the collapse of the castle

A Translation of Historical Literature for Children

Stanzy Kersten4084136

BA Thesis English Language & CultureUtrecht University

Supervisor: Anniek KoolSecond Reader: Simon Cook

29 January 20165951 Words

Kersten 1

Abstract

In this BA thesis, part of Thea Beckman’s novel De Val van de Vredeborgh will be translated

from Dutch to English. The problems that will be encountered during the translation process

will be analysed using Christiane Nord’s four categories of translation problems as

guidelines. Andrew Chesterman’s and Diederik Grit’s strategies, among others, will be used

to come up with possible solutions to the problems. Beckman’s novel is considered children’s

literature, which will have an influence on how the problems will be solved. This will be

discussed as well. Since the novel describes a story which is part of Dutch national history,

historical accuracy will be taken into account during the translation process, and possible

problems regarding this subject will be discussed as well.

Kersten 2

Index

Introduction 3

Chapter 1. Pragmatic translation problems 6

Chapter 2. Cultural differences 8

Chapter 3. Differences in languages 10

Chapter 4. Problems specific to the text 12

Conclusion 14

Acknowledgements 16

Works Cited 17

The Collapse of the Castle 19

Source Text 30

Plagiarism Rules and Awareness Statement 40

Kersten 3

Introduction

In this thesis, I have translated part of Thea Beckman’s novel De Val van de Vredeborgh

(The Collapse of the Castle) to English in order to research the process of translating a

historical novel for children. The story tells part of the Eighty Years’ War, a historical fact

very well known in the Netherlands, since most of it took place there. This means that putting

the story in context will most likely be easier for Dutch children reading the novel than for

English children reading a translated version, because it is part of Dutch national history. I

wanted to research what the main problems were when translating a story like this while

maintaining the historical accuracy and the original setting of it. The story is mostly

historically accurate (it is dramatized, but the characters did exist and the main events did

happen) but not well known in other countries. Furthermore, the locations where the story

takes place can still be found in Utrecht, a city most Dutch children will have heard of, even

if they have never visited it. It is not likely that the same goes for English children.

The source text was written for children between 11-15 years old and I have

determined this to be the target audience for the translation as well. I have done so because

Beckman is a well-known Dutch writer of historical novels for children, and I wanted to

bring the story in her novel across to an English target audience of a similar age. Jan van

Coillie, a noted scholar in the field of children’s literature, says that children between 11-15

form the most important target audience for historical novels, because at this age they are

most likely able to find connections between the past and the present and understand concepts

such as freedom and justice. According to Van Coillie, this is one of the reasons for

Beckman’s popularity (Leesbeesten 139).

I have chosen to translate two separate parts of the novel, because this provided me

with a broader range of translational problems to research. The first part of the novel takes

Kersten 4

place in Antwerp, not Utrecht, and therefore I chose another part of the novel which is set in

Utrecht. This section includes more information on the religious conflict taking place at the

time. I decided to translate the beginning of the novel as well, because it introduces the

conflict and the story in general. Furthermore, if I had started translating somewhere in the

middle of the story, it would have been difficult to decide whether or not to add extra

information, since something requiring extra information may have already appeared earlier

in the story.

The focaliser of the first part is John Jacobs, who is then introduced. The focaliser of

the second part is his eight-year-old son Adam. The second part is set approximately ten

years after the first part. I decided to translate the story into British English, thus choosing a

British target audience rather than an American one. Because the Eighty Year’s War took

place in Europe and not near the United States the story might be more appealing to a British

audience than to an American one. Andrew Chesterman categorises the choosing of a

linguistic variant as one of the pragmatic changes that have to be made when translating,

because the source text does not contain this kind of distinction (Chesterman 172), yet a

choice has to be made when translating to English.

I have used Christiane Nord’s four categories of translation problems as the main tool

to analyse the source text and explain the choices that have been made during the process of

translating. These four categories, as mentioned in Denken over Vertalen, are pragmatic

translation problems, translation problems caused by the cultural differences between the

source and target text, translation problems limited to the languages of the source and target

text, and translation problems which are specific to an individual text. I will explain these

problems into more detail at the beginning of each chapter. Furthermore I have used both

Chesterman’s and Diederik Grit’s strategies to determine different kinds of solutions for the

problems I encountered while translating.

Kersten 5

Chapter 1. Pragmatic translation problems

Nord’s first category focuses on pragmatic translation problems, which result from a

difference in communicative situations in the source and target text, for example a difference

in place and time or differences caused by (a lack of) foreknowledge of the readers of both

texts (Tekstanalyse 147).

