Translation Consternation Part 1: I Can See for Kilometers and Kilometers

Having read several books and watched several movies translated from English to Hebrew, I offer thee, dear reader, various translations I encountered over the years that tickled my linguistic funny bone.

The spaghetti classic Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo centers around an unusual partnership between "Blondie" and Tuco, played, respectively, by Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach (who, at this writing, is just 23 months shy of attaining a triple-digit age).

Early in the film, Blondie (Il Buono) decides to dissolve his association with Tuco (Il Cattivo) and, somewhat inexplicably, abandons him in the middle of the desert, as he rides off on horseback. His valediction:

The way back to town is only 70 miles. If you save your breath, I feel a man like you could manage it. Adiós.

(I will spare the reader the expletive-riddled riposte which Tuco hurls back at Blondie.)

One method of testing the fidelity of a translation is to translate it back into the original language. The Hebrew translation of the first sentence, re-translated back into English?

The way back to town is only 113 kilometers.

One of the main considerations in translation is the choice between a literal rendering of the words and a non-literal one that attempts to preserve the spirit of the original text. Figures of speech are instructive: the phrase beat around the bush translated literally into a language that lacks that expression would fail completely to convey the intended meaning.

Given that Israelis, like most of the rest of the world, have by now eschewed the imperial system and have gone metric, it is perfectly understandable that the translator did not travel the literal route, and instead favored the usage of kilometers, since miles mean little to most Israelis -- and to most non-Americans for that matter.

(I am one of increasingly few non-Yankees to think in miles, since Canada, my home and native land, did not convert to metric until after I had already learned the imperial system. (Imperialist gringo pig! (Oh, no -- not the dreaded embedded parentheses! Okay, let's settle down.)))

Having justified the translator's choice of units, let us now consider her choice of quantity. (For some reason, most Hebrew translations of films I have seen have been the fruit of female hands.) Since 1 mile equals 1.6 kilometers, 113 kilometers is unquestionably the equivalent of 70 miles, so the translator's choice is certainly numerically accurate, at least to the nearest kilometer.

But ought mathematical precision be the goal here? If it were a film of the life of Louis Pasteur and the dialog a discussion of the amount of potassium required for a chemical experiment in a laboratory, surely it would be.

But Blondie is not a real estate surveyor informing Tuco, his supervisor, of the exact dimensions of a tract of land, so that the latter could determine whether the land were suitable for cattle ranching or planting corn.

No, Blondie is taunting his erstwhile ally with the magnitude of the distance he will have to travel alone, on foot, under the hot desert sun, without food or water, and, if memory serves me correctly, with his hands tied together. For that purpose, a round number works best. Therefore, a translation of 110 km would seem more apt, or better still, 100 km, a less precise conversion, but a very round number indeed.

To close with a question: how would you translate the title of the song 500 Miles Away from Home? How do you think a jazz version of it would have sounded, by Kilometers Davis? At any rate, I am spent and I have promises to keep, and kilometers to go before I sleep.