Who did the best translation of thus spoke zarathustra?
Answers
Answer:
I’ll have to consult more (English) translations to give a global assessment about what I believe to be “the best” (or the least bad, at least).
Nonetheless, I can already state with confidence that the Cambridge translation (2006) by Adrian del Caro should be avoided.
On every other page there is a major gaffe, or several: either an imprecise use of words and terms, or sometimes the translator even misunderstood the text because his German is not up to the task. I found this quite surprising for an academic translation.
Let me give a few examples, just from the first pages, showing why it is not a matter of stylistic inclination:
“Absterbende und selber Vergiftete” <> “dying off and self-poisoned” (p 6)
An error. They did not poison themselves, but they are themselves poisoned (ones).
“nun rede ich ihnen gleich den Ziegenhirten“ <> “I speak to them as to goatherds” (p 10)
Another error, and one that turns the original meaning around by 180 degrees. “Ihnen” is an ethical dative. Of course it is he who, for them, talks as the goatherds do. The other dative “den Ziegenhirten” is only there because it is required by “gleich”. Semantically, the two datives are unrelated.
“lange bevor die Sonne aufsteht” <> “long before the sun rises” (p 5)
This activity of the sun stands out immediately to a reader of the original because also in German it is (and has been) unusual to say that the sun “gets up”, “stands up” or “arises”. But it is what the author writes.
“grüßte er den Heiligen” <> “he took his leave of the saint” (p 5)
The literal translation is “he greeted the saint”. There is no need to deviate from it, which means one should not deviate from it.
“Unbewegt ist meine Seele” <> “My soul is calm” (p 11)
This characterisation is repeated in the last sentence of section 8 of the prologue: “aber mit einer unbewegten Seele” <> “but with a calm soul” (p 14).
One could remark here upon a syntactical inversion that would be easy to duplicate in English. The author makes a point by not saying “Meine Seele ist unbewegt”, but it is lost in translation. More important though is the predicate which does not come across rendering it, incorrectly, as “calm”.
This one is not a detail. The unmovedness of Zarathustra’s soul points to the core of this work: “The hour in which you say: ‘What matters my pity? Is pity not the cross on which he is nailed who loves humans? But my pity is no crucifixion.’”
Which merits a short digression:
“Was liegt an meinem Mitleiden?” <> “What matters my pity?” (p 7)
The biblical reference of cross and nails removes beyond doubt the fact that pity is not the word here. Did Jesus “pity” humankind? The author gives a hint by spelling “Mitleiden”, joining the suffering, in the first occurrence instead of using Mitleid throughout. The word, thus, is compassion.
(End of digression)
So, the question is: What matters my compassion? A question that relates immediately to the unmovedness of soul which is the antithesis of compassion.
This makes us remember the rope dancer. Calling his vocation “tightrope walker” is like calling a snakeman “contortionist”, and, again, not quite a matter of taste.
There is the saint’s admiration for Zarathustra: “Does he not stride like a dancer?” Surely he does, with an unmoved soul, over the hesitating, just like the terrible rope-dancing jester.