An example is the translation of geographical names. This is a problem which

categorises as a pragmatic translation problem, since the source audience’s foreknowledge on

the geographical situation is most likely broader than the target audience’s. Because of the

international status of English compared to the status of Dutch, I have altered the spelling of

geographical names in the source text to their English equivalent, if they had one. Regarding

geographical names, Nord states in her article “Proper Names in Translations for Children:

Alice in Wonderland as a Case in Point” that they often have exonyms in other languages,

whether they are different in pronunciation, morphology, or lexicon (184). Thus,

“Antwerpen” became “Antwerp”, “de Schelde” became “the Scheldt River”, “de Grote

Markt” became “the Grand Market Square”. Utrecht, for example, does not have a different

name in English, so no change was needed. The translation of “de Grote Markt” was added to

ease the reading and avoid a shift in focus. A problem which arises because of a lack in

foreknowledge is exemplified in the use of “River” after “Scheldt”. This is not in the source

text, because the target audience of the source text probably knows that the Scheldt is a river,

but this may not be common knowledge to the target audience of the target text. Chesterman

considers this a change in information, in this case the target text contains more information

than the source text (Chesterman 169). A different but comparable situation arose when, in

the second part, a street in Utrecht appeared, the Minderbroederstraat (now known as the

Minrebroedersstraat). I regarded this a pragmatic problem, since the chance exists that not

the entire English target audience knows what a “straat” is, and will therefore have a lack of

Kersten 6

foreknowledge. I considered using Grit’s naturalising strategy and altering the name of the

street completely, thus translating “Minderbroederstraat” to “Friar’s Street”, but because the

street is not fictional I did not think this would be appropriate, even for a children’s novel.

However, I did not want to maintain the name as they are in the source text, because of the

aforementioned possible lack of foreknowledge of the target audience. Therefore, I decided to

use a partial translation and translate “Minderbroederstraat” to “Minderbroeder’s Street”,

thus maintaining the historical element but creating a name slightly more understandable for

children. Lawrence Venuti, an experienced scholar in translating from different languages to

English, argues that: “Not only are most projects initiated in the domestic culture, but the

very function of translating is assimilation, inscribing the foreign text with domestic

intelligibilities and interests” (93). By maintaining one part of the name but naturalising the

other, more familiar part, the translation assimilates to the target culture, as said by Venuti.

The source text being children’s literature has had some influence on the choices I made

during the translation process. If I were to translate this novel for a target audience of adults, I

would most likely not have naturalised the first names, since I would have assumed that

adults have a better understanding of the difference between Dutch and English names, and

would like the historicity to be as accurate as possible in a novel.

Kersten 7

Chapter 2. Cultural differences

The second category consists of problems caused by the cultural differences between the

source and target text, which arise from different standards and conventions of the source and

target culture, for example conventions of genre, measuring units, or politeness (Tekstanalyse

147).

The first problem I encountered when translating the source text was the name of the

protagonist, which is Jan Jacobs in the source text. Jan is a typically male name in Dutch, but

more often a female name in English, which makes it a problem that comes from a difference

in cultural conventions. I have chosen to translate the name into the English equivalent,

which became “John Jacobs”. I made a similar decision for the name Karel Havelinck, which

became “Charles Havelinck”, and the other Dutch-sounding names. It has to be noted that I

did not change the family names of the characters, since I thought that would take away a

large part of the historical accuracy. Because the characters are not fictional, I found it

important to keep their original family names. Their first names, however, were not equally

significant. Furthermore, first names of historical figures often have equivalents in other

languages, for example emperor Charles V, who is named in the beginning of the novel, is

called Karel V in Dutch. The reason I naturalised the names is not only because of the gender

connotations the names carry with them, which would not apply to a name like Karel/Charles,

but because of the age of the target audience as well, which is assumed to be between 11-15

years old. The historical background of the story is most likely not very commonly known

amongst the target audience of English-speaking youth and the unfamiliar Dutch names could

take away some of the attention to the content of the story. To avoid this, I have changed the

Dutch names to their English equivalents. Nord says, in her aforementioned article, that “a

story set in the receiver’s own cultural world allows for identification, whereas a story set in a

strange, possibly exotic world may induce the reader to stay ‘at a distance’” (185). Since the

Kersten 8

story takes place in a setting exotic to the target audience I decided not to naturalise the

Dutch family names, but made the choice to domesticate the first names only, as to allow for

some form of identification and thus a somewhat familiar setting. This is also the reason that

“Vorstermanbijbel” has been translated to “Vorsterman Bible” and not to something more

English-sounding, since Vorsterman is a family name and a historical figure as well. He was

a successful book printer from Antwerp who printed Dutch and Flemish illustrated editions of

the Bible, which were eventually forbidden by the Catholic church because it was discovered

they were inherently reformed Bibles (Hollander 164). The reason I did not add any

explanation about Mr Vorsterman is because there is no explanation in the source text either,

although it is not considered common knowledge in the Netherlands. Since the sentence in

which he is named is “a forbidden Vorsterman Bible”, the relevant information (“forbidden”)

is already given, and the specifics of the Bible are not essential to the rest of the story.

