Wherein I sacrifice one of my core principles in the name of good translation

One thing they made clear to me when I was hired is that there is no room for one's personal values in translation. My first duty as a translator is to accurately render the full meaning of the source text into the target language, and no matter how provocative the subject matter I was not to impose my own values upon it.

Not the most comfortable rule in the world, but I figured that the vast majority of the material I'd be asked to translate is not contrary to my values, and if I did find my values being compromised, I could always resign. So I accepted the conditions of my job. A couple of texts have pushed, but not crossed, the line, but overall nothing in the past four years has caused me to compromise my principles.

Until today.

In what was otherwise a perfectly innocent text, there was a pun. A horrible, terrible, ugly pun. A pun that made me recoil from the computer screen. Once I had recovered my wits, I analyzed it linguistically, showed it to some of my learned colleagues, and decided it was untranslatable. There's no shame in that, most puns are untranslatable. So I put in a pun-free translation of the phrase in question, and continued on my merry way.

Until it happened. Suddenly, unintentionally, against my very will, a solution came to me. An accurate and effective translation of that horrible pun, producing an even worse pun in English. The English pun caused me to make a face like I'd accidentally eaten an olive. But as soon as it came to mind I knew it was the best translation humanly possible of the full denotation and connotation of the French phrase.

So now I was in a dilemma. On one hand, I certainly had the option of disingenuously using a literal, pun-free translation. Certainly no one would blame me for not translating a pun. On the other hand, I did have the best possible solution, and I knew it. The source text's intentions were clear, the ethical dictates of my profession were clear. But was it really worth sacrificing my long-standing noble principle of not inflicting horrible puns on the general public?

Once again I consulted with my learned colleagues. I took a strategic approach: I printed out the section with the pun and shoved it in their faces, hoping to shock and disgust them. After all, if they reacted with the same visceral disgust that I did, I might be able to get them to agree that we really can't inflict such horror on the unwitting public. But they are older than me, and their additional life and translation experience seems to have grown impervious to such horrors. They looked the pun in the eye unflinchingly, with complete sangfroid, and confirmed that it was indeed the best possible translation, so I should use it.

So I swallowed my principles and my pride, inserted the pun, and submitted my text. So now, somewhere out there, is this horrid, wretched pun, just waiting to be unleashed on innocent civilians. And it's all my fault.

I think I'm going to go take a shower.