It was always a mystery to me why the churches of Ireland were filled with women, and empty of men. I looked up at the crucifix and thought it was a bizarre thing for women to worship a man in a church run by men. As far as I was concerned being a Catholic was silly, and being a Jew meant so much more washing-up. What all religions do, however, is what most political systems fail to do — they prize and praise the figure of the mother.
She is the machine, the hidden power. She is the ideal, the revered one, the truly loved. Which makes up, in a way, for being skipped in shop queues and looking like a heap.
And more. On the third night of my child’s life I looked into her eyes and realised that nothing I believed could explain this. It was an embarrassing moment. I think I saw her soul. I suffered from the conviction that a part of her was ancient; and that part chose to be there with me at the beginning of something new. I had a wise child.
Carrying her out of the hospital and into the noise of the traffic; driving her home in second gear; feeding her in the middle of the night, and at the beginning of the night, and at dawn — so precious — I found myself shrinking in the face of her vast and unknowable future. How would she turn out? What would she do? When would she die? Not for many, many years, I hoped; not for the longest time. The mechanisms of fate, the grinding of her days that would lead to one end or another, became urgently opaque to me. There were a thousand things that could hurt this child, or even estrange her from me. What could I do? Nothing. My best.
These are all feelings that religion understands.
I had, I thought, become human in a different and perhaps more radical way. I had let something slip into the stream of time. What else can you do, but trust the river — put it all into the hands of a higher power?
Oh, all right.
And who else, but the suffering Christ, could know the suffering that motherhood brings?
Actually, I will resist the tug of it, if you don’t mind. Still, I will resist.
Anne Enright, ‘God’ in Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood, London: Vintage, 2005, 111-12.
***
Children are actually a form of brainwashing. They are a cult, a perfectly legal cult. Think about it. When you join a cult you are undernourished, you are denied sleep, you are forced to do repetitive and pointless tasks at random hours of the day and night, then you stare deep into your despotic leader’s eyes, repeating meaningless phrases, or mantras, like Ooh da gorgeous. Yes, you are! Cult members, like parents, are overwhelmed by spiritual feelings and often burst into tears. Cult members, like parents, spout nonsense with a happy, blank look in their eyes. They know they’re sort of mad, but they can’t help it. They call it love.
From ‘Baby-Talk’ in Anne Enright, Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood, London: Vintage, 2005, 138.
Sempre foi um mistério para mim o porquê de as igrejas da Irlanda estarem cheias de mulheres e vazias de homens. Eu olhava para o crucifixo e pensava como era bizarro mulheres venerarem um homem em uma igreja comandada por homens. A meu ver, ser católica era tolice, e ser judia significava muito mais louça para lavar. O que todas as religiões fazem, no entanto, é o que a maioria dos sistemas políticos deixam de fazer — elas valorizam e louvam a figura da mãe.
Ela é a máquina, o poder oculto. Ela é o ideal, a reverenciada, a verdadeira amada. O que compensa, de certo modo, por não ser vista nas filas das lojas, por acabar se parecendo com uma pilha de coisas.
E mais. Na terceira noite de vida da minha bebê, olhei em seus olhos e percebi que nada em que eu acreditasse poderia explicar aquilo. Foi um momento constrangedor. Acho que vi sua alma. Sofri com a convicção de que parte dela era ancestral, e essa parte escolheu estar ali comigo no começo de algo novo. Eu tinha uma filha sábia.
Carregá-la para fora do hospital, para o barulho do trânsito; levá-la para casa em marcha lenta; alimentá-la no meio da noite, e no início da noite, e ao amanhecer — tão precioso —, me encontrei encolhida diante do seu vasto e desconhecido futuro. Como ela se sairia? O que faria? Quando morreria? Não em muitos, muitos anos, espero, não daqui a muito tempo. Os mecanismos do destino, os desgastes de seus dias que levariam a um fim ou outro se tornaram urgentemente opacos para mim. Havia milhares de coisas que poderiam machucar essa criança ou mesmo afastá-la de mim. O que eu poderia fazer? Nada. O meu melhor.
Esses são sentimentos que a religião compreende.
Pensei que havia me tornado humana de um modo diferente e talvez mais radical. Eu tinha deixado algo escorregar pela a linha do tempo. O que mais você pode fazer, além de confiar no rio — deixar tudo nas mãos de uma força maior?
Ah, tudo bem.
E quem mais, além do Cristo sofredor, poderia conhecer o sofrimento que a maternidade traz?
Na verdade, vou resistir ao choque disso, se você não se importar. Ainda assim, vou resistir.