Kersten 9

Chapter 3. Differences in languages

The problems in Nord’s third category are problems regarding language pairs, so the

combination of the languages in the source and target text. These problems can result from

differences in the structure of the source and target language, for example translating the

Spanish gerund into German (Tekstanalyse 147).

A problem caused by differences between the Dutch and English language was the

rhetorical question in the source text: “Wat staat er nu helemaal in dat krotje?” (Beckman

10). I have not translated it as such because the target audience might have considered a

construction like “what’s in that hovel anyway” a sincere question instead of a rhetorical

question. Furthermore, the pragmatic particle “nu helemaal” made it difficult to translate the

structure, since English does not contain many pragmatic particles. In Dutch, these particles

are often used to express the speaker’s intention and prevent texts from sounding stiff (Van

der Wouden 33). The particles are quite rare in English, which might be caused by a

difference in syntax, which “makes it sometimes very hard to translate Dutch (or German or

…) sentences with modal particles into English faithfully” (Van der Wouden et al. 6). Thus, I

was forced to change the construction of the Dutch sentence to something that would convey

the original meaning to English. I applied Chesterman’s strategy of altering the speech act

(Chesterman 170) and changed the question to a statement, while keeping the slightly

mocking tone by including “anyway” in place of the pragmatic particle. Personally, I think

that the translation I have decided on (“there was nothing of value in that hovel anyway”) still

preserves some of the bitterness and cynicism found in the source text, even though it is no

longer a rhetorical question.

Another example of a problem concerning pragmatic particles is the sentence in the

source text that reads: “Toch beter dat ze de kloosters leeghalen dan onze huizen” (Beckman

Kersten 10

69). The start of this sentence is, again, quite typically Dutch, starting with “Toch beter”,

which includes the pragmatic particle “toch”. Furthermore, there is again a hint of cynicism

to be found in the statement, which I wanted to retain in the translation. I decided to

reconstruct this sentence as well and make it into a more English sounding statement, much

alike the previous problem. I opted for “I’d rather have them empty out the monasteries than

our houses”. Because of the use of the personal pronoun instead of the more neutral “Toch

beter dat…”, the statement now appears slightly more personal than it does in the source text,

but I did not consider this to be a problem, because the statement in the source text could

easily be regarded as a personal statement as well. By adding the word “rather” in place of

the pragmatic particle, the sentence retains some of its cynicism, but in more of an English-

sounding fashion, much like the use of “anyway” in the previously discussed problem.

Kersten 11

Chapter 4. Problems specific to the text

The problems in Nord’s fourth and final category are problems specific to an individual text,

whose solutions cannot always be applied to other translations, for example the translation of

puns or figures of speech (Tekstanalyse 147).

A problem I encountered that is very specific to the text was the title of the book,

which is an alliterating title. I wanted to preserve this alliteration, since a figure of speech

such as this one rarely occurs by accident and is therefore most likely put there by Beckman

on purpose. She also has a number of other novels with alliterating titles, such as Stad in de

Storm and Wij zijn Wegwerpkinderen, which is why I considered the alliterating title a

deliberate choice and wanted to preserve it. I decided not to incorporate the name Vredeborch

in the title, because it would most likely be difficult to find a suitable word for “val” in

English that started with a v and the word might sound unfamiliar to English readers, which

could discourage them to pick it up and start reading it. I decided on The Collapse of the

Castle, because I thought it was a good illustration of what will happen in the story, it

alliterates, and it might sound more attractive to English readers than for example The Fall of

the Vredeborch. In the second part of the translation, the church named “Buurkerk” caused

some problems as well. Because the story of the Buurkerk is not a fictional one, I did not

have the option to naturalise the name. The church does not have an English name, unlike the

Church of Our Lady in Antwerp, mentioned in the first part. I considered leaving the name as

it is in the source text, therefore applying Grit’s maintaining strategy (Grit 192), but decided

against this, since it would cause a strange situation in combination with the partially

translated street names. I reasoned that I could not maintain the Dutch word “kerk” while

translating the word “straat” to “street”. Eventually, I decided to use Jiri Levý’s illusionist

method, which states that when translating a text in an illusionist manner, the translator must

make the target text seem as if it were the original, thus it must not seem translated (Levý 19).

Kersten 12

This is why I chose to translate “Buurkerk” to “church”, which would, hopefully, make the

reader forget they were reading a translated story. By doing so, however, the source text

included more information than the target text, which could be regarded as somewhat

problematic. I would resolve this problem by adding a short chapter at the end of the book

with more elaborate explanations on some of the events or concepts in the story. In this

chapter I would then give the reader its Dutch name. The source text ends with an

explanatory chapter (Beckman 338-342) and I wanted to include this in the target text as well,

despite the novel not being a history book.

