Three Chinese dramas

Alice Relinque Eleta. - Three Chinese dramas. Gredos. 2004

Of different offices related to the literature, to translate perhaps is the most ungrateful. Since not only during the production the artist meets, since generally the translators also are artists, compelled to control his impulses to improve, to explain, or to simplify the text which it faces, but once his completed work his name will appear, with luck, in small letter, on the second or third page of the work to which he has dedicated a the majority of his life, receiving like the only reward a small fistful of dollars and other of criticism. Since invariably there will be some of them those who will not like the selection of the work, the approach will seem too objective to others, or in other cases too selfish. Them there is that they do not agree in the interpretation started to only one term, of which they do lever to try to load the whole work, others, who in a moment of lighting have managed to translate with wise move a phrase or a paragraph, they disdain the translator who has dedicated months the study of the work for not giving him the same interpretation.

That many honest translators sleep with a slat under his pillow, in which it is written: "Translating is to betray", and in spite of it they dedicate big part of his life to spill in our language the most important works of different and distant cultures. I know that some of them wake up in half of the night, they read the slat once again and appear if all his life is not dedicated to a vain effort, if all his work, which arises for the admiration to these authors not known between his compatriots, is only an enormous treachery to the admired author.

If in addition to translating it is necessary to realize a selection between a good number of masterpieces to present them to a public who does not know them completely, the task is even more complex. Since not only it demands the knowledge of the works of the period to translate, but the cold blood of being able to disdain, although it is momentarily, the translation of works that are considered to be absolutely delightful.

The work that occupies us is the first translation that realizes our language of the most important works of the Chinese theater. It is, simultaneously, the first work with which the Publishing house Gredos, famous already in the Hispanic world for his translations of the Greco-Roman outstanding figures, does an incursion in the East outstanding figures.

To speak about the Chinese theater is to speak about the theater of the dynasty Yuan. The dynasty Yuan was the dynasty established by the Mongols of Kublai Khan. During his brief duration, less than hundred years (1279-1368), the literary genre that bloomed with major vigor was precisely the theater. The Chinese critics, make sure that the scarce culture of the Mongols was preventing them from enjoying the most elaborated literary productions of the Chinese tradition, preferring on the other hand the theatrical representations. Be as out, thanks to this taste for the game, for the complicity, for the music and the happiness, some authors have bequeathed to us works that are between the most select of the universal theater. Another point of interesting reflection for these chauvinist critics who only see the history of China like the continued effort of the majority tradition, a culture according to them so loudly that it absorbs and the military conquests do not leave trace even for Mongols and manchúes, it is verifying that some of the most living and interesting literary genres of the Chinese tradition, arise precisely when the minorities take the power and his cultural influence feels everywhere. This way one speaks continuously about the poetry Tang, and sometimes one seems to forget that the dynasty Tang was of Turkish origin, and that during his time the influences of the poetry and music of Central Asia modify completely the Chinese poetical tradition. As for the theater we see that precisely it is under the domination and influences of the Mongols when it blooms with more force.

This work includes three dramas of these dates. A selection that cannot less that to seem guessed right to us, since each of these dramas there seems to reflect a style, a subject-matter and a different author.

The first one of them, "The orphan of the Zhao" of Ji Junxiang, is one of the Chinese dramatic works that more attracted attention in Occident. In fact, the proper Voltaire already wrote a French adaptation in the XVIIIth century. This work, although framed in a very concrete moment of the history of China, it is one of the most universal histories of his history.

This orphan, who continues all the steps distinguished by Otto Rank in "The Myth of the Birth of the Hero"

1. The infante is progeny of noble or divine relatives. He is a son here of the minister.

2. It happens for extraordinary difficulties during his birth. Really all his family, except his mother, is murdered.

3. The child is removed from his ambience. It shelters in the forest at one I travel loyally.

4. The child is rescued.

5. In the end, the hero returns to the place that corresponds to him, overthrowing his adoptive father and occupying his place.

The precise parallelism with this universal model does that the story is full of scenes that turn out to be familiar to us, especially with the Edipo destination, and Christ's birth, with the Herodes incluída slaughter. This work invites us to reflect therefore on the possibility of the existence of archetypal events that reside from times brief in the mind of the humanity.

It is the second one of these works, "The injustice against Dou E", of Guan Hanqing, perhaps it is possible to be said that it is the one that has a flavor more authentically Chinese. A big drama that puts to the overdraft the darkest corners of the human nastiness. The tragedy is chained from the beginning of the work up to his final development, and not even the light of justice, illuminated not by chance of a certain magic aura, manages to stop it, The development of this drama reflects of the most brutal form of the Chinese society, not only in the XIIIth century, but of this constant during long periods of the history China, but in the variable power relations between the persons, who seem placed always in a limit, in the one that no opportunity to benefit one could waste.

The third one of the works that occupies us, "The History of Allah Oeste" of Wang Shufu, is a work drama of romantic character, considered by some authors like "The Romeo and Julieta" of the Chinese culture. An innovative work both in the topic and in the treatment that does of the same one. On having put the personal emotions and the feelings for the first time in a level superior to that of the social considerations.

Although the election of the works seems of the most guessed right, his tradition it is not less. The reading only turns out to be interrupted by the unnecessary notes to understand some terms and personages that it would be another form impossible. The language is simple and precise, allowing to the reader to read the pages in spite of pleasing, enjoying of the icy moments of the plot and the rhythm of the action proposed by the authors. Under this warm translation of the teacher Alice Relinque Eleta, the fear with which sometimes we approach the outstanding figures of so different cultures disappears completely, being replaced with a genuine interest that reflects the size of the real translator.

We have started by speaking about the contradictions to which the translator is when it faces a new work. After reflecting on these three so distant works in the time and space, and the form in which they have been spilled to our language, we have not left any more remedy to state that these contradictions only the love overcomes it. The love for the proper language and for the language to translate, the love for the reader and for the author, the love finally for this cause that seems to be disappearing between the easy successes of the market, for the good literature. For the immortal literature.

Pedro Ceinos Arcones

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