Thulcandra - Weston's Speech and Its Translation

Weston's Speech and Its Translation

The speech which Weston delivers at the book's climax (in Chapter 20), and Ransom's effort to render it into the Old Solar spoken by the Malacandrians, demonstrate the enormous gulf in cultural and moral perceptions, which renders Weston's value judgements utterly untranslatable and may be said to make them absurd; thus creating a sort of social criticism. The “translation” that we read is to be understood as a back-translation into English of what Ransom said in Old Solar.

Weston's speech in English	Ransom's rendering into Old Solar
To you I may seem a vulgar robber	Among us, Oyarsa, there is a kind of hnau who will take other hnau's food and - and things, when they are not looking. He says he is not an ordinary one of that kind.
but I bear on my shoulders the destiny of the human race.	He says what he does now will make very different things happen to those of our people who are not yet born.
Your tribal life	He says that, among you, hnau of one kindred all live together
with its stone-age weapons	and the hrossa have spears like those we used a very long time ago
and bee-hive huts	and your huts are small and round
its primitive coracles	and your boats small and light and like our old ones
and elementary social structure	and you have only one ruler
has nothing to compare with our civilization -	He says it is different with us.
with our science	He says we know much.
medicine	There is a thing happens in our world when the body of a living creature feels pains and becomes weak, and we sometimes know how to stop it.
and law,	He says we have many bent people and we kill them or shut them in huts and that we have people for settling quarrels between the bent hnau about their huts and mates and things.
our armies,	He says we have many ways for the hnau of one land to kill those of another and some are trained to do it.
our architecture,	He says we build very big and strong huts of stones and other things - like the pfifltriggi.
our commerce	And he says we can exchange many things among ourselves
and our transport system which is rapidly annihilating space and time.	and can carry heavy weights very quickly a long way.
Our right to supersede you is the right of the higher over the lower.	Because of all this, he says it would not be the act of a bent hnau if our people killed all your people.

Famous quotes containing the words weston, speech and/or translation:

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King James translation reads, “It is better to marry than to burn.”