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ESSAY on the
PRINCIPLES of
TRANSLATION
by ALEXANDER
FRASER·TYTLER
LORD WOODHOUSELEE

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INTRODUCTION

Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee, author of the present essay on Translation, and of various works on Universal and on Local History, was one of that Edinburgh circle which was revolving when Sir Walter Scott was a young probationer. Tytler was born at Edinburgh, October 15, 1747, went to the High School there, and after two years at Kensington, under Elphinston—Dr. Johnson’s Elphinston—entered Edinburgh University (where he afterwards became Professor of Universal History). He seems to have been Elphinston’s favourite pupil, and to have particularly gratified his master, “the celebrated Dr. Jortin” too, by his Latin verse.

In 1770 he was called to the bar; in 1776 married a wife; in 1790 was appointed Judge-Advocate of Scotland; in 1792 became the master of Woodhouselee on the death of his father. Ten years later he was raised to the bench of the court of session, with his father’s title—Lord Woodhouselee. But the law was only the professional background to his other avocation—of literature. Like his father, something of a personage at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, it was before its members that he read the papers which were afterwards cast into the present work. In them we have all that is still valid of his very considerable literary labours. Before it appeared, his effect on his younger contemporaries in Edinburgh had already been very marked—if we may judge by Lockhart. His encouragement undoubtedly helped to speed Scott on his way, especially into that German romantic region out of which a new Gothic breath was breathed on the Scottish thistle.

It was in 1790 that Tytler read in the Royal Society his papers on Translation, and they were soon after published, without his name. Hardly had the work seen the light, than it led to a critical correspondence with Dr. Campbell, then Principal of Marischal College, Aberdeen. Dr. Campbell had at some time previous to this published his Translations of the Gospels, to which he had prefixed some observations upon the principles of translation. When Tytler’s anonymous work appeared he was led to express some suspicion that the author might have borrowed from his Dissertation, without acknowledging the obligation. Thereupon Tytler instantly wrote to Dr. Campbell, acknowledging himself to be the author, and assuring him that the coincidence, such as it was, “was purely accidental, and that the name of Dr. Campbell’s work had never reached him until his own had been composed.... There seems to me no wonder,” he continued, “that two persons, moderately conversant in critical occupations, sitting down professedly to investigate the principles of this art, should hit upon the same principles, when in fact there are none other to hit upon, and the truth of these is acknowledged at their first enunciation. But in truth, the merit of this little essay (if it has any) does not, in my opinion, lie in these particulars. It lies in the establishment of those various subordinate rules and precepts which apply to the nicer parts and difficulties of the art of translation; in deducing those rules and precepts which carry not their own authority in gremio, from the general principles which are of acknowledged truth, and in proving and illustrating them by examples.”

Tytler has here put his finger on one of the critical good services rendered by his book. But it has a further value now, and one that he could not quite foresee it was going to have. The essay is an admirably typical dissertation on the classic art of poetic translation, and of literary style, as the eighteenth century understood it; and even where it accepts Pope’s Homer or Melmoth’s Cicero in a way that is impossible to us now, the test that is applied, and the difference between that test and our own, will be found, if not convincing, extremely suggestive. In fact, Tytler, while not a great critic, was a charming dilettante, and a man of exceeding taste; and something of that grace which he is said to have had personally is to be found lingering in these pages. Reading them, one learns as much by dissenting from some of his judgments as by subscribing to others. Woodhouselee, Lord Cockburn said, was not a Tusculum, but it was a country-house with a fine tradition of culture, and its quondam master was a delightful host, with whom it was a memorable experience to spend an evening discussing the Don Quixote of Motteux and of Smollett, or how to capture the aroma of Virgil in an English medium, in the era before the Scottish prose Homer had changed the literary perspective north of the Tweed. It is sometimes said that the real art of poetic translation is still to seek; yet one of its most effective demonstrators was certainly Alexander Fraser Tytler, who died in 1814.

The following is his list of works:

Piscatory Eclogues, with other Poetical Miscellanies of Phinehas Fletcher, illustrated with notes, critical and explanatory, 1771; The Decisions of the Court of Sessions, from its first Institution to the present Time, etc. (supplementary volume to Lord Kames’s “Dictionary of Decisions”), 1778; Plan and Outline of a Course of Lectures on Universal History, Ancient and Modern (delivered at Edinburgh), 1782; Elements of General History, Ancient and Modern (with table of Chronology and a comparative view of Ancient and Modern Geography), 2 vols., 1801. A third volume was added by E. Nares, being a continuation to death of George III., 1822; further editions continued to be issued with continuations, and the work was finally brought down to the present time, and edited by G. Bell, 1875; separate editions have appeared of the ancient and modern parts, and an abridged edition in 1809 by T. D. Hincks. To Vols. I. and II. (1788, 1790) of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Tytler contributed History of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Life of Lord-President Dundas, and An Account of some Extraordinary Structures on the Tops of Hills in the Highlands, etc.; to Vol. V., Remarks on a Mixed Species of Evidence in Matters of History, 1805; A Life of Sir John Gregory, prefixed to an edition of the latter’s works, 1788; Essay on the Principles of Translations, 1791, 1797; Third Edition, with additions and alterations, 1813; Translation of Schiller’s “The Robbers,” 1792; A Critical Examination of Mr. Whitaker’s Course of Hannibal over the Alps, 1798; A Dissertation on Final Causes, with a Life of Dr. Derham, in edition of the latter’s works, 1798; Ireland Profiting by Example, or the Question Considered whether Scotland has Gained or Lost by the Union, 1799; Essay on Military Law and the Practice of Courts-Martial, 1800; Remarks on the Writings and Genius of Ramsay (preface to edition of works), 1800, 1851, 1866; Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Hon. Henry Horne, Lord Kames, 1807, 1814; Essay on the Life and Character of Petrarch, with Translation of Seven Sonnets, 1784; An Historical and Critical Essay on the Life and Character of Petrarch, with a Translation of a few of his Sonnets (including the above pamphlet and the dissertation mentioned above in Vol. V. of Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin.), 1812; Consideration of the Present Political State of India, etc., 1815, 1816. Tytler contributed to the “Mirror,” 1779-80, and to the “Lounger,” 1785-6.