Van Coillie states in his essay “Vertalen voor Kinderen: Hoe Anders?” that

“translators who choose to maintain the exotic often do so out of respect for the source text as

well as to bring children into contact with different cultures” (18). In the aforementioned case

of the Minderbroederstraat, I have decided to maintain part of the exotic features of the

source text, however, in the case of the Buurkerk, I have decided against this, because it was

more difficult, compared to the street, to come up with a solution in which the exotic could be

maintained at all.

Kersten 13

Conclusion

In this thesis, part of Thea Beckman’s novel De Val van de Vredeborch has been translated

from Dutch to English, and the translation has been analysed according to Nord’s four

categories of translational problems.

Firstly, the pragmatic translation problems have been studied. The main focus in this

category was on how to translate the Dutch geographical names mentioned in the source text.

This caused a problem because of the difference in foreknowledge among the source and

target audience. To ease the reading experience of the English target audience, this problem

was solved by using the English spelling of names if possible, and wholly or partially

translating the names that did not have an English name already.

Secondly, I analysed the problems caused by cultural differences. The names of the

characters caused the main problem in this category. Some of the names had different gender

connotations in the source and target culture, which could cause confusion, and others were

names that sounded quite Dutch and could distract the target readers from the story. Because

of this, I changed the names to their English equivalents. The family names were not

changed, to retain historical accuracy.

Thirdly, I researched the problems created by differences between the language pair,

Dutch-English. What caused the most problems in this category was the use of pragmatic

particles in the Dutch source text, which were difficult to translate into English. As a solution

to this problem I altered the constructions of the sentences so I would be able to add words

that would give the sentence a similar effect in the target text.

Finally, the problems specific to the text were analysed. In this category, I had the

most trouble with the name of a specific church, the Buurkerk. This church did not have an

English name and I found that maintaining the Dutch name would not be a fitting solution.

Kersten 14

Therefore I applied Levý’s illusionist method and translated it in such a way that the reader

would not be made aware of the fact they were reading a translation, but the meaning of the

source text would be retained.

In this thesis, only part of Beckman’s novel was translated and analysed. There is,

however, much more to the story and there are many more translational problems to be

analysed and studied. Therefore, a continuation of the translation and the analysis of De Val

van de Vredeborch could offer different interesting problems and solutions.

Kersten 15

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor Anniek Kool for her feedback,

support, and motivation during my translation and research process. It has been very helpful

and I am grateful for her supervision.

I would like to thank Onno Kosters and Anniek Kool for their enthusiastic way of

teaching the translation courses and therefore making me enjoy the entire process of

translating very much.

I would like to thank Simon Cook for his offer to be my second reader.

I would like to thank my good friends Naomi Meeuwsen and Marijn Brok for

proofreading my thesis and providing me with useful comments and feedback.

Finally, I would like to thank the late Thea Beckman for writing so many captivating

books for children and adults alike and for providing me with the fascinating source for this

thesis, De Val van de Vredeborch.

Stanzy Kersten

 

Kersten 16

Works Cited

Beckman, Thea. De Val van de Vredeborch. Rotterdam: Lemniscaat, 1988. Print

Chesterman, Andrew. “Vertaalstrategieën: een Classificatie.” Denken over Vertalen. Ed. T.

Naaijkens et al. Trans. Ans van Kersbergen. Nijmegen: Vantilt, 2010. 153-172. Print.

Coillie, Jan van. Leesbeesten en Boekenfeesten: Hoe Werken (met) Kinder- en Jeugdboeken.

Zoetermeer: NBD/Biblion, 1999. Google Books. Web. 18 Jan. 2016.

Coillie, Jan van. “Vertalen voor Kinderen: Hoe Anders.” Literatuur Zonder Leeftijd 19

(2005): 16-39. Web. 18 Jan. 2016.

Grit, Diederik. “De Vertaling van Realia.” Denken over Vertalen. Ed. T. Naaijkens et al.

Nijmegen: Vantilt, 2010. 189-196. Print.

Hollander, August A den, Ulrich B. Schmid, and Willem Frederik Smelik. Paratext and

Megatext As Channels of Jewish and Christian Traditions: The Textual Markers of

Contextualization. Leiden: BRILL, 2003. Google Books. Web. 18 Jan. 2016.

Levý, Jiri. The Art of Translation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2011. Google Books. Web.

24 Jan. 2016.

Nord, Christiane. “Proper Names in Translations for Children: Alice in Wonderland as a Case

in Point.” Translators’ Journal 48.1-2 (2003): 182-196. Web. 27 Dec. 2015.

--. “Tekstanalyse en de Moeilijkheidsgraad van een Vertaling.” Denken over Vertalen. Ed. T.

