Translation of Oral Version of "Lituraterre"

The three translations of the published version of "Lituraterre"that Richard Klein has posted on Freud2Lacan have seemed to me to miss, or avoid, certain aspects of the spoken version. Jacques-Alain Miller's version, published in Autres Écrits, excises parts of the recording that are difficult to make out (Lacan frequently lowers his voice following a more declamatory phrase), or that he deemed superfluous to his needs. The typescripts made available by several people similarly omit the hard parts, or mis-hear what is there.

The version I am offering below, in several postings, results from my own, possibly faulty hearing. But I have attempted, through repeated listening, to restore the missing sentences and to rectify what I think are mistakes (bévues?). My editorial work will be shown, as is customary, in square brackets []. I would love to hear from any readers this might reach!

Lituraterre Prononcé le 12 mai 1971
“Lituraterre”: ce mot que je viens d’écrire intitule ce que je vais vous offrir aujourd’hui, parce qu’il faut bien, puisque vous êtes convoqués là, que je vous lance quelque chose.	“Lituraterre”: this word which I have just written is the title of what I’m going to offer you today, because I must, since you have been called here together, throw something out to you.
Il m’est évidemment inspiré par l’actualité: c’est le titre dont je me suis efforcé de répondre à une demande qui m’a été faite d’introduire un numéro qui va paraître sur “Littérature et psychanalyse”.	It is obviously inspired by something current: it’s the title [of a piece], in which I have made an effort to answer a demand made of me, to introduce an issue which is going to appear on “Literature and Psychoanalysis.”		Is anything in Lacan “innocent”? “Demande”, in the clinical context, marks the beginning of the relationship between analysand and analyst; is Lacan suggesting that here?
Ce mot “Lituraterre” que j’ai inventé, se légitime de l’”Ernout et Meillet”; comme il y en a peut-être ici qui savent ce que c’est, c’est un dictionnaire étymologique du latin qui n’est pas trop bêtement fait.	This word “Lituraterre”, which have invented, finds legitimacy in the Ernout & Meillet. As some here perhaps know what it is, it’s an etymological dictionary of Latin, which isn’t too badly made.
Cherchez à lino, litura, vous trouverez, et puis lituratus: il est bien précisé que ça n’a rien à faire avec littera, la lettre.	Look up lino, litura, you’ll find it, then lituratus: it is made clear that it’s got nothing to do with littera, letter.		literarius in most published versions. Lacan clearly pronounces the “t”.
Que ça n’ait rien à faire, moi je m’en fous! Je ne me soumets pas forcément à l’étymologie quand je me laisse aller à ce jeu de mots, dont on fait à l’occasion le mot d’esprit, le contrepet en l’occasion évident, m’en revenant aux lèvres et le renversement à l’oreille.	That that has nothing to do with it, I don’t give a fuck! I don’t necessarily submit to etymology when I am indulging in this wordplay, with which occasionally one can make a joke, the wordfart, in this case quite obvious, ghosting back to my lips, and the reversal in the ear.		Most translations give “spoonerism” for “contrepet.” I have created “wordfart” along the lines of “brain fart” to preserve some of the scatalogical element of the French. I have chosen “ghosting” to imply that the appearance of the contrepet is not necessarily willed.
C’est pas pour rien que, quand vous apprenez une langue étrangère, vous mettez la première consonne de ce que vous avez entendu la seconde, et la seconde la première.	It’s not for nothing that, when you are learning a foreign language, you place the first consonant of what you have heard in second place, and the second in first.		In “lituraterre”, of course, it is a question of the transposition of vowels, not consonants.
Donc, ce dictionnaire - qu’on s’y reporte – m’apporte auspices d’être fondé du même départ que je prenais d’un premier mouvement – j’entends départ au sens de répartie – départ d’une équivoque dont Joyce – c’est James Joyce dont je parle – dont James Joyce glisse de “a letter” à “a litter”: d’une lettre traduite à une ordure.	So, this dictionary – check it out – gives me support by being based on the same  separation that I was taking with a first movement – I am taking separation in the sense of repartee – separation of an equivocation with which Joyce – that’s James Joyce I’m speaking about – with which James Joyce slides from “a letter” to a “a litter”: from “a letter” translated into “a piece of rubbish”.		Note the echo of reporte and m’apporte, a technique Lacan often uses to make distant links between ideas. “Auspices” is not easy to translate; derived from latin, auspicere, it refers to predicting the near future by oberving the flight of a bird. It is also a homonym (thank you Dany Nobus!) for “hospice”, a shelter. Finally, is there a pseudo-masculinity implied in the presentation of Joyce’s name, aligning it with “Bond, James Bond”?
