Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson: An Objectively Impartial Criticism of the Life of Man

«Read each of my written expositions thrice» — la instrucción de lectura que encabeza el volumen: cada exposición ha de leerse tres veces. La dificultad del libro está prescrita, no padecida.

«Every stick has two ends» — una de las fórmulas que el libro repite y que en su sistema funciona como principio, no como refrán suelto.

«Read each of my written expositions thrice: First—at least as you have already become mechanized to read all your contemporary books and newspapers; Second—as if you were reading aloud to another person; And only third—try to fathom the gist of my writings» — el consejo de lectura que antepone al libro, en tres pasadas y con la tercera aparte

«Any prayer may be heard and granted by the Higher Powers only if it is uttered thrice: First—for the welfare or the peace of the souls of one’s parents; Second—for the welfare of one’s neighbor; And only third—for oneself personally» — el dicho de sabiduría popular del que dice derivarlo

«All written according to entirely new principles of logical reasoning and directed toward the accomplishment of the following three fundamental tasks:» — el autor declara en el prospecto de las tres series que todo está escrito según principios enteramente nuevos de razonamiento lógico y dirigido a tres tareas fundamentales.

«Only then will you be able to count upon forming your own impartial judgment, proper to yourself alone, on my writings.» — el autor declara en el consejo de lectura qué espera de la tercera pasada: que el lector forme su propio juicio imparcial sobre sus escritos.

«That is why I now also, in setting forth on this venture quite new for me, namely authorship, begin by pronouncing this invocation, and pronounce it not only aloud but even very distinctly and, as the ancient Toulousites used to say, with a “fully manifested intonation”—of course only to the extent permitted by data already formed in my whole presence and thoroughly rooted in it for such a manifestation; data, by the way, which are generally formed in man’s nature during his preparatory years, and which later, during his responsible life, determine the character and vivifyingness of such an intonation.» — el autor abre el primer capítulo declarando que empieza su empresa de escritor pronunciando la invocación, y en voz alta, con lo que los antiguos toulousitas llamaban entonación plenamente manifestada.

«Having begun thus, I can now be quite at ease and should even, according to contemporary notions of “religious morality, ” be completely assured that from now on everything in this new venture of mine will proceed, as is said, “like a pianola. ”» — el autor declara, tras esa apertura, que según las nociones contemporáneas de moralidad religiosa debería quedar asegurado de que todo saldrá como una pianola.

«In any case, this is the way I have begun, and how the rest will go I can only say, as the blind man put it, “we shall see.”» — el autor cierra ese comienzo con la frase del ciego, sin prometer nada sobre el resto.

«First and foremost, I shall place my hand, moreover the right one, which— although at the moment it is slightly injured due to an accident that recently befell me—is nevertheless really my own, and has never once failed me in all my life, on my heart, of course also my own—but on the constancy or inconstancy of this part of my whole I see no need to expatiate here—and frankly confess that I myself have not the slightest wish to write, but am constrained to do so by circumstances quite independent of me, though whether these circumstances arose accidentally or were created intentionally by extraneous forces I do not yet know.» — el autor confiesa en primera persona que él mismo no tiene el menor deseo de escribir y que lo hace obligado por circunstancias independientes de él, sin saber si surgieron por accidente o si las crearon fuerzas ajenas intencionalmente.

«I only know that these circumstances bid me write not just some trifle for reading oneself to sleep, but thick and weighty tomes.» — el autor dice saber solo que esas circunstancias le mandan escribir tomos gruesos y pesados, no una lectura para dormirse.

«To stop this disagreeable sensation I might still have had recourse to that maleficent property inherent in me, as in all contemporary people, which enables us, without experiencing any remorse of conscience whatever, to put off anything we wish to do “till tomorrow.”» — el autor nombra la propiedad maléfica que atribuye a todo hombre contemporáneo: aplazar hasta mañana lo que se quiere hacer, sin remordimiento alguno.

«I say “of the kind” because in my entire life, from the moment I began to distinguish a boy from a girl, I have always done everything, absolutely everything, not as it is done by other, like myself, biped destroyers of Nature’s good. Therefore I ought now, and am perhaps even bound on principle, to begin not as any other writer would.» — el autor declara que desde siempre ha hecho todo de manera distinta a los demás y que por eso no debe empezar como otro escritor.

«In any case, instead of the conventional preface I shall begin quite simply with a warning.» — el autor anuncia que, en lugar del prefacio convencional, empieza con una advertencia.