Life of Tytler, by Rev. Archibald Alison, Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin.

CONTENTS

ESSAY ON THE
PRINCIPLES OF TRANSLATION

INTRODUCTION

There is perhaps no department of literature which has been less the object of cultivation, than the Art of Translating. Even among the ancients, who seem to have had a very just idea of its importance, and who have accordingly ranked it among the most useful branches of literary education, we meet with no attempt to unfold the principles of this art, or to reduce it to rules. In the works of Quinctilian, of Cicero, and of the Younger Pliny, we find many passages which prove that these authors had made translation their peculiar study; and, conscious themselves of its utility, they have strongly recommended the practice of it, as essential towards the formation both of a good writer and an accomplished orator.[1] But it is much to be regretted, that they who were so eminently well qualified to furnish instruction in the art itself, have contributed little more to its advancement than by some general recommendations of its importance. If indeed time had spared to us any complete or finished specimens of translation from the hand of those great masters, it had been some compensation for the want of actual precepts, to have been able to have deduced them ourselves from those exquisite models. But of ancient translations the fragments that remain are so inconsiderable, and so much mutilated, that we can scarcely derive from them any advantage.[2]

To the moderns the art of translation is of greater importance than it was to the ancients, in the same proportion that the great mass of ancient and of modern literature, accumulated up to the present times, bears to the general stock of learning in the most enlightened periods of antiquity. But it is a singular consideration, that under the daily experience of the advantages of good translations, in opening to us all the stores of ancient knowledge, and creating a free intercourse of science and of literature between all modern nations, there should have been so little done towards the improvement of the art itself, by investigating its laws, or unfolding its principles. Unless a very short essay, published by M. D’Alembert, in his Mélanges de Litterature, d’Histoire, &c. as introductory to his translations of some pieces of Tacitus, and some remarks on translation by the Abbé Batteux, in his Principes de la Litterature, I have met with nothing that has been written professedly upon the subject.[3] The observations of M. D’Alembert, though extremely judicious, are too general to be considered as rules, or even principles of the art; and the remarks of the Abbé Batteux are employed chiefly on what may be termed the Philosophy of Grammar, and seem to have for their principal object the ascertainment of the analogy that one language bears to another, or the pointing out of those circumstances of construction and arrangement in which languages either agree with, or differ from each other.[4]

While such has been our ignorance of the principles of this art, it is not at all wonderful, that amidst the numberless translations which every day appear, both of the works of the ancients and moderns, there should be so few that are possessed of real merit. The utility of translations is universally felt, and therefore there is a continual demand for them. But this very circumstance has thrown the practice of translation into mean and mercenary hands. It is a profession which, it is generally believed, may be exercised with a very small portion of genius or abilities.[5] “It seems to me,” says Dryden, “that the true reason why we have so few versions that are tolerable, is, because there are so few who have all the talents requisite for translation, and that there is so little praise and small encouragement for so considerable a part of learning” (Pref. to Ovid’s Epistles).

It must be owned, at the same time, that there have been, and that there are men of genius among the moderns who have vindicated the dignity of this art so ill-appreciated, and who have furnished us with excellent translations, both of the ancient classics, and of the productions of foreign writers of our own and of former ages. These works lay open a great field of useful criticism; and from them it is certainly possible to draw the principles of that art which has never yet been methodised, and to establish its rules and precepts. Towards this purpose, even the worst translations would have their utility, as in such a critical exercise, it would be equally necessary to illustrate defects as to exemplify perfections.

An attempt of this kind forms the subject of the following Essay, in which the Author solicits indulgence, both for the imperfections of his treatise, and perhaps for some errors of opinion. His apology for the first, is, that he does not pretend to exhaust the subject, or to treat it in all its amplitude, but only to point out the general principles of the art; and for the last, that in matters where the ultimate appeal is to Taste, it is almost impossible to be secure of the solidity of our opinions, when the criterion of their truth is so very uncertain.

CHAPTER I

DESCRIPTION OF A GOOD TRANSLATION—GENERAL RULES FLOWING FROM THAT DESCRIPTION

If it were possible accurately to define, or, perhaps more properly, to describe what is meant by a good Translation, it is evident that a considerable progress would be made towards establishing the Rules of the Art; for these Rules would flow naturally from that definition or description. But there is no subject of criticism where there has been so much difference of opinion. If the genius and character of all languages were the same, it would be an easy task to translate from one into another; nor would anything more be requisite on the part of the translator, than fidelity and attention. But as the genius and character of languages is confessedly very different, it has hence become a common opinion, that it is the duty of a translator to attend only to the sense and spirit of his original, to make himself perfectly master of his author’s ideas, and to communicate them in those expressions which he judges to be best suited to convey them. It has, on the other hand, been maintained, that, in order to constitute a perfect translation, it is not only requisite that the ideas and sentiments of the original author should be conveyed, but likewise his style and manner of writing, which, it is supposed, cannot be done without a strict attention to the arrangement of his sentences, and even to their order and construction.[6] According to the former idea of translation, it is allowable to improve and to embellish; according to the latter, it is necessary to preserve even blemishes and defects; and to these must, likewise be superadded the harshness that must attend every copy in which the artist scrupulously studies to imitate the minutest lines or traces of his original.

As these two opinions form opposite extremes, it is not improbable that the point of perfection should be found between the two. I would therefore describe a good translation to be, That, in which the merit of the original work is so completely transfused into another language, as to be as distinctly apprehended, and as strongly felt, by a native of the country to which that language belongs, as it is by those who speak the language of the original work.

