13:59 Oct 22 

don't get me wrong, I think the scorpion image is brilliant and if it conjured up a "bright red" image, I'd have no problem whatsoever with using it! However, I do feel that the important thing in this line is the colour aspect (borne out by requena's own interpretation: bright scorpion red sun), that the scorpion with all its implications (that Tara describes so well, and which we are all familiar with) is secondary, albeit adding its own very important contribution. I know it takes quite a leap of faith to risk changing the metaphor completely (as I suggest doing, for reasons already explained) and I'm certainly not brave enough to do it without a lot of consideration (you'll notice I only have a CR of 3). We translators also have to balance the translation losses involved in making that leap or using a calque-like translation, or hopefully, some compromise. In any case, there is considerable translation loss. But either way, what is needed here is something that conjures up the intense redness - of the sort you see as the sun is just heaving over the horizon - an unadulterated, brilliant redness

13:24 Oct 22 

Although it is common, I don't think it's necessary, and, as a fiction writer myself, I do not approve of it. It really does undermine the poet. He or she has complex reasons for his/her word choice and perhaps has spent many hours contemplating this particular word. Scorpion: is it only about the redness? What about the sun's rays being hot, piercing, stinging? A scorpion is something that most everyone is familiar with. If the animal in question had been something truly unknown to English speakers - and I can't think of a good example now - then the translator would have a choice: transpose the word for a similar "known" animal (in this case, scorpion-lobster-crab?) or keep the word and use a note at the bottom of the translation. I would probably choose the latter. But I don't think it's necessary in this case.

Much of what we choose to accomplish as writers is to "make it new". "Blood red" is easy; this poet could have used that in the original Spanish. But he/she chose not to, specifically, and I think we as translators need to honor this, particularly since this is a work of literature and not just an ordinary text.

08:39 Oct 22 

Also, I was so dubious about the redness of scorpions that I even researched the possibility of "Scorpio red", found some brilliant ones, only to discover that there are also some brilliant green scorpios, etc!
Bang goes that theory!

08:20 Oct 22 

I have to admit, I had searched high and low for "red scorpion" - anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, I'm unable to see how red those in the the above link are, as I'm totally unable to install Adobe Flash (a right pain!).

However, this translation is for an English-speaking audience, and, although I agree that readers should not be encouraged to be lazy/unimaginative, etc, metaphors do generally need to meaningful to them, otherwise they are pointless. I.e., they do need to be able to relate to them in some way. Here, for EN speakers, the scorpion metaphor lies in its inherent danger rather than its colour. So, if you want to incorporate both danger and colour in a way that most EN speakers can appreciate, then cultural transposition becomes necessary, and another metaphor has to be sought - one that incorporates one or, preferably, both of the ideas that are being transmitted in the ST.
This sort of cultural transposition is of course quite common in literary translation.

03:40 Oct 22 

...although I agree with Tara's discussion, I just want to add a biological note: ... estudios de la toxina del escorpión colorado (Rhopalurus junceus) ... There is a red scorpion in Latin America!
http://www.cooperativa.cl/uso-de-veneno-de-alacran-colorado-... ... and then search for "alacrán colorado"...

01:52 Oct 22 

You have to be careful not to lose the poet's intention and vision when translating this. Carol's point is that most English (UK/US) readers would not understand how a scorpion can be grouped in an image with a red sun. This is a little presumptuous: all of us have unique experiences and come to read a poem from a different place. In the US, for example, the southwest is full of scorpions, so southwesterners might find this description apt. More importantly, though, is the fact that poetry is not always meant to be something completely transparent. There can be opaque, strange metaphors, or words strung together simply for the sound they produce. In the Spanish, there is the "-AN" of "cantan" and "alacrán"...perhaps the poet wanted to mirror this sound. Using "blood" shifts the image from an insect that produces a paralyzing sting to a vital bodily substance. I think it's too much of a jump. If you substituted something else in the same category as a scorpion - lobster or crab, for example, although neither of those work for obvious reasons - that might be ok. But I can't see the use of "blood" and the omission of "scorpion" (or something similar) as a faithful tra