The Lentils of Babylon: A Case of "Evil Translator"? :-)

[Dr. Archontis Pantsios]

MARCO TO KRITON:


>The reason why the BB want the lentils to be resold all over the world. The
>original explanation is: through all the different and complicated money
>exchange rates, there is an actual gain in buying again the same
>merchandise after it went through all those countries.
>Now, of course this can't be true 


Last night, I also opened up my Comic Art copy of "The Lentils of Babylon"
in order to compare the various versions of that story, and while Scarpa's
original explanation about "all the different and complicated money exchange
rates" leading to a 90% profit rate for the Beagles (a 1 to 10 cost/revenue
ratio is mentioned in the original script) raised my eyebrows, I chose to
explain this as a gain coming from the Beagles being smart traders and
offering to the natives of "Costa Scura" especially, what would amount to
relatively disadvantageous terms of trade. (Keep in mind that the natives of
"Costa Scura" are total ignoramuses: they have little idea of the market
value of the "sand" with which they pay for the lentils and find out from
the Ducks that the lentils are eatible--well, sort of! They buy them in
order to re-sell them to the nation of "Suzzan" for something they can eat,
supposedly).

The Greek version is really misleading and makes no sense at all! It has the
natives of Costa Scura buying the lentils for eating purposes and then
practically begging the Beagles to get them back at a loss for them;
however, why on earth would they choose to do that a second time, once they
find out how terribly the lentils taste? The mind reels... The Greek text
also has other translation inconsistencies that would really perplex the
average Greek reader, for whom I really feel sorry! In all honesty, they
could have done a much better translating job!

Holiday Cheers,

Archontis