«At the same time it will be quite honest—honest, of course, in the objective sense, since I expect without the least doubt, as do all those who know me well, that owing to my writings there will entirely disappear in the majority of readers—immediately and not gradually, as sooner or later must occur to everyone—all the “treasures” they have acquired, either by inheritance or by their own labor, in the form of “quieting notions” that evoke only romantic images of their present lives or naive dreams about the future.» — el autor advierte que por sus escritos desaparecerán en la mayoría de los lectores los tesoros de nociones tranquilizadoras que habían adquirido por herencia o por su propio trabajo.

«In this alone I shall follow their example and also begin with an “address to the reader,” but I shall try not to make it as sugary as they usually do with their evil wiseacring, by which they titillate the sensibilities of the more or less normal reader.» — el autor dice que seguirá a los escritores profesionales solo en dirigirse al lector, y no en el azucaramiento con que ellos halagan la sensibilidad del lector normal.

«I have no practice at all in the established rules and procedures or in what is called “bon ton literary language,” and am therefore constrained to write not as ordinary “patented” writers do, to whose form of writing you are in all probability as much accustomed as to your own smell.» — el autor declara no tener práctica alguna en lo que llama *bon ton literary language* y quedar por eso obligado a escribir de otro modo que los escritores patentados.

«In my opinion, what will be troublesome for you in all this is chiefly that in childhood there was implanted in you—and has now become perfectly harmonized with your general psyche—an excellently working automatism for perceiving all kinds of new impressions, thanks to which “blessing” you have now, during your responsible life, no need to make any individual effort whatsoever.» — el autor sostiene que en el lector se implantó en la infancia un automatismo para percibir toda impresión nueva, gracias al cual ya no necesita esfuerzo individual alguno.

«To speak frankly, I personally see the central point of my confession not in my lack of experience in the rules and procedures of writers, but in my ignorance of what I have called “bon ton literary language, ” required in contemporary life not only of authors but even of all ordinary mortals.» — el autor sitúa el centro de su confesión no en su falta de experiencia de escritor sino en su ignorancia del *bon ton literary language*.

«This new “blessing” arose and is flourishing everywhere on Earth thanks to an extraordinary disease which, for the last twenty or thirty years, for some reason or other, has afflicted all those persons from among the three sexes who sleep with half-open eyes, and whose faces are fertile soil for the growth of every kind of pimple.» — el autor atribuye la difusión de ese lenguaje a una enfermedad extraordinaria de los últimos veinte o treinta años; el troceo imprime *three sexes*.

«although I too was taught this language in my childhood, and although some of my elders who prepared me for responsible life constantly forced me, without sparing any means of intimidation, to learn by rote the host of nuances that in their totality compose this contemporary “delight,” yet unfortunately, of course for you, of all that I learned by rote nothing stuck, and nothing whatever has survived for my present activities as a writer.» — el autor relata que de niño le hicieron aprender de memoria ese lenguaje bajo intimidación y que nada de aquello le quedó.

«However that may be, the fact remains, illuminated from every side like an American advertisement—which fact cannot now be changed by any forces, even with the know-how of the “experts in monkey business”—that I, who have in recent years been considered by many people a rather good teacher of temple dances, have today become a professional writer, and will of course write a great deal—as it has been proper to me since childhood whenever I do anything to do a great deal of it—nevertheless, not having, as you see, the automatically acquired and automatically manifested practice needed for this, I shall be obliged to write all I have thought out in the plain, simple everyday language established by life, without any “literary manipulations” or “grammatical wiseacrings.”» — el autor declara que escribirá en la lengua llana y cotidiana establecida por la vida, sin manipulaciones literarias ni sabihondeces gramaticales.

«But the pot is not yet full! ... I have still not decided the most important question of all: in which language to write.» — el autor deja abierta, ya empezado el libro, la cuestión de en qué lengua escribirlo.

«Although I have begun to write in Russian, nevertheless in that language, as the wisest of the wise, Mullah Nasr Eddin, would say, “you cannot go far.» — el autor cita a Mullah Nasr Eddin —a quien llama el más sabio de los sabios— sobre los límites del ruso.

«Both these languages are like the dish known in Moscow as “solianka,” into which goes anything and everything except you and me—in fact, everything you wish, even the after-dinner “cheshma”2 of Scheherazade.» — el autor compara el ruso y el armenio con el guiso moscovita de la *solianka*, donde entra todo.

«It must also be said that owing to all kinds of conditions accidentally, or perhaps not accidentally, formed in my youth, I have had to learn, very seriously and of course always with self-compulsion, to speak, read, and write a great many languages, and to such a degree of fluency that if in following this profession unexpectedly forced on me by fate I decided not to take advantage of the “automatism” acquired by practice, I could perhaps write in any one of them.» — el autor declara haber tenido que aprender muchas lenguas por autocompulsión, hasta poder escribir en cualquiera de ellas.