Naaijkens et al. Trans. Cornelie van Rinsum and Henri Bloemen. Nijmegen: Vantilt,

2010. 145-152. Print.

Venuti, Lawrence. “Translation, Heterogeneity, Linguistics.” TTR: traduction, terminologie,

rédaction 9.1 (1996): 91-115. Web. 15 Jan. 2016.

Kersten 17

Van der Wouden, Ton. “Partikels: naar een Partikelwoordenboek voor het Nederlands.”

Nederlandse Taalkunde 7.1 (2002): 20-43. Web. 25 Jan. 2016.

Van der Wouden, Ton, et al. “Once upon a Time in Dutch.” Ms. Leiden/Groningen/Brussel

(1998): 1-12. Web. 25 Jan. 2016.

Kersten 18

The Collapse of the Castle

1

In which John Jacobs has to travel and hangs from a horse

‘I hereby banish you from the city of Antwerp and the province of Brabant for the rest of

your life. Your possessions will be confiscated to cover the costs of the trial. You have forty-

eight hours to leave the city.’

The verdict hits John Jacobs of Leemputte like a sledgehammer. Banished! He has

spent every year of the twenty years that make up his short existence in this wondrous city on

the Scheldt River. And although those years haven’t always been easy, he feels at home here.

He has his friends of the brewers’ guild here, his work, his house1. He will lose all of this –

forever. The punishment he has been given is almost as bad as a death sentence.

What has he done to deserve this? Nothing.

It’s his bad luck that his uncle Daniel, whom he was very fond of and visited often,

was convicted for heresy. During the ‘sharp interrogation’ on the rack, he had mentioned his

nephew’s name. Of course the tortured man had confessed to anything the Dominicans

wanted to hear: he was a Lutheran, he had a forbidden Vorsterman Bible, he associated with

Jews and heathens, he had spit on a holy wafer and blown a raspberry at the portrait of the

Pope, he had tried to drive the people around him from the true faith. One of the people he

had wanted to affect had been his nephew John.

And it’s true: John had liked listening to uncle Daniel. His uncle had been a well-read

man, a good fellow, and a loyal friend above all. After John had lost his mother and

1 The source text uses the word “woninkje”, which makes use of a typical Dutch diminutive. English does not have this form. I thought about using the word “cottage”, which implies that his house is small, but that word has more of a rural connotation in English, which would make no sense in this context, since John lives in a city. I decided not to add “small” to “house”, because I thought it would look forced . In the source text this is not the case, because Dutch often makes use of diminutives. This is different in English, and adding the word “small” would add too much unneeded emphasis on the fact that his house is, in fact, small

Kersten 19

stepfather, uncle Daniel had arranged for his nephew to become an apprentice in Charles

Havelinck’s brewery, where he soon managed to get promoted to foreman. But the fact that

uncle Daniel had mentioned John’s name had been enough for him to fall under suspicion.

Still, the inquisition had not succeeded in proving that John Jacobs was a heretic. The search

of his house hadn’t produced anything. The bailiffs hadn’t been able to find a forbidden bible,

rhymed psalters, or inflammatory writings. But they hadn’t found any icons, crucifixes, or

scapulars either.

Although the pastor of the Church of Our Lady had vouched for John, nobody could,

in good faith2, say that John was a good Catholic. He remained a ‘questionable case’. Hence

the grim verdict, banishment from the city and the province. Get lost, heathen!

And yet, John cannot blame his uncle for mentioning John’s name3. When the

Dominicans start their torment, the victim is ready to confess to just about anything: the most

frightful crimes, the most horrific heresy. Poor uncle Daniel; his execution on the Grand

Market Square must have come as some kind of salvation for the old man.

John can count himself lucky for escaping the ‘sharp interrogation’ and a death sentence. But

what is luck? Being banished from the city that’s your home, wandering the Lord’s roads like

a beggar, every decent person looking at you with distrust – isn’t that worse than death by

hanging?

2 “In good faith” is not found in the source text, but I decided to use it to create a little pun, and because the Dutch word “volhouden” does not have an English equivalent with the same connotations, and the addition of “in good faith” ensures that the sentence keeps its original meaning. 3 At first, this sentence read: “John cannot hold it against his uncle that he mentioned his name”, however, it was not clear who mentioned whose name, therefore I had to alter the structure of the sentence to something clearer. The source text does not have this problem, because it contains an anaphora: “Toch kan Jan het zijn oom niet kwalijk nemen dat die zijn naam heeft genoemd”.

Kersten 20

Everything John owns, everything he’s worked and saved for the past4 eight years of

his life he’s lost now: his house, his furniture, his bed. He gets to keep one pair of extra

clothes. As for his money…

The bailiffs failed to find it, because not only is John a frugal young man, he has

always been careful too5. As soon as emperor Charles V’s strict placards were announced in

Antwerp, John had thought it smart to sow all of his savings into a little canvas bag and bury

it in the small garden6 behind his house. Two days later, uncle Daniel was arrested and John

could sense what lay ahead. That’s how he still has his money – the result of eight years of

extreme frugality – although his dreams for the future are shattered.

