Slap my face and take a dinar

Translated by gozal

This sentence was repeated by an old blind man, who was standing in the road, carrying a bag of money. Again and again, he shouted in his loudest voice, " Slap my Face And Take A Dinar"

This kept happening.

One day, a man was passing by when he saw what was happening to the old man. He could not believe his eyes, shocked, he asked the old man, why are you doing this to yourself !!

The old man told him his story .......

He said when i was younger, i was married to a beautiful girl and i had a son. We were poor but happy.

One day, when i was walking in the village, i heard someone say there is a place very far away which has an amazing treasure. But it's very difficult to get there and far too dangerous for anyone to try alone. I said to myself that man is old and weak. But i'm young and strong .. why don't i go and find that treasure ?

The idea kept coming to me night after night. I could not forget that treasure. And one day, i decided i could not take it anymore. I decided to leave my wife and son and go to the treasure.

I wanted to be rich so badly. I imagined living in a big house ... eating the best food and never having to worry about money again. My wife, on the other hand, opposed my idea. She didn't want me to leave her alone. She begged me to stay, but i didn't listen to her.

The next day, i started to search for the treasure. I took my bags and went far and wide.

It took me many years but i finally found the treasure. There was nothing for me to be happy about that thought. I had become an old man and i'd lost my sight. And when i returned to my town, i found my family had moved after i'd gone.... Worse my precious wife had died, and my son i don't know where he is now.

The old man sighed and then continued " Here i am, I have a treasure, but I paid a heavy price to get it. This is my story, he said that with tears in his eyes.

In the end, when he had finished recounting his story, the blind man started shouting as usual

" Slap my Face And Take a Dinar"

Oi there,

I absolutely agree that we should not translate word by word, this most probably would result in constructing funny if not absurd sentences. Wanting to translate from one's mother language into any foreign language, the translator should first of all know very well his own language - have read lots of books of differnt texts, ought to have a very vast vocabulary of his mother tongue to be able to construct an adequate thought to the one he wants to translate. Of course, the translator also should have mastered the foreigh language to be abe to fully understand the idea of the text.

Once again, we should translate thought for thought, therefore our own experience is very important to do a good translation.

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Comments

AH_TK March 16, 2014 7:03

Mishaikh, take it easy :)
Mishaikh March 16, 2014 6:54

AH_TK

I didn't mean any thing harm, anyway I APOLOGIZE.
AH_TK March 16, 2014 6:50

Mishaikh, don't play on my weakness point :p
AH_TK March 16, 2014 5:52

very deep meaning ... but can i have a dinar ?
rysperski March 15, 2014 23:52

Oi there,

I absolutely agree that we should not translate word by word, this most probably would result in constructing funny if not absurd sentences. Wanting to translate from one's mother language into any foreign language, the translator should first of all know very well his own language - have read lots of books of differnt texts, ought to have a very vast vocabulary of his mother tongue to be able to construct an adequate thought to the one he wants to translate. Of course, the translator also should have mastered the foreigh language to be abe to fully understand the idea of the text.

Once again, we should translate thought for thought, therefore our own experience is very important to do a good translation.
gozal March 15, 2014 18:45

oh, really that's nice , thank you Arif
Arif March 15, 2014 18:35

If you tag "corrections" on your blog, advanced or fluent members can correct your blog. By knowing corrections, you may translate your arabic literature in a better way.
You've done great job, keep it up

Looking forward to reading your next blog
gozal March 15, 2014 18:01

thank you I am really glad to learn from your experience, I would like to mention that I am not one of students literature. but I am a good reader in Arabic of course and i understand what you mean, but what I try to do to not destroy the main picture of the story by using my words,and I know it's hard work as you say, but I would like to share some of good stories, if I am okay in translation, and in the same time I can learn English. I am new here and I don't know why they put the tag text. and I didn't see it too :)
saba March 15, 2014 16:20

Sad story.
Arif March 15, 2014 3:31

Yes, you're right. We learnt it in our academic education.
Thank you so much dear mishaikh

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