Disclaimer: Dragon Ball/Z/GT is Akira Toriyama's property and brainchild. I don't receive any monetary remuneration for writing fanfiction.
Author's Note: An ending precedes a beginning. Happy and auspicious 2012 for every single one of you!
And as far as beginnings go, a challenge is a good place to start: 100 themes, 100 words.
I will strive, in the best of my capacity, to provide you with a faithful translation of the Spanish DBZ fanfiction "Cien de sus voces" while maintaining the 100 word count. Please feel free to point any corrections that could be done in terms of form.
Dear reader, please lend your eyes and your ears for…
"A Hundred Voices"
(Cien de sus voces)
100 Dragon Ball Universe drabbles
by
Esplandian
Dedicated to American Vigor and Ren Rika, who actually started this whole thing.
I: SON GOKU
Hunched up by the decades, alone between mountains of mist and bamboo, Son Gohan the Great contemplated upon a falling star, and wished for a hearth to share the martial arts that marked him, his stories of heroes, of his recounted battles won or lost, and his lessons learned by err and esteem.
Bamboo leaves fall and sprout announcing the new cycle; infant laughs answer to his own, aged voice.
To the tailed babe, the gift of the sky, Gohan donned with his surname and named him Son Goku.
Gohan couldn't hope more from life; life had given him all.
Author's Note: Translation is an art by its own. Translating literally is never enough in fanfiction: there's always a cultural charge permeating the tongue, and implicit intention beyond the words that could remain un-grasped without understanding the equivalence of cultural meaning from the source and the recipient languages.
I do thank American Vigor for the following passage, which is a beautiful adaptation (taken from his kind, published review to the Spanish version of the story), and my favorite translation in terms of making the content more endearing to English speakers. I felt truly honored by been translated by an author that I profoundly admire.
I: SON GOKU
Translated by American Vigor
"Made frail by the decades, alone in the mountains of mist and bamboo, the legendary Son Gohan contemplated upon a shooting star, and wished with his heart in order to share the martial arts that marked him, the histories of heroes, having achieved fighting victories or losses, and learning lessons by error and respect.
The leaves of bamboo wilted and returned with every new cycle, rising from infancy on their own.
A baby with a tail, a gift of the sky, he was given a name and he was called Son Goku.
Gohan couldn't have hoped for more from life, and he would therefore give Goku his all."
