La casa de Bernarda Alba - Federico García Lorca - Spanish to English Translation

Source text
Federico García Lorca
La casa de Bernarda Alba

Translations starts

The House of Bernarda Alba

Act II

White room inside Bernarda´s house. The doors on the left lead to the bedrooms. Bernarda´s daughters are seated on low chairs, sewing. Magdalena embroiders. La Poncia is with them.

Angustias:

I´ve finished cutting the third sheet.

Martirio:

It´s for Amelia.

Magdalena:

Angustias – should I add Pepe´s initials as well?

Angustias:

(Drily) No.

Magdalena:

(Loudly) Adela, aren´t you coming?

Amelia:

She´s probably lying down.

La Poncia:

That one´s got something. She´s restless, trembling, scared, as if a lizard were between her breasts.

 Martirio:

She doesn´t have anything different to deal with than the rest of us.

Magdalena:

All, except Angustias.

Angustias:

I´m fine, and anyone who doesn´t like it can go to hell.

Magdalena:

Well, I must admit that your best qualities have always been your figure and your sensitive nature.

Angustias:

Fortunately, I´ll soon be out of this hell hole.

Magdalena:

You might not be!

Martirio:

That´s enough.

Angustias:

Besides, it´s better to have some meat on your bones than be a skinny corpse.

Magdalena:

In one ear and out the other.

Amelia:

(To La Poncia) Open the door to the yard to see if we can get some fresh air in here.

(La Poncia opens the door.)

Martirio:

I couldn´t fall asleep last night because of the heat.

Amelia:

Neither could I.

Magdalena:

I had to get up to cool down. There was a dark stormy cloud and a few rain drops as well.

La Poncia:

It was one in the morning and it felt like fire was rising from the earth. I also got up and saw that Angustias was still with Pepe at the window.

Magdalena:

 (Ironically) That late? What time did he leave? 

Translation ends

Lección de cocina - Rosario Castellanos - Spanish to English Translation

Source text

Rosario Castellanos
Lección de cocina

Translation starts

Cooking lesson

The kitchen gleams white. It is a shame having to sully it with use. One would have to sit to contemplate and describe it, close your eyes to evoke it.

Having noted the immaculateness, this neatness lacks the excessive glare that creates chills in hospitals. Or is it the disinfectant´s halo, the cleaner´s rubber steps, the hidden presence of sickness and death?

What do I care? My place is here. I have been here since the beginning of time. In the German proverb, a woman is synonymous with Kuche, Kinder, Kirche. I was lost – in classrooms, on the streets, in offices, in cafes – throwing away skills, which I must now forget, to acquire new ones. 

For example, deciding on a menu. How could I take on such an enormous task without the collaboration of society and history? On a special shelf, suitable for my height, my protective spirits align, those celebrated acrobats that harmonise the most uncompromising contradictions found in recipe books: slenderness and gluttony, attractive and cost-effective, quick and succulent. With their endless combinations: slenderness and cost-effective, quick and attractive, succulent and…

What do you, as the experienced housekeeper, inspiration for absent and present mothers, voice of tradition and open secret of the supermarkets, recommend for today´s meal?

Translation ends

La case de Asterión - Jorge Luis Borges - Spanish to English Translation

Source text
Jorge Luis Borges
La casa de Asterión

Translation starts

The House of Asterion

And the queen gave birth to a son who was called Asterion.

Apollodorus: Library, III, I.

I know they accuse me of arrogance, and perhaps of misanthropy, and perhaps madness. Such accusations (which I shall punish in due course) are derisory. It is true that I never leave my house, but it is also true that its doors (whose number is infinite) are open day and night to both man and animal. Anyone who wishes to enter may do so. They shall not find female pompousness or courtly rituals customary of palaces. They will, however, find peace and solitude.

They will also find a house like no other on the face of the earth (liars are those who claim that a similar one exists in Egypt). Even my detractors concede that there is not a single piece of furniture in the house. Another absurd claim is that I, Asterion, am a prisoner. Shall I repeat that there is no closed door? Should I add that there is no lock? Besides, I´ve walked the streets an evening or two. If I returned before night, I did it out of the fear that the faces of the commoners instilled in me, flat and pale faces, like an open palm.

Translation ends

El Capitan de los Dormidos - Mayra Montero - Spanish to English Translation

Source Text

Mayra Montero
El Capitan de los Dormidos

Translation starts

The Captain of the Sleeping

The three of us were in the truck and my father had already turned the ignition on when a lady approached the window and called out my mother´s name. She did it a bit shyly, as if uncertain that she recognised her.

Mum reacted with happiness, got out once more and gave the woman a hug. They began asking about each other’s sisters and children, and I looked at my father. It was vital that I looked at him. Dad felt my eyes, I think they drilled into his temple and yett I continued to stare at him: his profile and the lock of hair falling across his forehead, creased with worry.

“Mum is leaving” I whispered to him, gripped with anxiety.

“No. She´s just greeting a friend.” replied my father. 

“She’ll leave with the Captain,” I continued, my voice barely a whisper. His lips trembled and he gulped dryly, but he didn´t look at me.

“A lady who was in Martineau today told me to tell you that mum would leave.”

He stared straight ahead, his face perfectly still. We listened to the conversation between my mother and her friend, they talked about the hotel, the blanket of dirt and grime from all the hustle and bustle, and about the noisy explosions.

“Dad” I pleaded. “Dad…”

They were now saying goodbye. My mother´s friend wrote her address on a scrap of paper so that we would visit her the next time we went to San Juan. I sat completely powerless, sensing the pain in my father´s breaths, his stony silence, the heat radiating from his body, a bitter heat. It was in the darkness of the truck, that I realised we would never return to Isla Grande. 

Translation ends

Julio Cortázar - El Ídolo de las Cícladas - Spanish to English Translation

Source Text
Julio Cortázar
El Ídolo de las Cícladas

Translation starts

The Idol of the Cyclades

“I don´t care whether you listen to me or not” said Somoza. “That´s the way it is, and it´s only right that you know it”.

Morand jumped, abruptly as if returning from a faraway place. He remembered that before succumbing to a vague day dream, he had thought that Somoza was going crazy.

“Forgive me, I was lost in thought” he said. “You must admit that all of this…Well, coming here and finding myself in the middle of…”

But assuming that Somoza was going crazy was too easy.

“That´s right, there are no words for it” said Somoza. “At least, not in our words”.

They looked at each other for a second but Morand was the first to look away. Somoza´s voice rose again in that impersonal tone typical of explanations that became lost, suddenly incomprehensible. Morand preferred not to look at him, and eventually fell back into an unconscious contemplation of the little statue above the column. It was like returning to the island on that golden afternoon, full of cicadas and the smell of herbs where incredibly, he had with Somoza, unearthed the statue. 

Translation ends