Early Theories of Translation

by Flora Ross Amos

and—to go somewhat outside the period—the fourth edition of Bullokar's English Expositor, originally designed to teach "the interpretation of the hardest words used in our language," is recommended on the ground that those who know no language but the mother tongue, but "are yet studiously desirous to read those learned and elegant treatises which from their native original have been rendered English (of which sort, thanks to the company of painful translators we have not a few) have here a volume fit for their purposes, as carefully designed for their assistance."[292]

Whether, however, the translator should be allowed to add to the vocabulary and what methods he should employ were questions by no means easy of settlement. As in Caxton's time, two possible means of acquiring new words were suggested, naturalization of foreign words and revival of words from older English sources. Against the first of these methods there was a good deal of prejudice. Grimald in his preface to his translation of Cicero's De Officiis, protests against the translation that is "uttered with inkhorn terms and not with usual words." Other critics are more specific in their condemnation of non-English words. Puttenham complains that Southern, in translating Ronsard's French rendering of Pindar's hymns and Anacreon's odes, "doth so impudently rob the French poet both of his praise and also of his French terms, that I cannot so much pity him as be angry with him for his injurious dealing, our said maker not being ashamed to use these French words, freddon, egar, suberbous, filanding, celest, calabrois, thebanois and a number of others, which have no manner of conformity with our language either by custom or derivation which may make them tolerable."[293] Richard Willes, in his preface to the 1577 edition of Eden's History of Travel in the West and East Indies, says that though English literature owes a large debt to Eden, still "many of his English words cannot be excused in my opinion for smelling too much of the Latin."[294] The list appended is not so remote from the modern English vocabulary as that which Puttenham supplies. Willes cites "dominators, ponderous, ditionaries, portentous, antiques, despicable, solicitate, obsequious, homicide, imbibed, destructive, prodigious, with other such like, in the stead of lords, weighty, subjects, wonderful, ancient, low, careful, dutiful, man-slaughter, drunken, noisome, monstrous, &c." Yet there were some advocates of the use of foreign words. Florio admits with mock humility that he has employed "some uncouth terms as entraine, conscientious, endear, tarnish, comport, efface, facilitate, amusing, debauching, regret, effort, emotion, and such like," and continues, "If you like them not, take others most commonly set by them to expound them, since they were set to make such likely French words familiar with our English, which may well bear them,"[295] a contention which modern usage supports. Nicholas Udall pronounces judicially in favor of both methods of enriching the language. "Some there be," he says, "which have a mind to renew terms that are now almost worn clean out of use, which I do not disallow, so it be done with judgment. Some others would ampliate and enrich their native tongue with more vocables, which also I commend, if it be aptly and wittily assayed. So that if any other do innovate and bring up to me a word afore not used or not heard, I would not dispraise it: and that I do attempt to bring it into use, another man should not cavil at."[296] George Pettie also defends the use of inkhorn terms. "Though for my part," he says, "I use those words as little as any, yet I know no reason why I should not use them, for it is indeed the ready way to enrich our tongue and make it copious."[297] On the whole, however, it was safer to advocate the formation of words from Anglo-Saxon sources. Golding says of his translation of Philip of Mornay: "Great care hath been taken by forming and deriving of fit names and terms out of the fountains of our own tongue, though not altogether most usual yet always conceivable and easy to be understood; rather than by usurping Latin terms, or by borrowing the words of any foreign language, lest the matters, which in some cases are mystical enough of themselves by reason of their own profoundness, might have been made more obscure to the unlearned by setting them down in terms utterly unknown to them."[298] Holland says in the preface to his translation of Livy: "I framed my pen, not to any affected phrase, but to a mean and popular style. Wherein if I have called again into use some old words, let it be attributed to the love of my country's language." Even in this matter of vocabulary, it will be noted, there was something of the stimulus of patriotism, and the possibility of improving his native tongue must have appealed to the translator's creative power. Phaer, indeed, alleges as one of his motives for translating Virgil "defence of my country's language, which I have heard discommended of many, and esteemed of some to be more than barbarous."[299]

