Early Theories of Translation

by Flora Ross Amos

To set a manly head upon a horse's neck
And all the limbs with divers plumes of divers hue to deck,
Or paint a woman's face aloft to open show,
And make the picture end in fish with scaly skin below,
I think (my friends) would cause you laugh and smile to see
How ill these ill-compacted things and numbers would agree.

For indeed he that shall translate a shepherd's tale and use the talk and style of an heroical personage, expressing the silly man's meaning with lofty thundering words, in my simple judgment joins (as Horace saith) a horse's neck and a man's head together. For as the one were monstrous to see, so were the other too fond and foolish to read. Wherefore I have (I say) used the common country phrase according to the person of the speakers in every Eclogue, as though indeed the man himself should tell his tale. If there be anything herein that thou shalt happen to mistake, neither blame the learned poet, nor control the clownish shepherd (good reader) but me that presumed rashly to offer so unworthy matter to thy survey."[336] Another phase of "decorum," the necessity for employing a lofty style in dealing with the affairs of great persons, comes in for discussion in connection with translations of Seneca and Virgil. Jasper Heywood makes his excuses in case his translation of the Troas has "not kept the royalty of speech meet for a tragedy";[337] Stanyhurst praises Phaer for his "picked and lofty words";[338] but he himself is blamed by Puttenham because his own words lack dignity. "In speaking or writing of a prince's affairs and fortunes," writes Puttenham, "there is a certain decorum, that we may not use the same terms in their business as we might very well do in a meaner person's, the case being all one, such reverence is due to their estates."[339] He instances Stanyhurst's renderings, "Aeneas was fain to trudge out of Troy" and "what moved Juno to tug so great a captain as Aeneas," and declares that the term trudge is "better to be spoken of a beggar, or of a rogue, or of a lackey," and that the word tug "spoken in this case is so undecent as none other could have been devised, and took his first original from the cart." A similar objection to the employment of a "plain" style in telling the Troy story was made, it will be remembered, in the early fifteenth century by Wyntoun.

The matter of decorum was to receive further attention in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In general, however, the comment associated with verse translations does not anticipate that of later times and is scarcely more significant than that which accompanies the novella. So long, indeed, as the theory of translation was so largely concerned with the claims of the reader, there was little room for initiative. It was no mark of originality to say that the translation must be profitable or entertaining, clear and easily understood; these rules had already been laid down by generations of translators. 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. The most vigorous and suggestive comment came from a small number of men of scholarly tastes and of active minds, who brought to the subject both learning and enthusiasm, and who were not content with vague, conventional forms of words.

It was prose rather than verse renderings that occupied the attention of these theorists, and in the works which they chose for translation the intellectual was generally stronger than the artistic appeal. Their translations, however, showed a variety peculiarly characteristic of the English Renaissance. Interest in classical scholarship was nearly always associated with interest in the new religious doctrines, and hence the new theories of translation were attached impartially either to renderings of the classics or to versions of contemporary theological works, valuable on account of the close, careful thinking which they contained, as contrasted with the more superficial charm of writings like those of Guevara. An Elizabethan scholar, indeed, might have hesitated if asked which was the more important, the Greek or Latin classic or the theological treatise. Nash praises Golding indiscriminately "for his industrious toil in Englishing Ovid's Metamorphoses, besides many other exquisite editions of divinity turned by him out of the French tongue into our own."[340] Golding himself, translating one of these "exquisite editions of divinity," Calvin's Sermons on the Book of Job, insists so strongly on the "substance, importance, and travail"[341] which belong to the work that one is ready to believe that he ranked it higher than any of his other translations. Nor was the contribution from this field to be despised. Though the translation of the Bible was an isolated task which had few relations with other forms of translation, what few affiliations it developed were almost entirely with theological works like those of Erasmus, Melanchthon, Calvin, and to the translation of such writings Biblical standards of accuracy were transferred. On the other hand the translator of Erasmus or Calvin was likely to have other and very different interests, which did much to save him from a narrow pedantry. Nicholas Udall, for example, who had a large share in the translation of Erasmus's Paraphrase on the New Testament, also translated parts of Terence and is best known as the author of Ralph Roister Doister. Thomas Norton, who translated Calvin's Institution of the Christian Religion, has been credited with a share in Gorboduc.

It was towards the middle of the century that these translators began to formulate their views, and probably the decades immediately before and after the accession of Elizabeth were more fruitful in theory than any other part of the period. Certain centers of influence may be rather clearly distinguished. In contemporary references to the early part of the century Sir Thomas Elyot and Sir Thomas More are generally coupled together as authorities on translation. Slightly later St. John's College, Cambridge, "that most famous and fortunate nurse of all learning,"[342] exerted through its masters and students a powerful influence. Much of the fame of the college was due to Sir John Cheke, "a man of men," according to Nash, "supernaturally traded in all tongues." Cheke is associated, in one way and another, with an odd variety of translations—Nicholls' translation of a French version of Thucydides,[343] Hoby's Courtier,[344] Wilson's Demosthenes[345]—suggesting something of the range of his sympathies.

