translation

Recently I was reading a fantasy novel set in a parallel universe, and one character commiserated with another, saying, “You’ve suffered a calvary” — that is, she’d suffered a great ordeal. The word comes from the hill named Calvary where Christ was crucified, but the Messiah hadn’t come to that parallel universe, so no one could suffer a “calvary.” Nothing important had happened on Calvary Hill.

***The word “peanut” came into use in English in 1802. The plant is native to South America. If you’re a writer, you need to know this.***

In another book, set in medieval Europe, a friend remarked that someone “had his bases covered” — that is, he was prepared. This is a baseball expression, and baseball originated in the United States in the mid-1800s, so people weren’t covering their bases centuries earlier on a distant continent.

Yet another book, also set in medieval Europe, spoke of plans being “dynamited” by a setback. Dynamite was invented in 1867 by Alfred Nobel (who is also famous for prizes).

Speaking of medieval expressions, we all believe kings back then could shout: “Off with his head!” Actually, they probably didn’t, not even Richard III (1452-1483), because that exclamation comes from the play Richard III written by Shakespeare in 1592, and it was made popular in Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll in 1865.

Speaking of the Bard, the expression “lie low” also comes from one of his plays, as did “green-eyed monster” and “break the ice.” However, Lewis Carroll didn’t invent the “Cheshire cat” or “March hare”: these expressions originated a century or more before his book.

I pay attention to this because as a writer and translator, when I’m working with historical or fantastical material, I need to bear in mind that all words and expressions originate at a specific point in time and space, and they need to be congruent with the origin and setting of the work.

For help, check the Historical Thesaurus of English. It contains almost 800,000 words from Old English to the present day, primarily based on the Oxford English Dictionary.

There, I learned that “home run” only dates back to 1953. Additional research told me that home runs became more common around that year, so apparently athletes and sports writers needed to give a four-bagger an evocative name.

The lesson, for me, is to be sensitive, remain alert, do research — and expect surprises. The past is another country. They spoke differently there.

Here’s a little story from medieval Spain that I translated, and it has a moral and a punch line. It comes from El Conde Lucanor [Count Lucanor], a book written in 1335 by Don Juan Manuel (1282-1348), nephew of King Alfonso X of Castile.

The book is filled with “exemplary stories” to help the fictitious Count Lucanor deal with his concerns. This one, Exemplum XLIII, was cribbed from a popular story at the time. The Count asked how much he should tolerate from bad people. His advisor recounts this story, and the final line became a refrain.

(Photo: A bath at the Alhambra, Granada, Spain.)

***

A good man owned a public bath, and a madman came into the bath when people were bathing. He hit them with buckets and stones and sticks and everything else he could find, so no one in the world dared to go to the bath that belonged to the good man, who lost his income.

When the good man realized that the madman was making his business fail, he got up early one day and went to the bath before the madman came. He took off his clothes as if he were a customer and got a bucket of boiling water and a large wooden club. Then the madman who had been attacking people arrived at the bath.

The naked good man, who was waiting, saw him and ran at him with fierce anger. He threw the bucket of boiling water at his head and grabbed the club and began to strike him again and again on his head and body. The madman was afraid he would be killed and thought that the good man was mad.

He ran out screaming, and when he met a man who asked him why he was running and yelling, the madman told him:

“My friend, beware, because there is another madman in the bath.”