The Beauty of a Phrase Well-Turned (Reprise)

Last week I wrote about a beautiful paragraph in Isabel Allende's book Inés, del Alma Mía. I quoted the Spanish text verbatim, without an translation. I received an e-mail from a friend commenting on the blog, telling me that she enjoyed reading it even when I wrote in Spanish or in Greek.

I answered her e-mail, with my own translation, but the original Spanish was much better. Yesterday, I checked to see the English translation of the book was in our public library. It was, and was even checked in, so I put in a hold request on the book. I went to pick it up at lunch time today. If you have not read the other piece, you must understand that one of the suggested meanings of the name Chile means where the land ends.

The original in Spanish reads like this:

El Jardín del Edén, la tierra prometida, el paraíso. Mudo, mojado de lágrimas, el conquistador conquistado iba descubriendo el lugar donde acaba la tierra, Chile.

The translation in the book published in English reads like this:

The Garden of Eden, the promised land, paradise. Mute, his face wet with tears, the conquered conqueror was coming to know the place where the land ends: Chile.

The translatorʼs name is Margaret Sayers Peden. I think she has translated all of the Isabel Allende books into English. She is an excellent translator. More beautiful still, though, is the original Spanish.

I checked it out of the library. Maybe Rose will enjoy reading it.

The Beauty of a Phrase Well-Turned

I've always appreciated wordsmiths. I've got little or nothing of artistic creativity, but I enjoy words. Being a multilingual reader adds to my sense of amazement at the power of artistic words, capable of creating mental image, with no need of paint or canvas.

Southern Chile is beautiful. Eusebio Lillo and Bernardo de Vera y Pintado may have been thinking of her beauty when they wrote these words that Chileans sing as part of their National Anthem:

Puro Chile, es tu cielo azulado, Puras brisas te cruzan también, Y tu campo de flores bordados, Es la copia feliz del Edén.

Those lines speak of Chile being a "perfect copy of Eden." Say, did you know the meaning of the name, Chile? Though disputed, one of the suggested meanings has its origin in an Aymara word that means "end of the earth." That's an interesting thought, a perfect copy of Eden, at the end of the earth.

Over a very long period of time now, I have been reading Isabel Allende's new book, Inés, del Alma Mía (link to English translation), which is the story of Inés Suárez, who with Pedro de Valdivia, conquered Chile. I have seen her name on street signs before, without knowing about her story. Pedro de Valdivia is legendary in Chile (I knew a bit about his story), founding the city of Santiago (where we lived for many years). Academician don't usually admit to liking or using Wikipedia. It is not a refereed encyclopedia, and doesn't meet academic or scholarly standards. Many Wikipedia articles lack documentation. If you don't tell anyone I pointed you to it, you can get some information about Inés Suárez without having to read the book by reading this article.

I'm almost done reading the book. Allende is a wordsmith in Spanish, a master storyteller. On page 328, I found these words, that describe Pedro de Valdivia being smitten with the beauty of Southern Chile, using the analogy of the garden of Eden, as well:

El Jardín del Edén, la tierra prometida, el paraíso. Mudo, mojado de lágrimas, el conquistador conquistado iba descubriendo el lugar donde acaba la tierra, Chile.

Whoa! Such a beautiful phrase takes the sting out of the Cubs being down 0-2 in the NLDS. Part of being made imago Dei, is our ability to use language to communicate about the glory of God. Thanks be to God!