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“LEGALLY BINDED AND LINGuisTICALLY BouNDED: THE
quijote, forbidden sex and the law in translation”
Marc Charron
(Quebec, Canada)
Abstract. If, on the one hand, legal translation - as one of the most specialized forms of translation practice
- has received scholarly attention within the field of Translation Studies itself, on the other, little critical attention has been paid to the way in which the concepts of ‘law’ and ‘legal discourse’, to name only the most obvious, have been dealt with in literary translation. Focussing on the 400-year history of translation into English of Cervantes’s Don Quijote (1605), and especially by looking closely at 10 translations of a very specific - and somewhat controversial - passage in Part I, Chapter 22 (often called “the episode of the galley slaves”), the article argues that translation might be better suited than any other practice to illustrate the extent to which legal concepts are (and are not) linguistically, culturally and, in this case, chronologically bounded. Referring extensively to the analysis of this “episode of the galley slaves” by Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria in his brilliant Love and the Law in Cervantes (2005), and in particular to his discussion of the story of whom he calls the “prisoner of sex”, the article uses translation and translated texts to propose how “love and the law” might even be more intricately related than what has been suggested by the famous Yale Hispanist in his work on the subject.
Keywords: Don Quijote; history of translation into English; legal discourse
It is a well-known and recognized fact within the field of Translation Studies that legal translation is one of the most specialized forms of translation practice (and, as such, it has received scholarly attention within the field itself). But the study of how the concept of law and that of legal discourse have been dealt with in literary translation has yet to receive much critical attention. The following pages on the history of the Quijote in translation seeks in a modest way to correct this situation by initiating a discussion on the subject, more specifically, by offering to study the topic in the case of one of the most relevant works of world literature from the perspective of “language and the law,” (and from any other perspective for that matter, don Quijote himself having offered his opinion on just every topic one can imagine), and by showing that the “language of law” is very much part of the universe of discourses that make the Quijote the most translated work in history, after the Bible.
In recent years, especially around 2005, at the time of the 400th-anniversary celebrations of the publication of the Quijote, two Cervantistas,
namely William Childers (2005) and especially the world-renowned Yale Hispanist Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria (2005), have shown (very convincingly I might add) the extent to which “law and language” are not only deeply interwoven elements in the Quijote, but also important structural and stylistic elements of a work still considered, after four centuries, a truly modern text (perhaps for reasons such as these). Indeed, the fact that not until very recently has the concept of legal discourse been the object of study by critics of the Quijote would tend to indicate the particular relevance of the concepts for the (post-)modern reading and interpretation of Cervantes’s great novel, much of which is obviously in translated form (in English alone, five complete 1000-page translations have been published in the past than 20 years). I will above all focus here on a passage which brings to the fore the linguistically, culturally and, in this case, chronologically bounded concepts of “sexual offense” and “legal discourse”.
More precisely, I would like to use translation and translated texts to prolong the discussion of how “love and the law” are related in the Quijote,
perhaps more intricately than what has been proposed by Gonzalez Echevarria himself in his brilliant analysis of the subject in Love and the Law in Cervantes (2005), in which he brings to light many links between the concepts of “love and the law” in Cervantes’s masterpiece that had yet, until then, been discussed in critical texts. For example, he unravels the intricate legalistic aspects (again, something overlooked until now) behind one of the stories in Part I, Chapter 22 of the novel (famously referred to as “the episode of the galley slaves”, in which don Quijote himself interrogates then frees a chain gang of galley slaves from the custody of the Santa Hermandad, the Holy Brotherhood of the Spanish Inquisition). But however terse Gonzalez Echeverria’s analysis may be, something important has escaped - a pun I intentionally borrow from Gonzalez Echevarria himself - it seems to me, and it is my belief that he had, strangely enough, to look no further than at the translations of the Quijote to find answers and further develop his reading of don Quijote’s questioning of the law student whom Gonzalez Echeverria calls the “prisoner of sex”.
One severe critic of Gonzalez Echeverria’s thesis has been the late Carroll Johnson, who reviewed Love and the Law in Cervantes in the Fall 2005 issue of the journal Cervantes (as the reader shall see below). But still, my opinion, again, is that one needs to compare different versions of translations to get a glimpse of what is really at stake in the episode itself, or that one needs to resort to translation to get a clearer, more accurate picture of the overall matter. The Spanish version of the passage in question is ambiguous, enough so at least to have produced in translation very different, often completely contradictory interpretations over the centuries (and I’m simply referring here to the translations into English, and even then only the better known ones).
The particular question I wish to look at more closely is linked to what could be called an “issue of forbidden sex”. Were it not for the fact that the passage deals with this type of issue, perhaps the issue itself could be put to rest very easily. But the subject in and of itself is all too tantalizing to let go without attempting to explain what the “inerarrable” - a word I intentionally borrow again
from Gonzalez Echeverria - really consists of in this case. And as I have mentioned above, I need to turn to the history of translation of the Quijote in English in order to best do so. But let me begin by situating the fictional episode within the general legal context in which it takes place.
