چکیده (انگلیسی):

.1. Introduction
In one of the many moving passages in Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles, the heroine baptizes her dying child
Sorrow. It is worth examining the following scene: “Her figure looked singularly tall and imposing as she stood in her
long white nightgown, a thick cable of twisted dark hair hanging straight down her back to her waist. The kindly
dimness of the weak candle abstracted from her form and features the little blemishes which sunlight might have
revealed ─ the stubble scratches upon her wrists, and the weariness of her eyes ─ her high enthusiasm having a
transfiguring effect upon the face which had been her undoing, showing it as a thing of immaculate beauty, with an
impress of dignity which was almost regal. The little ones kneeling round, their sleepy eyes blinking and red, awaited
her preparations full of a suspended wonder which their physical heaviness at that hour would not allow to become
active” (my emphasis, 94).
2. T ranslatingthe Baptism of Sorrow
It is curious to note that the Spanish translation of this particular scene omits the word white when describing Tess’s
nightgown: “Tenía una figura imponente, y parecía más alta con su larga camisa de noche; un espeso ramal de negros
cabellos trenzados colgábale por la espalda hasta la cintura”(123).
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At first consideration this may appear to be of negligible importance; after all, one can safely assume that nightgowns
during this period were generally white for the most part. However, a close examination of Tess’s description above
suggests that Hardy may have borrowed the aforementioned italicized words, among others, from the Transfiguration
passages of the New Testament of the King James Bible (Cho, 2012:66). Consider, for example, the following verse
from the Gospel of Matthew: “And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment
was white as the light” (my emphasis, 17:2). In this way, Hardy strongly associates Tess with the glorified figure of
Christ through meticulously selected words. Hence, every word—including white— calls for attention. It is within this
in mind, then, that one should approach the baptismal scene.
To be sure, there are other passages throughout the book that evoke the figure of Christ. Such a point becomes
particularly significant when discussing the dispute generated by the novel’s subtitle, namely A Pure Woman. In his
preface to the MacMillan Wessex Edition (1912), Hardy writes: “Respecting the sub-title, to which allusion was made
above, I may add that it was appended at the last moment, after reading the final proofs, as being the estimate left in a
candid mind of the heroine’scharacter— anestimate that nobody would be likely to dispute. It was disputed more than
anything else in the book. Melius fuerat non scribere. But there it stands” (Appendix I). Furthermore, it is recorded in
the author’s autobiography that “the Duchess of Abercorn’s dinner guests had been ‘almost fighting across her dinnertable over Tess’s character’. Those who thought the ‘little harlot’ deserved hanging were put in one group; those who
pitied her as a ‘poor wronged innocent’ sat in another, together with the Duchess”(xix).
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3. Conclusion
All this inevitably leads us to ask: what about the other translations? It will be well to recall that there is a high
concentration of biblical allusions contained in Hardy’s novels— some are immediately apparent while others are not.
This being so, it is incumbent upon the translator to identify the biblical allusions echoed throughout Hardy’s literary
production and translate them accordingly.