At first it had no name. It was the thing itself, the vivid thing. It was his friend. On windy days it danced, demented, waving wild arms, or in the silence of evening drowsed and dreamed, swaying in the blue, the goldeny air. Even at night it did not go away. Wrapped in his truckle bed, he could hear it stirring darkly outside in the dark, all the long night long. There were others, nearer to him, more vivid still than this, they came and went, talking, but they were wholly familiar, almost a part of himself, while it, steadfast and aloof, belonged to the mysterious outside, to the wind and the weather and the goldeny blue air. It was part of the world, and yet it was his friend.
Look, Nicolas, look! See the big tree!
Tree. That was its name. And also: the linden. They were nice words. He had known them a long time before he knew what they meant. They did not mean themselves, they were nothing in themselves, they meant the dancing singing thing outside. In wind, in silence, at night, in the changing air, it changed and yet was changelessly the tree, the linden tree. That was strange.
Everything had a name, but although every name was nothing without the thing named, the thing cared nothing for its name, had no need of a name, and was itself only. And then there were the names that signified no substantial thing, as linden and tree signified that dark dancer. His mother asked him who did he love the best. Love did not dance, nor tap the window with frantic fingers, love had no leafy arms to shake, yet when she spoke that name that named nothing, some impalpable but real thing within him responded as if to a summons, as if it had heard its name spoken. That was very strange.
He soon forgot about these enigmatic matters, and learned to talk as others talked, full of conviction, unquestioningly.
The sky is blue, the sun is gold, the linden tree is green. Day is light, it ends, night falls, and then it is dark. You sleep, and in the morning wake again. But a day will come when you will not wake. That is death. Death is sad. Sadness is what happiness is not. And so on. How simple it all was, after all! There was no need even to think about it. He had only to be, and life would do the rest, would send day to follow day until there were no days left, for him, and then he would go to Heaven and be an angel. Hell was under the ground.
Matthew Mark Luke and John
Bless the bed that I lie on
If I die before I wake
Ask holy God my soul to take
He peered from behind clasped hands at his mother kneeling beside him in the candlelight. Under a burnished coif of coiled hair her face was pale and still, like the face of the Madonna in the picture. Her eyes were closed, and her lips moved, mouthing mutely the pious lines as he recited them aloud. When he stumbled on the hard words she bore him up gently, in a wonderfully gentle voice. He loved her the best, he said. She rocked him in her arms and sang a song.
See saw Margery Daw
This little chicken
Got lost in the straw
Al principio no tenía nombre. Era la cosa en sí, la cosa animada. Era su amigo. En días ventosos bailaba, demente, ondulando sus anchos brazos; en el silencio del crepúsculo, dormitaba y soñaba, balanceándose en el aire azul dorado. No escapó ni siquiera al anochecer. Envuelto en su cama plegable, él podía escuchar sus movimientos trémulos afuera en la oscuridad, durante toda la noche. Había otros, más parecidos a él, incluso más agitados; iban y venían, hablando, pero ellos eran del todo iguales a él, casi una parte de sí mismo, mientras la cosa, firme y distante, pertenecía al misterioso exterior, al viento y la intemperie y al aire azul dorado. Era una parte del mundo, y, sin embargo, era su amigo.
¡Mira, Nicolas, mira! ¡Mira el gran árbol!
Árbol. Ese era su nombre. Y también: el tilo. Eran palabras bonitas. Las había conocido mucho tiempo antes de conocer su significado. No significaban en sí mismas, no eran nada por sí mismas, significaban aquél baile y canto de afuera. En el viento, en el silencio, en la noche, en el aire incierto, cambiaba y sin embargo era inmutable el árbol, el tilo. Era extraño.
