Repository path: workshop/translations/recif-de-corail/R17-v1/translation.md · rendered 2026-09-09
Page metadata (front matter)
| type | translation |
|---|---|
| id | T-recif-de-corail-R17-v1 |
| status | frozen |
| created | 2026-08-05 |
| updated | 2026-08-05 |
| translated-by | lead |
| contamination | none |
| senses | accuracy, style-correspondence |
| provisional | true |
| links | workshop/regimes/R17-verse-free.md, workshop/translations/recif-de-corail/R16-v1/translation.md, workshop/experiments/E-20260805-heredia-rhyme-flavour/design.md, wiki/arms/ARM-reception-claims.md |
«Le Récif de corail» (Heredia, Les Trophées, 1893, p. 133) — regime R17-VERSE-FREE
Source. As T-recif-de-corail-R16-v1. Same session, same translator, same source text.
Contamination: none, on the same gate measurement and with the same stated weakness — see
T-recif-de-corail-R16-v1.
Within-pair caution (regimes README, S082). This arm and R16-v1 were produced by one continuous
agent in one session and are not independent renderings. Any contrast between them is an upper
bound on what the regime change buys.
The translation
The sun beneath the sea, mysterious dawn,
lights up the forest of Abyssinian coral
that mingles, in the depths of its warm basins,
the flowering animal and the living flora.
And all that salt or iodine gives colour to —
moss, the long-haired weed, anemones, sea-urchins —
covers with sombre purple, in sumptuous designs,
the worm-tracked floor of the pale madrepore.
Putting out the enamels of its splendid scale,
a great fish navigates across the branches;
in the transparent shadow it prowls, unhurried;
and all at once, with one stroke of its burning fin,
it sets running, through the dull blue motionless crystal,
a shiver of gold, of nacre and of emerald.
Translator's log
Frozen 2026-08-05, with R16-v1, before the study limb's design existed.
Specific terms carried, and how.
| French | English | how |
|---|---|---|
| coraux abyssins | Abyssinian coral | cognate |
| bassins | basins | cognate |
| iode | iodine | cognate |
| algue chevelue | the long-haired weed | calque |
| oursins | sea-urchins | equivalent |
| madrépore | madrepore | borrowing (English has it; it is a zoologist's word in both) |
| vermiculé | worm-tracked | calque of the sense; the French is also an architect's term for worm-track rustication, and English vermiculated carries that too — I chose the plainer word because the reef is not a wall |
| écaille / émaux | scale / enamels | cognate pair kept as a pair |
| nageoire | fin | equivalent |
| nacre | nacre | borrowing, in preference to "mother-of-pearl", which is three words and a different register |
| émeraude | emerald | cognate, and it is at the line end, where R16 could not keep it |
D1 — the rule cost metre, as designed. Line 13, "it sets running, through the dull blue
motionless crystal", is fourteen syllables and will not scan. The regime says the specific word wins
and the metrical cost is accepted; morne, immobile et bleu is three adjectives and I kept all
three. R16 kept two of the three in ten syllables.
D2 — «la bête épanouie» → "the flowering animal". Épanouie is what a flower does when it opens; used of an animal it is the sonnet's central conceit. English has no verb that does both, so I put the flower in the participle and let animal stay flat.
D3 — one place the rule could not save anything. Le fond vermiculé — I have "the worm-tracked floor", and fond in a reef is nearer "bed" than "floor"; neither English word is a reef term. The loss here is not a rhyme's fault and would have happened under any regime.
D4 — no rhyme was sought and two arrived. coral / flora and designs / madrepore are not rhymes; nothing in this rendering rhymes. I record having checked, because a regime that forbids working for rhyme should say whether any turned up.
No sentence in this log is a quality claim. The lead never judges its own translation.