Now, supposing this description to be a just one, which I think it is, let us examine what are the laws of translation which may be deduced from it.

It will follow,

I. That the Translation should give a complete transcript of the ideas of the original work.

II. That the style and manner of writing should be of the same character with that of the original.

III. That the Translation should have all the ease of original composition.

Under each of these general laws of translation, are comprehended a variety of subordinate precepts, which I shall notice in their order, and which, as well as the general laws, I shall endeavour to prove, and to illustrate by examples.

CHAPTER II

FIRST GENERAL RULE—A TRANSLATION SHOULD GIVE A COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT OF THE IDEAS OF THE ORIGINAL WORK—KNOWLEDGE OF THE LANGUAGE OF THE ORIGINAL, AND ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE SUBJECT—EXAMPLES OF IMPERFECT TRANSFUSION OF THE SENSE OF THE ORIGINAL—WHAT OUGHT TO BE THE CONDUCT OF A TRANSLATOR WHERE THE SENSE IS AMBIGUOUS

In order that a translator may be enabled to give a complete transcript of the ideas of the original work, it is indispensably necessary, that he should have a perfect knowledge of the language of the original, and a competent acquaintance with the subject of which it treats. If he is deficient in either of these requisites, he can never be certain of thoroughly comprehending the sense of his author. M. Folard is allowed to have been a great master of the art of war. He undertook to translate Polybius, and to give a commentary illustrating the ancient Tactic, and the practice of the Greeks and Romans in the attack and defence of fortified places. In this commentary, he endeavours to shew, from the words of his author, and of other ancient writers, that the Greek and Roman engineers knew and practised almost every operation known to the moderns; and that, in particular, the mode of approach by parallels and trenches, was perfectly familiar to them, and in continual use. Unfortunately M. Folard had but a very slender knowledge of the Greek language, and was obliged to study his author through the medium of a translation, executed by a Benedictine monk,[7] who was entirely ignorant of the art of war. M. Guischardt, a great military genius, and a thorough master of the Greek language, has shewn, that the work of Folard contains many capital misrepresentations of the sense of his author, in his account of the most important battles and sieges, and has demonstrated, that the complicated system formed by this writer of the ancient art of war, has no support from any of the ancient authors fairly interpreted.[8]

The extreme difficulty of translating from the works of the ancients, is most discernible to those who are best acquainted with the ancient languages. It is but a small part of the genius and powers of a language which is to be learnt from dictionaries and grammars. There are innumerable niceties, not only of construction and of idiom, but even in the signification of words, which are discovered only by much reading, and critical attention.

A very learned author, and acute critic,[9] has, in treating “of the causes of the differences in languages,” remarked, that a principal difficulty in the art of translating arises from this circumstance, “that there are certain words in every language which but imperfectly correspond to any of the words of other languages.” Of this kind, he observes, are most of the terms relating to morals, to the passions, to matters of sentiment, or to the objects of the reflex and internal senses. Thus the Greek words αρετη, σωφροσυνη, ελεος, have not their sense precisely and perfectly conveyed by the Latin words virtus, temperantia, misericordia, and still less by the English words, virtue, temperance, mercy. The Latin word virtus is frequently synonymous to valour, a sense which it never bears in English. Temperantia, in Latin, implies moderation in every desire, and is defined by Cicero, Moderatio cupiditatum rationi obediens.[10] The English word temperance, in its ordinary use, is limited to moderation in eating and drinking.

Observe

The rule of not too much, by Temperance taught,

In what thou eat’st and drink’st.

Par. Lost, b. 11.

It is true, that Spenser has used the term in its more extensive signification.

He calm’d his wrath with goodly temperance.

But no modern prose-writer authorises such extension of its meaning.

The following passage is quoted by the ingenious writer above mentioned, to shew, in the strongest manner, the extreme difficulty of apprehending the precise import of words of this order in dead languages: “Ægritudo est opinio recens mali præsentis, in quo demitti contrahique animo rectum esse videatur. Ægritudini subjiciuntur angor, mœror, dolor, luctus, ærumna, afflictatio: angor est ægritudo premens, mœror ægritudo flebilis, ærumna ægritudo laboriosa, dolor ægritudo crucians, afflictatio ægritudo cum vexatione corporis, luctus ægritudo ex ejus qui carus fuerat, interitu acerbo.”[11]—“Let any one,” says D’Alembert, “examine this passage with attention, and say honestly, whether, if he had not known of it, he would have had any idea of those nice shades of signification here marked, and whether he would not have been much embarrassed, had he been writing a dictionary, to distinguish, with accuracy, the words ægritudo, mœror, dolor, angor, luctus, ærumna, afflictatio.”

The fragments of Varro, de Lingua Latina, the treatises of Festus and of Nonius, the Origines of Isidorus Hispalensis, the work of Ausonius Popma, de Differentiis Verborum, the Synonymes of the Abbé Girard, and a short essay by Dr. Hill[12] on “the utility of defining synonymous terms,” will furnish numberless instances of those very delicate shades of distinction in the signification of words, which nothing but the most intimate acquaintance with a language can teach; but without the knowledge of which distinctions in the original, and an equal power of discrimination of the corresponding terms of his own language, no translator can be said to possess the primary requisites for the task he undertakes.

But a translator, thoroughly master of the language, and competently acquainted with the subject, may yet fail to give a complete transcript of the ideas of his original author.

M. D’Alembert has favoured the public with some admirable translations from Tacitus; and it must be acknowledged, that he possessed every qualification requisite for the task he undertook. If, in the course of the following observations, I may have occasion to criticise any part of his writings, or those of other authors of equal celebrity, I avail myself of the just sentiment of M. Duclos, “On peut toujours relever les défauts des grands hommes, et peut-être sont ils les seuls qui en soient dignes, et dont la critique soit utile” (Duclos, Pref. de l’Hist. de Louis XI.).

