September 8, 2010

#1,826

It is not so much the plebeian merriment that revolutions unleash which frightens the reactionary as the zealously bourgeois order that they produce.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 300

2 comments:

  1. The original Spanish is:

    No es tanto la zambra plebeya que las revoluciones desatan lo que espanta al reaccionario, como el orden celosamente burgués que engendran.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A linguistic note: The word translated here as "merriment" is zambra. This word originally was the name for Moorish celebrations that featured lots of noise and dancing, and then was applied to similar events held by the Gypsies of Sacromonte, before finally being broadened in meaning to designate any kind of raucous festival.

    That is all to say that the original Spanish has a little more "color" than the English translation.

    ReplyDelete