I don’t write much any more—too many other lives demanding my attention.  But I’ve been taking Spanish lessons, with a teacher in Bogotá, via Zoom, and when we read this poem I had to translate it (below).  I’m going through something like a breakup right now, and it resonated.

“El futuro,” by Julio Cortázar

“El futuro,” por Julio Cortázar

Y sé muy bien que no estarás.
No estarás en la calle
en el murmullo que brota de la noche
de los postes de alumbrado,
ni en el gesto de elegir el menú,
ni en la sonrisa que alivia los completos en los subtes
ni en los libros prestados,
ni en el hasta mañana.
No estarás en mis sueños,
en el destino original de mis palabras,
ni en una cifra telefónica estarás,
o en el color de un par de guantes
o una blusa.
Me enojaré
amor mío
sin que sea por ti,
y compraré bombones
pero no para ti,
me pararé en la esquina
a la que no vendrás
y diré las cosas que sé decir
y comeré las cosas que sé comer
y soñaré los sueños que se sueñan.
Y se muy bien que no estarás
ni aquí dentro de la cárcel donde te retengo,
ni allí afuera
en ese río de calles y de puentes.
No estarás para nada,
no serás mi recuerdo
y cuando piense en ti
pensaré un pensamiento
que oscuramente trata de acordarse de ti.

“The future,” by Julio Cortázar (tr. Kellan Sparver)

And I well know that you won’t be.
Won’t be in the street
In the rustling that buds in the night
underneath the lampposts,
not in the grimace of choosing the menu,
not in the smile that relieves the fullness of the subway,
not in the borrowed books,
not in the see you tomorrow.
You won’t be in my dreams,
in the original destination of my words,
won’t be in a phone number,
or the color of a pair of gloves,
or a blouse.
I will anger
my love
but not on account of you,
and will buy chocolates,
but not for you,
and will stop on the corner
to which you won’t come
and will say the words that they say
and will eat the things that they eat
and will dream the dreams that they dream.
And I well know that you won’t be
not here inside the prison where I retain you
not there outside
in that river of streets and of bridges.
You won’t be for nothing,
you won’t be my memento
and when I think on you
I will think a thought
that obscurely tries to recall of you.

Translator’s notes:

The only official translation of this poem that the internet appears to know about is Stephen Kessler’s, originally published by City Lights Books in Save Twilight, published online with permission by Literal magazine here.  I completed a first draft of my translation before consulting his, and then revisited mine in places where his translation raised questions.

My Spanish is student-level, of course, and so this is very much a dictionary translation (Merriam-Webster’s Spanish-English Dictionary, 2021 copyright, to be specific).  I would love feedback from native Spanish speakers in the likely event that I’ve misunderstood the words or misled myself in some way.  Still, with my dictionary and my student-Spanish, I felt like there were places where Mr. Kessler missed poetic structure or outright replaced passages in the original with his own.

Here are my notes:

L1:
Y sé muy bien que no estarás.

I chose to use the slightly archaic/British English construct “well know,” as in “as you well know,..” rather than “know well,” because it gives more of a sense of finality or judgment, conveying what Kessler says in “know full well” but using one less syllable and putting the emphasis on the verb ‘know’ rather than the adverb ‘well’.

I also opted to use the English contraction “won’t” throughout rather than “will not be.” The rapidity of Spanish means that “Y sé muy bien que no estarás” sounds clipped even though it uses nine syllables. I liked how the meter of “And I well know that you won’t be” fell better than “And I well know that you will not be.”  The latter felt incomplete—”will not be what?”

I liked the finality of “won’t”, even though I chose to extend it with “be” rather than clipping it off and trying to mimic the emphasis of “estarás”—”And I well know that you won’t.”  The latter would also be a perfectly fine choice, but “won’t be” is of course slightly more true to the text of the original and sets up a pregnant pause while remaining a whole thought in its own right that for the moment I feel is a better fit for an opening line.

L3-4:
en el murmullo que brota de la noche
de los postes de alumbrado,

Kessler renders these lines as:
You won’t be in the street, in the hum that buzzes
from the arc lamps at night, nor in the gesture

In addition to reformatting the poem in ways that I find really questionable—”nor in the gesture” is the beginning of the next line, which we’ll get to in a minute—”hum that buzzes” is simply not the meaning of the original words at all.

My dictionary gives a fairly literal translation of “el murmullo” as “the murmurs” but gives an additional meaning which is related to plant life—”el murmullo de las hojas” (the rustling of leaves). “Brota,” from “brotar,” is even more clearly plant-related, the first meaning given being “to bud” or “to sprout.”

Similarly “arc lamps” is nowhere to be found—”los postes de alumbrado” is simply “posts of lighting” which I chose to render here as “lampposts.”

Hence together my version:
In the rustling that buds in the night
underneath the lampposts,

To me this is both so obviously closer to the meaning of the original and so much stronger of a poetic image—I imagine sitting with a lover on the park benches along the street that borders Prospect Park, around this time of year, on a warm night when the trees are budding out and the flowering trees are blooming.  Where Mr. Kessler got and why he preferred such a cold and electrical image as he chose, I don’t know, but it’s not in the original poem.  (And, seeing this, I felt that I had to post my translation somewhere publicly and write and publish these notes.)