«In trying to understand the underlying thought and real meaning hidden in this strange formulation, any more or less sane-thinking man will, in my opinion, soon come to the conclusion that all the ideas contained in this saying are based on the truth, recognized by people for centuries, that every phenomenon in the life of man is due to two causes of opposite character, and divides into two exactly opposite results, which in their turn become the cause of new phenomena.» — el autor interpreta el refrán del palo de dos puntas: todo fenómeno de la vida del hombre se debe a dos causas de carácter opuesto y se divide en dos resultados exactamente opuestos, que a su vez son causa de fenómenos nuevos.

«For example, if “something” obtained from two opposing causes produces light, then this “something” must also inevitably produce the opposite phenomenon, that is, darkness; or again, if a factor engenders an impulse of palpable satisfaction in the organism of a living creature, it likewise inevitably engenders dissatisfaction, of course also palpable, and so on and so forth, always and in everything.» — el autor da los ejemplos de esa dualidad: lo que produce luz produce también tiniebla, y lo que engendra satisfacción engendra insatisfacción.

«In short, if I exercise my prerogative and take the good end of the stick, the bad end will inevitably fall “on the reader’s head.”» — el autor aplica el refrán a su propia elección de lengua: si toma el extremo bueno del palo, el malo caerá sobre la cabeza del lector.

«This may indeed happen, for in Russian it is impossible to express the so to say niceties of philosophical questions, which I intend to touch upon in my writings rather fully; whereas, although it is possible to do so in Armenian, this language, to the misfortune of all contemporary Armenians, has now become quite impractical for expressing contemporary notions.» — el autor declara los dos límites: el ruso no permite expresar las sutilezas de las cuestiones filosóficas que va a tocar, y el armenio, que sí, se ha vuelto impracticable para las nociones contemporáneas.

«In order to assuage the bitterness of my inner hurt owing to this, I must say that in my early youth, when I became interested in philological questions and was deeply absorbed in them, I preferred the Armenian language to all the others I then spoke, even including my native tongue.» — el autor consigna que en su primera juventud prefería el armenio a todas las lenguas que hablaba, incluida la materna.

«The Greek language whose spirit and essence were transmitted to me by heredity and the language now spoken by contemporary Greeks are as much alike as, according to the expression of Mullah Nasr Eddin, “a nail is like a requiem.”» — el autor cita a Mullah Nasr Eddin para medir la distancia entre el griego que recibió por herencia y el que hablan los griegos contemporáneos.

«But during the last thirty or forty years I have witnessed such a change in this language that although it has not completely lost the originality and independence it had possessed since the remote past, it has now become a sort of “clownish potpourri of languages” whose consonances, falling on the ear of a more or less attentive and conscious listener, sound like a collection of Turkish, Persian, French, Kurdish, and Russian tones, mixed with other “indigestible” and inarticulate noises.» — el autor describe lo que dice haber visto volverse el armenio en treinta o cuarenta años: un popurrí de tonos turcos, persas, franceses, kurdos y rusos con ruidos inarticulados.

«the conviction also began to arise in what is called my “mind” that these languages, or rather their “grammars,” are composed by people who with respect to knowledge of language are exactly like those biped animals whom the esteemed Mullah Nasr Eddin characterizes thus: “All they can do is wrangle with pigs about the quality of oranges.”» — el autor cita a Mullah Nasr Eddin sobre quienes componen las gramáticas.

«there is acquired in the brain functioning of every creature, and thus of man also, a definite property whose automatic manifestations proceed according to a certain law that the ancient Korkolans called the “law of associations,” and that the process of mentation of every creature, especially man, flows exclusively in accordance with this law.» — el autor atribuye a los antiguos korkolans la *law of associations*, según la cual discurre en exclusiva el proceso de mentación de toda criatura y del hombre.

«According to this information, it was customary in long-past centuries on Earth for every man bold enough to aspire to the right to be considered by others and to consider himself a “conscious thinker” to be instructed, while still in the early years of his responsible existence, that man has two kinds of mentation:» — el autor refiere que en siglos pasados se instruía a todo aspirante a pensador consciente en que el hombre tiene dos clases de mentación.

