As head of the translation group at the Spanish fan club Dark Passion Site, I have had to translate all Nightwish lyrics. Full of beauty and sensitivity, the songs have such a complexity of language and cultural background that they make one usually wonder about the translation process. On occasion, I have dealt with intricate situations and the solution has come from considering retranslation as a possible starting point.

From Finnish into Spanish

Although Nightwish writes mainly in English, the group has three lyrics written in Finnish: “Erämaanjärvi” (1996), “Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan” (2004) and “Erämaan Viimeinen” (2007). I have no knowledge of Finnish language owing the fact that in Spain there are very few institutions teaching Finnish, and all of them in Madrid. When the problem of translating the Finnish lyrics arose, I looked for dictionaries and grammar on the Internet. As a rule, all these resources have English explanations, so I began to consider re-translating into Spanish from an English version of the lyrics.

My first attempt was to translate using a series of cribs which showed grammar, syntax and collocations in Finnish, as well as an English translation and a Spanish one. An easy example from “Erämaanjärvi” is the following one,

(a)        Käy                             matka              vuorten taa

(b)       3^rd sing ind pres            nom sing          gent plu            prep

(c)        goes                             voyage             mountains’s      behind(+gen)

(d)       V                                 S                     C of prep         prep

(e)        The voyage goes behind the mountains

(f)        El viaje continúa detrás de las montañas

where, the first line of the crib is the original in Finnish; the second, the grammatical aspects; the third one shows an English word-by-word translation and the collocations of the preposition taa with genitive; the fourth line is a syntactic scheme; the last two lines are an improved English translation and its corresponding Spanish version.

Although this technique seems quite adequate, the result was not always so positive. The refrain of “Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan”, e.g., was difficult due to its complex crib, but a “valid” translation was achieved. However, the ‘validity’ of the translation could not be confirmed by any means. Even the English version sounded forced: “Luojani, luoksesi anna minun tulla siksi miksi lapseni minua luulee” was, in my English translation, *My Lord, to you, let me become that what my child believes me. Worried about it, I looked for any other English translation on the Internet and I found one by Myrow, a Finnish user on the Nightwish official forum. His version showed a play on words in connection with the double meaning of the Finnish verb tulla, which means come and become, venir and convertirse in Spanish. Although I could not keep the play on words in the Spanish version, I realized the positive aspects of having a middle-step version which resort to in case of need.

I needed Myrow’s translations quite often, especially for facilitating me the translation of Nightwish imagery. Since Nightwish sings mainly in English, its imagery is constructed worldwide by means of English language. Therefore, it is easier (for me) to keep the same atmosphere/spirit in all translations having English wilderness instead of Finnish korpi, which I could have translated as deep forest (profundo bosque) or backwoods (región apartada) because of using Internet dictionaries.

However, there have been occasions in which retranslation has not helped me so much. In “Erämaan Viimeinen” there is a line which reads “hiillos jo luovuttaa lumen alla”, line which I found difficult to translate –probably because of the incomplete dictionaries I was using–. Once again I consulted the English version, but this time it made me doubt: the English translator offered “embers are giving up hope under the snow” when in the original hope (toivo) did not appeared. At that moment, without any other resource of help, I translated as I though better; now, with new translations on the Internet, I have found out that I was not so mistaken in spite of my bad Finnish. The importance of this situation was not so much the translation itself, but the doubt about my reliance on Myrow’s translation: how could I know about its accuracy? How could anyone else know about its accuracy? This translation became the “official” English version because it was posted in the Nightwish official forum, and, therefore, has been the basis from which other languages have retranslated. Although Nightwish is not canonical poetry, there is a big community around the world which is assuming blindfold the “authenticity” of the English version. I am conscious that I have conditioned the reading of Spanish speakers by using the Myrow’s translation as a guideline, both for good and for bad. I wonder how it will feel like after learning Finnish and doing a new Spanish translation, instead of a retranslation.

A rose by any other name…

            Two of the most pleasant memories I have in connection with Nightwish comes from 2005 and 2007: the former was the first time I discovered a Shakespearean quote in the song “Gethsemane”, the latter, when I discovered the newest quote in the song “Eva”. As a lover of the Bard of Avon, I was glad of having him present in Nightwish lyrics, but it was not until I had to translate them that I thought about what to do with these quotes and many others –there are at least 9 songs with quotes just from Shakespeare–. At first I did not realize that most of the quotes from Shakespeare had minor alterations or adaptations, the original words usually being maintained. At this point I began to think if I should go back to the original words of Shakespeare or if, on the contrary, I should re-create once again Shakespeare.