How much love, how much law in translation?
Gonzalez Echevarria (2005: 5) starts off his discussion about “love and law” in the Quijote by stating the following:
More than chivalry or any other subject, the Quijote is about love.” [...] In Cervantes, love is checked not so much by God but by the Holy Brotherhood, not by God’s vicars but by the king’s appointed agents - bailiffs, sheriffs, judges, prosecutors, and the like. [...]-
To which he (2005: 5) adds:
The legalistic tone of the Quijote is set relatively early in Part I, in chapter 22, when the knight [Don Quijote] and his squire [Sancho Panza] set free a group galley slaves. The episode also pits love against the law, though this has seldom (if ever) been noticed. The chapter of the galley slaves has been the object of much commentary [...]. Much has been made too of the disparity between Don Quijote’s sense of justice and that of the representatives of the law who keep the galley slaves. But the episode has a dimension that has gone unexplored and one minor character who has escaped attention, if the pun be allowed.
The episode Gonzalez Echevarria is referring to is, of course, the same as I referred to already, the one in which don Quijote and Sancho come across a group of galley slaves being led to the Mediterranean coast by their guards of the Holy Brotherhood of the Spanish Inquisition. Don Quijote wants to know why the slaves have been made prisoners. Of course, the knight sees in this episode, as others before, an opportunity to repair injustices. Gonzalez Echevarria (2005: 5-6) goes on summarizing the episode: Don Quijote begins to interrogate the prisoners about their individual crimes and punishments. [... ] Don Quijote listens and hears about six cases, determines that the men have been unjustly or excessively punished, and forces the guards from the Holy Brotherhood to set them free with Sancho’s reluctant assistance.
And the Yale professor is absolutely right when he (2005: 7) declares that:
There is a galley slave who has eluded attention but is [...] most significant in understanding the intertwined forces of love and the law in the Quijote. I believe that he embodies and in a sense even “performs” (or enacts) and goes beyond the limits of the love-law conflict in the novel [...] The limits are those beyond which it is impossible to think or represent love and the law as forces generating recognizable shapes - the intelligible, the readable, the narratable. He is the inenarrable, the inexpressible, the uncanny [...].
And then Gonzalez Echevarria (2005: 7) reminds us of something extremely important:
It is a story about the story that cannot be told, as it were. This galley slave is a Don Juan type, a serial seducer caught and sentenced, not by divine law like Tirso de Molina’s [the author of El burlador de Sevilla or The Trickster of Seville], but by the laws of the kingdom. He is the only character in the Quijote tried, convicted, and sentenced for a crime of love.
In Gonzalez Echevarria’s opinion (2005: 8), the scene closely follows developments in Spanish penal law in the second half of the sixteenth century:
At that particularly time in Spanish history, the king of Spain Philip II [...] commuted the physical punishment for thievery from flogging to a term in the galleys. The change was not due to an increase in such crimes but to the need to provide galley slaves to the navy on the eve of the 1588 Invincible Armada adventure. [...] Sentencing a criminal to the galleys also removed him from regional jurisdictions and made him subject to the crown, another measure in the direction of unification and centralization. Physical punishment for crimes other than theft, such as rape and incest, as in the case of our prisoner, could also mean a term of four and later six years as a galley slave instead of flogging or hanging.
But before going any further, here is the passage in question in the Spanish original:
Paso adelante Don Quijote y pregunto a otro su delito, el cual respondio con no menos, sino con mucha mas gallardia que el pasado:
—Yo voy aqui porque me burle demasiadamen-te con dos primas hermanas mias y con otras dos hermanas que no lo eran mias: _finalmente, tanto me burle con todas, que resulto de la burla crecer lapa-
rentela tan intricadamente, que no hay diablo* que la declare. Proboseme todo, falto favor, no tuve di-neros, viame a pique de perder los tragaderos, sen-tenciaronme a galeras por seis anos, consenti: cas-tigo es de mi culpa; mozo soy: dure la vida, que con ella todo se alcanza. Si vuestra merced, senor caballero, lleva alguna cosa con que socorrer a estos po-bretes, Dios se lo pagara en el cielo y nosotros ten-dremos en la tierra cuidado de rogar a Dios en nues-tras oraciones por la vida y salud de vuestra merced, que sea tan larga y tan buena como su buena presencia merece.