«The second kind of mentation, that is, “mentation by form”—through which, by the way, the exact meaning of all writing should be perceived and then assimilated after conscious confrontation with information previously acquired—is determined in people by the conditions of geographical locality, climate, time, and in general the whole environment in which they have arisen and in which their existence has flowed up to adulthood.» — el autor define la *mentation by form* y dice que por ella debe percibirse el sentido exacto de todo escrito; la determinan localidad geográfica, clima, tiempo y entorno.

«Thus, in the brains of people of different races living in different geographical localities under different conditions, there arise in regard to one and the same thing or idea quite different independent forms, which during the flow of associations evoke in their being a definite sensation giving rise to a definite picturing, and this picturing is expressed by some word or other that serves only for its outer subjective expression.» — el autor sostiene que en cerebros de razas distintas y localidades distintas surgen, ante una misma cosa o idea, formas independientes distintas, expresadas después por una palabra que solo es su expresión exterior subjetiva.

«but the hearer of that word—in whose being, owing to the different conditions of his arising and growth, a form with a different “inner content” has been fixed for the given word—will always perceive and infallibly understand that word in quite another sense.» — el autor sostiene que el oyente, en quien la misma palabra fijó una forma de contenido interior distinto, la entenderá siempre en otro sentido.

«And so, cheerful and swaggering candidate for a buyer of my “wiseacrings,” having warned you that I am going to write not as professional writers usually do but quite otherwise, I advise you to reflect seriously before you embark on reading my further expositions, and only then to undertake it.» — el autor aconseja al lector reflexionar en serio antes de emprender la lectura de lo que sigue.

«style and sense are Gurdjieff» — de la nota editorial, sobre el problema de la lengua: el inglés pasó por otras manos, pero el estilo y el sentido se adjudican al autor.

«English book was a “rough diamond» — de la misma nota, sobre el estado del texto inglés.

«All and Everything has been recognised as one of the most 7 Wntten’ and ye£ il remains agonisingly difficult to read» — de la obra de referencia de Wellbeloved, con el OCR corrompido en medio: la lectura propuesta es «one of the most [remarkable books ever] written, and yet it remains agonisingly difficult to read».

«Orage did not know Russian and was unable to read Gurdjieff’s original text.» — la nota del editor de la edición revisada refiere que el traductor al inglés no leía el ruso.

«However brilliantly edited, the word-by-word English translation of Beelzebub’s Tales inevitably produced passages that were unwieldy in style compared to the Russian text.» — la misma nota admite que la traducción palabra por palabra produjo pasajes de estilo torpe frente al texto ruso.

«He had overruled objections that the translation needed more work, insisting that the time had come to launch his ideas into the mainstream of Western thinking.» — la nota atribuye al autor haber desestimado las objeciones y haber forzado la publicación.

«Although a prefatory note stated that the original was written in Russian and Armenian, the significance of this was easily disregarded in the absence of a published edition of the original Russian text.» — la nota señala que la advertencia preliminar sobre la lengua original se pasaba por alto a falta de una edición rusa publicada.

«What few readers knew was that, in fact, all of Gurdjieff’s work in completing the book was in Russian.» — la nota precisa que el trabajo del autor para terminar el libro se hizo en ruso.

«Gurdjieff did not approve the writing style of the English translation.» — la nota del editor consigna que el autor no aprobó el estilo de la traducción inglesa.

«The primary aim was to bring it closer in substance to the Russian text, using the widely admired and wellaccepted French edition as a model.» — la nota declara el fin de la revisión; el troceo une el guion de corte y devuelve *wellaccepted* donde la fuente imprime *well-accepted*.

«A secondary but important aim was to have it correspond more faithfully in style to Gurdjieff’s Russian writing, particularly to make it as clear and understandable as the Russian.» — el segundo fin declarado de la revisión, según la misma nota.

«The revised English translation was published in 1992, two years after Mme de Salzmann’s death.» — la nota fecha la traducción revisada en 1992.

«They pointed out that Orage’s work was brilliant, that Gurdjieff had authorized its publication, and that it had been read and studied for more than forty years.» — la nota recoge el argumento de los lectores que preferían la traducción de Orage.

«Triangle also published the original Russian text in 2001.» — la nota registra la edición del texto ruso original en 2001.

«Welcomed by Russian readers, who confirmed the readability of the original text, the Russian edition provides an authentic reference for measuring the quality of the English translations.» — la nota presenta la edición rusa como referencia para medir las traducciones inglesas.

«This second edition of the revised translation contains further revisions that were discovered in work on the Russian book, particularly corrections in Gurdjieff’s neologisms, called the “special words.”» — la nota describe qué añade esta segunda edición de la traducción revisada, con las correcciones a los neologismos que llama *special words*.