            Susan Bassnett gave me the solution to this dilemma when I read about intralingual translation or rewording: Holopainen had not just re-written Shakespeare within English language, but translating the English culture into the Finnish one, maybe the Nightwish one. Following his example, I have retranslated Shakespeare into Spanish, always adding meaning to the original words by the Bard. Therefore, the Spanish version always contains Holopainen’s interpretation of Shakespeare, my own interpretation of Shakespeare and my interpretation of Holoapinen’s interpretations. This is seen, e.g., in the song “She Is my Sin” which contains a quote from sonnet 96: Shakespeare’s “How many lambs might the stern wolf betray,/ If like a lamb he could his looks translate” becomes singularized and reinforces its probability when Holopainen re-writes it as “Dressed as one/ A wolf will betray a lamb”. My retranslation, “Disfrazado como tal/ Un lobo engañará a un cordero”, goes one step further: I incorporate the intentionality of the wolf of betraying by means of Spanish translation of disguise, and delete any possibility of failing in its intention by using the indicative future of engañar.

            While writing this paper I got in contact with Elise, translator at Nightwish France. I asked her about her technique for retranslating literary quotes and I was surprised of her not knowing about most of them. I am conscious of my advantage for recognising the different writers Holoapinen quotes because of my university studies on English philology. After a detailed reading of her translations I cannot say that hers are inferior to mine because of the differences of our processes: as I do, she re-writes Holopainen and, without knowing it, also Shakespeare, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost and a long etc with the only purpose of making the lyrics understandable for French fans, who would interpret them themselves. The differences of our translation processes, however, have made me wonder whether my retranslations are conditioned by the literary knowledge I have, giving perhaps a very manipulated reading which leads Spanish readers towards my interpretation.

The wide range of age and culture level among the Spanish-speaker recipients has showed me that the different treatment given by Elise and me does not influence so much on the result as I expected. Most of fans are unaware of the quotes they are listening to, usually just knowing those mentioned by Tuomas Holopainen himself. Nevertheless, in all probability, the manipulation in my retranslations is the main reason for some disagreements about the translations I upload at Dark Passion Site. One of the most astonishing one was the retranslation of “Amaranth”: considering a previous reference to Coleridge’s Christabel, I linked this song to the poem “Work Without Hope” in which Coleridge uses the image of the never-fading amaranth. I used the Latin name because it is a rare plant in Spain and because of this literary connection I had assumed. A forum member suggested that the translation had to be complete, with all words in Spanish. Since I was not certain about the song inspiration, I accepted the critic and replaced the word amaranthus by amaranto, but kept wondering about the led reading I was imposing on the Spanish speakers.

Retranslating Nightwish Culture

            As a consequence of not being able to present the potential quotes and inspirations in Nightwish lyrics, much of the information about the lyrics and Nightwish imagery is lost, indeed, in translation. Although Nightwish comes from south-east Finland, we have seen that the cultural realm they construct is built with pieces of many diverse traditions, not only English and American literature: Finnish culture is present in form of many references to the landscape; Disney classics are alluded now and then; and there is even a space for Native American culture as well as for religion. The translation staff at Dark Passion Site has considered the option of recovering a section we had in the previous fan club: explanatory glosses for each of the songs. These glosses will include not only a justification for the translation choices, but also clarifications about all these cultural aspects and the interconnections between songs.

This intralingual retranslation of the lyrics is not free of problems, especially those in connection with different nomenclatures. Northern lights, which is an easy term, can be translated into Spanish as aurora boreal (the technical term for the astronomic event) or as luces del norte, a more literal option. Whatever choice is made, it will create debate among the Spanish speakers, who have their own opinions. In any case, the furthest purpose will be reached, that is, to make the readers go beyond the lyrics and the music, towards the source culture, not only the Finnish one, but the Nightwish one. Understanding, e.g., that “Yuletide without a Flight” (“Meadows of Heaven”) has been translated as “Yule sin un Vuelo” to stress the differences between Navidad, Christmas and Yuletide, or rather Joulu, Spanish fans can get in contact with the childhood of the bandmembers and their feeling about it. The basic knowledge about The Snowman film and its broadcasting on each Christmas’ Eve in Finland has made many fans watch it, not having any need of asking why Flight/Vuelo takes capital letter.

After The Snowman, Kalevala and Finnish folklore are the first step in the long path of Nightwish culture: Kuutar and Mielikki, the moon and the forest goddess, and Etiäinen, the spirit, will accompany listeners to meet the Beauty and the Beast, and Egyptian deities as Sepedet and Seteh, and more earthly people as Ogalga Lakota musician John Two-Hawks. If the music alone has made possible that fans read Poe’s tales or an out-of-print novel about Native American Creek nation, the retranslation of lyrics into explanatory glosses, then, will open more doors to a immense realm never before considered by fans. I hope one day all Nightwish fans could be able to find themselves the cultural allusions weaved in the Nightwish mosaic, and enlarge and improve it through their own readings and retranslations, for there is much more to be discovered.