Este iba en habito de estudiante, y dijo una de las guardas que era muy grande hablador y muy gen-til latino.1
About some of the wording chosen by Cervantes, Gonzalez Echevarria (2005: 9) writes: “There are four words in this passage that merit commentary: burlar, declarar, parentela, estudiante”, the first three of which I would like to add comments of my own, by way of looking at the history of translation of these few sentences. Gonzalez Echevarria (2005: 9) continues:
All four suggest to me that this galley slave is not just a student but more specifically a law student. [...] I take declarar to be a legal term meaning to give a deposition. [...] The word retains both meanings today [that is, both that of to clarify and of to depose, to testify, to speak under oath a defendant witness or expert in a criminal or civil case], but it favours the legal.
As I have said earlier, Carroll Johnson (2005: 139) has been rather critical of Gonzalez Echeverria’s analysis of this particular story or episode, but begins
1 The two expressions underlined refer to passages I will discuss below, especially the first one which is at the heart of the issue of “forbidden sex” evoked above. The asterisk indicates that the princeps edition (A below) of 1605 has diablo whereas the three following editions (B, BR, and C below) of DQ have sumista.
A: Edicion princeps. Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, El ingenioso hidalgo DQ de la Mancha, Juan de la Cuesta, para Francisco de Robles, Madrid, 1605. / Segunda parte del ingenioso caballero DQ de la Mancha, Juan de la Cuesta, para Francisco de Robles, Madrid, 1615.
B: Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, El ingenioso hidalgo DQ de la Mancha, Juan de la Cuesta, para Francisco de Robles, Madrid, 1605
BR: Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, El ingenioso hidalgo DQ de la Mancha, Roger Velpius, Bruselas, 1607.
C: Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, El ingenioso hidalgo DQ de la Mancha, Juan de la Cuesta, para Francisco de Robles, Madrid, 1608.
by recognizing what he believes are the positive aspects of the Yale professor’s thesis:
Chapter 1 (the wonderfully titled “Prisoner of Sex”), demonstrating that the character’s sexual exploits are not erotic but legal, offers a new context in which to consider the presence of sexual activity in Golden Age literature in general. The author is right in his assumption that what was of interest to society were the legalities of sexual activity and its implications for the transfer of property from one generation to the next, not its physical details.
With respect to Johnson’s comments, then the only real question becomes: “Is this still the case?” and “Has there been any shift over time?” I believe that these questions are precisely those that need to be asked since the analysis of different translations (especially over many centuries) can likely, in my opinion, give some lead into the matter.
Johnson’s tone gets more critical when he (2005: 142) adds:
I was sometimes put off by what I would call “selective definitions” of terms crucial to the author’s thesis, such as the word declarar in the case of the prisoner of sex. First, declarar is both “a legal term meaning to give a deposition” and “to clarify” Then, “the word retains both meanings today, but it favors the legal.” So that, finally, “this tilts the prisoner’s case in the direction of a potential dispute about inheritance rights covered, of course, by testamentary laws” (9). The author has a real gift for the rhetorical potential of definition [...].
For one, I find Johnson’s case not very convincing (and usually I do, Carroll Johnson being in my opinion one of the most astute and thought-provoking scholars of Cervantes). After all, even if one agrees with the view that Gonzalez Echeverria has a possible “gift for the rhetorical potential of definition,” it seems to me that what he says about the verb declarar is basically right, that is, the term is both “a legal term meaning to give a deposition” and “to clarify,” but perhaps more importantly, “the word retains both meanings today, but it favors the legal.”
As for the term parentela, Gonzalez Echeverria (2005: 9) writes:
‘Parentela,’ even today meaning one’s extended family, is defined precisely by Covarrubias [author of the historic Tesoro de la lengua castellana o es-panola of 1611, the first monolingual Spanish dic-
tionary] as “los parientes de un linaje” (relatives belonging to a lineage or genealogy), which also has a legalistic ring. This genealogy is so entangled that no one could unravel it [...]. What the prisoner suggests is that no one, not even himself with his superior language and legal skills could draw up the required document establishing legitimacy and setting out a legacy, an estate: who would inherit what from whom in a legally binding and clear fashion. The genealogical confusion would be the prisoner’s worst crime, which he expresses with a legal term, as the inability to properly “declarar,” to depose, to translate into legal discourse his actions and their consequences.”2
From the perspective of translation, the question then becomes: “Does the prisoner of sex’s language skills translate into other tongues but also across centuries?” It is actually one thing to posit that the terms the galley slave uses translate into legal discourse his actions and their consequences, but from the point of view of translation, it is altogether another one to determine how to go about (or how translators throughout history have gone about) translating these same terms that belong to a special language... of a certain era gone by centuries ago... in another language. And yet, what exactly are the main differences over the centuries?
One interesting aspect of looking at different translations of this passage is the presence of the term sumista (present in all the editions up to the late 20th century, apart of course from the princeps edition of 1605). Have Cervantes or the editors of 1605 onwards (and through most of the history of the Quijote) been outright ambiguous with the choice of the word sumista, which can mean (1) persona practica en sumar 2) autor de sumas de alguna ciencia; particularmente, de teologia 3) persona que solo ha aprendido la teologia por sumas o compendios?3
Thus the word sumista has maintained both a religious and a non-religious meaning (in the sense of
2 Italics are mine. The terms themselves actually show the extent to which legal discourse is linguistically bounded and also that translation can better exemplify the fact than any other linguistic feature or practice.