Though little of his own comment survives, the echoes of his opinions in Ascham's Schoolmaster and the preface to Wilson's Demosthenes make one suspect that his teaching was possibly the strongest force at work at the time to produce higher standards for translation. As the century progressed Sir William Cecil, in his early days a distinguished student at St. John's and an intimate associate of Cheke's, maintained, in spite of the cares of state, the tradition of his college as the patron of various translators and the recipient of numerous dedications prefixed to their productions. It is from the midcentury translators, however, that the most distinctive comment emanates. United in various combinations, now by religious sympathies, now by a common enthusiasm for learning, now by the influence of an individual, they form a group fairly homogeneous so far as their theories of translation are concerned, appreciative of academic correctness, but ready to consider also the claims of the reader and the nature of the vernacular.

The earlier translators, Elyot and More, have left small but significant comment on methods. More's expression of theory was elicited by Tyndale's translation of the Bible; of the technical difficulties involved in his own translation of The Life of Pico della Mirandola he says nothing. Elyot is one of the first translators to approach his task from a new angle. Translating from Greek to English, he observed, like Tyndale, the differences and correspondences between the two languages. His Doctrinal of Princes was translated "to the intent only that I would assay if our English tongue might receive the quick and proper sentences pronounced by the Greeks."[346] The experiment had interesting results. "And in this experience," he continues, "I have found (if I be not much deceived) that the form of speaking, called in Greek and also in English Phrasis, much nearer approacheth to that which at this day we use, than the order of the Latin tongue. I mean in the sentences and not in the words."

A peculiarly good exponent of the new vitality which was taking possession of the theory of translation is Nicholas Udall, whose opinions have been already cited in this chapter. The versatility of intellect evinced by the list of his varied interests, dramatic, academic, religious, showed itself also in his views regarding translation. In the various prefaces and dedications which he contributed to the translation of Erasmus's Paraphrase he touches on problems of all sorts—stipends for translators, the augmentation of the English vocabulary, sentence structure in translation, the style of Erasmus, the individual quality in the style of every writer—but all these questions he treats lightly and undogmatically. Translation, according to Udall, should not conform to iron rules. He is not disturbed by the diversity of methods exhibited in the Paraphrase. "Though every translator," he writes, "follow his own vein in turning the Latin into English, yet doth none willingly swerve or dissent from the mind and sense of his author, albeit some go more near to the words of the author, and some use the liberty of translating at large, not so precisely binding themselves to the strait interpretation of every word and syllable."[347] In his own share of the translation Udall inclines rather to the free than to the literal method. He has not been able "fully to discharge the office of a good translator,"[348] partly because of the ornate quality of Erasmus's style, partly because he wishes to be understood by the unlearned. He does not feel so scrupulous as he would if he were translating the text of Scripture, though even in the latter connection he is guilty of the heretical opinion that "if the translators were not altogether so precise as they are, but had some more regard to expressing of the sense, I think in my judgment they should do better." It will be noted, however, that Udall's advocacy of freedom is an individual reaction, not the repetition of a formula. The preface to his translation of the Apophthegmes of Erasmus helps to redress the balance in favor of accuracy. "I have labored," he says, "to discharge the duty of a translator, that is, keeping and following the sense of my book, to interpret and turn the Latin into English, with as much grace of our vulgar tongue as in my slender power and knowledge hath lain."[349] The rest of the preface shows that Udall, in his concern for the quality of the English, did not make "following the sense" an excuse for undue liberties. Writing "with a regard for young scholars and students, who get great value from comparing languages," he is most careful to note such slight changes and omissions as he has made in the text. Explanations and annotations have been printed "in a small letter with some directory mark," and "any Greek or Latin verse or word, whereof the pith and grace of the saying dependeth" has been retained, a sacrifice to scholarship for which he apologizes to the unlearned reader.