Anne Enright, ‘God’ in Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood, London: Vintage, 2005, 111-12
Conversa de bebê
Na verdade, filhos são uma forma de lavagem cerebral. Eles são um culto, um culto perfeitamente legal. Pense nisso. Quando você se junta a um culto, você fica desnutrido, tem privação de sono, é forçado a fazer tarefas repetitivas e inúteis em momentos aleatórios do dia e da noite, e então você olha profundamente nos olhos do seu líder déspota, repetindo frases sem sentido, ou mantras, como “Ah, que lindo”. Sim, você é sim! Membros de cultos, assim como pais, são dominados por sentimentos espirituais e muitas vezes se desmancham em lágrimas. Membros de cultos, assim como pais, falam bobagens com um olhar feliz e catatônico. Eles sabem que estão meio loucos, mas não conseguem evitar. Eles chamam isso de amor.
‘Baby-Talk’ in Anne Enright, Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood, London: Vintage, 2005, 138
It was always a mystery to me why the churches of Ireland were filled with women, and empty of men. I looked up at the crucifix and thought it was a bizarre thing for women to worship a man in a church run by men. As far as I was concerned being a Catholic was silly, and being a Jew meant so much more washing-up. What all religions do, however, is what most political systems fail to do — they prize and praise the figure of the mother.
She is the machine, the hidden power. She is the ideal, the revered one, the truly loved. Which makes up, in a way, for being skipped in shop queues and looking like a heap.
And more. On the third night of my child’s life I looked into her eyes and realised that nothing I believed could explain this. It was an embarrassing moment. I think I saw her soul. I suffered from the conviction that a part of her was ancient; and that part chose to be there with me at the beginning of something new. I had a wise child.
Carrying her out of the hospital and into the noise of the traffic; driving her home in second gear; feeding her in the middle of the night, and at the beginning of the night, and at dawn — so precious — I found myself shrinking in the face of her vast and unknowable future. How would she turn out? What would she do? When would she die? Not for many, many years, I hoped; not for the longest time. The mechanisms of fate, the grinding of her days that would lead to one end or another, became urgently opaque to me. There were a thousand things that could hurt this child, or even estrange her from me. What could I do? Nothing. My best.
These are all feelings that religion understands.
I had, I thought, become human in a different and perhaps more radical way. I had let something slip into the stream of time. What else can you do, but trust the river — put it all into the hands of a higher power?
Oh, all right.
And who else, but the suffering Christ, could know the suffering that motherhood brings?
Actually, I will resist the tug of it, if you don’t mind. Still, I will resist.
Anne Enright, ‘God’ in Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood, London: Vintage, 2005, 111-12.
***
Children are actually a form of brainwashing. They are a cult, a perfectly legal cult. Think about it. When you join a cult you are undernourished, you are denied sleep, you are forced to do repetitive and pointless tasks at random hours of the day and night, then you stare deep into your despotic leader’s eyes, repeating meaningless phrases, or mantras, like Ooh da gorgeous. Yes, you are! Cult members, like parents, are overwhelmed by spiritual feelings and often burst into tears. Cult members, like parents, spout nonsense with a happy, blank look in their eyes. They know they’re sort of mad, but they can’t help it. They call it love.
From ‘Baby-Talk’ in Anne Enright, Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood, London: Vintage, 2005, 138.
Sempre foi um mistério para mim o porquê de as igrejas da Irlanda estarem cheias de mulheres e vazias de homens. Eu olhava para o crucifixo e pensava como era bizarro mulheres venerarem um homem em uma igreja comandada por homens. A meu ver, ser católica era tolice, e ser judia significava muito mais louça para lavar. O que todas as religiões fazem, no entanto, é o que a maioria dos sistemas políticos deixam de fazer — elas valorizam e louvam a figura da mãe.
Ela é a máquina, o poder oculto. Ela é o ideal, a reverenciada, a verdadeira amada. O que compensa, de certo modo, por não ser vista nas filas das lojas, por acabar se parecendo com uma pilha de coisas.
E mais. Na terceira noite de vida da minha bebê, olhei em seus olhos e percebi que nada em que eu acreditasse poderia explicar aquilo. Foi um momento constrangedor. Acho que vi sua alma. Sofri com a convicção de que parte dela era ancestral, e essa parte escolheu estar ali comigo no começo de algo novo. Eu tinha uma filha sábia.
Carregá-la para fora do hospital, para o barulho do trânsito; levá-la para casa em marcha lenta; alimentá-la no meio da noite, e no início da noite, e ao amanhecer — tão precioso —, me encontrei encolhida diante do seu vasto e desconhecido futuro. Como ela se sairia? O que faria? Quando morreria? Não em muitos, muitos anos, espero, não daqui a muito tempo. Os mecanismos do destino, os desgastes de seus dias que levariam a um fim ou outro se tornaram urgentemente opacos para mim. Havia milhares de coisas que poderiam machucar essa criança ou mesmo afastá-la de mim. O que eu poderia fazer? Nada. O meu melhor.
Esses são sentimentos que a religião compreende.
