I emerged into a kind of small plaza — a courtyard might better describe it. It was surrounded by a single building, of irregular angles and varying heights. It was to this heterogeneous building that the many cupolas and columns belonged. More than any other feature of that incredible monument, I was arrested by the great antiquity of its construction. I felt that it had existed before humankind, before the world itself. Its patent antiquity (though somehow terrible to the eyes) seemed to accord with the labor of immortal artificers.
Emergí a una suerte de plazoleta; mejor dicho, de patio. Lo rodeaba un solo edificio de forma irregular y altura variable; a ese edificio heterogéneo pertenecían las diversas cúpulas y columnas. Antes que ningún otro rasgo de ese monumento increíble, me suspendió lo antiquísimo de su fábrica. Sentí que era anterior a los hombres, anterior a la tierra. Esa notoria antigüedad (aunque terrible de algún modo para los ojos) me pareció adecuada al trabajo de obreros inmortales.
Unfortunatelly, that translation failed to capture at least two keywords in the original: "patio" (courtyard) and "obreros" (artificers). Both terms have many overtones in the borgean vocabulary, both have heavy loaded connotations in his literature and in the Buenos Aires language.
"Humankind" for "hombres" is strange as well: I don't think "humanidad" was a borgean term; I do not know if there's a better way to translate "los hombres" though.
I have tattooed the alefh itself - not the mitical point, but the Hebrew letter - becouse of that.
Borges brought me to life throughout my adolescence.
Much appreciation from Italy too, the argentino-ispancio translations to Italian suits Borges' writings sinuously.
https://matiane.wordpress.com/2019/10/11/immortal-by-jorge-l...