Tacitus, in describing the conduct of Piso upon the death of Germanicus, says: Pisonem interim apud Coum insulam nuncius adsequitur, excessisse Germanicum (Tacit. An. lib. 2, c. 75). This passage is thus translated by M. D’Alembert, “Pison apprend, dans l’isle de Cos, la mort de Germanicus.” In translating this passage, it is evident that M. D’Alembert has not given the complete sense of the original. The sense of Tacitus is, that Piso was overtaken on his voyage homeward, at the Isle of Cos, by a messenger, who informed him that Germanicus was dead. According to the French translator, we understand simply, that when Piso arrived at the Isle of Cos, he was informed that Germanicus was dead. We do not learn from this, that a messenger had followed him on his voyage to bring him this intelligence. The fact was, that Piso purposely lingered on his voyage homeward, expecting this very messenger who here overtook him. But, by M. D’Alembert’s version it might be understood, that Germanicus had died in the island of Cos, and that Piso was informed of his death by the islanders immediately on his arrival. The passage is thus translated, with perfect precision, by D’Ablancourt: “Cependant Pison apprend la nouvelle de cette mort par un courier exprès, qui l’atteignit en l’isle de Cos.”

After Piso had received intelligence of the death of Germanicus, he deliberated whether to proceed on his voyage to Rome, or to return immediately to Syria, and there put himself at the head of the legions. His son advised the former measure; but his friend Domitius Celer argued warmly for his return to the province, and urged, that all difficulties would give way to him, if he had once the command of the army, and had increased his force by new levies. At si teneat exercitum, augeat vires, multa quæ provideri non possunt in melius casura (An. l. 2, c. 77). This M. D’Alembert has translated, “Mais que s’il savoit se rendre redoutable à la tête des troupes, le hazard ameneroit des circonstances heureuses et imprévues.” In the original passage, Domitius advises Piso to adopt two distinct measures; the first, to obtain the command of the army, and the second, to increase his force by new levies. These two distinct measures are confounded together by the translator, nor is the sense of either of them accurately given; for from the expression, “se rendre redoutable à la tête des troupes,” we may understand, that Piso already had the command of the troops, and that all that was requisite, was to render himself formidable in that station, which he might do in various other ways than by increasing the levies.

Tacitus, speaking of the means by which Augustus obtained an absolute ascendency over all ranks in the state, says, Cùm cæteri nobilium, quanto quis servitio promptior, opibus et honoribus extollerentur (An. l. 1, c. 2). This D’Alembert has translated, “Le reste des nobles trouvoit dans les richesses et dans les honneurs la récompense de l’esclavage.” Here the translator has but half expressed the meaning of his author, which is, that “the rest of the nobility were exalted to riches and honours, in proportion as Augustus found in them an aptitude and disposition to servitude:” or, as it is well translated by Mr. Murphy, “The leading men were raised to wealth and honours, in proportion to the alacrity with which they courted the yoke.”[13]

Cicero, in a letter to the Proconsul Philippus says, Quod si Romæ te vidissem, coramque gratias egissem, quod tibi L. Egnatius familiarissimus meus absens, L. Oppius præsens curæ fuisset. This passage is thus translated by Mr. Melmoth: “If I were in Rome, I should have waited upon you for this purpose in person, and in order likewise to make my acknowledgements to you for your favours to my friends Egnatius and Oppius.” Here the sense is not completely rendered, as there is an omission of the meaning of the words absens and præsens.

Where the sense of an author is doubtful, and where more than one meaning can be given to the same passage or expression, (which, by the way, is always a defect in composition), the translator is called upon to exercise his judgement, and to select that meaning which is most consonant to the train of thought in the whole passage, or to the author’s usual mode of thinking, and of expressing himself. To imitate the obscurity or ambiguity of the original, is a fault; and it is still a greater, to give more than one meaning, as D’Alembert has done in the beginning of the Preface of Tacitus. The original runs thus: Urbem Romam a principio Reges habuere. Libertatem et consulatum L. Brutus instituit. Dictaturæ ad tempus sumebantur: neque Decemviralis potestas ultra biennium, neque Tribunorum militum consulare jus diu valuit. The ambiguous sentence is, Dictaturæ ad tempus sumebantur; which may signify either “Dictators were chosen for a limited time,” or “Dictators were chosen on particular occasions or emergencies.” D’Alembert saw this ambiguity; but how did he remove the difficulty? Not by exercising his judgement in determining between the two different meanings, but by giving them both in his translation. “On créoit au besoin des dictateurs passagers.” Now, this double sense it was impossible that Tacitus should ever have intended to convey by the words ad tempus: and between the two meanings of which the words are susceptible, a very little critical judgement was requisite to decide. I know not that ad tempus is ever used in the sense of “for the occasion, or emergency.” If this had been the author’s meaning, he would probably have used either the words ad occasionem, or pro re nata. But even allowing the phrase to be susceptible of this meaning,[14] it is not the meaning which Tacitus chose to give it in this passage. That the author meant that the Dictator was created for a limited time, is, I think, evident from the sentence immediately following, which is connected by the copulative neque with the preceding: Dictaturæ ad tempus sumebantur: neque Decemviralis potestas ultra biennium valuit: “The office of Dictator was instituted for a limited time: nor did the power of the Decemvirs subsist beyond two years.”

