Andrew Hurley’s outrageous translation technique
This week I read Andrew Hurley’s (University of Puerto Rico) remarkable but odd translation of Bartolomé de las Casas, O. P.’s 1552 book Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias [An Account, Much Abbreviated, of the Destruction of the Indies].
Before talking about Hurley’s translation technique, I want to say that despite my reservations about the translation technique, I very much recommend this book, which relates the history of Spain’s conquest of the West Indies with particular attention to the plight of native peoples. The book contains an outstanding extended introduction by Franklin Knight [John Hopkins] and extensive supplementary material (including fascinating illustrations); and the topic is vitally important.
But the main topic I want to deal with in this review is Hurley’s translation technique. Hurley favors a hyper-literal translation technique that goes this far – he uses no word that entered the English language after about 1560:
[…] I have not updated the language and, in fact, have decided that this translation shall include no word that entered the English language after about 1560 – that is, before Shakespeare, before the King James Bible (1611), before the expansion and, of course, incredible “enriching” or blossoming of the language (in terms of both lexicon and style) that those two “authors” brought about. (I have provided footnotes where the meaning of certain archaic usages might be confused with the modern meaning: “complexion” for “constitution,” for example.) What this choice means in practice is that I have not been able to use the words “settle,” “settlement,” or “populate” for the Spaniards’ colonizing efforts but instead have had to use “inhabit.” I have not been able to say “horrendous” or “horrible,” though “terrible” has been permitted. I have not been able to say “shark” or “barracuda.” All of those words entered English later than the assumed time of my translation. If there was more than one word that might work for my translation (though this rarely happened, since the English lexicon of the early 16th century was much smaller than even fifty years later), I have generally chosen the word that has the more “biblical” ring to it. In this, I believe I am following Las Casas’ lead, since as a friar in a religious order he quotes or alludes to Bible passages several times. (Clearly, he is making comparisons with the biblical mistreatments of the Jews.) Presented with a choice between “docile” and “meek,” that is, I have chosen “meek”; between the Indians fleeing into the “woods” and the “wilderness,” I have chosen “wilderness,” for a certain sense of parallelism with Old Testament events and the words the King James redactors used a few years later to present them.[…]
In formulating this translation strategy and carrying it out, I have not pretended to myself that this text might have been produced by a native 16th-century English speaker or by a 16th-century native English-language translator from the Spanish; the analogy I might use is that this text, in its lexicon and choice of words, its syntax, and its “naivete,” might have been produced by someone learning the English language of the 16th century in the 16th century – someone from the 21st century taking a time-machine ride, for instance, or a 16th-century Spanish speaker.[…] [T]he text “knows,” as I know, that it is a translation; thus it is an approximation to a text and to a time.
The process is amplified by Hurley’s apparent hyper-literal translation style; he reports
In the text that follows, I have preserved Las Casas’ repetitive and somewhat rambling style while at the same time bringing his Spanish more or less into line with “standard” English syntax – arranging the parts of the sentence the way English “expects” those parts to be arranged. The syntax, then, will seem relatively “natural,” I believe, although a bit antiquated, while the lexicon may not seem natural at all, though I believe it will be perfectly understandable.
As you can see from the stylistic features of Hurley’s explanation, Hurley has some idiosyncratic features to his own written language.
Now, to show what Hurley does in this translation, let me compare the opening of his section on the conquest of Hispaniola with that of an apparently more conventional translation by Nigel Griffin:
| Andrew Hurley (Hackett, 2003) | Nigel Griffin (Penguin, 1992) |
| On the island Hispaniola, which was the first, as we said, wherein the Christians entered and began the devastations and perditions of these nations, and first destroyed them and wiped the land clean of inhabitants, these Christians began to take the women and children of the Indians to serve them and use them ill, and they would eat their victuals that issued from the sweat of their brow and their hard work, and yet still were not content with what the Indians gave them willingly, according to the ability that each one had, which is not ever much, for they seldom have more than that which they have most immediate need of and can produce with little labour. And in truth, what suffices for these houses of ten persons each for a month, a Christian will eat and destroy in one day, and these Christians did them many other acts of compulsion and violence and vexation.
