Happy Centenary. In honour of the celebration, we hereby share a small update on Thames & Hudson 1973 sloppy historiography and piss-poor translation.

Thames & Hudson 1973 claim, that the following is Marinetti’s seminal moment of conception of Futurism when his car overturns into a ditch,

“I gulped down your nourishing sludge; and I remembered the blessed black BEAST of my Sudanese nurse… ”

Alert readers will sense something wrong: reference to a wet-nurse is more likely to refer to a BREAST, not a beast. I checked the original; and indeed, Marinetti wrote ‘MAMELLE’ (in English: breast, mammary)

Original French text:
http://www.italianfuturism.org/fondation-et-manifeste-du-futurisme/

Reading the French, I was even more astounded the original is so much more sensual and full of graphic erotic detail,

“J’ai savouré a pleine bouche ta boue fortifiante qui me rappelle la sainte MAMELLE noire de ma nourrice soudanaise!”

A far more accurate translation of that would be:

“I SAVOURED FULLY IN MY MOUTH your fortifying mud that recalled to me the sacred black breast of my Sudanese wet-nurse.”

With an eye to historic, artistic, social and poetic purpose (not to mention transparency, critical integrity, and avoiding intentional malignance or negligent demeaning aspersion on Sudanese and female breasts), it’s fair to say ‘beast’ evokes vastly different connotations than ‘breast.’

(And make no mistake: there’re many good French words for beast, like ‘bête’ or ‘fauve’; certainly not ‘mamelle’.)

With an eye to Marinetti’s disdain of consider the irony of the translators and their times. It’s not impossible in 1973 that Thames & Hudson was still labouring under such extreme prurience that it could not bring itself to put into print such FUTURIST words as, well, ‘ breast’. T&H may have consciously explicitly chosen a well-serving typo and/or unconsciously been guided by prurience.

In all events, best wishes to one & all for a fulfilling futurist centenary.