Octavio Paz

Stella Sandahl ssandahl at SYMPATICO.CA
Tue Jul 28 21:26:52 UTC 2009


Dear colleagues,
In Octavio Paz' charming book In Light of India he quotes (page 160)  
one poem by VallaNa:

"Beauty is not
in what the words say
but in that which they say without saying it:
not naked, but through a veil,
breasts become desirable."

and another by BhavabhUti:

"Armed with their rules and precepts,
many condemn my verses.
I don't write for them, but for that soul, twin to mine,
who will be born tomorrow,
Time is long and the world wide."

These are obviously verses from the SubhASitaratnakoSa (1705 and 1731  
respectively),  translated by Ingalls in his An Anthology of Sanskrit  
Court Poetry (1965) p. 442 and 445.
My question is: Did Octavio Paz reinterpret Ingalls' translations  
(which are much longer) or is he quoting somebody else's  
translations? If the latter, whose translations?
There are obviously no footnotes in Paz' book, although he refers to  
Ingalls in the text (p. 149).
I would be grateful if somebody can throw light on this.
Stella Sandahl





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