a selection of a much
larger number of incidents of unusual polysemic uses. The centre column gives
the range of equivalents thay may reasonably be found in a bilingual dictio-
nary. The right column lists the extreme interpretations chosen by translators
which go far beyond the original meaning.
The range of alternatives chosen must have their origin in the interpreta-
tions the translators have given of the verse. Without wihing to evaluate indi-
vidual versions, we can note a few cammon tendencies in all of them.
Recent research, as, for example, that of Laviosa Braithwaite (1997), has
shown that translations exhibit a more explicit vocabulary than the original
when translators feel the need to provide greater detail or precision, and that
they use more general wordes than the original when translators cannot find and
expression at the same level of precision.
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Table 1
Verbs conventional (dictionary) translators’ extensions
equivalents of meaning
arrancar (ojo) dig out, gouge out, scooped out
asesinar assessinate, kill, murder, cut down
bajar drop, descend, go down roar down
clavarse drive tacks into, tack down, drive nails,
(de puntillas) pierce n., place the dagger
(bullfighting term)
cubrir cover, oberspread flood
crujir crack, crackle, rustle, resound
chapotear splash, dabble, paddle, wade
dar use the fists, batter with fistblow,
(puños) beat/bang with closed fists shove
devorar devour ravage, rend
dudar doubt discredit
empañar tarnish, blur, cluoud
empapar drench, absorb, soak up tarnish
estirar stretch rubber/gum, pull rubber chew gum
(goma)
estrellarse smash against, crash against burst, explode
gemir groan, moan sob, wail, grieve
girar revolve, circle, go round spin
golpear hit, slap, strike, swat, thump, spank,
buffet, beat, whack
levantarse rise loom up
limpiar clean, scour, cleanse
llegar a rach, find go down
llenar fill, cover flood
llorar weep, cry wail
machacar flatten, smash, squash, crush maul
mirar watch, look at, keep a watch, gaze stare
quebrar rupture, break/(up), brust shatter, dishevel
rodar wheel, toss, roll, tumble
rondar pace, roam, prowl
salir go out, come out, escape, deliver from,
rise
taladrar penetrate like drills, perforate, enter, pierce sting
tragar swallow, gulp devour
turbar rock, disturb
venir come flow
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Table 1
Nouns conventional (dictionary) translators’ extensions
equivalents of meaning
aire air wind
alegría gaiety courage
angustia anguish, anxiety pang pain
ascensor lift, elevator, dumb-waiter elevator shaft
azotea terrace, rooftop, roof shed
caracolas conch, conch shells shed
cieno mire, mud, filth, slime, slough, bog
conocimiento understanding, thoutht mastery
desperezo stretch lassitude
destrozarse crumble tear apart
enjambre swarm, shower rabble
(monedas)
esperanza hope promise
fango mire, slime, mud
gentío mob, crowd, tribe
hueco emptied space torsos
huella strack, footprint, trace, trail print, footstep
judía Jewess, Jewish woman, Franch bean
lámina sheet, plate metal-plate, metal sheet
ley law stricture
moneda silver money/coinage/coins money bags
(de plata)
naufragio shipwreck disaster
ortiga nettle thorn
piña pineapple, pine cone
prudencia prudence, caution moderation, wisdom
rastro bypath, furrow rake
recuerdo remembrance, recollection memory
retama broom, Scotch broom, bracken, furze bush
reto challenge menace
traje suit, unifirm, street-clothing, costume,
clothes
trasero ass, rump, bottom, behind
tristeza sadness, sorrow mourning
tropel rabble, throng rout
vestido covering, guise, suit, dress, vesture
viejo old man patriarch
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Table 1
Adjectives conventional (dictionary) translators’ extensions
equivalents of meaning
ahogado drowned, suffocated, smothered
ansioso impatient, anxious
apagado (perro) uncared-for, snuffed-out, lifeless, corpse,
burnt out
caliente warm, hot, peppery, burning
confundido in confusion, befuddled, bewildered abased
descuidado careless, negligent, unaware
dibujado traced, drawn, drafted, fine-drawn
durísimo hardest, very hard unbreakable
erizado (flor) bristling, stiff, spiked
estremecido shuddering with rage, shuddering, shaken
exacto particular, punctual
exprimido wrung, pressed out of, dried, squezed
grande great, big, large full
infinito infinite immemorial
immenso enorous, immense towering
intacto untouched, intact evil
oprimido oppressed, crushed thawarted
quieto motionless, mute, quiet, still
rubio blond, fair-haired, yellow-haired,
golden haired
sapientísimo wisest, all-knowing, most wise shrewdest
sin arte mindless, artless, without skill without genius
sin duda fearlessly, assuredly, no doubt, without fear
vacilante swaying, irresolute fleeting
vacío empty, hollow idle
yerto rigid, fixed, still, stiff

