I first discovered Octavio Paz’s poem “Los
Novios” through the music of Eric Whitacre,[1]
where it was translated as "A Boy and a Girl." It quickly became one of my favorite poems, as well as one of my favorite choral works. I looked up the
original text, and while Muriel Rukeyser’s translation is beautiful, I was not
quite satisfied that it captured the simplicity of original text. In particular, the parallelism between
the first and the second stanzas seemed to be masked. I did this more literal translation for fun and (honestly)
as a break from studying.
As a side note, the title Los Novios, is very
difficult to translate into English without losing something. The word “novio” means a boyfriend or a
romantic partner and comes from the Latin novus,
or new. The feminine form “novia”
means the same thing, and in Spanish, if there are multiples in a group
consisting of females and males, the plural word takes the masculine
plural. While “los novios” could
be translated as “the boyfriends,” context here is clear that it is the sum of
a boyfriend and a girlfriend and not some sort of homoerotic message. Because “The Boyfriend and the
Girlfriend” is an awkward title, I took the liberty of translating the title as
“The Lovers,” which seems to me to capture the essence of what Paz was trying
to convey.
Original poem copyrighted by Octavio Paz.
Original poem copyrighted by Octavio Paz.
Tendidos en
la yerba
una muchacha y un muchacho.
Comen[2] naranjas, cambian besos como las olas cambian sus espumas.
una muchacha y un muchacho.
Comen[2] naranjas, cambian besos como las olas cambian sus espumas.
Tendido en
la playa
una muchacha y un muchacho.
Comen limones, cambian beso
como las nubes cambian espumas.
una muchacha y un muchacho.
Comen limones, cambian beso
como las nubes cambian espumas.
Tendidos
bajo tierra
una muchacha y un muchacho.
No dicen nada, no se besan,
cambian silencio por silencio.
una muchacha y un muchacho.
No dicen nada, no se besan,
cambian silencio por silencio.
Lying in the
grass
a girl and a
boy.
Eating
oranges, exchanging kisses
like the waves exchanging their foam.
like the waves exchanging their foam.
Lying on the
beach
a girl and a boy.
a girl and a boy.
Eating limes, exchanging kisses
like the clouds exchanging foam.
Lying underground
a girl and a boy.
Saying nothing, nor kissing
exchanging silence for silence.
a girl and a boy.
Saying nothing, nor kissing
exchanging silence for silence.
[2] To eat;
double entendre for sexual relations in Mexico (Paz is Mexican). Although I found it impossible to
translate this meaning (and it should in all likelihood be left vague anyways
for poetic value), I felt that this note was important for interpretation of a
nuance that may have gotten lost in translation.
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