Vestiunt lanæ: mihi parva rura, et
Spiritum Graiæ tenuem Camœnæ
Parca non mendax dedit, et malignum
Spernere vulgus.
Hor. Od. 2, 16.
[53] There is, however, a very common mistake of translators from the French into English, proceeding either from ignorance, or inattention to the general construction of the two languages. In narrative, or the description of past actions, the French often use the present tense for the preterite: Deux jeunes nobles Mexicains jettent leurs armes, et viennent à lui comme déserteurs. Ils mettent un genouil à terre dans la posture des supplians; ils le saisissent, et s’élancent de la platforme.—Cortez s’en débarasse, et se retient à la balustrade. Les deux jeunes nobles périssent sans avoir exécuté leur généreuse entreprise. Let us observe the aukward effect of a similar use of the present tense in English. “Two young Mexicans of noble birth throw away their arms and come to him as deserters. They kneel in the posture of suppliants; they seise him, and throw themselves from the platform.—Cortez disengages himself from their grasp, and keeps hold of the ballustrade. The noble Mexicans perish without accomplishing their generous design.” In like manner, the use of the present for the past tense is very common in Greek, and we frequently remark the same impropriety in English translations from that language. “After the death of Darius, and the accession of Artaxerxes, Tissaphernes accuses Cyrus to his brother of treason: Artaxerxes gives credit to the accusation, and orders Cyrus to be apprehended, with a design to put him to death; but his mother having saved him by her intercession, sends him back to his government.” Spelman’s Xenophon. In the original, these verbs are put in the present tense, διαβαλλει, πειθεται, συλλαμβανει, αποπεμπει. But this use of the present tense in narrative is contrary to the genius of the English language. The poets have assumed it; and in them it is allowable, because it is their object to paint scenes as present to the eye; ut pictura poesis; but all that a prose narrative can pretend to, is an animated description of things past: if it goes any farther, it encroaches on the department of poetry. In one way, however, this use of the present tense is found in the best English historians, namely, in the summary heads, or contents of chapters. “Lambert Simnel invades England.—Perkin Warbeck is avowed by the Duchess of Burgundy—he returns to Scotland—he is taken prisoner—and executed.” Hume. But it is by an ellipsis that the present tense comes to be thus used. The sentence at large would stand thus. “This chapter relates how Lambert Simnel invades England, how Perkin Warbeck is avowed by the Duchess of Burgundy,” &c.
[54] It is surprising that this fault should meet even with approbation from so judicious a critic as Denham. In the preface to his translation of the second book of the Æneid he says: “As speech is the apparel of our thoughts, so there are certain garbs and modes of speaking which vary with the times; the fashion of our clothes being not more subject to alteration, than that of our speech: and this I think Tacitus means by that which he calls Sermonem temporis istius auribus accommodatum, the delight of change being as due to the curiosity of the ear as of the eye: and therefore, if Virgil must needs speak English, it were fit he should speak, not only as a man of this nation, but as a man of this age.” The translator’s opinion is exemplified in his practice.
Infandum, Regina, jubes renovare dolorem.
“Madam, when you command us to review
Our fate, you make our old wounds bleed anew.”