Convinced, then, that his undertaking, though difficult, meant much both to the individual and to the state, the translator gladly set about making some part of the great field of foreign literature, ancient and modern, accessible to English readers. Of the technicalities of his art he has a good deal to say. At a time when prefaces and dedications so frequently established personal relations between author and audience, it was natural that the translator also should take his readers into his confidence regarding his aims and methods. His comment, however, is largely incidental. Generally it is applicable only to the work in hand; it does not profess to be a statement, even on a small scale, of what translation in general ought to be. There is no discussion in English corresponding to the small, but comprehensive treatise on La manière de bien traduire d'une langue en autre which Étienne Dolet published at Lyons in 1540. This casual quality is evidenced by the peculiar way in which prefaces in different editions of the same book appear and disappear for no apparent reason, possibly at the convenience of the printer. It is scarcely fair to interpret as considered, deliberate formulation of principles, utterances so unpremeditated and fragmentary. The theory which accompanies secular translation is much less clear and consecutive than that which accompanies the translation of the Bible. Though in the latter case the formulation of theories of translation was almost equally incidental, respect for the original, repeated experiment, and constant criticism and discussion united to make certain principles take very definite shape. Secular translation produced nothing so homogeneous. The existence of so many translators, working for the most part independently of each other, resulted in a confused mass of comment whose real value it is difficult to estimate. It is true that the new scholarship with its clearer estimate of literary values and its appreciation of the individual's proprietary rights in his own writings made itself strongly felt in the sphere of secular translation and introduced new standards of accuracy, new definitions of the latitude which might be accorded the translator; but much of the old freedom in handling material, with the accompanying vagueness as to the limits of the translator's function, persisted throughout the time of Elizabeth.

In many cases the standards recognized by sixteenth-century translators were little more exacting than those of the medieval period. With many writers adequate recognition of source was a matter of choice rather than of obligation. The English translator might make suitable attribution of a work to its author and he might undertake to reproduce its substance in its entirety, but he might, on the other hand, fail to acknowledge any indebtedness to a predecessor or he might add or omit material, since he was governed apparently only by the extent of his own powers or by his conception of what would be most pleasing or edifying to his readers. To the theory of his art he gave little serious consideration. He did not attempt to analyse the style of the source which he had chosen. If he praised his author, it was in the conventional language of compliment, which showed no real discrimination and which, one suspects, often disguised mere advertising. His estimate of his own capabilities was only the repetition of the medieval formula, with its profession of inadequacy for the task and its claim to have used simple speech devoid of rhetorical ornament. That it was nothing but a formula was recognized at the time and is good-naturedly pointed out in the words of Harrington: "Certainly if I should confess or rather profess that my verse is unartificial, the style rude, the phrase barbarous, the metre unpleasant, many more would believe it to be so than would imagine that I thought them so."[300]

This medieval quality, less excusable later in the century when the new learning had declared itself, appears with more justification in the comment of the early sixteenth century. Though the translator's field was widening and was becoming more broadly European, the works chosen for translation belonged largely to the types popular in the Middle Ages and the comment attached to them was a repetition of timeworn phrases. Alexander Barclay, who is best known as the author of The Ship of Fools, published in 1508, but who also has to his credit several other translations of contemporary moral and allegorical poems from Latin and French and even, in anticipation of the newer era, a version of Sallust's Jugurthine War, offers his translations of The Ship of Fools[301] and of Mancini's Mirror of Good Manners[302] not to the learned, who might judge of their correctness, but to "rude people," who may hope to be benefited morally by perusing them. He has written The Ship of Fools in "common and rural terms"; he does not follow the author "word by word"; and though he professes to have reproduced for the most part the "sentence" of the original, he admits "sometimes adding, sometimes detracting and taking away such things as seemeth me unnecessary and superfluous."[303] His contemporary, Lord Berners, writes for a more courtly audience, but he professes much the same methods. He introduces his Arthur of Little Britain, "not presuming that I have reduced it into fresh, ornate, polished English, for I know myself insufficient in the facundious art of rhetoric, and also I am but a learner of the language of French: howbeit I trust my simple reason hath led me to the understanding of the true sentence of the matter."[304] Of his translation of Froissart he says, "And in that I have not followed mine author word by word, yet I trust I have ensued the true report of the sentence of the matter."[305] Sir Francis Bryan, under whose direction Berners' translation of The Golden Book of Marcus Aurelius was issued in 1535, the year after its author's death, expresses his admiration of the "high and sweet styles"[306] of the versions in other languages which have preceded this English rendering, but similar phrases had been used so often in the characterization of undistinguished writings that this comment hardly suggests the new and peculiar quality of Guevara's style.

