Treasure Island

¿Qué decir de Treasure Island? Debe ser una de las obras más leídas de Robert Louis Stevenson, y no solo en idioma inglés. La leí de chico, de adolescente y ya de grande, en inglés. Me gusta siempre. Y es que el autor logra dar esa dimensión que apela al joven y al adulto, convirtiéndose en un entretenimiento y en una fábula con una lección: lo que se hace se paga.

En vocabulario buscamos bearing, plodding, sea-chest, cover, tottering, cove, sittyated grog-shop.

Más abajo encontramos una ilustración de Howard Pyle de 1.911 .

 

Generalidades

Treasure Island (La Isla del Tesoro) es una novela de aventuras del autor escocés Robert Louis Stevenson, contando la historia de bucaneros y oro enterrado. La novela fue serializada en la revista Young Folks. Fue publicada como libro en 1.883.

Luis Junco, historiador, sugiere que Treasure Island es una combinación de las historias del asesinato del capitán George Glas, en 1.765, y el amotinamiento de la tripulación del Walrus en la isla La Graciosa cerca de Tenerife. Los piratas de La Graciosa enterraron un tesoro allí pero fueron muertos en una sangrienta batalla por la armada británica. El tesoro nunca fue recuperado.

Párrafos

… SQUIRE TRELAWNEY, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17__ and go back to the time when my father kept the Admiral Benbow inn and the brown old seaman with the sabre cut first took up his lodging under our roof.

I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn door, his sea-chest following behind him in a hand-barrow—a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man, his tarry pigtail falling over the shoulder of his soiled blue coat, his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails, and the sabre cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white. I remember him looking round the cover and whistling to himself as he did so, and then breaking out in that old sea-song that he sang so often afterwards:

"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest—

Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"

in the high, old tottering voice that seemed to have been tuned and broken at the capstan bars. Then he rapped on the door with a bit of stick like a handspike that he carried, and when my father appeared, called roughly for a glass of rum. This, when it was brought to him, he drank slowly, like a connoisseur, lingering on the taste and still looking about him at the cliffs and up at our signboard.

"This is a handy cove," says he at length; "and a pleasant sittyated grog-shop. Much company, mate?"

My father told him no, very little company, the more was the pity.

"Well, then," said he, "this is the berth for me. Here you, matey," he cried to the man who trundled the barrow; "bring up alongside and help up my chest. I'll stay here a bit," he continued…

Ilustración de Howard Pyle de 1911

 "I'm a plain man; rum and bacon and eggs is what I want, and that head up there for to watch ships off. What you mought call me? You mought call me captain. Oh, I see what you're at—there"; and he threw down three or four gold pieces on the threshold. "You can tell me when I've worked through that," says he, looking as fierce as a commander.

And indeed bad as his clothes were and coarsely as he spoke, he had none of the appearance of a man who sailed before the mast, but seemed like a mate or skipper accustomed to be obeyed or to strike. The man who came with the barrow told us the mail had set him down the morning before at the Royal George, that he had inquired what inns there were along the coast, and hearing ours well spoken of, I suppose, and described as lonely, had chosen it from the others for his place of residence. And that was all we could learn of our guest... (From Treasure Island by Robert L. Stevenson)

Vocabulario

Bearing: an exact position.

The campsite is 5 miles away from here on a bearing of 045 degrees.

Plodding: slow, continuous, and not exciting.

I'll try not to bore you with lots of plodding details.

Sea-chest: a wooden chest which was commonly used by sailors to store personal belongings.

Cover: shelter.

Tottering: becoming weaker, and likely to fail or end.

It was the last decision of a tottering government.

Cove: a curved part of a coast that partly surrounds an area of water.

Cove: caleta, ensenada.

Sittyated grog-shop: situated grog-shop: a situated saloon or barroom, especially a cheap one.

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Fuentes

Treasure Island

 

Si visitas Salta puedes alojarte en un departamento completamente amoblado, apto para 3 personas, y que alquilamos a los seguidores del blog con un descuento especial… (booking.com)