translation, like a picture, is dependent for its effect on very minute
touches; and that it is a work of infinite pains, to be returned to in many
moods and viewed in different lights.
I. An English translation ought to be idiomatic and interesting, not only
to the scholar, but to the unlearned reader. Its object should not simply
be to render the words of one language into the words of another or to
preserve the construction and order of the original;--this is the ambition
of a schoolboy, who wishes to show that he has made a good use of his
Dictionary and Grammar; but is quite unworthy of the translator, who seeks
to produce on his reader an impression similar or nearly similar to that
produced by the original. To him the feeling should be more important than
the exact word. He should remember Dryden's quaint admonition not to
'lacquey by the side of his author, but to mount up behind him.'
(Dedication to the Aeneis.) He must carry in his mind a comprehensive view
of the whole work, of what has preceded and of what is to follow,--as well
as of the meaning of particular passages. His version should be based, in
the first instance, on an intimate knowledge of the text; but the precise
order and arrangement of the words may be left to fade out of sight, when
the translation begins to take shape. He must form a general idea of the
two languages, and reduce the one to the terms of the other. His work
should be rhythmical and varied, the right admixture of words and
syllables, and even of letters, should be carefully attended to; above all,
it should be equable in style. There must also be quantity, which is
necessary in prose as well as in verse: clauses, sentences, paragraphs,
must be in due proportion. Metre and even rhyme may be rarely admitted;
though neither is a legitimate element of prose writing, they may help to
lighten a cumbrous expression (Symp.). The translation should retain as
far as possible the characteristic qualities of the ancient writer--his
freedom, grace, simplicity, stateliness, weight, precision; or the best
part of him will be lost to the English reader. It should read as an
original work, and should also be the most faithful transcript which can be
made of the language from which the translation is taken, consistently with
the first requirement of all, that it be English. Further, the translation
being English, it should also be perfectly intelligible in itself without
reference to the Greek, the English being really the more lucid and exact
of the two languages. In some respects it may be maintained that ordinary
English writing, such as the newspaper article, is superior to Plato: at
any rate it is couched in language which is very rarely obscure. On the
other hand, the greatest writers of Greece, Thucydides, Plato, Aeschylus,
Sophocles, Pindar, Demosthenes, are generally those which are found to be
most difficult and to diverge most widely from the English idiom. The
translator will often have to convert the more abstract Greek into the more
concrete English, or vice versa, and he ought not to force upon one
language the character of another. In some cases, where the order is
confused, the expression feeble, the emphasis misplaced, or the sense
somewhat faulty, he will not strive in his rendering to reproduce these
characteristics, but will re-write the passage as his author would have
written it at first, had he not been 'nodding'; and he will not hesitate to
supply anything which, owing to the genius of the language or some accident
of composition, is omitted in the Greek, but is necessary to make the
English clear and consecutive.
It is difficult to harmonize all these conflicting elements. In a
translation of Plato what may be termed the interests of the Greek and
English are often at war with one another. In framing the English sentence
we are insensibly diverted from the exact meaning of the Greek; when we
return to the Greek we are apt to cramp and overlay the English. We
substitute, we compromise, we give and take, we add a little here and leave
out a little there. The translator may sometimes be allowed to sacrifice
minute accuracy for the sake of clearness and sense. But he is not
therefore at liberty to omit words and turns of expression which the
English language is quite capable of supplying. He must be patient and
self-controlled; he must not be easily run away with. Let him never allow
the attraction of a favourite expression, or a sonorous cadence, to
overpower his better judgment, or think much of an ornament which is out of
keeping with the general character of his work. He must ever be casting
his eyes upwards from the copy to the original, and down again from the
original to the copy (Rep.). His calling is not held in much honour by the
world of scholars; yet he himself may be excused for thinking it a kind of
glory to have lived so many years in the companionship of one of the
greatest of human intelligences, and in some degree, more perhaps than
others, to have had the privilege of understanding him (Sir Joshua
Reynolds' Lectures: Disc. xv.).
There are fundamental differences in Greek and English, of which some may
be managed while others remain intractable. (1). The structure of the
Greek language is partly adversative and alternative, and partly
inferential; that is to say, the members of a sentence are either opposed
to one another, or one of them expresses the cause or effect or condition
or reason of another. The two tendencies may be called the horizontal and
perpendicular lines of the language; and the opposition or inference is
often much more one of words than of ideas. But modern languages have
rubbed off this adversative and inferential form: they have fewer links of
connection, there is less mortar in the interstices, and they are content
to place sentences side by side, leaving their relation to one another to
be gathered from their position or from the context. The difficulty of
preserving the effect of the Greek is increased by the want of adversative
and inferential particles in English, and by the nice sense of tautology
which characterizes all modern languages. We cannot have two 'buts' or two
'fors' in the same sentence where the Greek repeats (Greek). There is a
similar want of particles expressing the various gradations of objective
and subjective thought--(Greek) and the like, which are so thickly
scattered over the Greek page. Further, we can only realize to a very
imperfect degree the common distinction between (Greek), and the
combination of the two suggests a subtle shade of negation which cannot be
expressed in English. And while English is more dependent than Greek upon
the apposition of clauses and sentences, yet there is a difficulty in using
this form of construction owing to the want of case endings. For the same
reason there cannot be an equal variety in the order of words or an equal
nicety of emphasis in English as in Greek.