As the century advanced, these older, easier standards were maintained especially among translators who chose material similar to that of Barclay and Berners, the popular work of edification, the novella, which took the place of the romance. The purveyors of entertaining narrative, indeed, realized in some degree the minor importance of their work as compared with that of more serious scholars and acted accordingly. The preface to Turbervile's Tragical Tales throws some light on the author's idea of the comparative values of translations. He thought of translating Lucan, but Melpomene appeared to warn him against so ambitious an enterprise, and admitting his unfitness for the task, he applied himself instead to this translation "out of sundry Italians."[307] Anthony Munday apologizes for his "simple translation" of Palmerin d'Oliva by remarking that "to translate allows little occasion of fine pen work,"[308] a comment which goes far to account for the doubtful quality of his productions in this field.

Even when the translator of pleasant tales ranked his work high, it was generally on the ground that his readers would receive from it profit as well as amusement; he laid no claim to academic correctness. He mentioned or refrained from mentioning his sources at his own discretion. Painter, in inaugurating the vogue of the novella, is exceptionally careful in attributing each story to its author,[309] but Whetstone's Rock of Regard contains no hint that it is translated, and The Petit Palace of Pettie his Pleasure conveys the impression of original work. "I dare not compare," runs the prefatory Letter to Gentlewomen Readers by R. B., "this work with the former Palaces of Pleasure, because comparisons are odious, and because they contain histories, translated out of grave authors and learned writers; and this containeth discourses devised by a green youthful capacity, and repeated in a manner extempore."[310] It was, again, the personal preference of the individual or the extent of his linguistic knowledge that determined whether the translator should employ the original Italian or Spanish versions of some collections or should content himself with an intermediary French rendering. Painter, accurate as he is in describing his sources, confesses that he has often used the French version of Boccaccio, though, or perhaps because, it is less finely written than its original. Thomas Fortescue uses the French version for his translation of The Forest, a collection of histories "written in three sundry tongues, in the Spanish first by Petrus Mexia, and thence done into the Italian, and last into the French by Claudius Gringet, late citizen of Paris."[311] The most regrettable latitude of all, judging by theoretic standards of translation, was the careless freedom which writers of this group were inclined to appropriate. Anthony Munday, to take an extreme case, translating Palmerin of England from the French, makes a perfunctory apology in his Epistle Dedicatory for his inaccuracies: "If you find the translation altered, or the true sense in some place of a matter impaired, let this excuse answer in default in that case. A work so large is sufficient to tire so simple a workman in himself. Beside the printer may in some place let an error escape."[312] Fortescue justifies, adequately enough, his omission of various tales by the plea that "the lack of one annoyeth not or maimeth not the other," but incidentally he throws light on the practice of others, less conscientious, who "add or change at their pleasure."

