A la hora de traducir este poema tenía en cuenta los lectores de la India que hablan un variante de inglés británico. Así que usé palabras que a mi parecer tienen resonancia particular en la cultura de la India. ‘Daru’ es una palabra usada casi siempre para alcohol.
Sin entreteneros más aquí adjunto mi traducción del dicho poema:
SOBRE EL MITO DE SANTA TECLA
Por ELENA SALAMANCA
Traducido por Y.R.Radhika
A man will ask for my hand
and I’ll chop it off
another will be born
and I’ll chop it off again.
The man will think:
How perfect a woman, a tree of hands
she could milk the goats,
make cheese,
boil the chickpeas,
fetch water from the river,
knit my long inner pants.
But I’ll go on chopping my hands
when he says:
Woman, I asked for your hand
and you must milk the goats,
Woman, you’re mine,
fetch the water from the river,
serve me the cheese,
go, get me some daru from the village
Like flowers my hands will fall
And they’ll roam the countryside,
Insisting:
They won’t milk the goats
They won’t get some daru from the village
They’ll never darn his long inner pants
And even less,
Will they ever
Caress his testicles.
The man will say:
What a bad woman, a curse of hands.
He’ll go get an axe
He’ll chop off my hands.
New ones will be born
Then he’ll think
That new life begins in the navel
And he’ll slice my body in two.
My thousands of chopped hands
Will turn blue
And they will move.
They will dry the wheat,
Tease the water,
Dry the river,
Uproot the roots of the pasture,
Poison the goats,
Poison the cheese.
And the man’ll think:
What a monstrous curse:
It must be forbidden
to ask the hand of a woman with a will.
Wowee Ryan and J!
This is such a joyride. Thank you for creating such a beautiful world around such a beautiful poem. I'm struck how in a way your translation project is sprouting hands out and out like the curse... Your translations are so thoughtful and it's a treasure to witness the conversations you have, your reflections, your footnote exchanges and cross-pollinations, your swapped and preserved words in subsequent drafts. And the live screen recording! Unforgettable, and so unique. Plus the venn diagram representations. I love how layered this project became.