It had – once again – been uncle Daniel who’d inspired his dreams. When John, a

twelve year old orphan, was entrusted to the good care of his ‘family’, that family had

consisted only of uncle Daniel, one of his mother’s brothers.

Uncle had arranged for his nephew to become a brewer’s apprentice and John later

understood that this was the best thing that could have ever happened to him. Year after year,

he saved every penny that was left of his wages. With serious persistence he had managed to

work his way up to foreman and had denied himself everything else in the process. He did

nothing but save, save, save. Even though his heart sometimes started beating faster when he

saw a pretty lass walk by, he was always quick to turn his head the other way. Marriage could

wait7. First, he needed to save enough money to buy a share of his patron, Charles 4 The source text does not include the word “past”, but it is not implied that John has had a break from work since he started, so I assumed that he had worked for the past eight years of his life. The construction of the sentence in the target text would have been strange if I left it out as well, since it would have become “everything he’s worked and saved for for eight years”. The construction with “past” makes more sense in the target text, in my opinion.5 This parallel construction is not found in the source text, but I think it sounds more English than a literal translation, which would have been “not only is John a frugal young man, he has always been careful too”. 6 I thought about using the word “courtyard” to translate the Dutch “kleine hof”, but I found that “courtyard” had more connotations with a rather large garden, so I decided on “small garden”.7 I have not literally translated the source text, which said “Trouwen kwam later wel”, since this is quite a Dutch construction. I have applied Chesterman’s strategy of changing the construction of the sentence and translated it to something which sounds more English than a somewhat literal translation, which would have been “Marrying could happen later” (Chesterman 158).

Kersten 21

Havelinck’s brewery. Another two years, he’d calculated, and he’d have just enough. But

then the inquisition happened – and eight years of forcing himself to be extremely frugal have

been for naught.

Banishment means more than losing your civil rights. John is being kicked out of the

brewer’s gild, fired from the civic guard, thrown from familiar surroundings. He has to leave

Antwerp, this lively, beautiful city. He can never return, he will never see the Scheldt again.

He is being cut off from his roots, and the only thing keeping him on his feet is the silent

hope that the bailiffs haven’t found his money yet and he may be able to start over

somewhere else, somewhere far away. Where will he go? North, yes8. To Amsterdam!

But first, his money.

So John Jacobs finds himself, in the dead of the night, in the alley next to his house.

It’s locked and boarded up. But after he’s climbed over the fence and wrung himself through

the neighbour’s hedge, he’s able to get into the small garden. The night is as black as soot and

it’s raining a little. John has to do everything by touch only. Chilly raindrops are falling down

on him as he kneels in the small yard near the lilac bush and starts digging with his bare

hands. He barely mourns the loss of his house and furniture. There was nothing of value in

that hovel anyway. He denied himself all luxuries year after year in hopes of later welfare.

Wealth was something for later times, when he would be a master brewer. Then, yes, then he

could have surrounded himself with every treasure a city like Antwerp has to offer her

citizens: heavy oak furniture, a fluffy bed, a loving wife, children…

Now that dream is in shambles.

8 The source text says: “Naar het noorden”, and a literal translation would be “To the north”, which sounded strange and incorrect to me. Therefore I only used “North”, a construction impossible in Dutch but more fitting in English.

Kersten 22

Determined, he claws into the cold ground, while the rain is seeping down on him.

Finally his hands find the canvas bundle, and carefully he lifts it from the hole. Everything’s

still there. Thank God. At least he won’t have to beg on his way to the northern Netherlands.

For a moment he raises his head, listening. Did he hear something? The night is quiet, very

dark, the neighbours are asleep. It’s nearing the end of May, daylight comes early; he needs

to hurry. John sneaks away, through the hedge, over the fence, towards the citadel, his

treasure hidden underneath his jerkin.

The city’s gates are still closed; he has to wait until the morning comes before he can

leave Antwerp. He spends the final hours of the night waking and shivering in the shadows of

the wall. He has decided to travel to the north by foot, because it’s the cheapest. He’s bound

his finest clothes together in a bundle and is wearing his daily ones. This way he doesn’t look

like a traveller who owns a fair sum of money. He uses the silence and darkness of the night

to hide his money spread out in between his clothes and bundle, because the countryside is

crawling with fugitives and bandits, not to mention wandering unemployed soldiers. If he

gets robbed, the robbers will have to beat him to death and undress him completely to be able

to find the proceeds of eight years of frugality. And John is big, strong, with broad shoulders

and long legs. He won’t be going down easy!