The Indians, at this treatment, began to see that those men must not have come down from the sky, or heaven, and some hid their victuals, others their women and children while other fled into the wilderness to remove themselves from men of such hard and terrible conversation. The Christians would smite them with their hands and strike them with their fists and beat them with sticks and cudgels, until they finally laid hands upon the lords of the villages. And this practice came to such great temerity and shamelessness and ignominy that a Christian captain did violate the wife of the greatest king, the lord of all the island.[…] |
As we have said, the island of Hispaniola was the first to witness the arrival of Europeans and the first to suffer the wholesale slaughter of its people and the devastation and depopulation of the land. It all began with the Europeans taking native women and children both as servants and to satisfy their own base appetites; then, not content with what the local people offered them of their own free will (and all offered as much as they could spare), they started taking for themselves the food the natives contrived to produce by the sweat of their brows, which was in all honesty little enough. Since what a European will consume in a single day normally supports three native households of ten persons each for a whole month, and since the newcomers began to subject the locals to other vexations, assaults, and iniquities, the people began to realize that these men could not, in truth, have descended from the heavens. Some of them started to conceal what food they had, others decided to send their women and children into hiding, and yet others took to the hills to get away from the brutal and ruthless cruelty that was being inflicted on them. The Christians punched them, boxed their ears and flogged them in order to track down the local leaders, and the whole shameful process came to a head when one of the European commanders raped the wife of the paramount chief of the entire island.[…] |
Now, I have not read Las Casas’s original text in Spanish, but it seems to me that there a number of issues with Hurley’s approach. First, his description of the Spanish invaders as “the Christians” leaves us with a strange feeling today – certainly here, Griffin’s “the Europeans” is less misleading. Moreover, it is strange and anachronistic to read Marx quoted by Las Casas (“gave them willingly, according to the ability that each one had”) – here Griffin’s paraphrase seems more apropos. But the most confusing part to me is that Hurley is writing in a language that never existed. I’ve read a great deal of 16th and 17th century English literature and Hurley’s style has, despite his intentions, many modern touches. It does not at all read like a pastiche of 16th century writing. In this way, Hurley’s translation reminds me of the NKJV translation of the Bible – it is written in a form of English that never existed.
Despite the awkwardness of Hurley’s translation, the effect he achieves is striking and I do recommend the book. If my review has put you off reading Hurley’s translation, please consider reading the Griffin translation.
BLT 
In this way, Hurley’s translation reminds me of the NKJV translation of the Bible – it is written in a form of English that never existed.
Excellent post, as usual, Theophrastus! At least Hurley is confessing that he might come across as an ESL learner “of the 16th century in the 16th century.”
But I wonder what Hurley thinks he’s doing or has done in relation to the early history of the English translations? There are some anti-Catholic and mostly anti-Spanish sentiments that the earliest translators stirred up, as The Oxford History of Mexico (edited by William Beezley, Michael Meyer) notes:
The 1689 translation goes like this:
Pardon me for continuing the quotation of this early translation with a few additional sentences. The context seems to demand their inclusion.
Now, should “the Spaniards” or the “Christians” have been used? Should Hurley’s the “Christians” or Griffin’s “the Europeans” be used? It seems to depend on who the audience is and what the intended rhetoric of the translator is. The critical question is who originally is being referred to and for what purpose when being called cristianos?
Here’s the original old Spanish to compare:
Theophrastus, I’m mainly interested in Hurley’s thoughts about what his translation is doing, rhetorically, in the history of translation. So I left the previous long comment.
But on a different note, what do you think of Herma Briffault’s translation? In her brief explanation of what she intends, she writes:
Here’s how her translation renders the excerpt you brought in for comparison. Note how Briffault alternates between the “Spaniards” and “those Christians” and between “The Spaniards” and, in the very same sentence, “a Christian”:
I have to say that I think this is such an important issue that it should be required reading for all of us. Thanks for posting on this topic.
