Essay on the Principles of Translation (Tytler)/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI.
While a translator endeavours to give to his work all the ease of original composition, the chief difficulty he has to encounter will be found in the translation of idioms, or those turns of expression which do not belong to universal grammar, but of which every language has its own, that are exclusively proper to it. It will be easily understood, that when I speak of the difficulty of translating idioms, I do not mean those general modes of arrangement or construction which regulate a whole language, and which may not be common to it with other tongues: As, for example, the placing the adjective always before the substantive in English, which in French and in Latin is most commonly placed after it; the use of the participle in English, where the present tense is used in other languages; as he is writing, scribit, il écrit; the use of the preposition to before the infinitive in English, where the French use the preposition de or of. These, which may be termed the general idioms of a language, are soon understood, and are exchanged for parallel idioms with the utmost ease. With regard to these a translator can never err, unless through affectation or choice. For example, in translating the French phrase, Il profita d'un avis, he may choose fashionably to say, in violation of the English construction, he profited of an advice; or, under the sanction of poetical licence, he may choose to engraft the idiom of one language into another, as Mr Macpherson has done, where he says, "Him to the strength of Hercules, the lovely Astyochea bore;" Ον τεκεν Αστυοχεια, βιη Ηρακληειη· Il. lib. 2. l. 165. But it is not with regard to such idiomatic constructions, that a translator will ever find himself under any difficulty. It is in the translation of those particular idiomatic phrases of which every language has its own collection; phrases which are generally of a familiar nature, and which occur most commonly in conversation, or in that species of writing which approaches to the ease of conversation.
The translation is perfect, when the translator finds in his own language an idiomatic phrase corresponding to that of the original. Montaigne (Ess. 1. I. c. 29.) says of Gallio, "Lequel ayant été envoyé en exil en l'Isle de Lesbos, on fut averti à Rome qu'il s'y donnoit du bon temps, et que ce qu'on lui avoit enjoins pour peine, lui tournoit à commodité." The difficulty of translating this sentence, lies in the idiomatic phrase, "qu'il s'y donnoit du bon temps." Cotton finding a parallel idiom in English, has translated the passage with becoming ease and spirit: "As it happened to one Gallio, who having been sent an exile to the isle of Lesbos, news was not long after brought to Rome, that he there lived as merry as the day was long; and that what had been enjoined him for a penance, turned out to his greatest pleasure and satisfaction." Thus, in another passage of the same author, (Essais, 1. I. c. 29.)
"Si j'eusse eté chef de part, j'eusse prins autre voye plus naturelle." Had I rul'd the roast, I should have taken another and more natural course." So likewise, (Ess. l. I. c. 25.) "Mais d'y enfoncer plus avant, et de m'étre rongé les ongles à l'etude d'Aristote, monarche de la doctrine moderne." "But, to dive farther than that, and to have cudgell'd my brains in the study of Aristotle, the monarch of all modern learning." So, in the following passages from Terence, translated by Eachard: "Credo omnibus pedibusque obnixè omnia facturum." Andr. Act. I. "I know he'll be at it tooth and nail." Herus, quantum audio, uxore excidit, And. Act. 2. "For aught I perceive, my poor master may go whistle for a wife."
It is not perhaps possible to produce a happier instance of translation by corresponding idioms, than Sterne has given in the translation of Slawkenbergius's Tale. "Nihil me pœnitet hujus nasi," quoth Pamphagus; that is, my nose has been the making of me." Nec est cur pæniteat; "that is, How the deuce should such a nose fail?" Tristram Shandy, vol. 3. ch. 7. Miles peregrini in faciem suspexit. Dî boni, nova forma nasi! "The centinel look'd up into the stranger's face.—Never saw such a nose in his life!" Ibid.
