Weston's Speech and Its Translation
The speech which Weston delivers at the book's climax, 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 | 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. |
Read more about this topic: Out Of The Silent Planet
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