Portuguese Speaker Wanted!

I wonder if we have any kindly Portuguese speaker on this forum who would volunteer to translate just over a page of tightly spaced typescript - for me and the Barton Library. It's interesting stuff, of course - from the memoirs of a nun at Aveiro regarding Princess Joana's response to the pressure placed on her to marry Richard. I can sort of struggle through it very slowly on my school Spanish and get the basic gist, but it would be useful to have a proper translation to offer members - I would certainly flag it up in the Bulletin.

There are actually five pages of this stuff in the Barton Library, with as yet no English translation, but I'm happy to settle for a translation of just the really meaty bit.

Pretty please....

Marie

I wonder if we have any kindly Portuguese speaker on this forum who would volunteer to translate just over a page of tightly spaced typescript - for me and the Barton Library. It's interesting stuff, of course - from the memoirs of a nun at Aveiro regarding Princess Joana's response to the pressure placed on her to marry Richard. I can sort of struggle through it very slowly on my school Spanish and get the basic gist, but it would be useful to have a proper translation to offer members - I would certainly flag it up in the Bulletin.

There are actually five pages of this stuff in the Barton Library, with as yet no English translation, but I'm happy to settle for a translation of just the really meaty bit.

Pretty please....

Marie

Excellent, Maria! Thank you. Thank you.

I've uploaded a pdf of the two pages in question to the Files section of the Forum - I've called it "Joana Evades Marriage to Richard". If you could manage as much as possible of section 34, that would be wonderful - the first few lines aren't critical, and you only need to go up to where the ship from England brings news of Richard's death. (On the other hand, if you're finding it easy I suppose it would be nice to have the whole section.)

Marie

Mary wrote (about the Joanna Portuguese translation project):

"Sounds very interesting Marie. Dare we hope more evidence?"

Marie replies:

Not exactly, but not exactly 'no' either. This is one of the documents Barrie Williams used when he wrote his article for the Ricardian a couple of decades back bringing Richard's Portuguese marriage negotiations to the attention of the English-speaking world. I think it was probably then that he donated to the Barton Library photocopies of two extracts from the Portuguese book he had been using. I know - because he said it in one of his articles - that his intention had been to draw people's attention to the subject so that other historians might study the sources and bring their own interpretation to it, but it doesn't really seem to have happened, and subsequent writers, including myself, have tended to go on relying own Williams' own articles.

Barrie Williams made his own translation of the first extract, which is a modern (1963) study of the subject by Domingo Mauricio Gomes dos Santos, but - as I've only just realised - the extract from the 'Memorial' has no translation. So not very accessible. We have translations of most of the foreign-language works in the papers library, and it would be nice if I could get as much as possible of the Memorial extract 'englished' as Caxton would have put it.

I don't think there's be much, if any, wholly new evidence, but I think the take on Joana's feelings about the whole business might shift a bit. At the very least I think it will prove to be an excellent discussion piece.

I wonder if we have any kindly Portuguese speaker on this forum who would volunteer to translate just over a page of tightly spaced typescript - for me and the Barton Library. It's interesting stuff, of course - from the memoirs of a nun at Aveiro regarding Princess Joana's response to the pressure placed on her to marry Richard. I can sort of struggle through it very slowly on my school Spanish and get the basic gist, but it would be useful to have a proper translation to offer members - I would certainly flag it up in the Bulletin.

There are actually five pages of this stuff in the Barton Library, with as yet no English translation, but I'm happy to settle for a translation of just the really meaty bit.

Pretty please....

Marie

I sent you a message off list offering to ask my sister to translate the whole thing as she lives in Lisbon and is bi-lingual in Portuguese so could do it quite fast. She knows of my obession with Richard so it will come as no surprise.
Clearly it disappeared into the there.
If you want to send me the entire document off list I will pass it on to her.

Hi Paul,

Oh, thanks! Yes, sorry, I didn't pick up the email - perhaps you had an old email address?

This would be absolutely ideal. Do thank your sister for volunteering. If you email me on marie.barnfield@... I'll attach the document to my reply.

Great. It is, of course, rather old-fashioned Portuguese so your sister may do an initial double take, but I'm sure once she gets her eye in she'll be absolutely fine.

Marie

Hi Maria,

Just wondering, in light of Paul's post, whether you've yet had a chance to take a look at the Portuguese passage, and if so whether you're still keen to translate it, or would rather let Paul's sister do the whole thing?

Whatever suits.

Best,

Marie

Hi Maria,

Just wondering, in light of Paul's post, whether you've yet had a chance to take a look at the Portuguese passage, and if so whether you're still keen to translate it, or would rather let Paul's sister do the whole thing?

Whatever suits.

Best,

Marie

Paul wrote:

"I've found I need to translate the results from any of the on line translation sites as they only translate each word by itself, and seem to have no idea about phrases or idioms or how a language is used!!"

Marie:

Translation software is rubbish. Just a few days back I used google translate to check my interpretation of a couple of line of Andre describing Henry & Elizabeth's wedding. Apparently Elizabeth had nothing to do with it - Henry picked up some sticks (no, I'm not entirely sure where they came from either) and went ahead with a gay marriage (I kid you not). Perhaps Alison Weir or Amy Licence-to-invent should be informed, and just sit back and see how they integrate this into their 'histories'.

Anyway, needless to say I plodded on with my dictionary and my fallible human brain.