The word "romance" comes from a sociolect of Latin known as Vulgar Latin, which is the colloquial version of Classical Latin, and was spoken by the illiterate and lower classes of the Roman Empire. In Vulgar Latin, the adverb
romanice translates roughly to "in the Roman vernacular," and from this the noun
romance originated. It came to be associated with love in modern English because while serious writing of the medieval age was done in Classical Latin, the popular stories were written
romanice, and they were often about love.
All well and good and commonsensical of course; etymology almost always is. But I believe there is another sort of implicit linguistic secret to this title - that, or it ended up being more appropriate than whoever coined it imagined.
"...if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the colour of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat..."
I've read the novella "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry umpteen times now, and yet every time I do I always come upon just one simple word or phrase that suddenly makes my heart feel like it's going to pop. The version I read is in English, as I can't read the original French, but somehow I feel as though the story gains from its translation rather than loses. When it comes to French, many English translations are obviously connected in a synonymous sort of way. For instance, "scathing" in Francais is "acerbe," and "lusty" becomes "vigoureux." Sometimes I wonder if the lines become blurred through translation, if grass - "herbe" becomes "herbs" or sheen - "lustre" becomes "luster" in our books, because French literature always seems to play in a slightly different key in my ears. It's a familiar song, but it seems like it's got an extra flat that raises a small ghost of a question mark but does nothing to diminish the song itself.
"I felt deeply moved, and stirred. It seemed to me that I was carrying a very fragile treasure. It seemed to me, even, that there was nothing more fragile on all Earth. In the moonlight I looked at his pale forehead, his closed eyes, his locks of hair that trembled in the wind..."
"He twined himself around the little prince's ankle, like a golden bracelet."
So maybe it's only me, but I have always felt something very pure and unabashed in French translation, and other European translations in general. It seems to walk comfortably through sentimental syntax territory, using words like "tremble" and metaphors so simple that they seem like the literary equivalent of striking one tinny, innocent note on a xylophone, but the results are so natural and sweet that rather than wince the way I would at something sugared up like a greeting card, it's more like savoring a drop of honey.
"It is such a secret place, the land of tears."
Read "The Little Prince" online
here.