Todo tenía un nombre, pero, aunque cada nombre no fuera nada sin la cosa nombrada, la cosa no se preocupaba por su nombre, no necesitaba un nombre, sólo era por sí sola. También existían nombres que no significaban nada sustancial, no como el tilo y el árbol significaban aquél bailarín sombrío. Su madre le preguntó a quién amaba más. El amor no bailaba, ni golpeaba la ventana con dedos desenfrenados; el amor no tenía ramas frondosas que sacudir; sin embargo, cuando ella pronunció aquél nombre que no significaba nada, algo impalpable pero real dentro de él respondió a un llamado, como si hubiese escuchado su nombre. Era muy extraño.
Pronto se olvidó de los enigmas y aprendió a hablar como los demás hablaban, determinado, sin disputar.
El cielo es azul; el sol es dorado; el tilo es verde. El día es luz; al terminar, cae la noche y entonces está oscuro. Duermes y por la mañana despiertas de nuevo. Pero llegará un día en que no despiertes. Esa es la muerte. La muerte es triste. La tristeza es lo que la felicidad no es. Y así sucesivamente. ¡Qué simple era, después de todo! No había necesidad siquiera de pensar en ello. Sólo tenía que ser y la vida se encargaría del resto, mandaría día tras día hasta que no quedaran más días—para él—y entonces iría al cielo y se convertiría en un ángel. El infierno estaba bajo tierra.
Marcos, Lucas, Juan y Mateo
bendigan la cama en que duermo
si muero antes del alba
pídanle a Dios que se lleve mi alma
A la luz de las velas, espió a su madre desde el escondite de sus manos unidas, ella arrodillada junto a él. Bajo una cofia bruñida de cabello enroscado, su rostro era pálido y sereno, como el rostro de la Madonna de la pintura. Sus ojos estaban cerrados, sus labios se movían, articulando en silencio los versos devotos mientras él los recitaba en voz alta. Cuando trastabilló en las palabras difíciles, ella lo condujo con suavidad, con una voz maravillosamente dulce. La amaba más que a nadie, le dijo. Ella lo meció en sus brazos y cantó una canción.
Sube y baja Margery Daw
este pollito
en la paja se perdió
John Banville's style is characterized by a careful word choice designed to evoke feelings of ambiguity and openness of the imagination. In his writings, there is often a use of adjectivization that differs from common pairings between nouns and adjectives. There is also a deliberate delay on the subjects, so that all the components of the predicate create an expectation in the reader to discover the subject they describe and the agency they have. Banville's sentences are crafted in an abundance of descriptions; yet, they are often short and precise. This is emphasized by the use of punctuation and conjunctions, which give a fragmentary cadence to the sentences meant to evoke contemplation and a stream of consciousness. In the Spanish translations I have found, especially in Eclipse, the emphasis seems to be in the general plot and idea described instead of the craftsmanship of the sentence. The result is that some words and even complete sentences are deliberately changed, the sentences are often long and redundant, and the rhythm, the imagery, the delay, and the ambiguity are lost. The virtues of both translations are the fidelity to the punctuation and use of conjunctions, and the fidelity to the descriptions. My criteria for the translation is to preserve the rhythm, word choice, metaphors, and acuteness of the sentences by staying as close as possible to the original design of the sentence. Thus, I intend to maintain the precise word choice to recreate the ambiguity and lyricism of Banville's prose. I removed some of the conjunctions to not distract the reader from the evocation of the sensorial.
In my translation of Eclipse I tried to maintain the delayed subject, which culminates in the epiphanic moment of the narrator's experience. I preserved the word choice and metaphors in the descriptions of the sensorial. I eliminated some of the conjunctions and altered the order of some prepositional phrases because it became unclear what they modified. In the fragments of Dr. Copernicus, the main challenge was to keep the allusion to a notion described as “it” or “the thing itself”, since the equivalents in Spanish more often than not gave an aspect of informality that is not present in English. Nevertheless, the attempt was made to contrast the concept described with the boy denominated as “he”. In terms of the prayers and song fragments, I chose to alter the word order and, at times, the meaning itself so as to keep the rhyme and rhythm of the fragments, while still maintaining the overall tone and purpose of the lyrics.
John Banville