Translation

“ I long to know languages, not so much to be able to speak them, as for the far greater joy of being able to read the many beautiful works of foreign authors in their own tongue. Is it not true that never mind how good a translation may be, it is never so fine as the original? That is always stronger—more charming. ”

“ 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. ”

“ How am I to know that the translations are correct, or how am I to make sure that such a thing as a correct translation is possible? If God has gone so far as to speak to men, why should he require an interpreter? ”

“ For him a foreign language is only his own, with another vocabulary; and so, when he does a piece of translation, he carefully replaces on his paper each word of his English text by one of the equivalents that he finds for it in his dictionary, rarely failing to choose the wrong one, as I have already said. ”

“ We shall now seek the signs of literary relativity, not in the comparison of different species ofliterature, nor in the different characters of men and women in various stages of social life, but in that effort to transfer the thoughts expressed in the language of one social group into that of another, which we call translation. How far is accuracy of translation possible? It is clear that both in prose and verse there are difficulties in the way of the translator sometimes insurmountable. ”

“ Truth smoothly told, and pleasantly severe;
(So well is Art disguis'd, for Nature to appeare.)
Nor need those Rules, to give Translation light;
His own example is a flame so bright;
That he, who but arrives to copy well,
Unguided will advance; unknowing will excel. ”

“ How impossible it is to convey the exact properties of a foreign language by translation! Every word, from the highest to the lowest, has a peculiar significance, determinable only by an accurate knowledge of national and local attributes and peculiarites. ”

“ Translation, as ordinarily practised, not as an exercise in French composition, but to construe the authors, violates the law of Nature, which requires that we pass from the phrase to the words. In our native tongue we know the precise sense of words only by the phrases in which they occur; taken separately, they have no determined meaning. A phrase cannot be translated unless it is comprehended, and, to secure this comprehension, we make the translation for the student by employing words to which he attaches no precise idea! How could the mind develop under such a muddle of a system? ”

“ We have observed, in the preceding part of this essay, that poetical translation is less subjected to restraint than prose translation, and allows more of the freedom of original composition. It will hence follow, that to exercise this freedom with propriety, a translator must have the talent of original composition in poetry; and therefore, that in this species of translation, the possession of a genius akin to that of his author, is more essentially necessary than in any other. ”

“ The translator who makes verbal literalness his chief care ‘will’, says a writer in the National Review whom 33I have already quoted, ‘be appreciated by the scholar accustomed to test a translation rigidly by comparison with the original, to look perhaps with excessive care to finish in detail rather than boldness and general effect, and find pardon even for a version that seems bare and bold, so it be scholastic and faithful’. ”

“ CHAPTER XI OF THE TRANSLATION OF IDIOMATIC PHRASES.—EXAMPLES FROM COTTON, ECHARD, STERNE.—INJUDICIOUS USE OF IDIOMS IN THE TRANSLATION, WHICH DO NOT CORRESPOND WITH THE AGE OR COUNTRY OF THE ORIGINAL.—IDIOMATIC PHRASES SOMETIMES INCAPABLE OF TRANSLATION.
While a translator endeavours to give to his work all the ease of original composition, the chief difficulty he has to encounter will be found in the translation of idioms, or those turns of expression which do not belong to universal grammar, but of which every language has its own, that are exclusively proper to it. ”

“ There is nothing more difficult to imitate successfully in a translation than that species of composition which conveys just, simple, and natural thoughts, in plain, unaffected, and perfectly appropriate terms; and which rejects all those aucupia sermonis, those lenocinia verborum, which constitute what is properly termed florid writing. ”

“ How much time, trouble and money are wasted in the translation of the literary work of a nation, and yet how small a portion of its literature has ever been so reproduced or will be, even more or less unfaithfully. ”

“ I can readily conceive that many of their most beautiful peculiarities cannot possibly be translated into another language, but even through the medium of a prose translation one can discern a rich vein of poetry, and even classical correctness, infinitely superior to any other compositions of that age, that we are acquainted with. ”

“ 'A translation is no translation,' he said, 'unless it will give you the music of a poem along with the words of it. ”

“ In any inquiry involving the question of foreign influence in literature it is obviously necessary to treat of the work done in the way of translation, although when the influence is of at all a widespread nature, as in the present instance, such discussion is apt to usurp a position unjustified by its intrinsic importance. ”

“ Such a work should be the common property of man. It is, indeed, impossible to transfer the graces of style and diction from one language to another as much of the spirit is lost with the translation. ”

“ When a student who has acquired a knowledge of the English sentence comes to the translation of a foreign language, he finds his work greatly simplified. If in a sentence of his own language he sees only a mass of unorganized words, how much greater must be his confusion when this mass of words is in a foreign tongue! ”

“ It is more convenient to discuss the details of such cases in another context, but any general approach to the theory of translation in Middle English literature must include this consideration. If we are not in possession of the exact original of a translation, our conclusions must nearly always be discounted by the possibility that not only the subject matter but the comment on that subject matter came from the French or Latin source. The pronoun of the first person must be regarded with a slight suspicion. ”

“ Translation is destructive, or is often considered so, of the power of ‘thinking in the foreign language,’ and yet it is suggested that the student should do translation work and at the same time train himself to think in the foreign language. ”

“ Translation with a dictionary, which substitutes the fingers for the intelligence, and, scorning reason, proceeds from the sign to the idea, rests on the false principle of the identity of signification in the corresponding words of two languages. ”

