5 November 2008

Entry 7

A conundrum

Apologies for the silence this past couple of weeks. Have been working mainly on other books (writing short biographies of two English poets at the moment) and travelling, so have had to neglect Agualusa. Normal service will be resumed next week.

Meantime, a little something for you to worry about:

"Those who eat at the table with the Flemish people are going to feel fear in their hearts. But we're not! Antoine Ninganessa is walking alongside us — we're not afraid of oppression."

OK. Except that while that's a simple and pretty literal translation of the words I've just come to on page 91, it's rather more complicated than that. They're meant to be the lyrics of a song.

Here's the context for you:

There were some men who were carrying little round stones and they said these stones were bewitched and when you threw them at the Portuguese they'd explode as though they were bombs. There were also some who carried old [canhangulos - some kind of weapon - anybody?] and other katanas or long sticks. They were singing: "Those who eat at the table with the Flemish people / They are going to feel fear in their hearts. / But we're not! / Antoine Ninganessa is walking alongside us / We're not afraid of oppression."

In the Portuguese it looks like this:

"Aqueles que comem à mesa com os Flamengos / Esses vão sentir o medo no coração / Mas nós não! / Antoine Ninganessa marcha ao nosso lado / Nós não tememos a opressão."

(Incidentally there's a footnote to the Flemish bit, saying it refers to Zaire, formerly the Belgian Congo.)

As you can see, lines two, three and five all rhyme in the Portuguese; and for something chanted like this by a crowd it would be a shame to lose that rhyme in English (and would sound odd without it). So we need a version in English which keeps that sort of chanty rhyme and rhythm, and of course the sense.

All I've got at the moment is the following:

"He who eats at Flemish tables / Struck with fear his heart should be. / But not we! / For with Ninganessa near us / We need fear no tyranny!"

But, well, it's not good enough...

Any offers?

PS Next week a bigger bit of text, some responses to the things discussed in previous posts, and a really tricky pun...

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Estação das Chuvas © José Eduardo Agualusa
English translation © Daniel Hahn