Pandora’s Tongues

Abstract

Pandora's Tongues — This paper looks at translation not from the perspective of Babel, the "male god" as Jacques Derrida and George Steiner do, but from the perspective of Pandora, the first woman of the Greek creation myth, in order to offer a feminized version of the primal scattering of languages. The aim is to pose through the figure of Pandora questions about language and woman, and by extension, the mother tongue and female sexuality. Whilst the myth of the tower of Babel makes visible the filiations of translation and the word of the Father, the myth of Pandora allows us to uncover the matrix between translation and the mother tongue, presents us, in other words, with new possibilities for translation and gender.Les langues de Pandore — L'auteure élabore ici une réflexion sur la traduction à partir non pas du mythe de Babel — du « dieu masculin » — comme l'ont fait Jacques Derrida et George Steiner dans leurs travaux respectifs, mais en reprenant plutôt celui de Pandore, de la première femme de l'humanité telle que représentée dans la mythologie grecque, afin de proposer une lecture féminisée de la confusion primitive des langues. Cette relecture du mythe souhaite revivifier la problématique du langage et de la femme; de la langue maternelle et de la sexualité féminine. Pour y parvenir, l'auteure propose, à l'instar de l'interprétation du mythe de la tour de Babel visant à démontrer les divers liens unissant la traduction à la parole du Père, une représentation du mythe de Pandore révélant la matrice où s'unissent traduction et langue maternelle, et par où s'entrouvrent, par conséquent, de nouvelles voies pour explorer genre et traduction

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“…As a punishment, humankind is given Pandora, a female being whose name may be read as "the giver of all gifts," "the one who was given all gifts," or "the gift of all the gods." (LITTAU, 2000). As the narrative develops, Pandora receives a variety of goods initially kept in a sealed container -interpreted and translated differently as a jar, a cornucopia, a box, or a vessel (LITTAU, 2000) -that she possesses at all times.…”

“…In drawing a parallel between Pandora and translation, it could be argued that in much the same way that classic Pandora is viewed as artificial, as an object that is made not born, so could translation be viewed by non- Pandora has, indeed, been various: in different tales and speaking different tongues. According to Littau (2000), Pandora is also known as Gaia or Mother Earth, the first woman created with water and earth and brought to life through the element of fire. In this version, her container takes the form of a cornucopia, symbolizing abundance and providing all that is necessary to nourish humanity.…”

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“…Teóricos como John Florio, Friedrich Schleiermacher o George Steiner sexualizan la traducción en tanto que mujer, ambos como espacio de lo secundario, sometidos ambos al hombre, a su sexualidad y a su creatividad (el hombre queda equiparado a la escritura original). Aportaciones más recientes desde los estudios de género, feminismo y traducción están generando relecturas positivas de la especial relación entre mujer y traducción, como espacios de creatividad y reescritura, al tiempo que nuevas metáfo-ras, como Pandora, la frontera, o metramorfosis (Littau 2000, Godayol 2000, Shread, von Flotow 2008.…”

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“…And why, when Karin Littau (2000) is unhappy with that myth, does she propose the alternative of Pandora's box, rather than move away from such myths altogether?…”