The translations analysed here confirm the trend towards greater specifica-
tion, a form of explicitation; there are, however, very few cases of generalisation,
namely «bush» for «retama» (broome) and «disaster» for «naufragio» (shipw-
reck).
Examples of specification:

para que el rey de Harlem cante ccon su muchedumbre,

for the king and his hosts must come singing from Harle,
For the King of Harlem to chant with his full choir
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a tu sangre estremecida dentro del eclipse oscuro,

or your blood shuddering with rage inside the dark eclipse,

Sangre que busca por mil caminos muertos enharinadas y ceniza de nardos
(nardo),
The blood that seeks, by a thousand roads, death powdered dust, ashes of nard

a que cicutas y cardos y ortigas turben postreras azoteas.

Till hemlock, thistle, and the nettle set and root confusion in the farthest roofs.
(El rey de Harlem)

Other cases of duplication intensify the image at the same time.

No busquéis negros su grieta
Negroes, seek not its cleft or crack

El sol que se desliza por los bosques

The Sun who slips through glade and forest
(El rey de Harlem)

We also observe a tendency to move from the abstract to the concrete, whe-
reby translators cconvey to the reader their personal interpretation and simul-
taneously remove the reader’s own freedom of interpretation, or at least limiting
it. Here are some examples:

Con la ciencia del tronco y del rastro llenan de nervios luminosos la arcilla
Theirs, with the lore of the trunk and the bypath, to flood all the radiant nerve
ends of clay
(Norma y paraíso de los negros)

Cuando sale la luna, el mar cubre la tierra

When the moon comes out the sea floods earth’s surface
(Cuando sale la luna5)

Lorca uses two polysemic words «cubrir» (cover) and «llenar» (fill). We must
assume that he did this on purpose because he could have chosen the Spanish
word for «flood» (inundar), which is what the translators did. Other examples
of intensification and concretisation of the image occur when we read «sky»
por «azul» (blue) y «patriarch» por «viejo» (old man). This concretisation unduly
interferes with the readers’ own interpretation.

yo no temería el sigilo de los caimanes,

I would never have feared for the crocodile’s secret
I wouldn’t fear the crocodiles lying in ambush
(Iglesia abandonada)

5. The line of this poem is taken from Lorca’s Canciones (1924).

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Hay que huir!

there must be some way out of here,
Escape, since you must:
huir por las esquinas y encerrarse en los últimos pisos,
some street to flee down, some locked room on the top floor to hide in,
(El rey de Harlem)

At times one has the impression that the translators want to intensify the
image in order to improve Lorca’s work or to expose the English reader to a
more intense and concrete experience. As an example of this tendency we can
cite the first few lines of «Rey de Harlem», in which polysemic and neutral
words are replaced by words expressing violence and forcefulness.

Con una cuchara de palo le arrancaba los ojos a los cocodrilos

With a wooden spoon he dug out the crododiles’ eyes,
With a spoon he was digging out the eyes of the crocodiles
With a spoon he gouged out the crocodile’s eyes
With a wonden spoon he gouged out the eyes of the crocodiles
With a spoon he scooped out the eyes of crocodiles
With a spoon he scooped out the eyes of crocodiles
with a spoon he scooped out the eyes of the crocodiles

y golpeaba el trasero de los monos.

and beat the monkeys on the behind.
and hitting the rumps of the monkeys.
and swatted the monkeys on their asses.
and thumped on the monkey-rumps.
and slapped monkey’ bottoms.
and spanked the monkeys on their bottoms.
and whacked monkeys on their bottoms.

los tanques de agua podrida.

the vats of putrid water arrived.
the tanks of putrid water arrived.
the tanks of the pestilent water arrived.
the tanks of stinking water arrived.
the tanks of polluted water were arriving.
the tanks of foul water were coming.

a tu gran rey prisionero, con un traje de conserje.

ou your king a prisoner in the uniform of a doorman.
your hobbled, great king in the janitor’s suit.

y traigan pedacitos de corazón por las heladas montañas del oso.

and swallow pieces of heart by the bear’s frozen mountains.
and devour little slivers of heart on the frozen ascents of the bear.
(El rey de Harlem)
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We also encounter examples of variant readings of the syntactic structures

when the translators interpret the ubiquitous prepositions «de» and «en» in
very different ways.