As there is nothing which so much conduces both to the ease and spirit of composition, as a happy use of idiomatic phrases, there is nothing which a translator, who has a moderate command of his own language, is so apt to carry to a licentious extreme. Eachard, whose translations of Terence and of Plautus have, upon the whole, much merit, is extremely censurable for his intemperate use of idiomatic phrases. In the first act of the Andria, Davus thus speaks to himself:
Quantum intellexi senis sententiam de nuptiis:
Quæ si non astu providentur, me aut herum pessundabunt,
Necquid agam certum est, Pamphilumne adjutem an auscultem seni.
Terent. Andr. Act. I. Sc. 4.
The translation of this passage by Eachard, 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 of 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 Engglish, he unwittingly puts into his mouth allusions to the manners of modern France or England. This, to use a phrase borrowed from painting, may be termed an offence against the costume. 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 eloigné 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, Eachard 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 pistrino, 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 Sofia 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[1]. The same ancients, in Mr Eachard'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[2] for pleasure, like the King of France, and sail about from port to port," Navibus magnis mercaturam faciam, Pl. Rud. act 4. sc. 2.
A translator will often meet with idiomatic phrases in the original author, to which no corresponding idiom can be found in the language of the translation. As a literal translation of such phrases cannot be tolerated, the only resource is, to express the sense in plain and easy language. Cicero, in one of his letters to Papirius Pætus, says, "Veni igitur, si vires, et disce jam προλεγομενας quas quæris; etsi sus Minervam," Ep. ad Fam. 9. 18. The idiomatic phrase si vires, is capable of a perfect translation by a corresponding idiom; but that which occurs in the latter part of the sentence, etsi sus Minervam, can neither be translated by a corresponding idiom, nor yet literally. Mr Melmoth has thus happily expressed the sense of the whole passage:
"If you have any spirit then, fly hither, and learn from our elegant bills of fare how to refine your own; though, to do your talents justice, this is a sort of knowledge in which you are much superior to your instructors."—Pliny, in one of his epistles to Calvisius, thus addresses him, Assem para, et accipe auream fabulam: fabulas immo: nam me priorum nova admonuit, lib. 2. ep. 20. To this expression assem para, &c. which is a proverbial mode of speech, we have nothing that corresponds in English. To translate the phrase literally would have a poor effect: "Give me a penny, and take a golden story, or a story worth gold." Mr Melmoth has given the sense in easy language: "Are you inclined to hear a story? or, if you please, two or three? for one brings to my mind another."
But this resource of translating the idiomatic phrase into easy language must fail, where the merit of the passage to be translated actually lies in that expression which is idiomatical. This will often occur in epigrams, many of which are therefore incapable of translation: Thus, in the following epigram the point of wit lies in an idiomatic phrase, and is lost in every other language where the same precise idiom does not occur:
On the wretched imitations of the Diable Boiteux of Le Sage:
Le Sage y triomphe aujourdhui;
Tout ce qu' on a fait après lui
N'a pas valu le Diable.
We say in English, "'Tis not worth a fig;" or, "'tis not worth a farthing;" but we cannot say, as the French do, "'Tis not worth the devil;" and therefore the epigram cannot be translated into English.
Somewhat of the same nature are the following lines of Marot; in his Epitre au Roi, where the merit lies in the ludicrous naiveté of the last line, which is idiomatical, and has no strictly corresponding expression in English:
Gourmand, yvrogne, et assuré menteur,
Pipeur, larron, jureur, blasphémateur,
Sentant la hart de cent pas à la ronde:
Au demeurant le meilleur silz du monde.
Although we have idioms in English that are nearly similar to this, we have none which has the same naiveté, and therefore no justice can be done to this passage by any English translation.
- ↑ The modern air of the following sentence is, however, not displeasing: Antipho asks Cherea, where he has bespoke supper; he answers, Apud libertum Discum, "At Discus the freedman's." Eachard, with a happy familiarity, says, "At old Harry Platter's. Ter. Eun. act 3. sc. 5.
- ↑ Alluding to the French Admiral's ship, called Le Soleil Royal, beaten and disabled by Russell.