Marozzo's Second Presa Revisited and Translation Funtimes

So a couple days ago I did a look at Marozzo's second presa. It was fine, it's a short little thing, and a fun play. Good times!

Then my friend Kate (whose blog is here, and has made some fantastic things and also has done some translation work!) was chatting with me about it and said that the take on it that she had was less of a shove, and more of a lifting motion from the legs. I could see that, but didn't have that as my takeaway. She mentioned having grabbed her copy of Swanger's translation of Marozzo, and that's when it clicked.

I hadn't used my copy of that translation. I'd gone over Wilson's translation at Wiktenauer, because I'd read through Swanger's before, thought myself broadly familiar enough with the play, and I didn't have the book at hand. This was where things got funky for me. Kate said that she had looked up Wilson's version, and said that it was pretty different. 

The key part of the play as translated by Wilson reads, "In the throw you will grasp the right thigh with your right hand while thrusting your head under his right arm and you will turn your shoulders and in this manner you will take him away and throw him to the ground." I read that as turning into your opponent with your right shoulder, which was more of a shove to me. 

Swanger translates that as, "...grab his right thigh with your right hand, shooting your head under his right arm as you grab his thigh, and straighten your back. This way you'll pick him off his feet and throw him to the ground..." Further he footnotes, 'straighten your back' with "Literally, "turn your shoulders rearwards"." This completely changed how the end of the play goes for me. Would lifting your opponent's leg and shoving them with your shoulder work? Yeah, I think so. On the other hand, would a lift with your legs as you straighten your shoulders out work better? Absolutely. As soon as your opponent's feet lose contact with the ground, their options shrink by a lot. They don't necessarily go down to zero, but they get pretty close to it.

So what did I learn from this?

1) Take the time to go find my preferred translation. (Even if it was out in the car and I would have had to brave the cold and snow.) Swanger is absolutely my translation of choice because of those footnotes, the extensive introduction, and the clarity of work that he has. (Which isn't to say that the text isn't unclear at times - but it's generally going to be Marozzo's fault when it is.)

2) Swapping translations mid-effort, even between discrete chunks like the blog posts let me do, can lead to some weirdnesses.

3) Talking to other people about their takes on a play and why they are what they are is going to be enlightening. (This is something I knew, but it sure got reinforced here.)

So! Next time, I'm for sure going to be working from my book.