3 According to the lexicographer Maria D. Moliner, in her Diccionario del uso del espanol (1994, 5th edition). In English: 1) a person who is a very good at adding things up 2) the author of the summa of a given science, especially in the field of theology 3) a person who has learned theology through the work of summas and compendiums.
a person good at adding things up). As for Gonzalez Echevarria (2005: 9), he suggests that:
In the first edition of the Quijote there in no “devil” who can figure out the genealogy, but in later ones it [diablo] was changed to “sumista,” an accountant - Smollett’s “casuist” is good enough. This tilts the prisoner’s case in the direction of a potential dispute about inheritance rights covered, of course, by testamentary laws.
Rather than say that Smollett’s translation is “good enough” (as if the question had to be evaluative in principle), I would rather insist that to have rendered sumista by “casuist” is a half-translation (and I mean that without any negative overtone), that is, the ambiguity of “casuist” is interesting but of course, from the point of view of referring to a particular field of knowledge, the meaning is essentially religious; it does not retain the legalistic aspect that even a more common word like accountant has today4.
As I have already said, I have looked at ten English translations over four centuries of the passage analyzed by Gonzalez Echevarria in his discussion of the “prisoner of sex” episode. In the end, I think that it is in their comparison that one gets a clearer idea of the extent to which there is much to be said about his comments from the point of view of translation.5 Here are those translations:
1. From him Don Quixote passed to another [galley slave], and demanded his fault; who answered with no less, but with much more pleasantness than the former: ‘I go here because I have jested somewhat too much with two cousins-german of mine own, and
4 A term present in the Ormsby translation (the only one which could potentially be considered a transitional translation in this case. All translation after that opt for the term ‘devil’, a direct equivalence of diablo, the term which appears in the very first edition of Don Quijote in Spanish. A casuist is a person who is expert in or given to casuistry, and casuistry would be, according to the 2006 Random House Unabridged Dictionary, a “specious or excessively subtle reasoning intended to rationalize or mislead” or the “determination of right and wrong in questions of conduct or conscience by analyzing cases that illustrate general ethical rules.” It does not, it seems to me, include the legalistic interpretive qualities of the word “accountant”
5 In the following discussion, I focus on the passage y con otras dos hermanas que no lo eran mias, but I take this opportunity to call the reader’s attention to the very different translations of the verb consent! (literally: “consented”), which in their plurality actually show how rich the verb itself is from a legalistic viewpoint. Again, it is in translation alone that one can concretely appreciate the full legal implications of the verb. Words, expressions and passages that appear in italics correspond to the four words (burlarse con, declarar, parentela, estudiante) Gonzalez Echevarria chooses to discuss. I have also put in bold the translations of the interesting diablo/sumista case.
with two other sisters, which were none of mine own; finally, I jested so much with them all, that thence resulted the increase of my kindred so intricately, as there is no casuist that can well resolve it. All was proved by me; I wanted favour, I had no money, and was in danger to lose my head; finally, I was condemned for six years to the galleys. I consented it, as a punishment of my fault; I am young, and let my life but hold out a while longer, and all will go well. And if you, sir knight, carry anything to succour us poor folk, God will reward you it in heaven, and we will have care here on earth to desire God, in our daily prayers for your life and health, that it be as long and as good as your countenance deserves.’ He that said went in the habit of a student, and one of the guard told him that he was a great talker and a very good Latinist. (Shelton 1620)
2. Then Don Quixote turned to the fifth [galley slave], who seemed to be nothing at all concerned. ‘I go to serve his majesty,’ said he, ‘for having been somewhat familiar with two of my cousin-germans, and two other kind-hearted virgins that were sisters; by which means I have multiplied my kind, and begot so odd and intricate a medley of kindred, that it would puzzle a convocation of casuists to resolve their degrees of consanguinity. All this was proved upon me. I had no friends, and what was worse, no money, and so was like to have hung for it: however, I was only condemned to the galleys for six years, and patiently submitted to it. I feel myself yet young, to my comfort; so if my life but does hold out, all will be well in time. If you will be pleased to bestow something upon poor sinners, Heaven will reward you; and when we pray, we will be sure to remember you, that your life may be as long and prosperous, as your presence is goodly and noble.’ This brisk spark appeared to be a student by his habit, and some of the guards said he was a fine speaker, and a good Latinist. (Motteux 1700)
3. Don Quixote went on, and demanded of another what his offence was; who answered, not with less, but much more alacrity than the former:
‘I am going for making a little too free with two she-cousins-german of mine, and with two other cousins-german not mine: in short, I carried the jest so far with them all, that the result of it was the increasing of kindred so intricately, that no casuist can make it out. The whole was proved upon me;
I had neither friends nor money; my windpipe was in the utmost danger; I was sentenced to the galleys for six years. I submit - it is the punishment of my fault; I am young and life may last, and time brings everything about: if your worship senor cavalier, has anything about you to relieve us poor wretches, God will repay you in heaven, and we will make it the business of our prayers to beseech him, that your worship’s life and health may be as long and prosperous, as your godly presence deserves.’
