El Arte de Traducir

In Barcelona Don Quijote visits a book shop and shows a lot of interest in the art of translating from one language to another.
He uses this unusual analogy to explain how difficult it is to do justice to the original text:

'It is like someone who looks at Flemish tapestries from the back,'

'Es como quien mira los tapices flamencos por el revés.'

            

As fate would have it, a copy of Don Quixote of La Mancha came into my hands and I was delighted to discover that this beautifully translated book is as enjoyable as the original Castilian version and much easier to understand for the English speaker! Notice how much better the line above has been translated. 

Below is an extract from Page 979. Don Quijote wished to go for a stroll in the city without ceremony and on foot. He saw inscribed above a door in very large letters, ‘Books printed here’ which greatly pleased him. He went in and had this to say to 'a fine looking fellow of dignified appearance' who had translated an Italian book into the Castilian tongue. 

“Yes, I’ll dare swear that you are not appreciated by the world, which is forever loathe to reward intellect and merit. What abilities are lost here! What talents neglected! What virtues unappreciated!

 But yet, it seems to me that translating from one tongue into another unless it be from those queens of tongues, Greek or Latin, is like viewing Flemish tapestries from the wrong side, for although you see the pictures, they are covered with threads that obscure them so that the smoothness and the gloss of the fabric are lost, and translating from easy languages does not signify talent or power of words, any more than does transcribing or copying one paper from another.

 By that I do not wish to imply that this exercise of translation is not praiseworthy, for a man might be occupied in worse things and less profitable observations. I except from this observation two famous translators, the one, Doctor Cristóbal de Figueroa for his Pastor Fido and the other Don Juan  Jáuregui for his Aminta, for they leave you doubting which is the translation and which the original. But tell me, sir is the book printed on your own account or have you sold the copyright to a bookseller?”

The equally worthy translator of this edition, Walter Starkie, in the introduction tells us that the following  words  were said in the novel about  Don Quixote but that they were true of Cervantes himself:

"His was a gentle nature, and a lovable one and he numbered all that he knew among his friends."

A beautiful tribute indeed.