I had already shown an interest in the Romans and the intention was perhaps to encourage me in my French studies. If so, I’m afraid it had an opposite effect, as Goscinny’s French witicisms were beyond my comprehension. (I did enjoy Uderzo’s pictures, though.)
The book, apparently the twelfth to appear in the Astérix series, was published in 1968 to tie in with the Mexico Olympics, and the English translation (which I only acquired many years later) appeared in 1972, on the occasion of the Munich Olympics.
Incidentally, one of the many topical gags that passed me by is the one concerning substance qui donne des forces supplémentaires (“artificial stimulants”), banned at the Olympic Games for the first time in 1968. This neatly ties in with the Gauls’ refusal to take their magic potion and the disqualification of the entire Roman team for trying to use it instead.
Is that name funny?
I remember, firstly, being completely flummoxed by the characters’ names. I realized that Astérix and Obélix were simply the typesetting characters of the same names — they do not change in the translated volumes. Panoramix the druid seemed straightforward (his English name Getafix always struck me as rather near the knuckle, although translator Anthea Bell claimed that it “did not necessarily imply an allusion to drugs”) and it didn’t take me long to decipher Idéfix the dog’s name (one of the few characters whose English name, Dogmatix, actually matches his French one and his canine character).But I could make neither head nor tail of the chieftain Abraracourcix, which I thought must be something to do with Abracadabra (not, perhaps, part of the everyday French vocabulary) — it turns out to be the French phrase à bras raccourcis (literally “with shortened arms”), which means something like “with fists flying”. The English translators (the talented Anthea Bell along with Derek Hockridge) decided to highlight the chieftain’s physique rather wittily with the name Vitalstatistix. (The German version, Majestix, focuses on the first of the chieftain’s traits: “majestueux, courageux, ombrageux”.)
Nor could I understand the bard’s name Assurancetourix, which was a play on the phrase assurance tous risques, meaning comprehensive car insurance, and nothing to do with music or poetry. By contrast, the far wittier English version, Cacofonix, fits his character as a tone-deaf musician perfectly. (The German version, Troubadix, at least suggests his role as a troubadour.)
Do French puns translate?
Much of the humour was incomprehensible to me. The panel depicted here (from Jeux Olympiques p. 17) demonstrates one of Goscinny’s many idiomatic jokes that soared over my pre-teenage head and left me none the wiser.The bard has decided to compose une marche olympique (“an Olympic march”), setting up a joke based on the French phrase rater une marche (“miss a step”), so that, when the bad-tempered blacksmith (the bard’s usual foil) thumps him, Asterix presumes that he has actually tripped over. But the phrase il dû rater une marche literally means “he must have bungled the march” (i.e. the Olympic march that he was composing).
Bell and Hockridge, always excellent at finding a way to render Goscinny’s humour in English, had the bard deciding to compose “an Olympic hymn” instead, mindful of the fact that the French play on words would not work in English. The two bypassers then ask, “What’s the matter with hymn”, to which the reply is, “I think he’s singing flat”.
Many similar jokes sadly passed me by, such as the greeting Quel bon vent, les enfants?, a French idiom meaning “What brings you here, boys?” (though the literal translation, “What good wind?”, inspired Bell and Hockridge’s version, “What’s in the wind, boys?”).
Can we even understand French humour?
Likewise, when the galley transporting the Gauls to Greece (to take part in the Olympic Games) arrives at Piraeus, the Gauls, in party mood, sing À Lutèce on l’aime bien, Nini Peau d’sanglier! (“We like it in Paris, Nini Boar-skin”), parodying a well-known French bordello song about a prostitute (“Nini Peau d’chien”) in order to create the air of footloose unattached men on vacation.
Later in the volume, the disheartened Romans in charge of their depressed Olympic team sing Ah, le petit vin blanc, qu’on boit sous les colonnes (“Ah, the nice white wine that we drink beneath the columns” — the words of the popular 1940s song are actually sous les tonnelles, “beneath the arbours”), a reference that was naturally unknown to a British pre-teenager. (Bell and Hockridge aptly substituted “There is a taberna in the town ...”.)
Equally, on p. 28, when the Roman centurion realizes that the Romans have no chance competing against the Gauls (whom he thinks will use magic potion), he uses the phrase Vous cassez pas la tête, les gars; c’est cuit pour nous (“Don’t break your head, lads; it’s cooked for us”), which, as any French reader would know, means “Don’t bother, guys; it’s over for us”. But I didn’t!
The champion Roman replies du balai (literally, “of the brush”), making a sweeping gesture with his hand that reminds us of the running gag throughout the book, that — as a legionary subject to military fatigues — he always carries a broom and sweeps up wherever he goes (see below). The phrase means something like “let’s clear off” (Bell and Hockridge go for a different pun, with “They’ll make a clean sweep of us!”). Incidentally, I can’t help wondering if Cornedurus wasn’t based on the young Arnold Schwarzenegger, who won the Mr Universe contest in London in 1968.
More funny names
The Roman names in this volume — traditionally adjectives with -us endings — were quite unintelligible to me. I thought I must be missing something in the centurion’s name, Tullius Mordicus, but I was entirely ignorant of the French adverb mordicus, “stubbornly” (and, indeed, the Latin one, “by biting”). I must admit that neither seems a particular apt name for this character.
However, I definitely had absolutely no chance with the Roman wrestling champion who appears on p. 30 (aptly named Pugnatius by Bell and Hockridge). His French name, Chaussetrus (i.e. chaussette russe), refers to a Soviet military foot-rag worn instead of a sock!