[…] los camellos sonámbulos de las nubes vacías

[…] the sleepwalking camels in the hollowing cloud.
[…] camels of empty clouds moving in their sleep.
[…] sleepwalking camels of idle clouds.
(Norma y paraíso de los negros)

y estrellarse en una aurora de tabaco y bajo amarillo.

and burst into an autora of tobacco and low yellow.
and explode in a low-yellow dawn of tobacco.
to smash against a yellos and tobacco-coloured dawn.
and to crash against a dawn of tobacco and subdued yellow.
and burst in a low yellow dawn of tobacco.
To burst in a dawn, low yellow, tobacco brown.
and to crash against a tobacco and dull yellow daybreak.

Es por el silencio sapientísimo cuando los cocineros y los camareros

Through the all-knowing silence, cooks, waiters
In the shrewdest of silences go the cooks and the valets
It is in the wisest silence that waiters and cooks
Through the most wise silence when the waiters and cooks
It is in the wisest silence when the waiters and the cooks
Through the heart of the wisest silence cooks and headwaiters
(El rey de Harlem)

«Por» is privileged in permitting many interpretations even in this type of text:

por las heladas montañas del oso.

by the bear’s frozen mountains
on the frozen ascents of the bear.
upon the icy mountains of the bear.
through the frozen mountains of the bear
(El rey de Harlem)

Having shown a number of examples of how translators interpret Lorca’s

text, we can attemp to summarize what we have learnt about poetic transla-
tion.
A poem represents the poet’s imaginary world by means of conventional
linguistic signs. Even in surrealist poetry, the poet must use conventional signs
in order to permit th ereader access to his world. But the available conventio-
nal signs are less numerous than the shades of meaning the poet wishes to
express and for this reason he creates new collocations and stretches and extends
the meaning of the words he uses. In addition he employs words with multi-
ple meanings, i.e. polysemic words and expressions that lend themselves to
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ambiguous interpretations. In return for this freedom, the poet accepts that
his readers will interpret the signs differently and so obtain different views
of his imaginary world.
Reading a poem requires an effort to approach the poet’s imaginary world
through the polysemy of the conventional signs he has used. In his effort to
understand the reader is conscious of the ambiguity of the meanings encom-
passed by the polysemy of the signs; he accepts that the conventional signs are
bridges between his world and the poet’s. By crossing this bridge the reader
gives one of several interpretations to the signs the poet has used. Consequently,
the reader is also prepared to accept various interpretations simultaneously or
step by step as the result of various separate readings or, indeed, as they appe-
ar in alternative translations. Simultaneous interpretations of multiple rea-
dings are also the basis of wordplay and puns.
A translation, in contrast to a reading of the original, attempts to re-create
the poet’s imaginary world for a different linguistic ommunity. Since, in the
first instance, translators are readers of the poem in its original form, they
approach this world through the range of meanings they can associate with
any one word. In their versions, they ought, in theory, to preserve the rich-
ness and diversity of the poet’s associations. In practice, there is no guaran-
tee(a) that they understand all the associations, and (b) that they are able to
reproduce them in the target culture which may have other values or give dif-
ferent priorities of associations to some symbols. For example, Lorca’s religious
and very catholic references can be translated into another language and culture
of Christian belief, but many references cannot have the same impact on a rea-
ding public that is not intimately familiar with the ritual of thw Mass. In
«Iglesia abandonada» there are numerous references of this sort, which must
be incomprehensible for a sensibility unfamiliar with the catholic rite.

Lo vi jugar en las últimas escaleras de la misa

I saw him at play on the uppermost stair of the Mass,
I saw him playing on the last raised steps of the Mass
I saw him playing on the last stairs of the mass
I saw him playing on the last steps of the mass.

y echaba un cubito de hojalata en el corazón del sacerdote.

launching a little tin scoop at the heart of the priest.
and he lowered a tin bucket into the priest’s deep heart.
and he was tossing a little tin pail on the heart of the priest
Thrusting a little tin bucket in the heart of the priest.

Yo tenía un pez muerto bajo la ceniza de los incensarios.

I’d a dead fish in the ash of the censers.
Once I had a dead fish beneath the ashes of the censers.
I had a fish dead under the ashes of the censers.
I had a dead fish under the ashes of the thurible
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En las anemonas del ofertorio te encontraré

Dear heart — let me find you in Eucharist’s gift of anemones
I’ll find you, my dear son, in anemones of the offertory
In the anemones of the offertory I sall find you my heart!
In the anemones of the offertory I shall find my heart

cuando el sacerdote levante la mula y el buey con sus fuertes brazos

when the priest with the might of his arms lifts the ox and the ass
when the priest lifts the mule and the ox with his powerful arms,
when the priest lifts the mule and the ox with his strong arms
When the priest lifts mule and ox with his powerful arms.

