Rafael Rodriguez
on translating Mario Benedetti
Translating “Corazón coraza” was like coming up against the first experience of a feeling that I have sought and reveled in many times hence. It was one of the first poems I ever recall reading, probably the first one I took seriously. I remember feeling it was a very inviting read, since not only does it take, in my opinion, a very positive stand on its subject matter, but more importantly, it features a great example of Benedetti’s trademark simplicity and wordplay, which my thirteen-or-so-years-old self must have thought both invitingly clever and useful to canalize my feelings (I’m sure Benedetti was also a romantic at thirteen).
Benedetti writes in layers, small thoughts and images always in dialogue, usually in one direction, one with the next. The bridge of communication between these layers is where the main idea nurtures and develops. At the end of the poem, you get a feeling that the message is like a staircase of bridges, invisible climbing (or descending) steps found between each visible line. He may start from the outside and make his way in, or he may start with the source and finish almost as a spectator to his own craft. To offer just one example of this in “Corazón coraza,” we may note how he sets his tone with the first lines “porque te tengo y no / porque te pienso” (“because I have you and don’t / because I feel you”), and then, like layers, he uses a simple image to add depth in the succeeding lines: “porque la noche está de ojos abiertos / porque la noche pasa y digo amor” (literal translation: “because night is open-eyed / because night passes and I say love”). Clearly, a literal translation doesn’t fully evoke the original image, especially because “love” and amor have a OneHundred Years of Solitude–worthy gap of history and meaning between them, to say the least, as far as Benedetti is concerned. It certainly felt incomplete, but it wasn’t until I had finished translating everything that I was able to notice this. My point here is that it was very hard for me to write the translation the way that Benedetti wrote the original (with the one-directional layers and the overall metaphor that builds in between), so instead, I chose to make it more explicit, such as “because the night draws breath and I exhale you,” which is an idea you only fully acquire in the original when you get to the very end of the poem, “y aunque / la noche pase y yo te tenga / y no,” and are able to fully comprehend the metaphorical and sensorial meanings of “night” as Benedetti intended them.
On a last note, probably one of the most difficult parts of the process was coming up with a decent title. Coraza is very loose to translate, and is just a very transmutable and widely metaphorized word in Spanish. It also sounds very un-poetic in English. Some very poor examples I went through: “heart-cuirass, “Heart-bark,” “Heart-armor,” “Paper-heart” (I was desperate at this point), and a couple more not even worth mentioning. Then the ingenious Emma Hirvisalo came up with “Rind-heart,” (Rind! Amazing!), which I modified to “Heart-rind” to adjust for rhythm. I can’t even describe the perfect puzzle-fit giddiness I felt at that point. So thanks again, Emma, wherever you currently find yourself in your perfect eureka word pitch translation crusade.
[Editor’s Note: Emma was a Finnish exchange student at the University of Pennsylvania. She and Rafa took a translation course together.]
about the author
Mario Benedetti (1920–2009) was an Uruguayan writer who belonged to the “Generación del 45” (Generation of ’45), known for its close ties to political rife and rising modernist ideas and innovative writing structures. He was a city poet, and his love and concern for Montevideo is found all throughout the colloquial-style dialogues he crafted and recreated in both his novels and his poems. His pen is subtle and simple, and in many ways he is almost the perfect supporting actor to the themes and personas he wrote about or fictionalized, a quality that perhaps stemmed from his equally passive manner of approaching arguably volatile themes such as political protest, social injustice, and repressed love. He is not very well-known in the English-speaking world, an observation that begs further inquiry as it is inversely proportional to his influence in Latin America with respect to other Hispanic poets that have been much more widely translated. His last poem, which he dictated to his secretary in his deathbed, might evoke a similar idea:
My life has been like a farce My art has consisted In this not being noticed too much I’ve been as a levitator in my old age The brown sheen of the tiles Never came off my skin.
Mention Benedetti’s name in almost any group in almost any country in Latin America, and a collective cry of delight will ring out. He seems to be able to embody all of the voices whose stories he tells with a deep respect and humility.
about the translator
Rafael Rodriguez is a recent Penn graduate currently working at a cafe library with the purpose of meeting perfect strangers who will teach him things about the world. He loves the ocean, film, poetry, and romanticizing just about everything unintentionally. An avid reader and aspiring writer, you can almost always find him running whilst daydreaming in the mornings, feigning adventures and escapades in the early afternoons, and drinking draft beers in near absolute concentration by night.
