Mignonne allons voir a tattoo

December 23, 2010 12:08 PM

Francophones, s'il vous plait, une jeune amie a besoin d'une traduction! She wants "by any other name would smell as sweet" from Romeo and Juliet translated into French for a tat she's getting. The words will surround a rose. Her name is Juliet. My French is a bit rusty, I came up with par tout autre nom sentirait aussi bon. Any better suggestions?
posted by mareli to Grab Bag (10 answers total)

From the François-Victor Hugo translation, which used to be the standard French version:

Ce que nous appelons une rose embaumerait autant sous un autre nom.
posted by Sidhedevil at 12:13 PM on December 23, 2010 [6 favorites]

Yes, I'd go with the François-Victor Hugo translation, too.
posted by ocherdraco at 12:15 PM on December 23, 2010

Was just typing what Sidhedevil has said; here's the scene you want. (but I see that embaumer can be to perfume or to embalm, so maybe not?)
posted by calico at 12:15 PM on December 23, 2010

I have heard good things about Pascal Lefèvre's verse translation, but don't have a copy of it to hand--it might be less antiquated than the F-V Hugo version.

The thing is that if she means for people to recognize the reference to Shakespeare, she should use the wording of a well-known French translation of Shakespeare, not just retranslate it.
posted by Sidhedevil at 12:18 PM on December 23, 2010

Best answer: From a French version on Project Gutenberg (Translator: François Pierre Guillaume Guizot):

sous tout autre nom sentirait aussi bon

Full sentence: Ce que nous appelons une rose, sous tout autre nom sentirait aussi bon.
posted by amtho at 12:18 PM on December 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Interesting Sidhedevil, embaumerait says so much more! The sense of any (other name) is gone, though.
posted by mareli at 12:18 PM on December 23, 2010

I think amtho's is probably a good choice, as it's closer to Shakespeare's wording. Guizot was a big Shakespeare expert in his day (mid-19th century); I should have thought to look for his translation!
posted by Sidhedevil at 12:33 PM on December 23, 2010

Bit of a tangent, but since it would help comprehend the tattoo:
The sense of any (other name) is gone, though.

Well, it's at the end of the line, "sous un autre nom", and the verb appeler shares the Latin etymology of the English word appellation, namely appellātiō (“a naming”). That the words aren't in the same order is in fact correct, poetic literary French.
posted by fraula at 2:25 PM on December 23, 2010

Going for the closest translation seems kind of silly to me - I mean, if you want to be that faithful to Shakespeare, why not get it in English? I would go with the Hugo version because it's the nicest sounding as a piece of French.
posted by vanitas at 3:00 PM on December 23, 2010

Best answer: The Pierre Leyris version (1954) goes like this:
Qu'y a-t-il en un nom ? Ce que nous nommons rose
Sous un tout autre nom sentirait aussi bon.

Note the "un tout autre" instead of "tout autre". It sounds much better because it's an alexandrine.
posted by elgilito at 3:08 PM on December 23, 2010 [1 favorite]