“ The two great principles in translation, then, are faithfulness to the impression produced by the work in its own language, and faithfulness to the tongue into which it is rendered, especially in idiomatic constructions. It is to be remembered that the difficulty of producing a satisfactory version is never an excuse for any failure. ”

“ Independently of its special use in giving power of expression, translation is an indisputable source of progress in mental culture. Correct expression and correct thinking are one and the same. Great eloquence implies high intelligence. The act of mind by which a student assures himself of the exact sense of the foreign text, and the search for expressions which shall better render the thought of the author, are operations of high intellectual import. ”

“ If it were possible accurately to define, or, perhaps more properly, to describe what is meant by a good Translation, it is evident that a considerable progress would be made towards establishing the Rules of the Art ”

“ But, as I said, Translation is the chief means to keep or maintain the species of every kind of Creatures, which Translation in natural production or generation, is of the purest and subtilest substances, to wit, the sensitive and rational, which are the designing and architectonical parts of Nature. ”

“ The first fact to be accepted in considering Translation is that it is impossible exactly to render into one language what has been written in another. The race that has made each tongue has impressed its own character upon it in every syllable, in every idiom. ”

“ The continually progressive change to which the meaning of words is subject, the want of an universal language which renders translation necessary, the errors to which translations are again subject, the mistakes of copyists and printers, together with the possibility of wilful alteration, are of themselves evidences that human language, whether in speech or in print, cannot be the vehicle of the Word of God.—The Word of God exists in something else. ”

“ It is much easier to imitate in a translation that kind of composition (provided it be at all intelligible) , [64] which is brilliant and rhetorical, which employs frequent antitheses, allusions, similes, metaphors, than it is to give a perfect copy of just, apposite, and natural sentiments, which are clothed in pure and simple language: For the former characters are strong and prominent, and therefore easily caught; whereas the latter have no striking attractions, their merit eludes altogether the general observation, and is discernible only to the most correct and chastened taste. ”

“ The French translation is still more faithful to the original, and exhibits equally with the former its spirit and manner.
The following verses by Prior are certainly a great improvement upon the original; by a most judicious and happy amplification of the sentiments, (which lose much of their effect in the Latin, from their extreme compression) ; nor do they, in my opinion, exceed the liberty of poetical translation.
Poor little pretty flutt’ring thing,
Must we no longer live together? ”

“ The real opportunity for a fresh, individual approach to the problems of translation lay in consideration of the claims of the original author. Renaissance scholarship was bringing a new knowledge of texts and authors and encouraging a new alertness of mind in approaching texts written in foreign languages. It was now possible, while making faithfulness to source obligatory instead of optional, to put the matter on a reasonable basis. ”

“ When we express our thought in words, the medium is not found easily. There must be a process of translation, which is often inexact, and then we fall into error. ”

“ To the moderns the art of translation is of greater importance than it was to the ancients, in the same proportion that the great mass of ancient and of modern literature, accumulated up to the present times, bears to the general stock of learning in the most enlightened periods of antiquity. ”

“ I shall in this chapter touch upon several other characteristics of composition, which, in proportion as they are found in original works, serve greatly to enhance the difficulty of doing complete justice to them in a translation.
1. The poets, in all languages, have a licence peculiar to themselves, of employing a mode of expression very remote from the diction of prose, and still more from that of ordinary speech. Under this licence, it is customary for them to use antiquated terms, to invent new ones, and to employ a glowing and rapturous phraseology, or what Cicero terms Verba ardentia. ”

“ Is it because our own is so peculiarly one of those transitional periods in the history of a literature which are most favorable to translation—indeed, most provocative of it; one of those intervals when the national imagination is, as it were, lying fallow after the exhaustion of some great creative epoch, and intellectual effort takes chiefly the form of criticism, which in one sense translation is? ”

“ Hence the vanity of translation; it were as wise to cast a violet into a crucible that you might discover the formal principle of its colour and odour, as seek to transfuse from one language into another the creations of a poet. The plant must spring again from its seed, or it will bear no flower—and this is the burthen of the curse of Babel. ”

“ The field of discussion also has narrowed considerably, and theory has gained by becoming less scattering. Translation in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries showed certain new developments, the most marked of which was the tendency among translators who aspired to the highest rank to confine their efforts to verse renderings of the Greek and Latin classics. A favorite remark was that it is the greatest poet who suffers most in being turned from one language into another. ”

“ I maintain that every new language learned gives you new ideas, as it puts you at once more au fait of the manners and customs of the people, which can only be thoroughly learned by reading popular authors in their original language: for there are several authors of the merit of whose style it is impossible to form an adequate idea in a translation, however correct and excellent it be. ”

“ Prefixed to a translation, translation is the theme; with us an unvalued art, because our translators have usually been the jobbers of booksellers; but no inglorious one among our French and Italian rivals. In this poem, if the reader's ear be guided by the compressed sense of the massive lines, he may feel a rhythm which, should they be read like our modern metre, he will find wanting; here the fulness of the thoughts forms their own cadences. The mind is musical as well as the ear. ”

“ The necessity for open-mindedness, indeed, in some degree accounts for the tentative quality in so much of the theory of translation. Translation fills too large a place, is too closely connected with the whole course of literary development, to be disposed of easily. ”

“ As the work has already become a classical one, even in English, and as it must become and continue to be so regarded in all languages in which it shall be faithfully rendered, we wish it to suffer as little as possible from a change of country;—that as much of the spirit of the original be transfused and preserved as is consistent with the nature of translation. ”