For my final Spanglish translation of Romeo and Juliet, I decided that it would be essential to look at a well-established Spanish translation first since I plan on having some characters – such as Lady Capulet and other high-ranking, older generation characters – speak in a formal Spanish. According to several literary critics, Pablo Neruda’s 1964 translation of the Shakespeare tragedy is one of the best Spanish translations that has been written. (Unfortunately, I could not find the precise number of Spanish translations that exist.) Literary critics Craig Dionne and Parmita Kapadia write in Native Shakespeares: Indigenous Appropriations on a Global Stage that “Before Pablo Neruda, all the Spanish translations of Romeo and Juliet were pale shadows of the English original; since Neruda, Romeo and Juliet has also become a part of Spanish language literature” (Dionne et al. 202). In my analysis of the first few sections of Neruda’s translation, focusing on Act I, sc. 3 and Act 1 sc. 5, I am convinced that the translation lives up to its reputation and deserves all the praise that it has received.
From the first glance of Act I, sc. 3, I could tell simply from the character names that Neruda’s translation was more focused on being faithful to the meaning of the text than to the literal translation: “nurse” is not translated as “enfermera” by Neruda, but rather as “ama.” This is a much better translation because the role that the nurse has in the play is one more similar that of a housewife, or “ama,” than that of a present-day nurse (she is in charge of house duties more than of the medical health of the Capulets). However, Neruda also shows that paradoxically – like most other Spanish translators – he is undaunted by domesticating English names into their Spanish equivalent, and in so doing he appropriates Shakespeare’s tragedy into a part of Spanish literature. For example, we see in Act I, sc. 5 that “Tybalt” has been translated into “Tybaldo.” While literary purists may argue that translating names adulterates the original, I would argue that this is not the case here because, firstly, “Tybaldo” so closely resembles “Tybalt” that it avoids any loss in meaning that can be tied back to phonetics (unlike the translation of Shakespeare’s first name to “Guillermo” by some translators), and secondly, the translation of English names into similar Spanish equivalents allows Shakespeare’s play to speak to a Spanish audience and to become a classic in another culture.
More importantly, however, Neruda does an excellent job translating the text itself in a way that is understandable to modern-day Spanish readers without adulterating the language or tone of the original. This is best seen by comparing Neruda’s translation to two extremes of the tragedy: the esoteric original and Sparknotes’ “No Fear Shakespeare” translation, the epitome of a watered-down, modern rendition of the play. The following lines spoken by the nurse in Act I, sc. 3 of the original play read: “Now, by my maidenhead at twelve year old / I bade her come. What, lamb! What, ladybird! / God forbid! Where’s this girl? What, Juliet?” Sparknotes translates this passage in a much more comprehensible way, but omits too many details from the original: “I swear to you by my virginity at age twelve, I already told her to come. Come on! Where is she? What is she doing? What, Juliet!” By taking out particular sayings of the nurse, such as the name-calling of “lamb” and “ladybird,” the nurse is stripped of her unique character qualities. A better approach would have been to preserve the sayings of the nurse in a way that speaks to the intended audience better than the original. Neruda craftly does this when he writes “¡Por mi virginidad de los doce años le juro que le dije que viniera!¡Chinita! ¡Mi cordera! ¡Dios la guarde! ¿Dónde está esta muchacha? ¡Ven, Julieta!” Neruda slightly alters “What, lamb!” to the Spanish equivalent of “my lamb,” which is more understandable to modern readers, and translates “God forbid” as “Dios la guarde,” a common Spanish expression that retains the feeling of the original while also speaking to another culture. The best translation, however, is “ladybird” as “chinita,” which quite literally refers to a ladybug, but is used in Spanish as a term of endearment for “sweety.” Omitting the expression would have depersonalized the nurse, but literally translating “ladybird” would have lost modern audiences.
Thus, in Neruda’s translation we see that the Chilean poet masterfully took the genius of Shakespeare and re-wrote the play, to a certain extent, in a way that modernized the text and spoke to a different audience while simultaneously preserving the feeling of the original. In so doing, Neruda appropriated one of English literature’s classic dramas and made it into a staple of Spanish literature as well. His translation is worthy of its admiration and will be extremely useful for my final Spanglish translation of the play.
Citations
Dionne, Craig and Parmita Kapadia. Native Shakespeares: Indigenous Appropriations on a Global Stage. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing, 2008. 202. Print.
Pablo Neruda’s translation accessed from: http://ww2.educarchile.cl/UserFiles/P0001/File/articles-66637_Archivo.pdf
Original text and Sparknote’s translation accessed from: http://nfs.sparknotes.com/romeojuliet/