In my view, any dislike for the term “Christians” here is squeamishness, and to be avoided. Christians don’t like to find themselves the “villain” of the piece. How much better to use a word like “Spaniards.” That would suit us perfectly. The idea then could be perpetrated that only the Spaniards, the Catholics, would do this. One could pretend that protestants would not behave in this way. So one could also read “Europeans” in a way that distances us from the “Christians” of this narrative. We all want to avoid feeling guilty ourselves.
(But then, I suppose, that present day atheists could pretend that this is only a Christian problem, and done away by atheism. Of course, it is not.)
Here, however, is an interesting difference between the Catholics, (Spaniards) and Protestants (British). The Spaniards forced conversion of the natives, and treated them like slaves, because Aristotle said that there were slave races. But the protestant monarchs forbade conversion of natives in some cases, since converting the natives would compel one to treat them as brothers, and nobody wanted to do this. So, many missionaries among the British were going against explicit laws that natives could not be evangelized.
(The purpose of converting, or not converting, the natives, was still the same, to subjugate, and diminish the population. Damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.)
Then among the British missionaries, who originally, had the notion that all Christian brothers were to be treated as equals, this idealism faded. By the late 1800’s, British protestants too took on the view that even among Christians there was a natural racial hierarchy with the British at the top. The lower races were not exactly “slaves” but more like “children” and subject to paternalism from cradle to grave. And we live with this legacy today.
Kurk, I was interested in Hurley’s translation technique for two reasons:
(1) as a serious translation technique, it seemed to me to be something different from what I’ve seen in the past. It sounded to me promising, although in Hurley’s hands, I don’t think it turned out well. I have to wonder if it might not be a useful approach for another writer, though.
(2) it is also interesting from the perspective of word games. You may be aware of “lipograms,” for example — works that avoid the use of one or more letters. For example, George Perec, a member of the Oulipo, wroteLa Disparition (which was translated into English by Gilbert Adair as A Void) without using the letter “e.” (As classical examples, Nestor of Liranda’s created a lipogramic version of Iliad and Tryphiodorus created a lipogramic version of Odyssey — one can even consider these adaptations as a form of “translation” from Homeric Greek into “Lipogramic Greek.”)
I’m afraid I did not attempt to survey other translations besides Hurley (which was interesting to me because of its odd strategy) or Griffin (which was the translation I was familiar with). From your quotations, it seems that both the 1689 and Herma Briffault’s translations have considerable merit, but I have not read either at length, so I should refrain from passing judgment.
What was interesting to me is that Hurley did not use this strategy as a word game, but to achieve a certain effect in his translation (the Oulipo members sometimes seem to be serious about producing literature, but they sometimes seem to be trying to be clever for the sake of cleverness.)
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Both Kurk and Suzanne raise excellent points about the use of “Christian” or “Spaniard” or “European.” Of course, our view cannot help but be influenced because we know how the story turns out. (In the same, way, our reading today, post-Shoah, of anti-Jewish remarks in the New Testament and early Christian literature cannot help but be colored because we know how the story ends up — Christianity conquered the West and Judaism continued to be a minority religion, one that faced unique persecutions but also brought unique contributions to the medieval and modern periods. Since we know how the story ends, we cannot really read early Christian literature in the context that it was written.)
But, to the extent that Las Casas’s story is one of imperialism (e.g., “Spaniards” building the Imperio Español) or ethnic persecution and cleansing (“Europeans” subjugating native populations), the use of the word “Christian” — even if it is a literal translation of “cristianos,” perhaps gives a misleading perspective. I hesitate a bit because of a point that Suzanne indirectly refers to — that it is a Christian commandment to evangelize and convert (in Las Casas’s time, even to forcibly convert) non-Christians.
Note that evangelization is not a cultural universal, since there are religions (e.g., Judaism and Zoroastrianism) in which it is forbidden to try to convert non-believers. (However, one can not help but note that there is a type of religious-Darwinism at work here — those religions that do evangelize, e.g., Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, become the major world religions while those religions that do not remain tiny minority religions.)