This slave was in the habit of a student; and one of the guards said that he was a great talker, and a very pretty Latinist. (Jarvis 1742)
4. Then Don Quixote addressed himself to the next [galley slave], who answered his question, not with less, but infinitely more vivacity, than that of the former; saying, “I trudge in this manner, for having jested a little extravagantly with two of my female cousins; and with two more, who, tho’ not related to me, were in the same degree of blood to each other: in short, I jested with them so long, that in the end, there was such an intricate increase of kindred as no casuist could unravel. Every thing was proved against me, I had neither interest nor money, and ran some risk of having my windpipe stopped; but they only condemned me for six years to the galleys; I submitted to the sentence, as the punishment of my crime: youth is on my side, life may be long, and time brings every thing to bear: if your worship, Sir knight, will part with any small matter for the comfort of these poor wretches, God will requite you in heaven, and we upon earth, will take care to petition Him for long life and health to your worship, that you may be happy, as by your godly appearance, you deserve to be.” The person who spoke in this manner, appeared in the dress of a student, and one of the guards said we was a great orator and excellent Latin scholar. (Smollett 1755)
5. Don Quixote went on and asked another [galley slave] what his crime was, and the man answered with no less but rather much more sprightliness than the last one.
“I am here because I carried the joke too far with a couple of cousins of mine, and with a couple of other cousins who were none of mine; in short, I carried the joke so far with them all that it ended in such a complicated increase of kindred that no accountant could make it clear: it was all proved
against me, I got no favour, I had no money, I was near having my neck stretched, they sentenced me to the galleys for six years, I accepted my fate, it is the punishment of my fault; I am a young man; let life only last, and with that all will come right. If you, sir, have anything wherewith to help the poor, God will repay it to you in heaven, and we on earth will take care in our petitions to him to pray for the life and health of your worship, that they may be as long and as good as your amiable appearance deserves.”
This one was in the dress of a student, and one of the guards said he was a great talker and a very elegant Latin scholar. (Ormsby 1885)
6. Don Quixote then went on and asked another [galley slave] what his offence was. The fellow answered him, not with less, but with much more, briskness than the preceding one had shown.
“I am here,” he said, “for the reason that I carried a joke too far with a couple of cousins-german of mine and a couple of others who were not mine, and I ended by jesting with all of them to such an extent that the devil himself would never be able to straighten out the relationship. They proved everything on me, there was no one to show me favor, I had no money, I came near swinging for it, they sentenced me to the galleys for six years, and I accepted the sentence as punishment that was due me. I was young yet, and if I live long enough, everything will come out all right. If, Sir Knight, your Grace has anything with which to aid these poor creatures that you see before you, God will reward you in Heaven, and we here on earth will make it a point to ask God in our prayers to grant you long life and good health, as long and as good as your amiable presence deserves.”
This man was dressed as a student, and one of the guards told Don Quixote that he was a great talker and a very fine Latinist. (Putnam 1949)
7. Don Quijote proceeded to the next [galley slave] in line, inquiring about what he had done to bring him to this pass, and received an even more high-spirited answer:
“I’m here because I fooled around too much with a couple of my cousins, plus two other girls who weren’t my sisters, and I had so much fun with all of them that we ended up with a family tree the devil himself couldn’t have straightened out. They had no trouble proving I was the one, I didn’t get any breaks, and since I had no money I was pretty close
to having my neck stretched, but they sentenced me to six years in the galleys, and I didn’t fight it; it’s my own fault I got punished; I’m still young; if I stay alive it’ll all work out. But sir knight, your grace, if you’ve got anything that could help these poor wretches, you’ll be repaid in Heaven, and right here on earth we’ll be sure to include your grace in our prayers, wishing you a long life and good health, and may it be as long and as happy as your fine self deserves.”
He was wearing student’s clothes, and one of the guards said he was a great talker and his Latin was elegant. (Raffel 1994)
8. Don Quixote moved on to the next man and asked what was his crime, and he replied with no less brio than the last, indeed with rather more of it:
‘I’m here because I fooled around too much with two girl-cousins of mine, and with two girl-cousins of somebody else’s; and, in short, I fooled around so much with the lot of them that as a result the family tree’s become so complicated that I don’t know the devil would be able to work it out. It was all proved against me, there weren’t any strings for me to pull, I hadn’t got any money, I was within an inch of having my neck stretched, I was sentenced to the galleys for six years and I accepted my fate: it’s the punishment for my crime, I’m still young, long live life, while there’s life there’s hope. If, sir knight, you’ve got anything on you that you could spare for us poor wretches, God will repay you for it in heaven, and here on Earth we’ll take care to pray to God that your life and your health may be as long and as good as you obviously deserve.’
