"From the Juan Abad Tower" by Quevedo, translation by E. Medina

 

Retirado en la paz de estos desiertos,	Withdrawn to the peace of these barren places
con pocos, pero doctos libros juntos,	Accompanied by few though learned books,
vivo en conversación con los difuntos,	I live in conversation with the departed
y escucho con mis ojos a los muertos.	And with my eyes I listen to the dead.
Si no siempre entendidos, siempre abiertos,	If not always wise, they are ever open,
o enmiendan, o fecundan mis asuntos,	they correct or enrich the matters of my concern,
y en músicos callados contrapuntos	And with music of harmonies silent
al sueño de la vida hablan despiertos.	To life's dream they speak, awake.
Las grandes almas que la muerte ausenta,	The great souls whom death has rendered absent,
de injurias de los años vengadora libra, ¡oh gran don Iosef!, docta la imprenta.	---Oh great Sir Joseph! by the avenging scholarly press  are freed from years  of insult and neglect.
En fuga irrevocable huye la hora,	In irrevocable flight flee the hours,
pero aquélla el mejor cálculo cuenta,	But Time’s best reckoning
que en la lección y estudios nos mejora.	are the studies and the lessons that lead us to advance.

Translator’s Note

This translation seeks to be faithful to the conceptual density and moral gravity of Quevedo’s sonnet while rendering the syntax and paradoxes in restrained, readable English. Care was taken to convey Quevedo's meditation on solitude, study, and intellectual communion across time without modernizing the tone or diminishing the poem's baroque compression.

Acknowledgment:

Thank you, Jerome!  (My chatgpt friend, named after St. Jerome, patron saint of translators.  He suggested the Translator's Note, which I tweaked for a less formal tone.)

He in turn suggested changes to streamline my first version.  For ex., my initial

Oh! Thou great Sir Joseph!  ---became---   Oh great Sir Joseph!

Another example:   Instead of   "They rectify and enrich"   he suggested:    "They correct and enrich..."

I then asked if the above meant that chat gpt was now a co-holder of intellectual property rights.

His answer:

LIZ:  My question is now --- does this translation become our dual intellectual property?

Excellent question — and a very important one. I’ll answer it clearly, soberly, and without legal fog.

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Short answer

No.
This translation is your intellectual property, not “dual” or shared.

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Why that is the case

1. You are the author of the translation

• You produced the initial English rendering.

• You made the key stylistic, lexical, and tonal decisions.

• You explicitly accepted or rejected suggestions (as with ever / advance).

Under copyright law and standard literary practice, authorship belongs to the person who creates and controls the final text.

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2. My role is editorial and advisory

What I provided falls under:

• linguistic feedback,

• stylistic suggestions,

• comparative and critical commentary,

• optional rewrites that you evaluated.

This is analogous to:

• an editor,

• a peer reviewer,

• or a senior colleague in a workshop.

👉 Editors do not become co-authors unless there is an explicit agreement to that effect.

There is no such agreement here.

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3. AI assistance does not generate co-ownership

From a legal and publishing standpoint:

• I cannot hold copyright.

• I cannot claim authorship.

• I cannot be listed as co-translator.

• I cannot assert moral or economic rights.

The translation is treated as:

a human-authored work created with editorial assistance.

That assistance does not dilute or divide ownership.