Finally, the day breaks, and John Jacobs leaves his hometown without even looking back

once to see the profile of ports, towers, windmills, and walls9. Tears of misery are streaming

down his cheeks, his feet are moving mechanically. The farmer’s carts on their way to the

market are coming towards him, but he doesn’t look up, doesn’t greet anybody, just keeps

walking. Later that day he gets accosted by vagabonds and beggars, but he acts like he

doesn’t notice them and walks on. He’ll have to forget about Antwerp. He’ll have to rip the

9 There is some alliteration in the source text in this sentence, “molens en muren”, which I was able to adapt into the target text by translating this as “windmills and walls”.

Kersten 23

memory of the city he spent his childhood in, learned a trade, loved a heretical uncle, out of

his mind. Amsterdam, that up-and-coming city in the northern Netherlands, will have to help

him with that.

John10 has always been a practical young man and his levelheadedness makes him see that his

misfortune is mainly due to his seeming poverty. Charles V is inspired by one thought only:

in his immeasurable empire, where the sun never sets, only one religion is allowed to be

practiced: Roman Catholicism. But in both the German and Dutch countries the reformation

is spreading and the emperor considers this treason. In his eyes, every protestant is an enemy

of God. That’s why he’s passed strict laws against heresy and ordered the inquisition to

completely eradicate this heresy. Even so, only a few city governments, councils, and

tribunals follow the emperor’s orders directly. Heresy is still condoned, in both the northern

and southern Netherlands.

However, from time to time the bigwigs find it necessary to prove their loyalty to the

emperor by arresting and judging a couple of heretics. Those are never the rich merchants,

guild masters, bankers, or nobility, but always the common people, whose execution or

banishment won’t disrupt the town life. The victims of the ‘strict placards’ are always people

who could be easily missed, but whose death on the gallows or stake might cause fear and

fright among the other heretics and will make them reconsider their beliefs.

Uncle Daniel became a victim of this sudden fervour. He had been a cabinet-maker,

like hundreds of others in Antwerp, a widower with no children, whose only family was one

nephew, a master apprentice in a brewery.

10 The source text does not mention John’s name here, it simply reads “Hij is altijd een praktisch ingestelde jongeman geweest”. When I translated this to “He has always been…” and read the entire piece I found it quite odd-looking, especially because of the mention of Charles V in the active form in the next sentence. It could, in my opinion, easily be confused with the point of view of Charles V, which would be distracting. This is why I applied one of Chesterman’s strategies; altering the cohesion (Chesterman 159), thus changing the indirect reference “hij” to a direct reference, “John”.

Kersten 24

In short, uncle Daniel had been a man who could be arrested without causing any

drawbacks for the city. The banishing of his nephew was just the cherry on top of the cake,

even though nothing could be proven against the young man. All right, Antwerp’s city

officials and inquisition did their jobs, they showed their obedience to the emperor’s laws.

For the time being they can be tolerant again and pretend like there are no heretics to be

found in Antwerp – even though there are dozens. The bigwigs, strict and just, have given

them an example.

‘That’s all well and good,’ John growls to himself, ‘but it might just be your bad luck

to have to serve as the example.’

Kersten 25

(Part of )

4

In which Adam of Leemputte loses at marbles and watches the smashing of statues11

Because of the Iconoclastic Fury in the south of Flanders, which has spread further north like

wildfire, the pastors keep their churches carefully locked. But there’s a man who holds the

keys to the church in his hands and sure enough, he’s opening the doors. Men with pickaxes,

ropes, and hammers run inside the building; women and children are kept out by armed

civilians who are guarding the gaping doors.

‘They’re gonna destroy the statues,’ Christian squeaks, almost losing his voice in

excitement.

‘Yeah,’ Adam says, enjoying himself. ‘The protestants hate icons.’

‘Do you?’

Adam shrugs.

‘Some are very ugly, I think.’

Other men arrive, carrying ladders, and they disappear inside as well. Statues are often placed

up high in alcoves.

‘I wanna see,’ Adam says, panting. ‘Don’t you?’

‘You bet.’

They duck under people’s arms12, then see two guys with a tall ladder walk towards a

side entrance. The boys don’t need words to understand each other. They eagerly help carry

the ladder and succeed in sneaking inside, past the guards.

11 In the source text, the last part of the sentence is “en de beelden ziet breken”, which includes alliteration. To retain this, I have altered the structure of the clause, making it passive rather than active, so I would be able to translate “breken” as the gerund of “smash”.12 Here, the source text says “ze duiken onder armen door”. In my translation, I have added the word “people’s”, to avoid confusion between arms meaning limbs and arms meaning weapons, since the setting does not exclude the second possibility.

Kersten 26

There they hide behind a pillar and watch, eyes wide.