He was wearing a student’s gown, and one of the guards said that he was a great talker and a first-rate latiner. (Rutherford 2001)
9. Don Quixote moved on and asked another prisoner his crime, and he responded with not less but much spirit and wit than the previous man:
“I’m here because I made too merry with two girls who were cousins of mine, and with two other sisters who weren’t mine; in short, I made so merry with all of them, and the merriment complicated my family relations so much, that not even the devil can straighten it out. The case was proved, nobody showed me favor, I had no money, I almost had my gullet in a noose, they sentenced me to six years in the galleys, and I agreed: it’s a punishment for my
crime; I’m young; just let me stay alive, because where there’s life there’s hope. If your grace, Senor, has something to help these poor men, God will reward you in heaven, and here on earth we’ll be sure to ask God in our devotions that the life and well-being of your grace be as long-lasting and as fine as your meritorious person deserves.”
He was dressed as a student, and one of the guards said he was a great talker and clever in Latin. (Grossman 2003)
10. Don Quixote moved on to the next one and asked him what his crime was, and he responded with not less, but much more enthusiasm, than the previous one: “I’m here today because I joked around too much with a couple of sisters, first cousins of mine, and a couple of sisters who weren’t my relatives; finally, my joking around was such that it resulted in increasing my kinfolk in such a labyrinthine way, that not even the devil can figure it out. The evidence was all against me, favor was lacking, I had no money, and saw myself at the point of being hanged. They sentenced me to the galleys for six years, I consented: it’s the punishment for my guilt. I’m still young and life is long, and «where there’s life, there’s hope». If your grace has anything to help out these poor fellows, God will repay you in heaven, and we on earth will make sure to pray for your life and health; and may it be as long and as good as your generous good presence merits.”
This one was dressed in the garb of a student, and one of the guards said that he was a very great talker and a good Latin scholar (which is student slang for trickster). (Lathrop 2005)
As already insisted upon, Gonzalez Echevarria’s brilliant analysis sheds light on an issue that had yet to be discussed in critical texts about the Quijote. Of course he shows the legalistic aspects behind the legal discourse of the galley slave/law student that he calls the “prisoner of sex”. But something important linked specifically to the issue of “forbidden sex” has perhaps been overlooked by the Yale professor. And, again, as already stated, one needs to compare different versions of translations between themselves over time (in this case into English) to get a glimpse of what might be really at stake here; better yet, one needs to turn to the history of the Quijote in translation in order to fully do so.
I will thus end this discussion - and by doing
so indirectly adding a comment to the third of the four terms that, according to Gonzalez Echeverria, merit a commentary - with a possible new reading (a translational one at that!) of what forbidden sex exactly means - and just how far it might exactly go
- in the story of the galley slave/law student. Prior to that, though, a few words about the legal terminology that is also at issue here are in order.
Now, let’s talk really “forbidden”
In Gonzalez Echevarria’s (2005: 10) opinion, “We can detect in the text and subtext of his speech hints of the prisoner’s legal training.” Not only do I fully agree with the assertion, but I believe it is in the repeated translations over time that this is best illustrated and that one can truly appreciate the subtlety with which these hints are disseminated in the text. In short, difference and differences in terms, especially legal terms in this case, show this very well, as does the evolution of the terminology of legal discourse as proposed by the translators themselves over the centuries.
The third of the four terms in question which Gonzalez Echevarria comments is the verb burlarse con, which he says that “to fool around” is a good translation of into contemporary English. He (2005: 10) writes: “What the prisoner says and particularly the tone of what he says, which I have already shown is a form of defense - Smollett’s ‘to jest’ is dated”. But why is it that the only translation Gonzalez Echevarria quotes is Tobias Smollett’s version of 1755, which, in itself, is somewhat peculiar, since it calls forth an adaptative strategy typical of 18th-century translations, and can of course hardly be considered to convey a “faithful” meaning of the original, “faithfulness” being a concept which Hispanists always end up clinging onto dearly - although without however explaining of what it consists of - when referring to translations of the Quijote?6 In any case,
6 In other words, translation is more often than not felt to be a problem, so much so in fact that it is not even surprising to read, still today, comments from eminent critics of the DQ like Howard Mancing, who wrote not too long ago in his introduction to his most recent book, Cervantes’ Don Quixote: A Reference Guide: “If an ability to read criticism in Spanish is a problem, a far greater one is the inability to read Don Quixote itself in Spanish. The original Spanish text is so much richer than any English version that we are reminded of Don Quixote’s comments on literary translation when he visits a bookstore in Barcelona in part 2, chapter 62: “It seems to me that translating from Greek and Latin, is like looking at Flemish tapestries from the back side, because even though you can see the figures, they are covered by threads that hide them, and you can’t see the smooth texture of the front side.” (Mancing 2006: xi).
