If you've made it this far, you'll probably agree that the texts' differences from one another are, in many ways, far more interesting than are their individual differences from the original.
 
Everything stated or expressed by man is a note in the margin of a completely erased text.

From what's in the note we can extract the gist of what must have been in the text, but there's always a doubt, and the possible meanings are many.

   All that a man explains or expresses comprises a note in the margin of a totally erased text.

To a greater or lesser extent, given the meaning of the note, we can deduce what should have been the sense of the text; but a doubt is always present and the possible senses multiple.

   Everything man expounds or expresses is a marginal note to a text that is completely expunged.

From the sense of the note, more or less, we derive the sense the text should have had; but there is always a doubt, and the possible meanings myriad.
Translated by Richard Zenith   Translated by Iain Watson   Translated by Alfred Mac Adam
 

The connotations of the words "extract," "deduce," and "derive" speak volumes regarding the various translators' ideologies. From the clinical "extract," to the forensic "deduce," to the mathematical "derive," the relationship between translator and translated has multiple permutations. Two of these translators (Zenith and Watson) qualify their choices (in Pessoa's original it is "tiramos") with the word "can."

Much as Pessoa spoke through a variety of heteronyms (in the case of Disquiet, it is the lonely Bernardo Soares) each translator suggests a unique Pessoa. Zenith's speaks assuredly — or is it defensively? — of "what must have been." The Pessoas of Mac Adam and Watson speak of "what should have." These two agree with Zenith's Pessoa that the potential readings (or, for our purposes, translations) are varied. However, unlike Zenith's and Mac Adam's, Watson's cannot in the end muster the word "meaning."

He simply speaks of "sense."