M. D’Alembert’s translation of the concluding sentence of this chapter is censurable on the same account. Tacitus says, Sed veteris populi Romani prospera vel adversa, claris scriptoribus memorata sunt; temporibusque Augusti dicendis non defuere decora ingenia, donec gliscente adulatione deterrerentur. Tiberii, Caiique, et Claudii, ac Neronis res, florentibus ipsis, ob metum falsæ: postquam occiderant, recentibus odiis compositæ sunt. Inde consilium mihi pauca de Augusto, et extrema tradere: mox Tiberii principatum, et cetera, sine ira et studio, quorum causas procul habeo. Thus translated by D’Alembert: “Des auteurs illustres ont fait connoitre la gloire et les malheurs de l’ancienne république; l’histoire même d’Auguste a été écrite par de grands génies, jusqu’aux tems ou la necessité de flatter les condamna au silence. La crainte ménagea tant qu’ils vécurent, Tibere, Caius, Claude, et Néron; des qu’ils ne furent plus, la haine toute récente les déchira. J’écrirai donc en peu de mots la fin du regne d’Auguste, puis celui de Tibere, et les suivans; sans fiel et sans bassesse: mon caractere m’en éloigne, et les tems m’en dispensent.” In the last part of this passage, the translator has given two different meanings to the same clause, sine ira et studio, quorum causas procul habeo, to which the author certainly meant to annex only one meaning; and that, as I think, a different one from either of those expressed by the translator. To be clearly understood, I must give my own version of the whole passage. “The history of the ancient republic of Rome, both in its prosperous and in its adverse days, has been recorded by eminent authors: Even the reign of Augustus has been happily delineated, down to those times when the prevailing spirit of adulation put to silence every ingenuous writer. The annals of Tiberius, of Caligula, of Claudius, and of Nero, written while they were alive, were falsified from terror; as were those histories composed after their death, from hatred to their recent memories. For this reason, I have resolved to attempt a short delineation of the latter part of the reign of Augustus; and afterwards that of Tiberius, and of the succeeding princes; conscious of perfect impartiality, as, from the remoteness of the events, I have no motive, either of odium or adulation.” In the last clause of this sentence, I believe I have given the true version of sine ira et studio, quorum causas procul habeo: But if this be the true meaning of the author, M. D’Alembert has given two different meanings to the same sentence, and neither of them the true one: “sans fiel et sans bassesse: mon caractere m’en éloigne, et les tems m’en dispensent.” According to the French translator, the historian pays a compliment first to his own character, and secondly, to the character of the times; both of which he makes the pledges of his impartiality: but it is perfectly clear that Tacitus neither meant the one compliment nor the other; but intended simply to say, that the remoteness of the events which he proposed to record, precluded every motive either of unfavourable prejudice or of adulation.

CHAPTER III

WHETHER IT IS ALLOWABLE FOR A TRANSLATOR TO ADD TO OR RETRENCH THE IDEAS OF THE ORIGINAL.—EXAMPLES OF THE USE AND ABUSE OF THIS LIBERTY

If it is necessary that a translator should give a complete transcript of the ideas of the original work, it becomes a question, whether it is allowable in any case to add to the ideas of the original what may appear to give greater force or illustration; or to take from them what may seem to weaken them from redundancy. To give a general answer to this question, I would say, that this liberty may be used, but with the greatest caution. It must be further observed, that the superadded idea shall have the most necessary connection with the original thought, and actually increase its force. And, on the other hand, that whenever an idea is cut off by the translator, it must be only such as is an accessory, and not a principal in the clause or sentence. It must likewise be confessedly redundant, so that its retrenchment shall not impair or weaken the original thought. Under these limitations, a translator may exercise his judgement, and assume to himself, in so far, the character of an original writer.

It will be allowed, that in the following instance the translator, the elegant Vincent Bourne, has added a very beautiful idea, which, while it has a most natural connection with the original thought, greatly heightens its energy and tenderness. The two following stanzas are a part of the fine ballad of Colin and Lucy, by Tickell.

To-morrow in the church to wed,

Impatient both prepare;

But know, fond maid, and know, false man,

That Lucy will be there.

There bear my corse, ye comrades, bear,

The bridegroom blithe to meet,

He in his wedding-trim so gay,

I in my winding-sheet.

Thus translated by Bourne:

Jungere cras dextræ dextram properatis uterque,

Et tardè interea creditis ire diem.

Credula quin virgo, juvenis quin perfide, uterque

Scite, quod et pacti Lucia testis erit.

Exangue, oh! illuc, comites, deferte cadaver,

Qua semel, oh! iterum congrediamur, ait;

Vestibus ornatus sponsalibus ille, caputque

Ipsa sepulchrali vincta, pedesque stolâ.

In this translation, which is altogether excellent, it is evident, that there is one most beautiful idea superadded by Bourne, in the line Qua semel, oh! &c.; which wonderfully improves upon the original thought. In the original, the speaker, deeply impressed with the sense of her wrongs, has no other idea than to overwhelm her perjured lover with remorse at the moment of his approaching nuptials. In the translation, amidst this prevalent idea, the speaker all at once gives way to an involuntary burst of tenderness and affection, “Oh, let us meet once more, and for the last time!” Semel, oh! iterum congrediamur, ait.—It was only a man of exquisite feeling, who was capable of thus improving on so fine an original.[15]

Achilles (in the first book of the Iliad), won by the persuasion of Minerva, resolves, though indignantly, to give up Briseis, and Patroclus is commanded to deliver her to the heralds of Agamemnon:

Ως φατο· Πατροκλος δε φιλω επεπεἰθεθ’ εταιρω·

Εκ δ’ ἄγαγε κλισιης Βρισηιδα καλλιπαρηον,

Δῶκε δ’ αγειν· τω δ’ αυτις ιτην παρα νηας Αχαιων·

Ἡ δ’ αεκουσ’ ἁμα τοισι γυνὴ κιεν.

Ilias, A. 345.

“Thus he spoke. But Patroclus was obedient to his dear friend. He brought out the beautiful Briseis from the tent, and gave her to be carried away. They returned to the ships of the Greeks; but she unwillingly went, along with her attendants.”

Patroclus now th’ unwilling Beauty brought;

She in soft sorrows, and in pensive thought,

Past silent, as the heralds held her hand,

And oft look’d back, slow moving o’er the strand.

Pope.

The ideas contained in the three last lines are not indeed expressed in the original, but they are implied in the word αεκουσα; for she who goes unwillingly, will move slowly, and oft look back. The amplification highly improves the effect of the picture. It may be incidentally remarked, that the pause in the third line, Past silent, is admirably characteristic of the slow and hesitating motion which it describes.

