greater immediacy and intensity than does that of St. Teresa -- and this both
It might be thought that St. Teresa -- so often colloquial and matter-of-fact in her language -- would be a great deal easier to translate than St. John of the Cross, but the truth is very nearly the exact opposite. There are certainly passages and phrases in St. John of the Cross which present the greatest difficulty, but they are relatively few: for all the sublimity of his teaching, his expression is, as a rule, crystal-clear, and at every turn the translator is assisted by his logical and orderly mind and by his great objectivity. Much of St. Teresa's work, on the other hand, is autobiographical narrative, and, even in that part of it which is not, every page bears the indelible impress of her forceful and vivid personality. In addition to the difficulty of interpreting that personality by means of a translation there are stylistic difficulties of a kind presented by few, if any, other Spanish writers of the first rank. As an appreciation of these two points will help us to a fuller understanding of the qualities of the work of St. Teresa, it will be worth our while to consider them in greater detail.
1. To Spaniards there is no writer whose personality communicates itself with greater immediacy and intensity than does that of St. Teresa -- and this both because of her almost complete disregard of the literary conventions and because in nothing that she wrote could her strong individuality ever be concealed. No translator could hope to convey that impression as fully and forcibly as do the original words, but he is not therefore exempted from the obligation to convey as much of it as possible. In an attempt to do this I have denied to her vigorous and pugnacious phrases the superfluous words in which another age might have clothed them. In such passages as these we can hear the authentic and virile note of a saint unlike any to be found in a stained-glass window:
"Rest, indeed!" I would say. "I need no rest; what I need is crosses."1*
We can make use only of a single cell -- what do we gain by its being very large and well built? What, indeed? We have not to spend all our time looking at the walls.2
"Oh, the devil, the devil!" we say, when we might be saying "God! God!" and making the devil tremble. Of course we might, for we know he cannot move a finger unless the Lord permits it. Whatever are we thinking of? I am quite sure I am more afraid of people who are themselves terrified of the devil than I am of the devil himself.3
If Thou wilt (prove me) by means of trials, give me strength and let them come.4
In rendering these and similar phrases I have had always in my mind the Teresa whom I have come to know through close contact with her over many years. A woman who made her decisions and then stuck to them regardless of the consequences:
1Life, Chap. XIII (p. 140). *Special Note: The references for the works of St. Teresa (except for Life) used in the footnotes throughout this work refer to Complete Works of St. Teresa, translated and edited by E. Allison Peers, 3 vols., Sheed & Ward, New York, 1957. 2Foundations, Chap. XIV (Vol. III, p. 66). 3Life, Chap. XXV (p. 243). 4Way of perfection, Chap. XXXII (Vol. II, p. 138).
I was well aware that there was ample trouble in store for me, but, as the thing was now done, I cared very little about that.5
Who, if she ever thought she was afraid of the Inquisition, would "go and pay it a visit of (her) own accord."6 And who counselled her nuns to be like herself:
Strive like strong men until you die in the attempt, for you are here for nothing else than to strive.7
Again, St. Teresa has continual outbursts of sanctified commonsense, humour and irony. "I just laughed to myself" is a type of phrase which we continually meet in her work and she has left us an excellent specimen of her sustained laughter in the "Judgment . . . upon various writings".8 She particularly disliked pretentiousness, even in what was good, and castigated it with those most effective weapons. Even into that sublime commentary on the Song of Songs entitled the Conceptions of the Love of God, creeps a delightfully shrewd description of the lady whose selfimportance was so intimately mingled with her devoutness. She, and others like her,
were saints in their own opinion, but, when I got to know them, they frightened me more than all the sinners I have ever met.9
Some of her stories are shot through and through with an allusive humour which it needs all one's ingenuity to render -- such are the accounts of her visit to Duruelo, with Fray Antonio sweeping out the porch and the depression caused in the business men who came with her from Medina by all those crosses and skulls10; her efforts to address a great lady as befitted her rank and how she "got it wrong'';11 poor María del Sacramento and her attack of nerves on All Souls' eve in the sparsely furnished convent at Salamanca12; the group of devout ladies at Villanueva, only one of whom could read with any ease, who tried to recite their Office using different versions of the Breviary: "God will have accepted their intention and labour, but they can have said very little that was correct."13 No less apt to evade one are innumerable little natural touches which, in the English, if carelessly rendered, might easily pass unnoticed:
I was . . . ashamed to go to my confessor . . . for fear he might laugh at me and say: "What a Saint Paul she is, with her heavenly visions! Quite a Saint Jerome!"14
Blessed be Thou, Lord, Who hast made me so incompetent and unprofitable!15
5Life, Chap. XXXVI (pp. 344-5). 6Life, Chap. XXXIII (p. 312). 7Way of perfection, Chap. XX (Vol. II, p. 86). 8Vol. III, pp. 229-31. 9Conceptions of the Love of God, Chap. II (Vol. II, p. 375). 10Foundations, Chap. XIV (Vol. III, p. 66). 11Way of perfection, Chap. XXII (Vol. II, p. 94). 12Foundations, Chap. XIX (Vol. III, p. 94). 13Foundations, Chap. XXVIII (Vol. III, p. 164). 14Life, Chap. XXXVIII (p. 361). 15Life, Chap. XIII (p. 147).