Such passage hast thou found, such returns made,
As now of all men, it is called thy trade,
And who make thither else, rob or invade.
Ben Jonson.
WHEN TRANSLATIONS ARE TO BE PREFERRED
The reason the classics are not read is because there still lingers a tradition, handed down from the eighteenth century, that it is useless to read them unless in the original. A tone of sarcastic contempt is maintained towards the person who shall presume to peruse Xenophon not in the original Greek, or Virgil not in the original Latin.
In the view of these critics it is the Greek, it is the Latin, that is valuable, not the contents of the volume. Shakespeare, however, the greatest genius of England, thought otherwise. It is known that his ideas of Grecian and Roman history were derived from somewhat rude translations, yet it is acknowledged that the spirit of the ancient warriors and of the ancient luxury lives in his Antony and Cleopatra, and nowhere in all the ancient writers is there a poem breathing the idea of Aphrodite like his Venus and Adonis. The example of so great a genius may shield us in an effort to free the modern mind from this eighteenth-century incubus.
The truth is, the classics are much better understood in a good translation than in the original. To obtain a sufficient knowledge of Greek, for instance, to accurately translate is almost the work of a lifetime. Concentration upon this one pursuit gradually contracts the general perceptions, and it has often happened that an excellent scholar has been deficient in common knowledge, as shown by the singular character of his own notes. But his work of translation in itself is another matter.
It is a treasure; from it poets derive their illustrations; dramatists their plots; painters their pictures. A young mind full of intelligence, coming to such a translation, enters at once into the spirit of the ancient writer. A good translation is thus better than the original.—R. Jefferies. The Dewy Morn.
'THAT SILLY VANITY OF IMPERTINENT CITATIONS'
'Twas this vain idolizing of authors which gave birth to that silly vanity of impertinent citations, and inducing authority in things neither requiring nor deserving it. That saying was much more observable, That men have beards and women none, because quoted from Beza; and that other, Pax res bona est, because brought in with a 'said St. Austin'. But these ridiculous fooleries, to your more generous discerners, signify nothing but the pedantry of the affected sciolist. 'Tis an inglorious acquist to have our heads or volumes laden as were Cardinal Campeius his mules, with old and useless baggage.—J. Glanvill. The Vanity of Dogmatizing.