to come back to the reasons why Smollett’s choice of ‘to jest’ is dated for burlarse in this context and why the verb as such is not deemed to be an acceptable translation is something, however, Gonzalez Echevarria actually avoids explaining. But he (2005: 10) does bring to the reader’s attention the fact that in his already classic 1998 edition of the Quijote in Spanish, Francisco Rico mentions in a note that:
in the slang of thugs, called germania, the verb burlar meant to have sexual intercourse with someone. This may very well be, but the word, even in that specialized context, must have retained some of its ordinary meaning (to trick), otherwise I doubt that Tirso would have used it in his title.7
It is interesting to note that the specialized and ordinary meanings are revealed in translation through time, the specialized context being nearer to the meaning as interpreted today as opposed to the ordinary meaning, which can be found mostly in the older translations of past centuries.
Gonzalez Echevarria (2005: 11) then goes on to add:
Notice that the prisoner has avoided the transitive form of the verb; he has not burlar a, tricked someone, but burlar con, fooled around with someone. He has turned his actions into consensual sex with two sisters who were first cousins of his, and two others who were not, implying their complicity in the menage a trois, or in this case menage a cinq.8
This is the exact place in the text where I have a harder time interpreting what Gonzalez Echevarria means by the use of the simple terms “cousins/sisters”, because this question is perhaps the most intriguing question of all, and one which carries the issue of “forbidden sex” into a whole new illicit territory that Gonzalez Echevarria simply eschews. Let us consider the two following lengthy quotes in order to better show the way in which he (2005: 11) approaches the question altogether:
One should not miss the subtlety of this lawyer-to-be in characterizing his crime. It is not that he fooled around with first cousins of his, but that he did so “extravagantly.” [...] It is not the misdeed in itself but its reckless, prolonged, and excessive repetition that created the trouble for the prisoner.
7 The quote is of course from Gonzalez Echevarria’s own translation of Rico’s text.
8 Latter italics are mine.
Had he fooled around less, or a little more discreetly with his cousins and the other girls, he would have found no trouble, he insinuates. There is no mention, of course, of incest, because as a simple case of fornication the law was in the prisoner’s favor. Having sex with these four women was not a great offense at the time, supposing as we are allowed that they were single, as was the prisoner, and willing. This is what was called in the legal terminology of the period (here developed by the Inquisition, and one can hear its Scholastic ring), “simple fornication,” or “fornicatio simplex,” in contrast to “fornicacion calificada.” Simple fornication meant sex between two unmarried people of opposite sexes; the gravity of fornicacion calificada increased if one of the partners were married, minors, or both of the same sex. So the prisoner claims to have engaged in consensual simple fornication with four women, from which there issued offspring whose family ties were difficult to establish legally. The only intimation that incest could be an aggravating factor is implied by the children’s consaguinity, but like everything else he deals with it dismissively.
In this case, my question, put very simply, becomes: “What if the word hermanas in the sentence being analyzed all along here meant something more than Gonzalez Echevarria’s ‘two that were not’” (two of what exactly is however something that remains unknown).
So there is a law student who has impregnated two first-cousins of his as well as two other sisters and has thus produced a complicated progeny. But what if the “sisters” here were to be (equally) understood in the sense of “nuns” (the reader has already seen with the diablo/sumista example that the religious and the legal cohabit strangely, are in the history of the Quijote somehow entangled - a term seen earlier in one of Gonzalez Echevarria’s quotes - and have been interchangeable over that period. Obviously the idea of those two other sisters being “nuns” seems too far-fetched for Gonzalez Echevarria to even consider. Still, does he (2005: 12) not go on to write:
The reader should not be fooled, along with Don Quijote, by this eloquent and charming con man: the prisoner has been found guilty and convicted of estupro, or rape, and incest, even if we believe his story about consensual sex. The seduction of women by force or more subtle means, particularly virgins,
widows, and nuns, had been severely punished by Spanish law since the thirteenth-century Siete partidas. The same body of law [...] defines incest thus: “It is the sin that in Latin is called incestus, which means a sin a man commits by lying knowingly with his relative, or with his wife’s relative, or the relative of another woman with whom he has lain, or lying with a relative four-time removed; or someone who lies with his stepmother, or his mother or daughter, or with his sister-in-law or daughter-in-law; or someone who lies with a woman belonging to a religious order, or with his god daughter or her mother.” I think that the law is clear, particularly taking into account that cuarto grado, or four times removed, is established as part of the consanguinity punishable as incest. Technically, incest meant having sex with a relative with whom it would be illegal to marry, which extended to cousins, though dispensations could be obtained from the church -both prohibitions and exceptions were laid out in canon law. In spite of his fancy rhetorical flourishes, there is no question that (as he admits) the prisoner is guilty and his punishment fits the crime. And his most serious crime is incest, not just fathering a confusing endogamous clan - thought that is, to be sure, what the prohibition seeks to avoid.