(2) The formation of the sentence and of the paragraph greatly differs in
Greek and English. The lines by which they are divided are generally much
more marked in modern languages than in ancient. Both sentences and
paragraphs are more precise and definite--they do not run into one another.
They are also more regularly developed from within. The sentence marks
another step in an argument or a narrative or a statement; in reading a
paragraph we silently turn over the page and arrive at some new view or
aspect of the subject. Whereas in Plato we are not always certain where a
sentence begins and ends; and paragraphs are few and far between. The
language is distributed in a different way, and less articulated than in
English. For it was long before the true use of the period was attained by
the classical writers both in poetry or prose; it was (Greek). The balance
of sentences and the introduction of paragraphs at suitable intervals must
not be neglected if the harmony of the English language is to be preserved.
And still a caution has to be added on the other side, that we must avoid
giving it a numerical or mechanical character.
(3) This, however, is not one of the greatest difficulties of the
translator; much greater is that which arises from the restriction of the
use of the genders. Men and women in English are masculine and feminine,
and there is a similar distinction of sex in the words denoting animals;
but all things else, whether outward objects or abstract ideas, are
relegated to the class of neuters. Hardly in some flight of poetry do we
ever endue any of them with the characteristics of a sentient being, and
then only by speaking of them in the feminine gender. The virtues may be
pictured in female forms, but they are not so described in language; a ship
is humorously supposed to be the sailor's bride; more doubtful are the
personifications of church and country as females. Now the genius of the
Greek language is the opposite of this. The same tendency to
personification which is seen in the Greek mythology is common also in the
language; and genders are attributed to things as well as persons according
to their various degrees of strength and weakness; or from fanciful
resemblances to the male or female form, or some analogy too subtle to be
discovered. When the gender of any object was once fixed, a similar gender
was naturally assigned to similar objects, or to words of similar
formation. This use of genders in the denotation of objects or ideas not
only affects the words to which genders are attributed, but the words with
which they are construed or connected, and passes into the general
character of the style. Hence arises a difficulty in translating Greek
into English which cannot altogether be overcome. Shall we speak of the
soul and its qualities, of virtue, power, wisdom, and the like, as feminine
or neuter? The usage of the English language does not admit of the former,
and yet the life and beauty of the style are impaired by the latter. Often
the translator will have recourse to the repetition of the word, or to the
ambiguous 'they,' 'their,' etc.; for fear of spoiling the effect of the
sentence by introducing 'it.' Collective nouns in Greek and English create
a similar but lesser awkwardness.
(4) To use of relation is far more extended in Greek than in English.
Partly the greater variety of genders and cases makes the connexion of
relative and antecedent less ambiguous: partly also the greater number of
demonstrative and relative pronouns, and the use of the article, make the
correlation of ideas simpler and more natural. The Greek appears to have
had an ear or intelligence for a long and complicated sentence which is
rarely to be found in modern nations; and in order to bring the Greek down
to the level of the modern, we must break up the long sentence into two or
more short ones. Neither is the same precision required in Greek as in
Latin or English, nor in earlier Greek as in later; there was nothing
shocking to the contemporary of Thucydides and Plato in anacolutha and
repetitions. In such cases the genius of the English language requires
that the translation should be more intelligible than the Greek. The want
of more distinctions between the demonstrative pronouns is also greatly
felt. Two genitives dependent on one another, unless familiarised by
idiom, have an awkward effect in English. Frequently the noun has to take
the place of the pronoun. 'This' and 'that' are found repeating themselves
to weariness in the rough draft of a translation. As in the previous case,
while the feeling of the modern language is more opposed to tautology,
there is also a greater difficulty in avoiding it.
(5) Though no precise rule can be laid down about the repetition of words,
there seems to be a kind of impertinence in presenting to the reader the
same thought in the same words, repeated twice over in the same passage
without any new aspect or modification of it. And the evasion of
tautology--that is, the substitution of one word of precisely the same
meaning for another--is resented by us equally with the repetition of
words. Yet on the other hand the least difference of meaning or the least
change of form from a substantive to an adjective, or from a participle to
a verb, will often remedy the unpleasant effect. Rarely and only for the
sake of emphasis or clearness can we allow an important word to be used
twice over in two successive sentences or even in the same paragraph. The
particles and pronouns, as they are of most frequent occurrence, are also
the most troublesome. Strictly speaking, except a few of the commonest of
them, 'and,' 'the,' etc., they ought not to occur twice in the same
sentence. But the Greek has no such precise rules; and hence any literal
translation of a Greek author is full of tautology. The tendency of modern
languages is to become more correct as well as more perspicuous than
ancient. And, therefore, while the English translator is limited in the
power of expressing relation or connexion, by the law of his own language
increased precision and also increased clearness are required of him. The
familiar use of logic, and the progress of science, have in these two
respects raised the standard. But modern languages, while they have become
more exacting in their demands, are in many ways not so well furnished with
powers of expression as the ancient classical ones.
Such are a few of the difficulties which have to be overcome in the work of
translation; and we are far from having exhausted the list. (6) The
excellence of a translation will consist, not merely in the faithful
rendering of words, or in the composition of a sentence only, or yet of a
single paragraph, but in the colour and style of the whole work.
Equability of tone is best attained by the exclusive use of familiar and
idiomatic words. But great care must be taken; for an idiomatic phrase, if
an exception to the general style, is of itself a disturbing element. No
word, however expressive and exact, should be employed, which makes the
