La Magna Via

Some books I read and then read again, leafing at chance through the pages. Not for the plot, not for the characters who have become acquaintances or friends. What entrances me may be the words themselves, the poetry. Most often though it is the philosophical thoughts that have made an inroad in my brain – how aptly a mood has been expressed.

Most recently I have been rereading what is nominally a detective story by Savatteri, a journalist also known for his analyses of Sicily and how it is no longer what it used to be. I leaf through the book La Magna Via or The Great Way, finding something new on each page. I know the plot by heart, but it is their humanity and love for each other that stimulates my imagination as I join Lamanna, the protagonist in Savatteri’s detective series, and his 80 year old father as they walk, with a few other companions, along the route that crosses Sicily from one side to the other in a sort of pilgrimage. They finally arrive on the southern coast, where, as Lamanna’s father says, Africa is so close you can hear the lions roar and the maps say hic sunt leones. The track they have been following is the one Frederick the II originally mapped out to make it easier to govern Sicily when he was king in the early 13th century.

What I keep returning to is Savatteri-Lamanna’s description of stopping with his companions for a picnic under a fig tree. The buolic scene, with his beloved Suleima, his ever-young father and friends, seems to come straight from a Manet painting. It is a perfect moment with the blue sky, white clouds racing across the sky, the green countryside glistening in the sun. A photo would somehow be sacrilegious, not do it justice, for the author wants to keep the scene and the emotions evoked intact. While I cannot join them at least I can share this moment with others, although a translation is needed for my non-Italian friends.

As I try one version after another it turns out to be much more challenging than I originally thought. A few words, such as trazzera, I had to look up, not realizing at the time they were in the Sicilian dialect (sort of like Camilleri’s stories of Montalbano where you get the gist but translating a specific word, if you’re lucky enough to figure it out, would ruin the final effect).
What I had thought a simple task eventually takes me hours to put into an English equivalent. For I want to find a way of capturing the feeling of the place, of what the author felt and meant. Makes even my one attempt at an early poem by James Joyce seem child’s play.

The Italian is:
“Apprezzo la condivisione, spezzare il pane, bere il vino. Metafora evangelica: camminare per le strade della vita , incontrarsi, conoscersi e dirsi addio. Non a caso, in Sicilia si dice la tavola è trazzera, attraverso il cibo si fraternizza così come percorrendo i sentieri ci si incontra e si stringono relazioni. La tavola è trazzera: osservo il cibo abbondante disseminato sur l’herbe. Forse sarebbe meglio dire che la trazzera è tavola”

Out of curiosity, I ask a friend to submit the Italian to A.I. Here is what A.I. comes up with:

I value the act of sharing—breaking bread, drinking wine. It is an evangelical metaphor: to meet, to come to know one another, and, eventually, to say farewell. In Sicily, there is a saying that the table is a pathway, for through food we cultivate closeness just as, along the roads, we encounter others and form relationships. The table is a pathway: I see the abundance of food laid out upon the grass. Yet perhaps it would be more fitting to say that the pathway itself becomes a table.

While A.I. proposes other versions, all of them insist on keeping the wording “appreciating the sharing”.

In the end, after hours of mulling over various solutions, I’ve settled on my version as the best. Evidently the human touch is still missing in A.I. translations.

The first of my various attempts:
“I welcome sharing, breaking bread, drinking wine. Evangelical metaphor: meeting up and parting. Not by chance, in Sicily it is said that the trazzera or drove road, is a dining table, food is a way of making friends just as you meet others and make friends as you move along the trails. The dining table is a drove road: I look at the food scattered here and there on the grass. Might be more to the point to say that the drove road is a dining table.”

Since I didn’t like drove road (now who would know what that meant?) I continued, putting in various possibilities.

A working version:
Sharing, breaking bread, drinking wine. An evangelical metaphor: walking along life’s path, you fraternize and say goodbye. become acquainted (fraternizing, making acquaintances, new friends) and take leave (and saying good bye, parting). Not by chance, in Sicily it is said that the trazzera or sheep track, is a refectory table, food is how one makes new friends just as moving over the trails, you meet up with others and make new friends (fraternize) as you move along the trails. The refectory table is a sheep track: my eyes roam over the bounteous food (picnic leftovers) scattered here and there on the grass. Might be more to the point to say that the sheep track is a refectory table.

And then I finally came up with following, which I shall call final.

Sharing, breaking bread, drinking wine. An evangelical metaphor: as you walk along life’s path, you encounter others, hello, and then goodbye as you continue on your way. Not by chance, in Sicily it is said that the refectory table is a trazzera or sheep track, a path through the fields used by shepherds as they move their flocks to new pastures. Through food one fraternizes just as walking the trails one meets others and strikes up friendships. The refectory table is a trazzera: I contemplate the picnic leftovers scattered here and there on the grass. Might be more to the point to say that the trazzera is a refectory table.

A few notes:
Tavola in Italian could be dining table, like vieni a tavola or time for lunch but I finally settle for refectory table, a name derived from the Latin refectorium, a place one goes to be restored. I suppose it could also be banquet table.
Then there are various possibilities, for trail, path, track, route. I did find the term sheep drive. Or sheep drove, which seemed too unusual, or sheep track.
Sheep track – tratturo, the most commonly used word in central-southern Italy and it turns out that trazzera is the Sicilian dialect for the route or sheep track, used by shepherds as they move their herds to new pastures, or transhumance. Tratturi (trazzera in Sicily) A path through the fields for herding animals; a green lane, public pathways.

Sure wasn’t easy.

There would be other paragraphs to share, for La Magna Via is so much more than a detective story. It is a hymn to the relationship between father and son, a paean to Sicily by an author who loves Sicily despite its defects.