The article studies the Spanish proverb Castígame mi madre, y yo trómpogelas, its functioning in the novel “Don Quixote”, and mistakes in its translation into Russian in different translations of the novel. The proverb contains an archaic word and archaic grammar form, it is long out of use, and even average native speakers don’t know its meaning. The author studies seven published translations of the novel “Don Quixote” into Russian and finds the proverb only in five of them. In Russian translations, translators either interpret the meaning of the proverb by its content, without giving it the right translation, or take the archaic transitive verb trompargela for a modern intransitive verb trompar. As a result, an erroneous image of a children’s toy (top) has appeared in translation, which started “travelling” from one translation to another.
The article studies the Spanish proverb Castígame mi madre, y yo trómpogelas, its functioning in the novel “Don Quixote”, and mistakes in its translation into Russian in different translations of the novel. The proverb contains an archaic word and archaic grammar form, it is long out of use, and even average native speakers don’t know its meaning. The author studies seven published translations of the novel “Don Quixote” into Russian and finds the proverb only in five of them. In Russian translations, translators either interpret the meaning of the proverb by its content, without giving it the right translation, or take the archaic transitive verb trompargela for a modern intransitive verb trompar. As a result, an erroneous image of a children’s toy (top) has appeared in translation, which started “travelling” from one translation to another.