Il y avait – vous vous en souvenez peut-être, mais très probablement vous n’en avez rien su – il y avait une mécène qui lui voulait du bien et qui lui offrait une psychanalyse, et même que c’était de Jung qu’elle la lui offrait.	There was – you remember perhaps, but quite probably you never knew – there was a Maecenas who wished him well and who offered him a psychoanalysis, and it was even with Jung that she offered it to him.		“Mécène” is this a contrepet? Mrs McCormick, Joyce’s benefactor becomes the sperm to impregnate Joyce. In Miller’s edition, “comme on ferait d’une douche” is added. Most English translations offer “shower”, but the feminine hygiene “douche” would make more sense in the context of a feminised Joyce.
Au jeu que nous évoquons, il n’y eût rien gagné, puisqu’il allait tout droit avec ce “a letter”, “a litter”, tout droit au mieux de ce que l’on peut attendre de la psychanalyse à sa fin.	In the game that we are evoking, he wouldn’t have won anything, since he went straight with this “a letter”, “a litter”, straight to the best of what one can expect from psychoanalysis at its end.
A faire litière de la lettre, est-ce Saint Thomas encore – vous vous en souvenez peut-être, mais très probablement vous n’en avez rien su – est-ce Saint Thomas encore qui revient à Joyce, comme son oeuvre en témoigne tout au long, ou bien est-ce la psychanalyse qui atteste sa convergence avec ce que notre époque accuse d’un débridement du lien, du lien antique dont se contient la pollution dans la culture?	By making straw bedding out of the letter, is it Saint Thomas again – you remember this perhaps, but you quite likely knew nothing about it – is it Saint Thomas again who ghosts back to Joyce, as his works all along bear witness, or is it psychoanalysis which gives proof of its convergence with what our epoch considers a loosening of the link, of the ancient link by which pollution is restrained in culture?		Dany Nobus, among others, points to St. Thomas’s expression sicut palea when dealing with “la litière”. But his translation as “chaff” sanitises the polluted bedding straw of the horse’s stall. Also, “litière” can be atemporary bed, a litter in English, for transporting the sick. And as in a later seminar, Saint Thomas can become sintôme, a symptom, doubtless intended in Lacan’s insistent repetition.
J’avais brodé là-dessus comme par hasard, un peu avant le Mai de 68, pour ne pas défaut ce jour-là aux paumés de ces affluences que je me trouve maintenant déplacer quand je fais visite quelque part: c’était à Bordeaux.	I had embroidered on that as if by chance, shortly before the events of May ’68, so as not to disappoint on that day the poor sods in those crowds that I now find I gather when I visit somewhere: it was in Bordeaux.		Woven into a text? The bord in Bordeaux prefigures the later discussion of edges.
La civilisation, y rappelé-je en prémisses, c’est l’égout.	Civilisation, I reminded them as a premise, is the sewer.		Nobus likes the homonym of “les goûts”…
Il faut dire sans doute que c’était peu après que ma proposition d’octobre 67 avait été accueillie comme on le sait, il faut vous dire sans doute que, en jouant de ça, j’étais un peu las de la poubelle à laquelle j’ai rivé mon sort.	I doubtless have to say that it was shortly after my proposition of October 67 had been welcomed in the way that you know, I doubtless have to say that, in playing with that, I was a little tired of the dustbin to which I had nailed my fate.		“Rivé” is derived from “rive”, a bank, hence an edge, the verb meaning originally joining two pieces at their edge.
Pourtant on sait que je ne suis pas le seul qui a pour partage “l’avouère”; “l’avouère”, pour vous le prononcer à l’ancienne, c’est l’”avoir” dont Beckett fait balance au doit de tous ces déchets de notre être.	However you know that I am not the only one who has as his share the “assets”; “avouère” to pronounce it in the old way, it’s the “having” with which Beckett balances the debt of all those losses in our being.		“Partage”echoes the earlier départ, and répartie.
“L’avouère” sauve l’honneur de la littérature et, ce qui m’agrée assez, me relève du privilège que je pourrais croire venir de ma place.	“Having” saves the honour of literature and, what I find rather agreeable, relieves me of the privilege that I might believe comes from my place.		Besides “having”, there is also “avouer”, to admit, confess. I hear a faint echo of Lacan’s notion of heraldry in this sentence. More elsewhere…
			Tony Chadwick