But, as Suzanne suggests (in her comment that it could have been a problem for atheists), I think that Las Casas’s story is more about ethnic conflict and imperialism than it is about Christianity.
Theophrastus, I too was interested from something like a wordgame perspective. What struck me was that the decision to use only the vocabulary that was current at the time was that it was an artistic decision, and it led me to suspect that Hurley’s text was not simply translation, but art.
Victoria, I think there is considerable truth in what you say, but he also has a lengthy explanation (starting with the L. P. Hartley cliche that the past is a foreign country) that suggests that this form of translation is the most “true” to the source. So I’m not entirely sure if he is thinking of his work as art or good pedagogy. I suspect he thinks it is both.
Indeed, Theophrastus, I got that impression from what you had quoted. But I think there’s a stronger case to be made for it as art than as effective translation.
And on the more content-related point that Kurk and Suzanne made, Michael J. Altman quotes from a speech by Swami Vivekananda’s speech at the World Parliament of Religions in 1893:
This is a good discussion. Really, rather, these are good discussions. If we focus on Hurley’s intentions (whether what he himself can understand they are, or whether or not he can well articulate his intentions, or whether he’s after “good pedagogy” or an artistic statement or an “effective translation” whatever that might be), then we can begin to judge or just to try to judge whether or not he was true to those intentions. For instance, is what Hurley intends by the “Christians” (i.e. Christians as a “word that entered the English language [before] about 1560″) misleading? Hurley must object that he has not intended and that he indeed cannot mislead his own contemporary readers. It’s certainly not his fault what after 1560 any one of us might understand by “Christian.”
He does not even have to ask so much really what Las Casas intended and did not intend by writing cristianos. He’s not after being faithful to Las Casas so much. Rather, he seems to want us English readers to struggle with the text, with its import and history yes but with its style that an early outsider might sense. That’s why his ESL comment seems to me so very interesting.
As a thought experiment, we might imagine a Spaniard today translating the U.S. Declaration of Independence and coming upon the phrase “merciless savages” and limiting herself to using Spanish counterpart phrases only from the mid 16th century. Our Spanish translator would be imagining for her audiences the experience of grappling with this Jeffersonian experience of “Indians.” Hence the time machine comment of Hurley’s.
The “real” histories of merciless Indian savages in New English or heartless Catholic missionary colonists in New Spain and on Hispaniola, whatever those histories may be (or whosever historiographies), might make us reflect on Native Americans on reservations in New Mexico in 2013 and on evangelical Christian missionaries in New Delhi too. We might compare African Americans or contrast Jews or Catholics with any of these labeled or even self-identified groups.
The fascinating thing, to me, is that this is what language does for us. It Others. The fascinating thing, I think, about translation is that it is always always always something different from the original. And yet we might, if the translator is clever enough or we the readers are inclined enough, we might see the translation as “the same.”
Through the years, Hurley has had his share of critics. His best work is his translation of Rubén Darío. I think that mainly because he’s struggling with the fact that Darío’s work is mainly an original Spanish translation of French writers. Hence, what’s original and what’s a new different direction must always be in play. (Contrast that to Hurley’s translation of Fidel Castro telling his own story, or of Jorge Luis Borges’s fiction. In these cases, there’s less attention to the English of Hurley. The attention goes to the original story teller or the story telling. Ilan Stavans once remarked, “Several of Borges’s translators, editors, and biographers entered the debate that was less about the value of Hurley’s translations than about the status of the Argentine in twentieth-century literature.”)
The real question we have to ask here is, Did Hurley, translating Las Casas’s cristianos with English only before about 1560, really have any choice but to use the “Christians”?
Kurk wrote:
Now this strikes me as a nonsensical argument: it exhibits either a form of special pleading for the technique, or a level of naivete so profound as to sink to the degree of incompetence. Of course it’s possible to mislead contemporary readers by choosing a word whose semantic field has shifted significantly since 1560. Any competent translator should take such things into account, whether the semantic shift is due to time, geography, or culture.
