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Dear all,

Versiglia, Caravario, Cimatti, Braga, Majcen, Della Torre... and hoping not to have missed anyone! An impressive list of Salesian holiness (at least of those whose Cause is underway or complete) in the EAO Region thus far, and no doubt some of you reading this are or have been involved at one or other level in writing or translating materials related to these wonderful men. It draws attention to a challenge the Salesian translator inevitably has to tackle: texts that deal with a wide range of items that begin in time but belong to eternity (we could hardly say 'end' in eternity!), be they acts of martyrs, biographies of saintly men or women, accounts of extraordinary events possibly tied to tombs, relics, icon, statues; exhortatory articles to stir up the faith... all coming under the name of hagiography. We need to take a look at this important category from the perspective of the translator.

You will find attached a text, now in English for the first time I suspect, that belongs to the beginnings of the hagiographic process regarding Don Bosco... just 30 days after his death, to be precise, at the Month's Mind in his honour. A Funeral oration/eulogy by someone who was one of the early denizens of the Oratory in 1856, then went on to join the diocesan priesthood. Canon Giacinto Ballesio. While enjoying it, since it is a remarkable early insight into our father and founder, see if you can pick out the hagiographic features!

Speaking of  which, because it leads into the question of hagiographic translation, last week’s letter found an echo in someone who asked to be added to this list, and some of you in our region will know the name: Fr Gianni Caputa. You will remember him if you studied at either Cremisan or Ratisbonne. He is currently in Bethlehem, and for some years has been working on the cause of beatification and canonisation of the Venerable Salesian Brother Sima’an Srugi.  He is responsible for Simon Srugi in the History of Betgamāl published in Jerusalem (2021) in Italian, English and more recently I believe there is an Arabic edition. But more of that in a future letter. For the moment, let me just record the ‘echo’ here:

...I can understand even better, because we in MOR are struggling with the adaptation and translation of Salesian sources, including the C&R in Arabic. We started already in the 1940-50s (first with "Il Giovane Provveduto", then with the Life of Dominic Savio ...when abuna  Butros Khalis was the most knowledgeable Arabist and envied even by Muslim linguists); then Fr Gianmaria Gianazza and Fr Vittorio Pozzo composed a ‘Salesian glossary’, gradually enriched; in 2014 we translated the Constitutions, The Youth Ministry Frame of Reference, etc. I have not made any direct contribution, but I am aware of the challenges, difficulties that the translators had to face. E.g. the term ‘religious house’ is translated as ‘deir’ in documents from the Ottoman-Turkish period, applying it to monasteries, convents, parish communities ... Much more difficult to translate ‘coadjutor’: it is either 'priest' or 'layman'! ... Something of this also emerged when I was translating the writings of Simon Srugi, and has returned once more now that I want to present Arab readers with what he wrote using a “19th century Levantine” Italian...

If you are responsible for or closely involved in a 'Cause' for beatification or canonisation, then the question arises: are you a historian or a hagiographer? Both, of course, but it is important to see the effects one genre or approach has on the other.

Fr Gianni's email address, just in case you wish to further encourage him in his endeavours, or may be get hold of a copy of his book, translated by yours truly, is dongiannici@gmail.com

.............

Don Bosco himself was heavily into hagiography (he would have called it “edifying biographies”, starting with Comollo). You might like to read Arthur Lenti’s article in Journal of Salesian Studies on Don Bosco‘s  'Second great hagiographical essay', namely, the Life of Dominic Savio. Don Bosco also employed many of the “tricks of the trade” in hagiographical writing: phonic repetition for example: salute, scienze, santità, (how best to render that in English and keep the repetition, or use some other ploy instead?); emotion-laden interjections like "Ah!", "Oh!", and "O" which is not quite the same thing, a vocative, but still with emotional overtones. These are found frequently enough in both hagiographic and exhortatory speech and writing. Then there is phrase repetition....

This latter feature, as well as the emotional ‘Oh’, is clearly evident in a passage in the Bollettino Salesiano on the 10th anniversary of Don Bosco's death, 1898. Here it is in English in what I hope is an appropriate choice of alliterations in English to echo the Italian original (suona dolce e soave alle orecchie = will sound sweet and soft to the ears; profumo di paradiso = perfume of paradise etc.)

Oh! There will come a day when his name will sound sweet and soft to the ears of all believers; it will be a fragrance, a perfume of paradise that will enamour and enrapture souls, leading them to the foot of the altars to taste the hidden sweetness of heavenly favours....

There will come a day when his memory will be everywhere in blessing, and his life will be proposed as the perfect model of the apostolic man, as the saviour of youth.

There will come a day when oppressed society will find shelter in his shadow and new flowers of paradise will bloom. Oh yes, this day will come, and the current generation will not be deprived of the very latest wonders of the right hand of the Most High.... Hasten this beautiful, smiling and splendid day with your fervent prayers. Yes, everyone, have courage, pray and hope.

We may need to look more closely and at greater length at some stage on the question of translating hagiographic material, but I am attaching a Best Practice with at least some bits and pieces of hints to begin with.

Coming up next week (the translation is still being finalised): the Youth Ministry Sector is rewriting one section of the Youth Ministry Framework. Those of you who have already translated this Framework (2014) into your own languages would probably want to have this rewritten section. You can let me know if so and I will send it to you.

----------------

best_practice_10-hagiog.docx

 


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