In the poetical version of the 137th Psalm, by Arthur Johnston, a composition of classical elegance, there are several examples of ideas superadded by the translator, intimately connected with the original thoughts, and greatly heightening their energy and beauty.

Urbe procul Solymæ, fusi Babylonis ad undas

Flevimus, et lachrymæ fluminis instar erant:

Sacra Sion toties animo totiesque recursans,

Materiem lachrymis præbuit usque novis.

Desuetas saliceta lyras, et muta ferebant

Nablia, servili non temeranda manu.

Qui patria exegit, patriam qui subruit, hostis

Pendula captivos sumere plectra jubet:

Imperat et lætos, mediis in fletibus, hymnos,

Quosque Sion cecinit, nunc taciturna! modos.

Ergone pacta Deo peregrinæ barbita genti

Fas erit, et sacras prostituisse lyras?

Ante meo, Solyme, quam tu de pectore cedas,

Nesciat Hebræam tangere dextra chelyn.

Te nisi tollat ovans unam super omnia, lingua

Faucibus hærescat sidere tacta meis.

Ne tibi noxa recens, scelerum Deus ultor! Idumes

Excidat, et Solymis perniciosa dies:

Vertite, clamabant, fundo jam vertite templum,

Tectaque montanis jam habitanda feris.

Te quoque pœna manet, Babylon! quibus astra lacessis

Culmina mox fient, quod premis, æqua solo:

Felicem, qui clade pari data damna rependet,

Et feret ultrices in tua tecta faces!

Felicem, quisquis scopulis illidet acutis

Dulcia materno pignora rapta sinu!

I pass over the superadded idea in the second line, lachrymæ fluminis instar erant, because, bordering on the hyperbole, it derogates, in some degree, from the chaste simplicity of the original. To the simple fact, “We hanged our harps on the willows in the midst thereof,” which is most poetically conveyed by Desuetas saliceta lyras, et muta ferebant nablia, is superadded all the force of sentiment in that beautiful expression, which so strongly paints the mixed emotions of a proud mind under the influence of poignant grief, heightened by shame, servili non temeranda manu. So likewise in the following stanza there is the noblest improvement of the sense of the original.

Imperat et lætos, mediis in fletibus, hymnos,

Quosque Sion cecinit, nunc taciturna! modos.

The reflection on the melancholy silence that now reigned on that sacred hill, “once vocal with their songs,” is an additional thought, the force of which is better felt than it can be conveyed by words.

An ordinary translator sinks under the energy of his original: the man of genius frequently rises above it. Horace, arraigning the abuse of riches, makes the plain and honest Ofellus thus remonstrate with a wealthy Epicure (Sat. 2, b. 2).

Cur eget indignus quisquam te divite?

A question to the energy of which it was not easy to add, but which has received the most spirited improvement from Mr. Pope:

How dar’st thou let one worthy man be poor?

An improvement is sometimes very happily made, by substituting figure and metaphor to simple sentiment; as in the following example, from Mr. Mason’s excellent translation of Du Fresnoy’s Art of Painting. In the original, the poet, treating of the merits of the antique statues, says:

queis posterior nil protulit ætas

Condignum, et non inferius longè, arte modoque.

This is a simple fact, in the perusal of which the reader is struck with nothing else but the truth of the assertion. Mark how in the translation the same truth is conveyed in one of the finest figures of poetry:

with reluctant gaze

To these the genius of succeeding days

Looks dazzled up, and, as their glories spread,

Hides in his mantle his diminish’d head.

In the two following lines, Horace inculcates a striking moral truth; but the figure in which it is conveyed has nothing of dignity:

Pallida mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas

Regumque turres.

Malherbe has given to the same sentiment a high portion of tenderness, and even sublimity:

Le pauvre en sa cabane, où le chaume le couvre,

Est sujet à ses loix;

Et la garde qui veille aux barrieres du Louvre,

N’en défend pas nos rois.[16]

Cicero writes thus to Trebatius, Ep. ad fam. lib. 7, ep. 17: Tanquam enim syngrapham ad Imperatorem, non epistolam attulisses, sic pecuniâ ablatâ domum redire properabas: nec tibi in mentem veniebat, eos ipsos qui cum syngraphis venissent Alexandriam, nullum adhuc nummum auferre potuisse. The passage is thus translated by Melmoth, b. 2, l. 12: “One would have imagined indeed, you had carried a bill of exchange upon Cæsar, instead of a letter of recommendation: As you seemed to think you had nothing more to do, than to receive your money, and to hasten home again. But money, my friend, is not so easily acquired; and I could name some of our acquaintance, who have been obliged to travel as far as Alexandria in pursuit of it, without having yet been able to obtain even their just demands.” The expressions, “money, my friend, is not so easily acquired,” and “I could name some of our acquaintance,” are not to be found in the original; but they have an obvious connection with the ideas of the original: they increase their force, while, at the same time, they give ease and spirit to the whole passage.

I question much if a licence so unbounded as the following is justifiable, on the principle of giving either ease or spirit to the original.

In Lucian’s Dialogue Timon, Gnathonides, after being beaten by Timon, says to him,

Αει φιλοσκῴμμων συ γε· αλλα ποῦ το συμποσιον; ὡς καινον τι σοι ασμα των νεοδιδακτων διθυραμβων ἥκω κομιζων.

“You were always fond of a joke—but where is the banquet? for I have brought you a new dithyrambic song, which I have lately learned.”

In Dryden’s Lucian, “translated by several eminent hands,” this passage is thus translated: “Ah! Lord, Sir, I see you keep up your old merry humour still; you love dearly to rally and break a jest. Well, but have you got a noble supper for us, and plenty of delicious inspiring claret? Hark ye, Timon, I’ve got a virgin-song for ye, just new composed, and smells of the gamut: ’Twill make your heart dance within you, old boy. A very pretty she-player, I vow to Gad, that I have an interest in, taught it me this morning.”

