Enimvero, Dave, nihil loci est segnitiæ neque socordiæ.
Quantum intellexi senis sententiam de nuptiis:
Quæ si non astu providentur, me aut herum pessundabunt;
Nec quid agam certum est, Pamphilumne adjutem an auscultem seni.
Terent. Andr. act 1, sc. 3.
The translation of this passage by Echard, exhibits a strain of vulgar petulance, which is very opposite to the chastened simplicity of the original.
“Why, seriously, poor Davy, ’tis high time to bestir thy stumps, and to leave off dozing; at least, if a body may guess at the old man’s meaning by his mumping. If these brains do not help me out at a dead lift, to pot goes Pilgarlick, or his master, for certain: and hang me for a dog, if I know which side to take; whether to help my young master, or make fair with his father.”
In the use of idiomatic phrases, a translator frequently forgets both the country of his original author, and the age in which he wrote; and while he makes a Greek or a Roman speak French or English, he unwittingly puts into his mouth allusions to the manners of modern France or England.[54] This, to use a phrase borrowed from painting, may be termed an offence against the costume. The proverbial expression, βατραχω ὑδωρ, in Theocritus, is of similar import with the English proverb, to carry coals to Newcastle; but it would be a gross impropriety to use this expression in the translation of an ancient classic. Cicero, in his oration for Archias, says, “Persona quæ propter otium et studium minime in judiciis periculisque versata est.” M. Patru has translated this, “Un homme que ses études et ses livres ont éloigné du commerce du Palais.” The Palais, or the Old Palace of the kings of France, it is true, is the place where the parliament of Paris and the chief courts of justice were assembled for the decision of causes; but it is just as absurd to make Cicero talk of his haranguing in the Palais, as it would be of his pleading in Westminster Hall. In this respect, Echard is most notoriously faulty: We find in every page of his translations of Terence and Plautus, the most incongruous jumble of ancient and of modern manners. He talks of the “Lord Chief Justice of Athens,” Jam tu autem nobis Præturam geris? Pl. Epid. act 1, sc. 1, and says, “I will send him to Bridewell with his skin stripped over his ears,” Hominem irrigatum plagis pistori dabo, Ibid. sc. 3. “I must expect to beat hemp in Bridewell all the days of my life,” Molendum mihi est usque in pistrina, Ter. Phormio, act 2. “He looks as grave as an alderman,” Tristis severitas inest in vultû, Ibid. Andria, act 5.—The same author makes the ancient heathen Romans and Greeks swear British and Christian oaths; such as “Fore George, Blood and ounds, Gadzookers, ’Sbuddikins, By the Lord Harry!” They are likewise well read in the books both of the Old and New Testament: “Good b’ye, Sir Solomon,” says Gripus to Trachalion, Salve, Thales! Pl. Rudens, act 4, sc. 3; and Sosia thus vouches his own identity to Mercury, “By Jove I am he, and ’tis as true as the gospel,” Per Jovem juro, med esse, neque me falsum dicere, Pl. Amphit. act 1, sc. 1.[55] The same ancients, in Mr. Echard’s translation, are familiarly acquainted with the modern invention of gunpowder; “Had we but a mortar now to play upon them under the covert way, one bomb would make them scamper,” Fundam tibi nunc nimis vellem dari, ut tu illos procul hinc ex oculto cæderes, facerent fugam, Ter. Eun. act 4. And as their soldiers swear and fight, so they must needs drink like the moderns: “This god can’t afford one brandy-shop in all his dominions,” Ne thermopolium quidem ullum ille instruit, Pl. Rud. act 2, sc. 9. In the same comedy, Plautus, who wrote 180 years before Christ, alludes to the battle of La Hogue, fought A.D. 1692. “I’ll be as great as a king,” says Gripus, “I’ll have a Royal Sun[56] for pleasure, like the king of France, and sail about from port to port,” Navibus magnis mercaturam faciam, Pl. Rud. act 4, sc. 2.
In the Latin poems of Pitcairne, we remark an uncommon felicity in cloathing pictures of modern manners in classical phraseology. In familiar poetry, and in pieces of a witty or humorous nature, this has often a very happy effect, and exalts the ridicule of the sentiment, or humour of the picture. But Pitcairne’s fondness for the language of Horace, Ovid, and Lucretius, has led him sometimes into a gross violation of propriety, and the laws of good taste. In the translation of a Psalm, we are shocked when we find the Almighty addressed by the epithets of a heathen divinity, and his attributes celebrated in the language and allusions proper to the Pagan mythology. Thus, in the translation of the 104th Psalm, every one must be sensible of the glaring impropriety of the following expressions:
Dexteram invictam canimus, Jovemque