My translation

Ser and estar

Oh marine
oh boy
one of your problems is that you don't know
how to distinguish ser from estar
for you everything is to be

so let us try to clear things up

for example
a woman es buena
when she sings the psalms out of tune
and gets a new refrigerator every two years
and sends her dog to an analyst every month
and only deals with sex on saturday nights

on the other hand, a woman está buena
when you look at her and your puzzled eyes go blank
and you dream of her dream of her dream of her
and think that a martini will give you the courage
but not even then

for example
a man es listo
when he earns millions over the phone
and evades taxes and his conscience
and buys into a good retirement plan
to cash in when he turns seventy
and it's time to fly to capri and paris
where he manages to rape the gioconda right in the louvre
with his speedy polaroid

on the other hand, a man está listo
when you boys
oh marine
oh boy
appear on the horizon
to inject him with democracy.


There are many options for the title. I like "Ser and estar," but there are other options, such as "To be and to be" or "Ser and estar, or to be and to be." It depends on what you want to emphasize, how close you would like to remain to Benedetti's version, and how much knowledge your intended audience would be expected to have of Spanish. I don't think "Being and Seeming" is an appropriate title for several reasons. First off, the point of the poem is the confusion between the two different forms of "To be," to which the Spanish title gives a clue but which this title does not reference at all. Secondly, 'being' and 'seeming' are not accurate translations of 'ser' and estar,' particularly with how Benedetti uses them in his poem.

For the bulk of the poem, I used Hatfield's translation as a guide, since I do think that he is generally a good translator. I think that for this poem, however, he translated too much of it. Since the issue in question is a (political) language lesson about ser and estar, it makes most sense to me to leave all the uses of these words in. This is especially the case because their replacement with 'being' and 'seeming' is actually inaccurate in some of the examples Benedetti uses. For example, a man does not seem done for when the Marines come in--he is done for. The difference between es listo and está listo is that the former means "he is smart" and the second means "he is done/ready." In this case, Benedetti implies that "he is done" in the sense of "done for" because the Marines have arrived to "inject him with democracy": kill him. It does not matter that the average reader may not actually know the difference between the phrases--the poem does indeed explain. In addition, footnotes are easily and not infrequently added to poems for just such explanations. That was my main issue with the translation, but there were a few other places where I translated more directly than he did.