There is both ease and spirit in this translation; but the licence which the translator has assumed, of superadding to the ideas of the original, is beyond all bounds.

An equal degree of judgement is requisite when the translator assumes the liberty of retrenching the ideas of the original.

After the fatal horse had been admitted within the walls of Troy, Virgil thus describes the coming on of that night which was to witness the destruction of the city:

Vertitur interea cœlum, et ruit oceano nox,

Involvens umbrâ magnâ terramque polumque,

Myrmidonumque dolos.

The principal effect attributed to the night in this description, and certainly the most interesting, is its concealment of the treachery of the Greeks. Add to this, the beauty which the picture acquires from this association of natural with moral effects. How inexcusable then must Mr. Dryden appear, who, in his translation, has suppressed the Myrmidonumque dolos altogether?

Mean time the rapid heav’ns roll’d down the light,

And on the shaded ocean rush’d the night:

Our men secure, &c.

Ogilby, with less of the spirit of poetry, has done more justice to the original:

Meanwhile night rose from sea, whose spreading shade

Hides heaven and earth, and plots the Grecians laid.

Mr. Pope, in his translation of the Iliad, has, in the parting scene between Hector and Andromache (vi. 466), omitted a particular respecting the dress of the nurse, which he thought an impropriety in the picture. Homer says,

Αψ δ’ ὁ παϊς προς κολπον ἐϋζωνοιο τιθηνης

Εκλινθη ἰαχων.

“The boy crying, threw himself back into the arms of his nurse, whose waist was elegantly girt.” Mr. Pope, who has suppressed the epithet descriptive of the waist, has incurred on that account the censure of Mr. Melmoth, who says, “He has not touched the picture with that delicacy of pencil which graces the original, as he has entirely lost the beauty of one of the figures.—Though the hero and his son were designed to draw our principal attention, Homer intended likewise that we should cast a glance towards the nurse” (Fitzosborne’s Letters, l. 43). If this was Homer’s intention, he has, in my opinion, shewn less good taste in this instance than his translator, who has, I think with much propriety, left out the compliment to the nurse’s waist altogether. And this liberty of the translator was perfectly allowable; for Homer’s epithets are often nothing more than mere expletives, or additional designations of his persons. They are always, it is true, significant of some principal attribute of the person; but they are often applied by the poet in circumstances where the mention of that attribute is quite preposterous. It would shew very little judgement in a translator, who should honour Patroclus with the epithet of godlike, while he is blowing the fire to roast an ox; or bestow on Agamemnon the designation of King of many nations, while he is helping Ajax to a large piece of the chine.

It were to be wished that Mr. Melmoth, who is certainly one of the best of the English translators, had always been equally scrupulous in retrenching the ideas of his author. Cicero thus superscribes one of his letters: M. T. C. Terentiæ, et Pater suavissimæ filiæ Tulliolæ, Cicero matri et sorori S. D. (Ep. Fam. l. 14, ep. 18). And another in this manner: Tullius Terentiæ, et Pater Tulliolæ, duabus animis suis, et Cicero Matri optimæ, suavissimæ sorori (lib. 14, ep. 14). Why are these addresses entirely sunk in the translation, and a naked title poorly substituted for them, “To Terentia and Tullia,” and “To the same”? The addresses to these letters give them their highest value, as they mark the warmth of the author’s heart, and the strength of his conjugal and paternal affections.

In one of Pliny’s Epistles, speaking of Regulus, he says, Ut ipse mihi dixerit quum consuleret, quam citò sestertium sexcenties impleturus esset, invenisse se exta duplicata, quibus portendi millies et ducenties habiturum (Plin. Ep. l. 2, ep. 20). Thus translated by Melmoth, “That he once told me, upon consulting the omens, to know how soon he should be worth sixty millions of sesterces, he found them so favourable to him as to portend that he should possess double that sum.” Here a material part of the original idea is omitted; no less than that very circumstance upon which the omen turned, viz., that the entrails of the victim were double.

Analogous to this liberty of adding to or retrenching from the ideas of the original, is the liberty which a translator may take of correcting what appears to him a careless or inaccurate expression of the original, where that inaccuracy seems materially to affect the sense. Tacitus says, when Tiberius was entreated to take upon him the government of the empire, Ille variè disserebat, de magnitudine imperii, suâ modestiâ (An. l. 1, c. 11). Here the word modestiâ is improperly applied. The author could not mean to say, that Tiberius discoursed to the people about his own modesty. He wished that his discourse should seem to proceed from modesty; but he did not talk to them about his modesty. D’Alembert saw this impropriety, and he has therefore well translated the passage: “Il répondit par des discours généraux sur son peu de talent, et sur la grandeur de l’empire.”

A similar impropriety, not indeed affecting the sense, but offending against the dignity of the narrative, occurs in that passage where Tacitus relates, that Augustus, in the decline of life, after the death of Drusus, appointed his son Germanicus to the command of eight legions on the Rhine, At, hercule, Germanicum Druso ortum octo apud Rhenum legionibus imposuit (An. l. 1, c. 3). There was no occasion here for the historian swearing; and though, to render the passage with strict fidelity, an English translator must have said, “Augustus, Egad, gave Germanicus the son of Drusus the command of eight legions on the Rhine,” we cannot hesitate to say, that the simple fact is better announced without such embellishment.

CHAPTER IV

OF THE FREEDOM ALLOWED IN POETICAL TRANSLATION.—PROGRESS OF POETICAL TRANSLATION IN ENGLAND.—B. JONSON, HOLIDAY, SANDYS, FANSHAW, DRYDEN.—ROSCOMMON’S ESSAY ON TRANSLATED VERSE.—POPE’S HOMER.

