Essay on the Principles of Translation (Tytler)/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III.
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 necessary, 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.
Impatient both prepare;
But know, fond maid, and know, false man,
That Lucy will be there.
The bridegroom blithe to meet,
He in his wedding-trim so gay,
I in my winding-sheet.
Thus translated by Bourne:
Et tardè interea creditis ire diem.
Credula quin virgo, juvenis quin perfide, uterque
Scite, quod et pacti Lucia testis erit.
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.
Cicero writes thus to Trebatius, Ep. ad fam. lib. 7. ep. 17. Tanquam enim syngrapham ad Imperatorem, non epistolam attulisses, sic pecunia 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 φιλοσκᾠμμων ου γε΄ αλλα ποῦ το συμποσιον; ως καινον τι σοι ασμα των νεδιδακτων 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:
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.
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:
Hides heav'n and earth, and plots the Grecians laid.
Mr Pope, in his translation of the Iliad, has, in the parting scene between Hector an Andromache (vi. 466.) omitted a particular respecting the dress of the nurse, which he thought an impropriety in the picture. Homer says,
Εκλινθκ Ιαχων
"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 bell 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. Here the word modestia 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."