para espantar los sapos nocturnos que rondan los helados paisajes de cáliz.
to frighten te night-toad that paces the chalice’s snowscapes.
to frighten nocturnal toads that roam the chalice’s frozen landscape.
to scare away the nocturnal toads that prowl about the icy landscapes of the
chalice.
To scare the toads of night that haunt the frozen landscape of the chalice.

pero en el centro de la misa yo romperé el timón

but I’ll smash, on the core of the Mass, the rudder-post;
but in the middle of Mass I’ll break the rudder
but in the center of the mass I will break the rudder
But in the heart of the mass I will break the rudder

These examples show that in the Western tradition which shares many
cultural values and many common symbols, the translation of surrealist poetry
does not seem to be more complex than other forms of poetry. Despite their
differences of detail, the versions, as demonstrated in the examples quoted,
repeat virtually all Lorca’s metaphors and symbols. Perhaps this is the only way
of tackling the translation of a text which cannot be understood the way we
understand other texts.
If the translation of poetry as a hybrid form of literature serves the purpo-
se of permitting the readers of one culture to become familiar with the poetry
of another culture, we may ask whether reading multiple versions of translations
assists with this familiarisation. In the case of Poet in New York, this assistan-
ce appears to be limited, though this cannot be taken as a criticism of the trans-
lations; we would no longer hear the poet’s voice if every metaphor and every
symbol were to be paraphrased and thereby explained by the translator. We
can, however, say that the complementary reading of multiple versions can
help a detailed understanding because:

— it helps to identify grave errors, as in the case of «judías (Jewesses-beans),

or «rastro/rastra» (bypath, rake) or «cieno/cielo» (mud-heaven);
— it can also give possible interpretations of images and in this way assist
comprehension, form example:
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98 Quaderns. Revista de traducció 3, 1999 Juan C. Sager

[…] no habrá paraíso ni amores deshojados

[…] there will be no paradise or loves that bloom and die
[…] there will be no paradise nor amours stripped of leaves
[…] there will be no heaven or natural love
[…] there will be neither Eden, nor passion unleafing
[…] no paradise ever, no loves bereft of leaves
[…] there will be no pradise nor natural love
(La aurora)

— In other cases, it may simply make us pause in the interpretation of a line

and call our attention to possible alternative readings, as in the case of

Odian…
la aguja que mantiene presión y la rosa en el gramíneo rubor de la sonrisa.
the needles of pressures and roses in the grass-grown flush of a smile.
the needle that pressures redness into their smiles as green as the grass.
the needle keeping pressure and rose in the carmine flush of the smile.
(Norma y paraíso de los negros)

To conclude, let us remind ourselves of the global effect of these poems as

perceived by the very first translator of Poeta en Nueva York, Rolfe Humphries
(García Lorca 1940:16):

(These poems) cannot, and should not, be expected to sound too much like English
poems…; but their strangeness should suggest Lorca’s subtle and extravagant ima-
ginarion rather than merely the bald and conventional awkwardness of alient rhe-
toric and allusion.

References
GARCÍA LORCA, Federico (1940). The Poet in New York and other Poems (translated by
Rolfe Humphries). New York: Norton.
— (1955a). The selected Poems (edited by Francisco García Lorca & Donald M. Allen;
various translators). New York: New Directions.
— (1955b). Poet in New York (introduction by Angel del Río, translated by Ben Belitt).
New York: Grove Press.
— (1960). Lorca (introduced and edited by J.L. Gili, with plain prose translations of
each poem). Harmondsworth: Penguin.
— The Penguin Book of Spanish Verse (1972) (edited and translated by J.M. Cohen).
London: Penguin.
— (1989). Poet in New York (translated by Greg Simon & Steven F. White). London:
Viking.
— (1992). Selected Poems (translated by Merryn Williams). Newcastle/Tyne: Bloodaxe
Books.
— (1997). Selected Poems (edited by Christopher Maurer; various translators). London:
Penguin Books.
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Translations of Poeta en Nueva York Quaderns. Revista de traducció 3, 1999 99

Other references
CRAIGE, Betty Jean (1977). Lorca’s Poet in New York: The fall into consciousness.
Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.
DEL RÍO, Ángel (1955b). See: García Lorca (1955).
HUMPHRIES, Rolfe (1940). See: García Lorca (1940).
SAGER, J.C. (1966). «A Brazilian poet’s approach to the translation of German poetry».
Babel, vol. XII, n. 4, p. 198-204, 208.
— (1988). «What distinguishes major types of translation». The translator (forthco-
ming).
WILLIAMS, Merryn (1992). See: García Lorca (1992).