They see workers climbing up with ropes around their shoulders, towards the

enthroned icons and fathers of the church. They sling the ropes around the heads, then throw

the ends down where they’re caught by eager hands. The man on the ladder tampers with the

pedestal, using a crowbar. A wild cry: ‘Coming down!’ The statue (one of Saint Anthony)

wavers, topples over, the people rush away. Creaking, clattering, the statue falls onto the

stone church floors. The arms break apart, the head rolls away, dozens of men jump onto the

stone and start cutting into it. Other men are attacking the altars, pull gold and silver

monstrances from their depositories13, tear books apart, rip into damask cloths, throw

beautifully decorated candlesticks on a pile.

‘Hey, you two, beat it,’ a worker snarls at the boys14. They’ve been discovered. That’s

the trouble with being only eight years old; you’re not allowed to be anywhere and grown-

ups enjoy scaring you away. Coarsely, the children are led away. The guards are still at the

church doors. They take the valuables carried from the church and put them in burlap sacks.

They pass these on to others, who walk away with them. Adam starts feeling uneasy.

‘But that’s stealing,’ he yells loudly.

A woman who’s watching heard him and answers: ‘Of course not. They’re handing in

the church treasures at the town hall. Reformed people don’t steal, they just want to banish

the horrors of the statues and the hogwash of the mass.’

Again, someone yells: ‘Get out of here, scoundrels.’

13 The source text uses the word “kastjes”, which I did not translate to “cupboards”, because I found that this had more connotations to a homely setting. Since this scene takes place in a church, I translated “kastjes” to the more general “depositories”, thereby possibly broadening the meaning but retaining the somewhat formal setting. Furthermore, I decided to delete the diminutive form again, since 14 The source text has quite a Dutch quote here: “Hé daar jullie”, which could be translated to “Hey, you there”, but I decided to change this to “Hey, you two” since I thought this would sound more natural in English. By including “two” in the spoken sentence, it was not necessary to include it in the last segment, where the source text says “de beide jongens”, so I was able to translate that segmet to simply “the boys”.

Kersten 27

Apparently the grown-ups don’t want that much attention from the youth, for whom

they should serve as examples. Adam and Christian have long forgotten that they’re supposed

to go home and that mealtime is over. What’s happening in the city is way too exciting. Look,

now a group of men is moving towards the Minderbroeder’s Street.

‘To the monasteries, to the monasteries,’ they scream. John Arentsz walks ahead,

Adam notices. And Simon, the skinny servant, walks just behind him. Adam may be just a

little boy, he knows full well how much the townspeople hate the mendicant orders.

Preachers and friars may have taken the oath of poverty, but it’s common knowledge just

how rich the monasteries are, how much drinking and revelling happens in there (they’re

loyal customers of John Jacobs), while the begging, or rather threatening for money,

continues with no trouble. It’s the monks in the city monasteries who are fiercely protesting

against the Reformation, preaching about death and damnation for all heretics, and urge the

Catholics to be intolerant.

Are the roused civilians going to pillage the monasteries now? They have to see this!

Completely berserk, the boys run after the crowd. Where are the city guards? They know

better than to show themselves.

The doors of the monasteries are forced open, men carrying axes, hammers, and

ladders enter. Still… still the whole ordeal is orderly in some way. Earlier, in the church,

Dick Cater stood in front of the giant organ to make sure nothing happened to the precious

instrument. Here, in the Minderbroeder’s Street, John Arentsz is in charge, and again, men

appear with burlap sacks to gather and ‘save’ everything taken from the monasteries.

‘This is fun,’ Adam says, enjoying himself, when he sees the valuables being carried

out of the monastery. It’s almost like moving house. The big pieces are loaded onto

wheelbarrows and brought to the town hall as well. Candlesticks, chalices, books, silver and

tin figurines, finely carved wooden spoons suited with portraits of saints, everything

Kersten 28

disappears into the sacks. Mass vestments, sparkling with golden thread, are stacked onto the

wheelbarrows. Inside, the noise of beat up stone statues and breaking glass clangs. Of course

real stealing happens as well. Adam sees a poorly dressed labourer run off with a leather-

bound book, decorated with gems. Someone else is tucking something with a golden shine

underneath his jerkin. The richest nobleman of the city, the Lord of Renesse, who’s a member

of the town council and is known as a mild and tolerant person, appears in front of the

monastery, admonishes the crowd to be calm, but doesn’t do anything to stop the pillaging.

Adam even sees him smiling quietly. Then, he hears a woman next to him say: ‘I’d rather

have them empty out the monasteries than our houses.’

Kersten 29

Source Text

Part 1

Kersten 30

Kersten 31

Kersten 32

Kersten 33

Kersten 34

Kersten 35

(Page 13)

Kersten 36

Part 2

Kersten 37

Kersten 38

Kersten 39

Kersten 40

Kersten 41