a brief message from Alfonsina Storni

Subconciencia
Has hablado, has hablado y me he dormido.
Pero duermo y no duermo, porque siento
que estoy bajo el supremo pensamiento:
vivo, viviré siempre y he vivido.

Has hablado, has hablado y he caído
en un marasmo... cede hasta el aliento.
Tiempo atrás, en las sombras, me he perdido:
estoy ciega. No tengo sentimiento.

Como el espacio soy, como el vacío.
Es una sombra todo el cuerpo mío
y puedo como el humo levantarme:

Oigo soplos etéreos... sobrehumanos...
Sujétame a la tierra con tus manos,
que si el viento se mueve ha de llevarme.

Subconscience
You've talked, you've talked and I've fallen asleep
But I sleep and do not sleep, because I perceive
that I am beneath the highest thought:
I live, I shall always live, and I have lived.

You've talked, you've talked and I have fallen
into a paralysis... even my breath stops.
Some time ago, in the shadows, I got lost:
I am blind. I have no feeling.

I am like space, like the void.
A shadow is my entire body
and I can rise like smoke:

I hear ethereal sighs... superhuman...
Bind me to the earth with your hands,
for if the wind blows, it must carry me away.

translated 6th Nov 2013

Meanwhile, in Cuba...

Independent March in Front of the Capitol Demands Gay Marriage -- Lilianne Ruiz

translation submitted to and cross-posted from Translating Cuba

Posted on July 20, 2013

Independent LGBT activists marched before the Capitol this weekend — photo by  Lilianne Ruiz

HAVANA, Cuba, July 2nd 2013, Lilianne Ruiz / www.cubanet.org — In concurrence with Gay Pride Day, celebrated worldwide every 28th of June, a dozen activists marched past the Capitol last Saturday, led by Leannes Imbert Acosta, director of the LGBT community’s Rights Observatory. Afterwards, they continued the march towards the Paseo del Prado, carrying the rainbow flag.

At this event, the protesters wore slogans supporting marriage between persons of the same sex.  Imbert Acosta had this to say:

“This year the march brings up the topic of marriage between persons of the same sex.  We are announcing the beginning of a campaign to collect at least ten thousand signatures, in order to later present a legal initiative before the National Assembly of Popular Power to grant the right to enter into matrimony to same-sex couples.”

The LGBT Observatory of Cuba since 2011 has called for the march around Gay Pride Day, not only for people in the LGBT community, but also for any citizen who identifies with the cause of ending discrimination on basis of sexual orientation.  Regarding this and other rights, Imbert Acosta stated:

“What we are asking for is not the right to be gays or lesbians… We demand that, being gays and lesbians, the State and society recognize the totality of our rights. One does not lose one’s religious dimension, nor political, nor legal personality by expressing a homosexual orientation. Sexuality is one human dimension, just as are all the others.  Historically we have been discriminated against for cultural, religious, and political reasons.  Nonetheless, a homosexual person must also have the right to share in culture, religion, and politics, as well as enter into matrimony, in the same way and for the same reasons as would a heterosexual couple.”

Asked about the role of the CENESEX official (National Center of Sexual Education) in this sense, Acosta comments:

“Mariela Castro, daughter of the Cuban president, serves more as a government spokesperson to the LGBT community than as a representative of the LGBT community to the government.  It is a means of maintaining control.  Hence many times the title of political group stigmatizes us because we are not in agreement with the Center that she directs.  Nevertheless, we have tried to build bridges for dialogue and they are the ones who have refused, alleging that we visit diplomatic offices, to which we respond that Mrs. Castro also does the same.  We have talked with transsexuals who are affiliated with the center and they tell us that they recognize that CENESEX does not authentically represent the interests of the LGBT community, but they allege that they need their operation (surgical sex change).

“On the other hand, Mrs. Castro does call on the march for World Day Against Homophobia to dance the conga with slogans in support of socialism, which as we all know is the political system which her family heads.  So, she is making a political campaign with the interests of the community.”

Mariela Castro is currently deputy of the National Assembly of Popular Power.  She has expressed on multiple occasions that CENESEX already put forth a draft bill before the National Assembly, “But,” comments Imbert Acosta, “in every case, it only contemplates civil recognition, not marriage as such.  And that is another of the matters that we wish to clarify today.  At the least, we, the non-officially allied LGBT activists of the island and many members of the community, want marriage, not just a civil union law which would leave us where we are situated, in a situation of disadvantage in matters of rights compared to heterosexuals.”