I’m reminded of the rationale given for changing the word “cup” to “chalice” in the new English translation of the Roman Missal. The argument given is that the Latin word is calyx, which specifically means a common or shared cup, and since chalice is etymologically derived from calyx, then chalice is the better word to convey that meaning. Nonsense, I say: chalice in 21st century American Catholic English means “a fancy gold cup used at Mass.” In Catholic English, it was already a technical term, akin to paten and purificator and all those other words for eucharistic paraphernalia that I had to learn when I was 7 but have since forgotten. Any competent translator would know that.
(Pardon my vehemence; we’ve been using this new translation over a year now but I’m still annoyed about this.)
Anyway, my point is, any competent translator must consider what the words she is using will mean to her audience. The fact that this technique seems to exclude or at least underweight this consideration is what leads me to believe it is defensible more as art than as translation.
“a nonsensical argument: it exhibits either a form of special pleading for the technique, or a level of naivete so profound as to sink to the degree of incompetence.”
Ouch, Vicky. Do let us plead to try to understand Hurley’s statement of intent (that Theophrastus quotes), and also whether I’m deeply stupid with no competence to speak at all,
as you suggest, at least consider, please, what I want to ask at the end of my long comment – Did Hurley, translating Las Casas’s cristianos with English only before about 1560, really have any choice but to use the “Christians”?
Eek, Kurk, I didn’t mean to imply either your incompetence or stupidity. My apologies. Clearly my vehemence about the missal translation is leaking.
It may well be that, given the ground rules of the translation technique, the only reasonable choice was to use “Christians.” I don’t actually have an argument with that part of your comment, which is why I didn’t engage it.
But the particular defense which you hypothesize that Hurley might argue, that it is not possible for the translator to mislead his contemporary audience by choosing a word whose sense has shifted, is intensely problematic. Of course it’s possible. This is a poor defense against the criticism that the word choice is misleading. A better defense would be to invoke the maxim traduttore, traditore, and add a footnote or preface to the translation that discusses this and similar words.
This is a very interesting discussion, and one that has gone in directions I did not anticipate when I made my post.
I’m not sure I have more to say on the issue of which is better to use: “Christian”, “European”, or “Spaniard”; but I was intrigued by this statement by Kurk:
I am not aware of Hurley’s other translation work; this was the first work I encountered, and I was intrigued (although ultimately unsatisfied) by Hurley’s efforts. Can you tell us a little more about how Hurley has tried to translate and how that has been received among critics? He sounds like a very interesting fellow.
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Victoria, it seems that you have some well developed thoughts about the new translation of the missal. I know that a lot has been written about it, but I would be very interested in your thoughts, if you care to write them up sometime.
Victoria,
Thank you for clarifying the various things. Yes, I was completely and altogether too hyperbolic asserting that Hurley’s “Christians” could not be misunderstood. Of course. And I’m sorry I misunderstood you.
Thephrastus,
Here’s a CV of Hurley’s online: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:oaz7p_kO-Y0J:www.ffri.uniri.hr/datoteke/Kulturologija/andrew_hurley_cv_translations_may_2008.doc+&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESheQioFFV4_cKCQa8VsqiwT03iwMFMjb0u4Vl9Eg-xrlLy91tKPC53oBroF-FQn4poVFYus2NVRtZGQgax8dGxav6SXCTD6w_IbHTfhidNBRVVwKudaeJSk22dFluXlR4dICwP3&sig=AHIEtbTxQ1AC5KY75gz-r1eqtvz9kyc5sw
I’ll try to get back here soon to talk about the bit I understand of how critics have viewed his translations. While you and Victoria were commenting, I was drafting a post that yours inspired. I’m afraid I wrote it way too fast, off the top of my head, with little time to spare. Maybe that will start us on discussions of the different techniques Hurley has used and needed to use for translation of different individuals’ Spanishes. So sorry I have to be so brief and sloppy here. Too much to say with too few minutes in which to dialogue properly. Thank you for starting and keeping these conversations going!