Brief translations from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavreda: that's the new challenge by my Project @MarcoPolo LINK
in collaboration with
Adotta_il_Tradotto LINK
- website owned by Clelia Francalanza.
Everybody is invited to translate in their own favourite language: be it an official language or a regional/local mother tongue.
Project @MarcoPolo has already collected brief translations in 57
European, Asian and American
official languages and 84 regional / local languages and dialects
spoken in Italy.
Most of our translations are both in written texts and audio readings, in order to listen to the sounds.
All traslations and audios are published online:
We translate short passages and quotes from well known literary works: in the past we translated from Dante Alighieri, Divine Commedy; Italo Calvino, Invisible cities; Carlo Collodi, The adventures of Pinocchio; William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet and Sonnets.
We are now translating from the most famous Spanish book: Don Quixote.
The character of Don Quixote became so well known in its time that the word quixotic was quickly adopted by many languages and is used nowadays.
I chose that book mainly because of its irony. Besides, among the main character's dominant sensations are his feeling-out-of-place, his finding it difficult to distinguish between what's real and what's fantastic, his wish to undo wrongs: they seem to me very common sensations to many people nowadays, given the great speed of changes in the world.
We ask to translate at least the
opening quote (incipit) of the book:
In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a lance in the lance-rack, an old buckler, a lean hack, and a greyhound for coursing. *
Volume 1, Chapter I
If you like to make everybody listen more of the sounds of your favourite language, our challenge to translate offers two more options:
OPTION 1: you can translate as many quotes as you like from the selection I am writing in this post, or the longer passage Don Quixote tilting at windmills
OPTION 2: different quotes and pieces of one's choice from Don Quixote are welcome: please just send also the quote / piece in Spanish or in English (with the name of the translator in English) and its location in the book (volume, chapter).
Audio recordings are very easy to make with smartphones.
They must be one for each quote or passage.
Please send via either:
- Messenger to: Maristella Tagliaferro (must be "friends" in Facebook)
For those who do not want to make their own translation: please send us a quote or passage - at least the opening quote - from a published translation of Don Quixote. Selecting from a published book is very enjoyable too: there are many translations in English and in many other languages, you can find several online if the book is not on your shelf.
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| Salvador Dalì, Don Quijote |
* The incipit, the following selection of quotes and the longer passage are from free books online
- original text in Spanish:
Miguel de Cervantes Saavreda, El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha in Project Gutemberg LINK
- translation in English
Miguel de Cervantes Saavreda, Don Quixote - translation by John Ormsby (1885) LINK
LIST OF SELECTED QUOTES:
VOLUME 1
1. En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no ha mucho tiempo que vivía un hidalgo de los de lanza en astillero, adarga antigua, rocín flaco y galgo corredor.
1. In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a lance in the lance-rack, an old buckler, a lean hack, and a greyhound for coursing.
Chapter I
2. ... y así, del poco dormir y del mucho leer, se le secó el celebro, de manera que vino a perder el juicio.
2. ... and what with little sleep and much reading his brains got so dry that he lost his wits.
Ch. I
3. ... cuanto más, que cada uno es hijo de sus obras.
3. ... everyone is the son of his works.
Ch. IV
4. ... sabed que yo soy el valeroso don Quijote de la Mancha, el desfacedor de agravios y sinrazones
4. ... know that I am the valorous Don Quixote of La Mancha, the undoer of wrongs and injustices
Ch. IV
5. Y aún se tenía por dichoso, pareciéndole que aquélla era propia desgracia de caballeros andantes, y toda la atribuía a la falta de su caballo
5. And yet he esteemed himself fortunate, as it seemed to him that this was a regular knight-errant's mishap, and entirely, he considered, the fault of his horse.
Ch. IV
6. — Mire vuestra merced —respondió Sancho— que aquellos que allí se parecen no son gigantes, sino molinos de viento, y lo que en ellos parecen brazos son las aspas, que, volteadas del viento, hacen andar la piedra del molino.
6. "Look, your worship," said Sancho; "what we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the sails that turned by the wind make the millstone go."
Ch. VIII
7. Y, según yo he oído decir, el verdadero amor no se divide, y ha de ser voluntario, y no forzoso. Siendo esto así, como yo creo que lo es, ¿por qué queréis que rinda mi voluntad por fuerza, obligada no más de que decís que me queréis bien?
7. ... and true love, I have heard it said, is indivisible, and must be voluntary and not compelled. If this is so, as I believe it to be, why do you desire me to bend my will by force, for no other reason but that you say you love me?
Marcela, ch. XIV
8. Yo nací libre, y para poder vivir libre escogí la soledad de los campos
8. I was born free, and that I might live in freedom I chose the solitude of the fields
Marcela, ch. XIV
9. — Sancho amigo, has de saber que yo nací, por querer del cielo, en esta nuestra edad de hierro, para resucitar en ella la de oro ...