Although it is true that the authorities have not intervened directly against the protesters, it is known that they have made warnings to possible participants to keep them from marching.

A police warning can discourage many in a country with iron control by the State.

By Lilianne Ruiz

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

of Latin deponent verbs in Parasite Eve OST lyrics

A curious recurring theme of video game and anime soundtracks is the song that speaks a different language from that of singer, perhaps also the composer.  This has happened in Spanish, Italian, and Russian, to name a few, but Latin is a repeat favorite.  My oh my, can Latin yield results from distressingly beautiful to merely distressing.  This depends not just on the inflection (or lack) of the singer but also the skill of each writer.  The latter may seem to get off easier: if not having to sing weren't advantage enough, lifting non-contextual but stirring phrases from literature is a perennially beloved cheat. 

It is also easier.  In perfect fairness, there are brave original compositions that have a grand sweep all their own.  But the details, ever a place of devilry, are even more Satanic when a writer's love of pretty new words meets Latin's schizophrenic vocabulary, mostly obedient to a prolific set of rules, and please please please mind the exceptions (they are manifold).  Mostly the errors will go unnoticed, for in the average course of playing or watching no one will hear the Latin and grab paper and pen to begin parsing.  Yet there will always be pedants in the audience, some of whom will necessarily be classicists, and their curiosity once roused does not abate.

I am a pedant.

I was curious when I heard the song Somnia Memorias from the Parasite Eve OST.
This is because the song, composed by Yoko Shimomura and sung by Shani Rigsbee, has lyrics in intermittent Spanish and Latin.  The lyrics can be found here with a running translation.  The letras en español are simple, beginning with an existential wanderlust dissociative fit which segues into a mild attack of Spanish emo before careening into a lesson about coming to terms with your apocalyptic fever dreams.

Fine and well.  But ah, the Latin.  It gives the song its title, and takes peace from the pedants.  It begins innocuously enough: ultra somnia, ultra memorias -- "beyond dreams, beyond memories" (or "on the other side of", if repetition annoys).
Now see Grammar and Orthography conspire to introduce the hosts of Confusion: 
arbor sacra, mala dulcem, maturum ferens

Though the commas would have you parse it one way, the inflections would have it otherwise: "a sacred tree bearing sweet, ripe fruit" makes the most sense, but if mala is a neuter plural accusative, which it is, it wouldn't be dulcem nor maturum, and so it instead tells us of "the sacred evil tree carrying a pleasant early thing" which, if less mystical, is no less mystifying.  

But the confusion deepens verses later, when the lyrics seem to abandon Latin altogether:
Alicubi apud memorias longinquas, aliquid intra me espergiselt
"Somewhere in the view of distant memories, something within me"...
Is a word that proves one of two things: either no official lyrics were ever released and the transcription is in error, or the composer completely invented a word, and did not even bother to dress it in a toga.

So which is it?  A pedant, after compulsive repetitions of six seconds of the song, will notice that the word sounds like espergesit: closer, but still not a word... unless the pedant has a decent dictionary, which will reveal a curious verb:

expergiscor, expergisci, experrectus sum  -- 3rd, dep:  awake, bestir oneself

Any disciple of Wheelock can tell you: the deponent verbs are active in meaning, but passive in form.  Now it is evident!  Our transcription underlined above is a strangely Late Latin manhandling of giving the deponent verb an active form.  It reads expergiscit in some lyric writer's forgotten notebook, and makes poppa Cato circumvolve in his fields, groaning a correction: expergiscitur.  But what could defunct rotary Romans say to the next line?

Amorem indulgentiam macroem dolorem conguoscebit 

Ah yes.  Love, concession, and sorrow are direct objects.  Repeat listenings do not help descry what macroem could be.  Surely another third declension accusative? Maiorem? An older person? Or big, great? Great big sorrow? An older person? Yes, then -- love, concession, old people and sorrow, or just great big sorrow, they are the direct objects of... something that will happen in the future!  Cognoscebit, could it be?  Ah, but no, that'd have to be cognoscet.  We leave this lying by the roadside, romantically.  Omnia terminabit: it will end everything.

