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El Go
Keywords: Culture & History
In a recent discussion on rec.games.go a Go poem by Jorge Luis Borges was posted. Here it is in the original spanish - with a different closing than the one posted in rec.games.go. I like this one better, but do not know which one is correct. El Go
Hoy, 9 de septiembre de 1978, Keep in mind that Borges was blind, and therefore could not play go across-the-board, and computers were still a ways off. I think the ending posted in rec.games.go is correct:
Hoy, 9 de setiembre de 1978,
Hikaru79: Does anyone have a decent translation of this to English? Doing a BabelFish on it, I get: Which is enough to strike my interest, yet I think a good translation would be more appropriate. Anyone speak spanish here?? ^^
Today 9th september of 1978 Hope there aren't many typos, just a plain translation, without rhyme. That's the best I can do so far. RBerenguel RafaelCaetano Berenguel, I don't speak Spanish, but I feel there's something wrong with "esta revelación de laberintos/que nunca será mio". Here "será" doesn't agree either with "revelacion" or "laberintos". A Google search indicates that the correct verse should be "...laberinto". As for the 2 different endings, it seems both versions are correct. I'll ask in the Argentinian go mailing list (no Argentians reading SL?). As I feel it, the mine "mio" goes for the board/the game. And I'm spanish, so I think that the only problem would be my english, not my spanish. Anyway, thanks for the comments RBerenguel Huh? It doesn't make sense. In "that will never be mine", "that" can't be "the board". Gramatically it has to be either "revelation" or "labiryinths", but of course "revelation" doesn't make sense in the context. This reasoning also holds for Spanish.
Anyway, the Argentinians confirmed that both versions are correct. The version ending in "esta revelación de laberintos
que ya no exploraré" is the original one. Borges himself edited the poem and published later with the ending "esta revelación de un laberinto que nunca será mío". Note that he changed "laberintos" to "un laberinto".RafaelCaetano Beautiful translation on an Andalusian web site by Auxi Gómez scsfello
link: In the translation in the web above, my that goes for which. I don't want to argue with you Rafael about my translation, I have little time to do useless things, and maybe translating it was also useless. If you think you could have done a better job, maybe it would be better to have it done. Anyway, changing laberintos for laberinto makes it work well. RBerenguel My version (as RBerenguel said, "that" goes for "which" and refers to the labyrinths: JLB loved them); in fact a mixture of a translation I made before and the version above. Borges would have made a perfect translation, since he was as good in english as in spanish. Brindis
Today, September 9th, 1978, One more translation... it's not an absolutely direct translation, but it's close:
Today, 9 September 1978, (For the alternate version, replace the last two lines with:)
For this revelation of a labyrinth -- Benjamin Geiger (I knew those four semesters of Spanish would come in handy!) This is a copy of the living page "El Go" at Sensei's Library. ![]() |