42 THINKING ITALIAN TRANSLATION

Anch'io': there is little option but to translate as ª`I'm hungry.º ªSo am Iº, although, in a colloquial context, `Anch'io' could be translated as `Me too'. In most contexts, the unidiomatic exoticism of 'ºI have hunger.º ªAlso I'º would constitute grievous translation loss. So preserving TL idiomaticity does in a way compensate for the loss of the ST grammatical structures. But this compensation is even more automatic than that involved in communicative translation. In so far as the canonic literal translation is unavoidable, little choice is involved, and there is no point in discussing such cases as examples of compensation.

In both these sorts of mandatory translation, then, the only element of choice is in the decision not to depart from the standard rendering. Similar remarks apply to differences in `economy' between ST and TT, as we saw in the `ricerca' example. Occasionally, however, there may be a case for departing from the norm to some extent. This more often happens with communicative translation than with canonic literal translation. For a good example, see the discussion of `quando i buoi sono scappati' in Chapter 9 (pp. 96±7).

Compensation, then, is a matter of conscious choice, and is unlikely to be successful if inspiration is not allied with analytical rigour. So, before deciding on how to compensate for a translation loss, it is best to assess as precisely as possible what the loss is and why it matters both in its immediate context and in the ST as a whole. This reduces the likelihood of inadvertently introducing, somewhere in the TT, more serious translation losses than the one that is being compensated for.

PRACTICAL 4

4.1 Compensation

Assignment

Comparing the ST and TT printed on pp. 44 and 45±6,

(i)Take any three suitable examples and explain why you think they are more a matter of balanced (SL/TL) translation (cf. p. 16) than of compensation.

(ii)Analyse the principal cases where the translator seems to have used compensation to alleviate translation loss. Say why you think the compensation is successful or unsuccessful; if you think it could be improved, give your own translation, and explain why you think it is better.

(iii)Analyse any cases where you think that significant translation loss is incurred without the translator apparently having tried to alleviate it with compensation. Give your own translation of these cases, and explain why you think it is better.

COMPENSATION 43

Contextual information

The ST is taken from early in Italo Calvino's novel, // sentiero dei nidi di ragno (set in wartime Italy, and first published in 1947). Pin, a young apprentice, lives in the rough part of a small town on the Ligurian coast. He associates with the drinkers in a local bar, who like getting him to sing lurid or earthy adult songs. He acts tough by smoking and drinking, but still has not learned to enjoy either. His sister is a prostitute; his `bedroom' is a cubby hole next to her room, and he often watches what she is up to through a crack in the partition. When this episode occurs, Pin is exchanging banter with the men sitting drinking at tables in the bar. He promises good news to anyone who'll buy him a drink, and someone asks: `Has your sister cut her prices?' The translation was first published in 1956.

ST

Gli altri ridono a gola spiegata e lo scappellottano e gli versano un bicchiere. Il vino non piace a Pin: è aspro contro la gola e arriccia la pelle e mette addosso una smania di ridere, gridare ed essere cattivi. Pure lo beve, tracanna bicchieri tutto d'un fiato come inghiotte fumo, come alla notte spia con schifo la sorella 5 sul letto insieme a uomini nudi, e il vederla è come una carezza ruvida, sotto la pelle, un gusto aspro, come tutte le cose degli uomini; fumo, vino, donne.

ÐCanta, Pin,Ðgli dicono. Pin canta bene, serio, impettito, con quella voce di bambino rauco. Canta Le quattro stagioni.

10 Ma quando penso all' avvenir della mia libertà perduta

vorrei baciarla e poi morir mentre lei dorme¼ll'insaputa¼

Gli uomini ascoltano in silenzio, a occhi bassi come fosse un inno di chiesa. 15 Tutti sono stati in prigione: chi non è stato mai in prigione non è un uomo. E la vecchia canzone dei galeotti è piena di quello sconforto che viene nelle ossa alla sera, in prigione, quando i secondini passano a battere le grate con una spranga di ferro, e a poco a poco tutti i litigi, le imprecazioni si quetano, e rimane solo una voce che canta quella canzone, come ora Pin, e nessuno gli grida di 20 smettere.