L5-6:
ni en el gesto de elegir el menú,
ni en la sonrisa que alivia los completos en los subtes

I opted to use “not” rather than “nor” throughout for the simple reason that I think it reads better in this kind of blank-verse poetic English and doesn’t change the meaning at all.

Kessler renders these lines as—well, I already said he reformatted them egregiously, so, starting from the middle of the previous line:
nor in the gesture
of selecting from the menu, nor in the smile
that lightens people packed into the subway,

It is true that, according to my dictionary, “gesto” does mean “gesture.”  However when paired with “sonrisa”—”smile”—another meaning, “grimace,” makes a better image and most importantly for better poetic parallelism.  My dictionary quite specifically renders “de elegir” as “to choose” or “to select” and “el menú” is of course “the menu”—a meal is being planned here, not a preferred dish ordered at a restaurant.

‘Aliviar’ has nothing to do with ‘lighten’ing but everything to do with ‘relief’ and ‘soothing’, and I chose to translate “los completos” as “the fullness” because, well, as far as I can tell that’s what it is.

Thus:
not in the grimace of choosing the menu,
not in the smile that relieves the fullness of the subway,

L10:
en el destino original de mis palabras,

I waffled back and forth between “original destination” and “first destination” here before ultimately going with “original.”  I interpret this as meaning something like “my primary audience” or “the person who I talk to most” and felt that “first destination” made this more obvious.  I ultimately settled on “original destination” because I suspect that native Spanish speakers find “destino original” to need just as much unpacking.  In general I dislike translations which don’t respect their readers, and which try to render challenging texts in the original more straightforward in translation.

L14:
Me enojaré

I chose to translate “enojaré” as “anger” rather than “upset” or “annoy” because the image of buying chocolates which these lines pair with is something that one might do to apologize to a lover after a fight.  The simplest translation here would be the one that Kessler uses, “I will grow angry.”  However, I chose “I will anger” to emphasize the self-generation of the feeling, its reflexive nature, and the aloneness of the speaker.  I considered adding “myself” to emphasize that further but my impression is that despite how reflexive verbs in Spanish may seem to a student speaker, their reflexivity is more a matter of syntax than semantics and “me gusta” doesn’t carry any more reflexive meaning than “I like” does in English.

L16:
Sin que sea por ti

This was a challenging passage.  I suspect that it is idiomatic, and I would desire a native speaker’s ear for it.  Here Cortázar intentionally breaks poetic parallelism, pairing the “sin” (without) in “sin que sea por ti” with “pero” (but) in “pero no para ti.”  My best guess is that the idiomatic meaning of the line is something like “without that being on your account” or “without that being on account of you,” but what a mouthful in English.  The poem’s pace picks up in this section, this is not a long line in the original, and it should not be so here.

I waffled between “but not because of you” and “but not on account of you,” but ultimately decided that I prefer the latter because it distances the lover from being the direct cause of the speaker’s anger, which I think the original does as well, compared to a construction that used “porque”.

L25:
ni aquí dentro de la cárcel donde te retengo,

Here I waffled between translating “retengo” as “retain” or “detain” but Cortázar seems to be intentionally breaking the poetic image of the prison by using “retener” instead of “detener” so I opted for “retain”.

L28-29:
No estarás para nada,
no serás mi recuerdo

The last stanza is probably the passage I found most challenging in the whole poem, and of course since it’s the stanza at the end it’s the most important to get right both linguistically and emotionally.

I read the first two lines as setting up an opposition—the relationship won’t have been for nothing, but also the speaker won’t try to keep holding on to it.  “Para nada” is unambiguous.  “Mi recuerdo” could be “my memory” but my dictionary gives the alternate meaning of “souvenir, memento,” and I chose to translate it as “my memento” because a memento is a concrete thing that one holds on to, which the speaker doesn’t want to do.

L31-32:
pensaré un pensamiento
que oscuramente trata de acordarse de ti.

“Pensaré un pensamiento” is unambiguous: “I will think a thought.”  I considered synonyms for “oscuramente” like “darkly” or “distantly” but ultimately stuck with “obscurely” because that is likewise unambiguous.

“Trata de acordarse de ti” is likely also an idiom that I don’t know, and would love a native speaker’s take on.  My dictionary gives “trata de” as “to try to,” “to be about, to concern” and “acordarse” as “to remember, recall” so “that obscurely tries to recall you” is the simplest reading, but there’s that pesky “de” before “ti”.  After much wrestling with alternatives like “obscurely tries to remember of you,” I landed on “obscurely tries to recall of you,” which both correctly matches the original and is idiomatic in English to boot, e.g. “when we first met I had no recall of you.”

Questions, comments, feedback etc much welcomed—I am still learning, but I enjoyed the exercise and, if this poem is indicative of the state of the English translations of Cortázar’s work, might consider doing more.