I also missed the subtle pun on p. 5, where a legionary who has never heard of their champion athlete is criticized: Tu es un bleu, Deprus! (literally, “You are a ‘blue’, Deprus”), using the French idiom for a ‘rookie’. But, of course, the homophonic bleu de Prusse is the colour “Prussian blue”. (This wouldn’t work in English, but Bell and Hockridge manage to retain the colour-based pun with “You’re pretty green, Bilius”, alluding to the Dickensian phrase “bilious green”.)
By chance, this was the first Astérix volume to feature Agecanonix, 93-year old veteran of Gergovia and Alesia. I could see that his name had something to do with age, but I wasn’t sure what. It is, in fact, a play on the phrase âge canonique, meaning “venerable age” (perhaps implying the age of retirement?), which is neatly captured by the English version, Geriatrix. (I love the fact that, in the German version, he is Methusalix.) However, elsewhere, it seems that Goscinny simply made up amusing names that might apply to any Gaul.
Or to any Greek, for that matter. Once the Gauls are in Greece, their guide, Mixomatos (the French for myxomatosis, renamed Diabetes in the English version), shows them around Athens, recommending various establishments run by his cousins (a joke at the expense of Greek nepotism) — the chariot service of Scarfas (“Scarface”, renamed Kudos in English), the bureau de change of Calvados (which Bell and Hockridge changed to Makalos, with its punning financial overtones), the hotel of Plexiglas (whom bell and Hockridge renamed Phallintodiseus, a comment on the condition of some holiday accommodation). Finally, (in the panel depicted below) he directs them to the restaurant of yet another cousin Fécarabos (an almost indecipherable reference to “fairy Carabosse”, the evil sprite from the ballet Sleeping Beauty, and better renamed Thermos in the English version).
English puns work just as well
But I completely missed the puns about the rich diet of the Roman team versus the austere diet of the dedicated Greek athletes: their coach offers the excuse that the Romans are des décadents (“decadent”), so the Greek athletes threaten décader as well (perhaps “to become decadent”, a verb invented by Goscinny). In their 1972 version, Bell and Hockridge extend the pun by having the Romans “declining” (as in The Decline and Fall of Rome), so that the Greek athletes could “decline to eat this muck!”The Greek athletes, who are supposed to be on a diet of figs, olives, raw meat, and water, demand increasingly inappropriate foodstuffs: Des brochettes! Du vin! (“kebabs, wine”) and finally un boeuf burdigalais — this is another tricky one: un boeuf is an ox, while the adjective Burdigalais refers to Bordeaux, so it may be a reference to the regional dish known as boeuf Bordelaise, a stew cooked in a rich red wine sauce. (Bell and Hockridge went with “How about a mammoth steak?”)
The French puns — all unrecognized by a French-less youngster — tumble over each other in their sheer quantity. When the Greek official visits the Roman team, who have given themselves over to licentious feasting, Tullius Mordicus announces, couchez-vous à table, mon vieux. Lá oú il y en a pour une trentaine (“Sit down at table, old chap! There’s space for 30”), alluding to the Sacha Distel hit song, Quand il y en a pour deux, il y en a pour trois (“If there’s space for two, there’s space for three”).
Le défilé des Thermopyles (literally “the procession of Thermopylae”, referring to the athletes from that town) is also a pun on the Pass (défilé) of Thermopylae, scene of the famous battle in 480 BC.
Ceux de Samothrace, sûrs de la victoire (“Those of Samothrace, certain of victory”) is only funny if we know the Louvre’s famous headless statue known as La Victoire de Samothrace, while Goscinny shows pure genius with ceux de Milo sont venus aussi (“Those of Melos have come also”), a reference to the Louvre’s armless statue known as La Vénus de Milo. Next, Ceux de Cythère viennent de débarquer (“Those of Cythera have just disembarked”) surely alludes to the painting Embarquement pour Cythère by the French artist Watteau, while ceux de Marathon arrivent en courant (“Those of Marathon arrive running”) is an obvious reference to the race of the same name.
Ceux de Macédoine sont très mélangés (“Those of Macedonia are very mixed”) recalls “Macedoine”, the mix of finely diced vegetables that was standard fare in school dinners of the 1970s, and les Spartiates sont pieds nus (“The Spartans are barefoot”) must be poking fun at chaussures Spartiates, a type of French strappy sandal. Finally, the sole member of the Rhodian team, a giant boxer, is introduced as un colosse, alluding to one of the famous “Seven Wonders of the Ancient World”, the Colossus of Rhodes.
In their English-language version, Bell and Hockridge managed their own spin on two of these puns — “The men from Thermopylae are the first to pass by” and “The Marathon team has had to come a long distance” — and added some of their own (amongst which “the competitors from Attica are mysteriously eleusive” is particularly highbrow, in its reference to the Eleusynian Mysteries). Of course, they retained the Colossus from Rhodes!
Meet the authors
The book ends on a happy note, as always. Astérix wins the palm of victory but gratiously presents it to the Roman champion Cornedurus, so that he can save face at Rome.After an interval of fifty years, I’m only sorry that I missed so much of Goscinny’s wit. I was even unaware that the volume includes a rare self-portrait, in the bas-relief frieze behind two Greek administrators (depicted here). At the time, I did not read Ancient Greek, so I had no idea that the characters are labelled Goscinny (on the left, saying “Despot!”) and Uderzo (on the right, saying “Tyrant!”).