In the preceding chapter, in treating of the liberty assumed by translators, of adding to, or retrenching from the ideas of the original, several examples have been given, where that liberty has been assumed with propriety both in prose composition and in poetry. In the latter, it is more peculiarly allowable. “I conceive it,” says Sir John Denham, “a vulgar error in translating poets, to affect being fidus interpres. Let that care be with them who deal in matters of fact or matters of faith; but whosoever aims at it in poetry, as he attempts what is not required, so shall he never perform what he attempts; for it is not his business alone to translate language into language, but poesie into poesie; and poesie is of so subtle a spirit, that in pouring out of one language into another, it will all evaporate; and if a new spirit is not added in the transfusion, there will remain nothing but a caput mortuum” (Denham’s Preface to the second book of Virgil’s Æneid).

In poetical translation, the English writers of the 16th, and the greatest part of the 17th century, seem to have had no other care than (in Denham’s phrase) to translate language into language, and to have placed their whole merit in presenting a literal and servile transcript of their original.

Ben Jonson, in his translation of Horace’s Art of Poetry, has paid no attention to the judicious precept of the very poem he was translating:

Nec verbum verbo curabis reddere, fidus

Interpres.

Witness the following specimens, which will strongly illustrate Denham’s judicious observations.

Mortalia facta peribunt;

Nedum sermonum stet honos et gratia vivax.

Multa renascentur quæ jam cecidere, cadentque

Quæ nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus,

Quem penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi.

De Art. Poet.

All mortal deeds

Shall perish; so far off it is the state

Or grace of speech should hope a lasting date.

Much phrase that now is dead shall be reviv’d,

And much shall die that now is nobly liv’d,

If custom please, at whose disposing will

The power and rule of speaking resteth still.

B. Jonson.

Interdum tamen et vocem Comœdia tollit,

Iratusque Chremes tumido delitigat ore,

Et Tragicus plerumque dolet sermone pedestri.

Telephus et Peleus, cùm pauper et exul uterque,

Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba,

Si curat cor spectantis tetigisse querela.

De Art. Poet.

Yet sometime doth the Comedy excite,

Her voice, and angry Chremes chafes outright,

With swelling throat, and oft the tragic wight

Complains in humble phrase. Both Telephus

And Peleus, if they seek to heart-strike us,

That are spectators, with their misery,

When they are poor and banish’d must throw by

Their bombard-phrase, and foot-and-half-foot words.

B. Jonson.

So, in B. Jonson’s translations from the Odes and Epodes of Horace, besides the most servile adherence to the words, even the measure of the original is imitated.

Non me Lucrina juverint conchylia,

Magisve rhombus, aut scari,

Si quos Eois intonata fluctibus

Hyems ad hoc vertat mare:

Non Afra avis descendat in ventrem meum,

Non attagen Ionicus

Jucundior, quam lecta de pinguissimis

Oliva ramis arborum;

Aut herba lapathi prata amantis, et gravi

Malvæ salubres corpori.

Hor. Epod. 2.

Not Lucrine oysters I could then more prize,

Nor turbot, nor bright golden eyes;

If with east floods the winter troubled much

Into our seas send any such:

The Ionian god-wit, nor the ginny-hen

Could not go down my belly then

More sweet than olives that new-gathered be,

From fattest branches of the tree,

Or the herb sorrel that loves meadows still,

Or mallows loosing bodies ill.

B. Jonson.

Of the same character for rigid fidelity, is the translation of Juvenal by Holiday, a writer of great learning, and even of critical acuteness, as the excellent commentary on his author fully shews.

Omnibus in terris quæ sunt a Gadibus usque

Auroram et Gangem, pauci dignoscere possunt

Vera bona, atque illis multum diversa, remotâ

Erroris nebulâ. Quid enim ratione timemus,

Aut cupimus? quid tam dextro pede concipis, ut te

Conatûs non pœniteat, votique peracti.

Evertêre domos totas optantibus ipsis

Dii faciles.

Juv. Sat. 10.

In all the world which between Cadiz lies

And eastern Ganges, few there are so wise

To know true good from feign’d, without all mist

Of Error. For by Reason’s rule what is’t

We fear or wish? What is’t we e’er begun

With foot so right, but we dislik’d it done?

Whole houses th’ easie gods have overthrown

At their fond prayers that did the houses own.

Holiday’s Juvenal.

There were, however, even in that age, some writers who manifested a better taste in poetical translation. May, in his translation of Lucan’s Pharsalia, and Sandys, in his Metamorphoses of Ovid, while they strictly adhered to the sense of their authors, and generally rendered line for line, have given to their versions both an ease of expression and a harmony of numbers, which approach them very near to original composition. The reason is, they have disdained to confine themselves to a literal interpretation, but have everywhere adapted their expression to the idiom of the language in which they wrote.

The following passage will give no unfavourable idea of the style and manner of May. In the ninth book of the Pharsalia, Cæsar, when in Asia, is led from curiosity to visit the plain of Troy:

Here fruitless trees, old oaks with putrefy’d

And sapless roots, the Trojan houses hide,

And temples of their Gods: all Troy’s o’erspread

With bushes thick, her ruines ruined.

He sees the bridall grove Anchises lodg’d;

Hesione’s rock; the cave where Paris judg’d;

Where nymph Oenone play’d; the place so fam’d

For Ganymedes’ rape; each stone is nam’d.

A little gliding stream, which Xanthus was,

Unknown he past, and in the lofty grass

Securely trode; a Phrygian straight forbid

Him tread on Hector’s dust! (with ruins hid,

The stone retain’d no sacred memory.)

Respect you not great Hector’s tomb, quoth he!

—O great and sacred work of poesy,

That free’st from fate, and giv’st eternity

To mortal wights! But, Cæsar, envy not

Their living names, if Roman Muses aught

May promise thee, while Homer’s honoured

By future times, shall thou, and I, be read:

No age shall us with darke oblivion staine,

But our Pharsalia ever shall remain.