Pensei que havia me tornado humana de um modo diferente e talvez mais radical. Eu tinha deixado algo escorregar pela a linha do tempo. O que mais você pode fazer, além de confiar no rio — deixar tudo nas mãos de uma força maior?
Ah, tudo bem.
E quem mais, além do Cristo sofredor, poderia conhecer o sofrimento que a maternidade traz?
Na verdade, vou resistir ao choque disso, se você não se importar. Ainda assim, vou resistir.
Anne Enright, ‘God’ in Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood, London: Vintage, 2005, 111-12
Conversa de bebê
Na verdade, filhos são uma forma de lavagem cerebral. Eles são um culto, um culto perfeitamente legal. Pense nisso. Quando você se junta a um culto, você fica desnutrido, tem privação de sono, é forçado a fazer tarefas repetitivas e inúteis em momentos aleatórios do dia e da noite, e então você olha profundamente nos olhos do seu líder déspota, repetindo frases sem sentido, ou mantras, como “Ah, que lindo”. Sim, você é sim! Membros de cultos, assim como pais, são dominados por sentimentos espirituais e muitas vezes se desmancham em lágrimas. Membros de cultos, assim como pais, falam bobagens com um olhar feliz e catatônico. Eles sabem que estão meio loucos, mas não conseguem evitar. Eles chamam isso de amor.
‘Baby-Talk’ in Anne Enright, Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood, London: Vintage, 2005, 138
Translation commentary
Natália Elisa L. Pastore
The texts “God” and “Baby-Talk”, albeit quite short, provide us with a powerful reflection regarding divinity, religion, beliefs and the early years of child-bearing. Both texts discuss worshipping a figure and, while the first focuses on the mother, the second includes the father as someone who worships his child and has his life affected as well. The aim of the translations was to provide the same interpretation brought by Enright in her reflections. Although the author seems to be talking to a friend about the subject, some word choices appear to bring a more serious tone, thus the idea was to preserve that solemn tone. Nonetheless, the main translation procedure used was literal, both texts presented some sentences and words that requested alterations. I will first address some in “God” and then “Baby-talk”. Beginning with the title, there is an ambiguity in “God”, which can only be grasped by the reading of the essay, and I believed that following a literal translation for Brazilian Portuguese would bring the same comprehension.
For the first paragraph, the sentence “being a Jew meant so much more washing-up” presented a difficulty because of the phrasal verb “to wash up”, since translations to Brazilian Portuguese tend to explain its meanings depending on the context and not often have ‘equivalents’. Researching online, some of the meanings found were regarding a person’s hygiene before a meal or cleaning the dishes after it. Since “God” is about being a women, a mother, I opted for translating the neutral “Catholic” as “católica” (“Catholic woman”), and “Jew” as “judia” (“Jewish woman”) to make explicit that the washing-up will invariably be a woman’s job. Additionally, in order to solve the ambiguity that “washing-up” would have for a Brazilian reader (“to wash oneself? to do the dishes?”), I opted for “lavar a louça” (“do the dishes”). I had done some research regarding which cleaning would be more accurate to Judaism, and thought initially that “washing-up” related to the religion’s culture of ablutions and that perhaps Enright would be referring to what women do after their period, but this was only speculation.
In the second paragraph, the sentence “and looking like a heap” was difficult to translate because “heap” is related to a pile or mass of things. Some definitions found in dictionaries even brought as examples piles of dirty laundry or rubbish. After a few rounds of revision, it was perceived that the irony brought is that, even though the ideal of a mother is worship in Catholicism, on a daily basis the mothers are almost never noted or appreciated. In Brazilian Portuguese, the word “pilha” can have a figurative meaning, related to being tired and stressed. With this, the chosen translation was the literal word for “pile” so as to render the idea that mothers are tired and overwhelmed and society looks at them as just another part of the crowd.
Next, “second gear” was slightly problematic for me, once the idea of translating it literally would sound a bit strange in Brazilian Portuguese. Thus, I opted for “levar marcha lenta”, which would be something as “slow running”, and carries the idea that the driver is not going fast because there is a baby in the car. In this paragraph, it can also be noted that the gerunds are not followed in the translation due to what would be more suitable for the Portuguese grammar.
In “Baby-Talk”, the title provides an idea of a usual reflection about raising a child, which differs from the actual comparison done in the text. The element of surprise in this case is believed to be essential, thus the translation chosen was literal as well. In some cases, alterations were made just so the text would accommodate the target language grammar. For me, the sentence “into your despotic leader’s eyes” was slightly a problem, because I did not want to use the literal word for despotic in the first moment. A synonym was chosen instead, “authoritarian”, however, when analyzing the meaning of both, it struck me that a despot is also a tyrant, and an authoritarian might not be. Since the author is talking about a cult that deprives you from proper sleep and nourishment, I then opted to follow the literal translation.