Amo la notte ascoltar il grido della sentinella. Amo la luna al suo passar

quando illumina la mia cella.

44 THINKING ITALIAN TRANSLATION

25 Pin proprio in prigione non è mai stato: quella volta che volevano portarlo ai discoli, è scappato. Ogni tanto lo acchiappano le guardie municipali, per qualche scorribanda per le tettoie del mercato della verdura, ma lui fa impazzire tutto il corpo di guardia dagli strilli e dai pianti finché non lo liberano. Ma nella guardina dei vigili un po' c'è stato rinchiuso, e sa cosa vuol dire, e perciò canta 30 bene, con sentimento.

Pin sa tutte quelle vecchie canzoni che gli uomini dell'osteria gli hanno insegnato, canzoni che raccontano fatti di sangue; quella che fa: Torna Caserio¼ e quella di Peppino che uccide il tenente. Poi, a un tratto, quando tutti sono tristi e guardano nel viola dei bicchieri e scatarrano, Pin fa una piroetta in mezzo al 35 fumo dell'osteria, e intona a squarciagola:

ÐE le toccai i capelliÐe lei disse non son quelliÐvai più giù che son più belli,Ðamor se mi vuoi beneÐpiù giù devi toccar.

Allora gli uomini dànno pugni sullo zinco e la serva mette in salvo i bicchieri, e gridano `hiuú' e battono il tempo con le mani. E le donne che sono nell'osteria, 40 vecchie ubriacone, con la faccia rossa, come la Bersagliera, ballonzolano accennando un passo di danza.

(Calvino 1993:6±7)

TT

The others roar with laughter and clap him on the back and pour him out a glass. Pin does not like wine; it feels harsh against his throat and wrinkles his skin up and makes him long to laugh and shout and stir up trouble. Yet he drinks it, swallowing down each glassful in one gulp, as he swallows cigarette smoke, 5 or as at night he watches with shivers of disgust his sister lying with some man on her bed, a sight like the feel of a rough hand moving over his skin, harsh like all sensations men enjoy; smoke, wine, women.

`Sing, Pin,' they say. And Pin begins singing, seriously, tensely, in that hoarse childish voice of his. He sings a song called `The four seasons':

10 When I think of the future And the liberty I've lost

I'd like to kiss her and then die While she sleeps ¼ and never knows.

The men sit listening in silence, with their eyes lowered, as if to a hymn. All of 15 them have been to prison; no one is a real man to them unless he has. And the old jail-birds' song is full of melancholy which seeps into the bones in prison, at night, when the warders pass hitting the grills with a crowbar, and gradually the quarrels and curses die down, and all that can still be heard is a voice singing this song which Pin is singing now, and which no one shouts for 20 him to stop.

COMPENSATION 45

At night I love to hear

The sentry's call,

I love to watch the passing moon

Light up my cell

25 Pin has never been in a real prison yet; once when they tried to take him off to a reformatory he escaped. Every now and again he is picked up by the municipal guards for some escapade among the stalls in the fruit-market, but he always sends the guards nearly crazy with his screams and sobs, until finally they let him go. He has been shut up in their guardroom once or twice, though, and 30 knows what prison feels like; that's why he is singing this song so well, with real emotion.

Pin knows a lot of old songs which have been taught him by the men of the tavern, songs about violence and bloodshed such as `Torna Caserio' or the one about a soldier called Peppino who killed his lieutenant. Then, when they are all 35 feeling sad and gazing into the purple depths of their glasses, Pin suddenly twirls round the smoky room and begins singing at the top of his voice:

And I touched her hairÐ

And she said not there ¼

40 Then the men begin pounding on the tables and shouting `hiuú', and clapping time, while the servant-girl tries to save the glasses. And the women in the tavern, old drunks with red faces like the one called the Bersagliera, sway to and fro as if to the rhythm of a dance.

(Calvino 1976:4±5)