Nicholas Grimald, who published his translation of Cicero's Offices shortly after the accession of Elizabeth, is much more dogmatic in his rules for translation than is Udall. "Howbeit look," runs the preface, "what rule the Rhetorician gives in precept, to be observed of an Orator in telling of his tale: that it be short, and without idle words: that it be plain, and without dark sense: that it be provable, and without any swerving from the truth: the same rule should be used in examining and judging of translation. For if it be not as brief as the very author's text requireth, what so is added to his perfect style shall appear superfluous, and to serve rather to the making of some paraphrase or commentary. Thereto if it be uttered with inkhorn terms, and not with usual words: or if it be phrased with wrested or far-fetched forms of speech, not fair but harsh, not easy but hard, not natural but violent it shall seem to be. Then also, in case it yield not the meaning of the author, but either following fancy or misled by error forsakes the true pattern, it cannot be approved for a faithful and sure interpretation, which ought to be taken for the greatest praise of all."[350] In Grimald's insistence on a brevity equal to that of the original and in his unmodified opposition to innovations in vocabulary, there is something of pedantic narrowness. His criticism of Cicero is not illuminating and his estimate, in this connection, of his own accomplishment is amusingly complacent. In Cicero's work "marvellous is the matter, flowing the eloquence, rich the store of stuff, and full artificial the enditing: but how I," he continues, "have expressed the same, the more the book be perused, the better it may chance to appear. None other translation in our tongue have I seen but one, which is of all men of any learning so well liked that they repute it and consider it as none: yet if ye list to compare this somewhat with that nothing, peradventure this somewhat will serve somewhat the more." Yet in spite of his limitations Grimald has some breadth of outlook. A work like his own, he believes, can help the reader to a greater command of the vernacular. "Here is for him occasion both to whet his wit and also to file his tongue. For although an Englishman hath his mother tongue and can talk apace as he learned of his dame, yet is it one thing to tittle tattle, I wot not how, or to chatter like a jay, and another to bestow his words wisely, orderly, pleasantly, and pithily." The writer knows men who could speak Latin "readily and well-favoredly, who to have done as much in our language and to have handled the same matter, would have been half black." Careful study of this translation will help a man "as well in the English as the Latin, to weigh well properties of words, fashions of phrases, and the ornaments of both."

Another interesting document is the preface entitled The Translator to the Reader which appeared in 1578 in the fourth edition of Thomas Norton's translation of Calvin's Institution of the Christian Religion. The opinions which it contains took shape some years earlier, for the author expressly states that the translation has not been changed at all from what it was in the first impression, published in 1561, and that the considerations which he now formulates governed him in the beginning. Norton, like Grimald, insists on extreme accuracy in following the original, but he bases his demand on a truth largely ignored by translators up to this time, the essential relationship between thought and style. He makes the following surprisingly penetrative comment on the nature and significance of Calvin's Latin style: "I considered how the author thereof had of long time purposely labored to write the same most exactly, and to pack great plenty of matter in small room of words, yea and those so circumspectly and precisely ordered, to avoid the cavillations of such, as for enmity to the truth therein contained, would gladly seek and abuse all advantages which might be found by any oversight in penning of it, that the sentences were thereby become so full as nothing might well be added without idle superfluity, and again so nighly pared that nothing might be minished without taking away some necessary substance of matter therein expressed. This manner of writing, beside the peculiar terms of arts and figures, and the difficulty of the matters themselves, being throughout interlaced with the schoolmen's controversies, made a great hardness in the author's own book, in that tongue wherein otherwise he is both plentiful and easy, insomuch that it sufficeth not to read him once, unless you can be content to read in vain." Then follows Norton's estimate of the translator's duty in such a case: "I durst not presume to warrant myself to have his meaning without his words. And they that wot well what it is to translate well and faithfully, specially in matters of religion, do know that not only the grammatical construction of words sufficeth, but the very building and order to observe all advantages of vehemence or grace, by placing or accent of words, maketh much to the true setting forth of a writer's mind." Norton, however, did not entirely forget his readers. He approached his task with "great doubtfulness," fully conscious of the dilemma involved. "If I should follow the words, I saw that of necessity the hardness of the translation must needs be greater than was in the tongue wherein it was originally written. If I should leave the course of words, and grant myself liberty after the natural manner of my own tongue, to say that in English which I conceived to be his meaning in Latin, I plainly perceived how hardly I might escape error." In the end he determined "to follow the words so near as the phrase of the English tongue would suffer me." Unhappily Norton, like Grimald and like some of the translators of the Bible, has an exaggerated regard for brevity. He claims that "if the English book were printed in such paper and letter as the Latin is, it should not exceed the Latin in quantity," and that students "shall not find any more English than shall suffice to construe the Latin withal, except in such few places where the great difference of the phrases of the languages enforced me." Yet he believes that his version is not unnecessarily hard to understand, and he urges readers who have found it difficult to "read it ofter, in which doing you shall find (as many have confessed to me that they have found by experience) that those things which at first reading shall displease you for hardness shall be found so easy as so hard matter would suffer, and for the most part more easy than some other phrase which should with greater looseness and smoother sliding away deceive your understanding."