Fishermen Story: tradução cantável da narrativa musical de Dorival Caymmi segundo o Princípio do Pentatlo, de Peter Low

Abstract

This work aims to apply a translation method for songs (developed by professor and theorist Peter Low) to Dorival Caymmi's song cycle "História de Pescadores", released on the 1957 album Caymmi e o Mar. Known as the "Pentathlon Principle", Low's method is comprised of five criteria, which were applied to the translation of Caymmi's piece. They are as follows: singability, sense, naturalness, rhythm and rhyme. We comment on the different stages of the translation process, justifying each choice based on the assumptions described in the method. As a result, we have reached a singable version of the work in the English language. The power of Caymmi's compositions, one of the greatest names in Brazilian Popular Music, is something that surely stands the test of time. The translation process described here attests that this strength also resists the limits of language.