9. "Friend Sancho, know that I by Heaven's will have been born in this our iron age to revive revive in it the age of gold ...
Ch. XX
VOLUME 2
10. [La poesia] Ella es hecha de una alquimia de tal virtud, que quien la sabe tratar la volverá en oro purísimo de inestimable precio.
10. [Poetry] She is the product of an Alchemy of such virtue that he who is able to practice it, will turn her into pure gold of inestimable worth.
Ch. XVI
11. En resolución, todos los poetas antiguos escribieron en la lengua que mamaron en la leche, y no fueron a buscar las estranjeras para declarar la alteza de sus conceptos. Y, siendo esto así, razón sería se estendiese esta costumbre por todas las naciones, y que no se desestimase el poeta alemán porque escribe en su lengua, ni el castellano, ni aun el vizcaíno, que escribe en la suya.
11 . ... in short, all the ancient poets wrote in the language they imbibed with their mother's milk, and never went in quest of foreign ones to express their sublime conceptions; and that being so, the usage should in justice extend to all nations, and the German poet should not be undervalued because he writes in his on language, nor the Castilian, nor even the Biscayan for writing in his.
Ch. XVI
12. ... la pluma es lengua del alma
12. ... the pen is the tongue of the mind
Ch. XVI
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| Roc Riera Rojas, 1968 |
CAPÌTULO VIII. Del buen suceso que el valeroso don Quijote tuvo en la espantable y jamás imaginada aventura de los molinos de viento, con otros sucesos dignos de felice recordación
En esto, descubrieron treinta o cuarenta molinos de viento que hay en aquel campo; y, así como don Quijote los vio, dijo a su escudero:
— La ventura va guiando nuestras cosas mejor de lo que acertáramos a desear, porque ves allí, amigo Sancho Panza, donde se descubren treinta, o pocos más, desaforados gigantes, con quien pienso hacer batalla y quitarles a todos las vidas, con cuyos despojos comenzaremos a enriquecer; que ésta es buena guerra, y es gran servicio de Dios quitar tan mala simiente de sobre la faz de la tierra.
— ¿Qué gigantes? —dijo Sancho Panza.
— Aquellos que allí ves —respondió su amo— de los brazos largos, que los suelen tener algunos de casi dos leguas.
— Mire vuestra merced —respondió Sancho— que aquellos que allí se parecen no son gigantes, sino molinos de viento, y lo que en ellos parecen brazos son las aspas, que, volteadas del viento, hacen andar la piedra del molino.
— Bien parece —respondió don Quijote— que no estás cursado en esto de las aventuras: ellos son gigantes; y si tienes miedo, quítate de ahí, y ponte en oración en el espacio que yo voy a entrar con ellos en fiera y desigual batalla.
Y, diciendo esto, dio de espuelas a su caballo Rocinante, sin atender a las voces que su escudero Sancho le daba, advirtiéndole que, sin duda alguna, eran molinos de viento, y no gigantes, aquellos que iba a acometer. Pero él iba tan puesto en que eran gigantes, que ni oía las voces de su escudero Sancho ni echaba de ver, aunque estaba ya bien cerca, lo que eran; antes, iba diciendo en voces altas:
— Non fuyades, cobardes y viles criaturas, que un solo caballero es el que os acomete.
Chapter VIII: Of the good fortune which the valiant Don Quixote had in the terrible and undreamt-of adventure of the windmills, with other occurrences worthy to be fitly recorded
At this point they came in sight of thirty forty windmills that there are on plain, and as soon as Don Quixote saw them he said to his squire, "Fortune is arranging matters for us better than we could have shaped our desires ourselves, for look there, friend Sancho Panza, where thirty or more monstrous giants present themselves, all of whom I mean to engage in battle and slay, and with whose spoils we shall begin to make our fortunes; for this is righteous warfare, and it is God's good service to sweep so evil a breed from off the face of the earth."
"What giants?" said Sancho Panza.
"Those thou seest there," answered his master, "with the long arms, and some have them nearly two leagues long."
"Look, your worship," said Sancho; "what we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the sails that turned by the wind make the millstone go."
"It is easy to see," replied Don Quixote, "that thou art not used to this business of adventures; those are giants; and if thou art afraid, away with thee out of this and betake thyself to prayer while I engage them in fierce and unequal combat."
So saying, he gave the spur to his steed Rocinante, heedless of the cries his squire Sancho sent after him, warning him that most certainly they were windmills and not giants he was going to attack. He, however, was so positive they were giants that he neither heard the cries of Sancho, nor perceived, near as he was, what they were, but made at them shouting, "Fly not, cowards and vile beings, for a single knight attacks you."
ABOUT Don Quixote
Don Quixote de la Mancha is a novel by the Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and is considered one of the best novels in history. The first part was published in 1605 and the second in 1615. It is one of the earliest written novels in a modern European language and is arguably the most influential and emblematic work in the canon of Spanish literature. As a founding work of modern
Western literature, it regularly appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published read more
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