Paul Melo e Castro's Archive of Goan Writing in Portuguese

[augusto pinto]

On the 'O Signa da Ira' thread Paul Melo e Castro wrote:
"As for the Portuguese-in-Goa mailing list, one way of generating a
little traffic might be to sign it up to receive updates from a little
blog I've been putting together sporadically. I was in Goa a couple of
years back going through the Portuguese-language newspaper archives at
the Central Library and found lots of things that, while not relevant
to what I was doing at the time, seemed interesting enough to
photograph. I've been posting odds and ends from the masses I brought
back for a couple of years here:

http://archiveofgoanwritinginportuguese.blogspot.com/

I'll leave you to decide whether that's a good idea or not, no doubt
we all receive enough spam as it is."

Dear Paul,

Looks like Ganesh the God of Auspicious Beginnings has truly brought
us some 'new' things to savor through you.

I like your nonchalance as you pull out one spicy thing after another
from the trunkful that you brought back from Goa. It's not surprising
that a firnghee like you should have picked all these treasures to
take home from right under our noses.

I'm taking the liberty of putting your blog 'Archive of Goan Writing
in Portuguese' on a separate thread so that the items in it get the
attention they deserve.

Incidentally there was talk of translating some of the work of Goan
Portuguese writers. Why not start with this archive? Here is little
Googlinho's rendition of R.V. Pandit's - Mãos em toda a parte (1968) I
wonder if native Portuguese speakers can say how good it is.

Tens pernas?
Caminhos em toda a parte.

És iroso?
Tens costas em toda a parte.

Veneno?
Traição em toda a parte.

Tens amor?
Mãos em toda a parte.

RV Pandit - Hands everywhere (1968)

You have legs?
Paths everywhere.

Are IROS?
You back everywhere.

Poison?
Treason everywhere.

Do you love?
Hands everywhere

Regards
Augusto

--

Augusto Pinto
40, Novo Portugal,
Moira, Bardez,
Goa, India
E pint...@gmail.com or ypin...@yahoo.co.in
P 0832-2470336
M 9881126350

[Paul Castro]

Dear Augusto,

To be fair, when I hopped out at Dabolim last year, I did say to the customs official that I was looking for spices, christians and some good archives to plunder...

Google hasn't done too bad a job actually. I'm not really a translator of poetry, but my version would go something like this:

You have legs?

Paths everywhere

Are are irate?

Your back is everywhere

Poison?

Betrayal everywhere

You feel love?

Hands everywhere.

A proper translator of poetry would have to do something about stanza too, and re-insert a little poetry into it....

I've always thought a fascinating project would be to get some scholars of Konkani and Portuguese together to compare RV Pandit and Laxmanrao Sardessai's different versions of their own poems in both languages, to see how they move from one language and audience to another. No idea if that is something that will ever come to pass, but then, who knows what the future holds.

All the best,

Paul 

---

From: augusto pinto <pint...@gmail.com>
To: goa-bo...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Friday, 2 September 2011, 19:00
Subject: [GOABOOKCLUB] Paul Melo e Castro's Archive of Goan Writing in Portuguese

You have legs?

Paths everywhere

Are are irate?

Your back is everywhere

Poison?

Betrayal everywhere

You feel love?

Hands everywhere.

Regards
Augusto

--


Augusto Pinto
40, Novo Portugal,
Moira, Bardez,
Goa, India
E pint...@gmail.com or ypin...@yahoo.co.in
P 0832-2470336
M 9881126350

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Third Thursday Goa Book Club" group.
To post to this group, send email to goa-bo...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to goa-book-club+unsub...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/goa-book-club?hl=en.

[augusto pinto]

I recall that Thomas Gay had translated a lot of R.V. Pandit's Konkani
poems into English. They used to be available in Central Library's
lending section. I didn't read them as they seemed too stiff. (Three
of them are in Peter Nazareth's anthology Pivoting on the Point of
Return)

The ones in this archive however suggest that R.V.Pandit was more
felicitous in Portuguese even in Ms Google's ham-handed efforts at
translation.
Cheerio
Augusto

RV Pandit - Para quê? (1969)
(Canção do agonizante)

O noivo tem a noiva
O corpo desposou a morte
Os festejos, o trabalho,
O amor, as formalidades
Para quê?

Nada mais é preciso
Nem luzes, nem ornamentos
Os dias de vida já passaram
Agora são as noites escuras
Foi se tudo nada resta
Onde persistem as relações?

Deixai-me dormir, bem dormido
Deixai-me tudo esquecer
Deixai-me no cemitério, na fria terra

Eu nada quero de vós
Nem isso, nem aquilo
Nem vossa memória
Nem os vossos lamentos

Não quero missas nem exéquias
Na vida tudo ganhei
Nada mais desejo
Não quero nem casa nem os bens
Nem os manjares deliciosos...

Nada desejo nessa hora
Nada, nada, nada...!

RV Pandit - Why? (1969)
(Song of the Dying)

The groom is the bride
The body's death married
The celebrations, work,
Love, the formalities
Why?

Nothing else is needed
No lights, no decorations
The days of life have passed
Now the nights are dark
If everything was nothing left
Where relations persist?

Let me sleep, and slept
Let me forget everything
Let me at the cemetery in the cold earth

I want nothing from you
Not this, not that
Not your memory
Neither your cries

I do not want no funeral Masses
I won everything in life
Nothing more desire
I do not want no home or property
Neither the delicious dishes ...

No desire at this time
Nothing, nothing, nothing ...!