Anita Hotchkiss, October 15, 2019
Blog Post – Translation #2 – Ballestra
Pre-translation strategic decisions:
Before translating, I have to decide if and how I’m going to (a) recognize and (b) differentiate between the standard Italian, the Pescara dialect, colloquial Italian and youth slang, and whether and to what extent I will translate any Italian idioms or expressions. My strategy will be to use a standard Italian for description, and different tones and language for the foreman and Lu Purk, with more casual language when Lu Purk is speaking to indicate his youth, and to do the best I can to come up with English idioms that will retain the sense of the Italian ones.
Early Friday morning, without having slept a wink all night because of his excitement about the new job, he presented himself to the boss in work clothes: long, loose hair, corduroy pants, and a T-shirt saying Free marijuana, Crooked Craxi in jail! That’ll be our spring!
Scanning the worrying bruises that encircled his eyes, the foreman reproached him: “I don’t see you in shape at all, boy.” “What happened to you, didn’t you sleep?”
“Relax, bro’. I’m ready for anything” Lu Purk lied. “I can’t wait to start. Let’s go” he said. “Pass me the first bucket for wherever up there.” He made a vague gesture toward the top of the scaffolding; one of the young bricklayers saw him from the roof and greeted him cheerfully with a wave of his arm. “I’m here, partner. I’ve come to give you a hand” he trembled, raring to go. “Are you kidding, son?” said the foreman, with a thread of concern in his voice. “We agreed that you would occupy yourself with the buckets. There’s no place for you up there. It’s dangerous” he added seriously. “You will keep an eye on the kneading machine and will give a hand to the cripple with the buckets, and that’s that.”
“Whatever you say, capo” said Lu Purk, spreading his arms. Don’t get hot. I’ll watch over the fucking kneading machine so the world doesn’t fall into it.”
“Of course,” agreed the foreman. “If you want to make some money and don’t make me regret listening to you, do me the damn pleasure of obeying orders, agreed?”
“Sure,” said Antò Lu Purk. “I wouldn’t want to give you a headache for anything in the world” he added.
Decisions of Detail
I used the word “bro” rather than “partner” when Antò speaks to the foreman to indicate his lack of respect, but used the word “partner” when he’s calling to his friend up on the scaffolding. I also used the actual word “fucking” which I presumed someone of his age and political attitude would use. At the end, I used the word “sure” instead of “yes,” again to indicate a more relaxed way of speaking. When the foreman was speaking, given that it did seem in the original that he showed some concern about Lu Purk, I had him use the word “son” and speak in a more paternal tone. I changed “holy” piacere to “damn pleasure” which indicates he was swearing but does not use the word “holy” which would not be used in English.
I used the politically unacceptable word “cripple” when the foreman was speaking, because I don’t believe that workmen in a building site crew pay much attention to political correctness.
As a way of giving more information about Craxi, I added the word “Crooked” to his name on the T-shirt, which I felt would at least give a clue that Craxi was a person who was a criminal. I felt any more words to describe him would not be consistent with what one usually finds on a T-shirt.