There is perhaps danger of underrating the value of the theory which accompanies translations of this sort. The translators have left comparatively little comment on their methods, and it may be that now and then more satisfactory principles were implicit. Yet even when the translator took his task seriously, his prefatory remarks almost always betrayed that there was something defective in his theory or careless in his execution. Bartholomew Young translates Montemayor's Diana from the Spanish after a careful consideration of texts. "Having compared the French copies with the Spanish original," he writes, "I judge the first part to be exquisite, the other two corruptly done, with a confusion of verse into prose, and leaving out in many places divers hard sentences, and some leaves at the end of the third part, wherefore they are but blind guides of any to be imitated."[313] After this, unhappily, in the press of greater affairs he lets the work come from the printer unsupervised and presumably full of errors, "the copy being very dark and interlined, and I loath to write it out again." Robert Tofte addresses his Honor's Academy or the Famous Pastoral of the Fair Shepherdess Julietta "to the courteous and judicious reader and to none other"; he explains that he refuses to write for "the sottish multitude," that monster "who knows not when aught well is or amiss"; and blames "such idle thieves as do purloin from others' mint what's none of their own coin."[314] In spite of this, his preface makes no mention of Nicholas de Montreux, the original author, and if it were not for the phrase on the title page, "done into English," one would not suspect that the book was a translation. The apology of the printer, Thomas Creede, "Some faults no doubt there be, especially in the verses, and to speak truth, how could it be otherwise, when he wrote all this volume (as it were) cursorily and in haste, never having so much leisure as to overlook one leaf after he had scribbled the same," stamps Tofte as perhaps a facile, but certainly not a conscientious workman.

Another fashionable form of literature, the popular religious or didactic work, was governed by standards of translation not unlike those which controlled the fictitious narrative. In the work of Lord Berners the romance had not yet made way for its more sophisticated rival, the novella. His translation from Guevara, however, marked the beginning of a new fashion. While Barclay's Ship of Fools and Mirror of Good Manners were addressed, like their medieval predecessors, to "lewd" people, with The Golden Book began the vogue of a new type of didactic literature, similar in its moral purpose and in its frequent employment of narrative material to the religious works of the Middle Ages, but with new stylistic elements that made their appeal, as did the novella, not to the rustic and unlearned, but to courtly readers. The prefaces to The Golden Book and to the translations which succeeded it throw little light on the theory of their authors, but what comment there is points to methods like those employed by the translators of the romance and the novella. Though later translators like Hellowes went to the original Spanish, Berners, Bryan, and North employ instead the intermediary French rendering. Praise of Guevara's style becomes a wearisome repetition of conventional phrases, a rhetorical exercise for the English writer rather than a serious attempt to analyze the peculiarities of the Spanish. Exaggeratedly typical is the comment of Hellowes in the 1574 edition of Guevara's Epistles, where he repeats with considerable complacency the commendation of the original work which was "contained in my former preface, as followeth. Being furnished so fully with sincere doctrine, so unused eloquence, so high a style, so apt similitudes, so excellent discourses, so convenient examples, so profound sentences, so old antiquities, so ancient histories, such variety of matter, so pleasant recreations, so strange things alleged, and certain parcels of Scripture with such dexterity handled, that it may hardly be discerned, whether shall be greater, either thy pleasure by reading, or profit by following the same."[315]

Guevara himself was perhaps responsible for the failure of his translators to make any formal recognition of responsibility for reproducing his style. His fictitious account of the sources of The Golden Book is medieval in tone. He has translated, not word for word, but thought for thought, and for the rudeness of his original he has substituted a more lofty style.[316] His English translators reverse the latter process. Hellowes affirms that his translation of the Epistles "goeth agreeable unto the Author thereof," but confesses that he wants "both gloss and hue of rare eloquence, used in the polishing of the rest of his works." North later translated from the French Amyot's epoch-making principle: "the office of a fit translator consisteth not only in the faithful expressing of his author's meaning, but also in a certain resembling and shadowing out of the form of his style and manner of his speaking,"[317] but all that he has to say of his Dial of Princes is that he has reduced it into English "according to my small knowledge and tender years."[318] Here again, though the translator may sometimes have tried to adopt newer and more difficult standards, he does not make this explicit in his comment.