But is the idea so far-fetched after all? How would one go about explaining in this case that there are across four centuries ten different translations of this quite straightforward passage y con otras dos hermanas que no lo eran mias (literally, “and with two other sisters who were not mine”), a passage, as anybody can surely appreciate, of an incredible simplicity from the point of view of translation. In fact, only Thomas Shelton’s translation of 1620, along with those in 2003 and 2005 of Edith Grossman and Tom Lathrop respectively, actually agree in large part: the three are quite literal and the three allow for the “forbidden” interpretation I have just suggested here. My contention then is that the largely and intentionally non-literal, deflected interpretations of the seven other translations rest solely with the inability to go all the way down the true inenarrable path.
Conclusion
I have hopefully shown here that it is relevant if not altogether revealing to look at the legalistic innuendos in the Quijote by looking a bit more closely at
its translations over time. If one were to pursue this type of research more extensively, it would be interesting to ask what exactly do modern translations of classics communicate differently in these cases than early translations do, if at all. (In the example examined here, the only translations that agreed were interestingly situated at both ends of the four-century spectrum of the Quijote’s history in English translation.) To begin with, one could ask: “How is that the case in practical terms, and at what expense?” Or perhaps: “With what added value over time?” Secondly, one should be asking if terms and concepts specific to what are nowadays called “special languages” (such as legal discourse) travel well across centuries. Is this specific terminology rendered, in modern translations, in ways too far removed from the initial context to even carry through the text’s “historical baggage”, as is often felt to be the case of modern versions of classical texts?9 Thirdly, it is far from being a moot point to ask how ‘universes of knowledge’ such as law, religion, medicine, etc. are perceived or believed to evolve over centuries. Finally, as Translation Studies scholars, it would be important to ask how the question of “modernizing versus archaizing” these specific terminologies is resolved in the poetics of the translated text, even more so (perhaps in the case of modern versions of century-old classics) than the question of “foreignizing versus domesticating”, to which the field of Translation Studies has given overwhelming priority since the “cultural turn” of the late 1980s.
The theoretical perspective from which I believe the subject of the translation of special languages in translation and, more specifically, in the history of translation of the Quijote needs to be approached is not unlike the one put forward by William Childers (2006: xviii-xix), who writes in the introduction to his fascinating Transnational Cervantes:
My historicizing of the writings of Cervantes proceeds by reading them as if over the shoulder of a possible seventeenth-century reader. This attempt to read through the eyes of a seventeenth-century reader is only half of the hermeneutic circle in the historicist terms in which I understand it. The other half consists in the opposite movement, that is, back to the present, but from the perspective initially achieved through historical reconstructions. This is a process, as it were, of ‘drag-
ging Cervantes through the centuries,’ to show the relevance, not simply of his texts, but of the entire constellation of meanings they establish in relation to their historical circumstances.
It is in this regard that I believe it relevant to look at the transformation (or not) of the discourses of special languages in the translation of the Quijote throughout the centuries.
Does Childers (2006: xix) not conclude his introduction by stating: “I accept the label ‘pres-entist’ for this aspect of my project, but I hasten to add that if literary works did not have meaning for us in the present, there would be no reason to read them.”
Indeed, if one is going to drag Cervantes, the Quijote and its legal terminology and other textual and contextual implications with them through the centuries (and I am quite willing to entertain that very idea), then I believe that the most efficient way to do so is by resorting to the translated versions and the history of translation of what, as I mentioned here at the outset, is the world’s most translated book after the Bible.
References
1. Childers, Willliam (2005). “Legal Discourse in Don Quixote,” Mester. 34: 1-16.
2. Childers, Willliam (2006), Transnational Cervantes. Toronto and London: University ofTo-ronto Press.
3. Gonzalez Echevarria, Roberto. (2005). Love and the Law in Cervantes. New Haven: Yale University Press.
4. Johnson, Carroll B. (2005). “Cervantes and the Law, at Yale. Review Article of Roberto Gonzalez Echeverria, Love and the Law in Cervantes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America, 25.2 (2005 [2006]): 137-45.
5. Mancing, Howard. (2006). Cervantes’ Don Quixote: A Reference Guide. Westport (CT): Greenwood Press.
6. Moliner, Maria D. (1994) Diccionario del uso del espanol, quinta edicion. Madrid: Gredos.
7. Random House Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language (2006), New York: Random House.