I can only close by noting that the final line in Latin begins with a spelling error:
luro ut esses prope me

To mean "I swear that you were near me", it would have to read iuro.  Or juro, if you truly insist.

Can you spot the wild subjunctive?

natalia y yo hablamos de la vida

1:48 PMnatalia
gracias, solo no queria hablarle en ingle si es latina
a veces los latinos me hablan todo en ingles y me parece tan raro
1:49 PMyo
a mi me viene raro tambien, sobre todo cuando marcan la linea en espanol
no me sorprende tanto en la vida cotidiana pues me creen 'gringo' en seguida
1:51 PMnatalia
yo no te tomaria por gringo a vos
pareces espanol o gallego como decimos en argentina
1:52 PMyo
: D  me tomaron todos por gallego ahi, me encantaba
1:52 PMnatalia
hablando de la patria - sabes algo de john?
1:53 PMyo
sip.  no se nota tan satisfecho con lo de la escuela de leyes
a el que no le gusta nada lo ilogico no me sorprende ya que el estudio de la ley es ejercicio en lo arbitrario
pero tendra exito, solo que necesita acostumbrarse y ubicarse--  aparte de esas cuestiones esta bien
1:55 PMnatalia
pobre, yo por eso dedidi no ir a leyes
era mi sueno
todavia me apasiona
pero es un mundo en el que no quiero vivir
todo tan estructurado, para aprender luego las vueltas a la cosa
1:56 PMyo
ahi va, lo has captado
ya voy creyendo que a el le va a despertar un activismo feroz
pues no le gusta tampoco la injusticia
mejor dicho, no la aguanta
1:57 PMnatalia
es muy dificil - la politica es aun peor
justo las dos cosas que me gustaban
1:58 PMyo
el soñaba hacerse senador
degollaria a la asamblea entera dentro de una semana si fuera
1:58 PMnatalia
me costo mucho - pero entendi que todo en politica es gris
la democracia nunca puede ser real
y todo eso
1:59 PMyo
me fascinan las dos, de punto de vista de activismo -- extraer y sanar lo pudrido...
pero es un baile de balanza - contrabalanza
y la democracia si puede ser real, tal como el buen canto de una pollera llena es real
2:00 PMnatalia
es que si es real a niveles nacionales todo se hace un caos - los humanos somos unos cretinos
espero conozcas la palabra cretino?
2:01 PMyo
POS SI
2:01 PMnatalia
argentinisima
me pongo asi cuando hablo politica
de todos modos en los tiempos que vivimos pocos buscan los ideales
pero te digo que algunos hay de los buenos todavia
pero para ser democraticos tienen que dejar opinar a los malos y despiadados
los que dicen ser perfectos y juzgan - ya sabes
2:04 PMyo
si, y poner fe en el hecho de que las opiniones de los 'buenos' venceran, por apelar a la naturaleza buena de los humanos, o por simple numero
y por eso funcaba bien en los tiempos de aristoteles cuando todo era ciudad-estado, separado y soberano
2:05 PMnatalia
exacto
ahi puede ser
2:05 PMyo
y por eso ves el revuelto cuando llegas al nivel nacional
2:06 PMnatalia
pero ahora todo - hasta las ciudadades son una cosa gigantesca
como monstruos
2:06 PMyo
BsAs me espanto a la vez que me fascino
como 16 ciudades individuas hechas colossus
2:07 PMnatalia
es asi, tiene muchas ventajas el modernismo, la urbanizacion, pero la maldad humana junta es tan triste
2:08 PMyo
las abuelas ricas con chaquetas de seda y poodles en los brazos -- a la otra esquina, niños harapientos dormidos en cartón
2:08 PMnatalia
me gusta que ves lo que digo
este mundo se tiene que acabar pronto
2:08 PMyo
si no acabamos con el antes
2:09 PMnatalia
asi es
bueno, te dejo laburar porque yo me entusiasmo mucho
con esos temas
2:10 PMyo
eso, me pensaba y que buena tertulia echamos... dale, la proxima vez que estas aca o yo ahi debemos tomar un cafe y masticar estos temas cuanto mas
invitamos a merce tb y arreglaremos los problemas del planeta
2:12 PMnatalia
suena buenisimo
2:12 PMyo
me vuelvo a estas santas bonachonas cartas
gracias por el alimento cerebral