Essay on the Principles of Translation (Tytler)/Chapter 5
CHAP. V.
Next in importance to a faithful transfusion of the sense and meaning of an author, is an assimilation of the style and manner of writing in the translation to that of the original. A translator, therefore, must apply his attention to discover the true character of his author's style. He must ascertain with precision to what class it belongs; whether to that of the grave, the elevated, the easy, the lively, the florid and ornamented, or the simple and unaffected; and these characteristic qualities must be equally conspicuous in the translation as in the original. If a translator wants this discernment, let him be ever so thoroughly master of the sense of his author, he will present him through a distorting medium, or exhibit him often in a garb that is unsuitable to his character.
Virgil, in describing the shipwreck of the Trojans, says,
Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto.
Which the Abbé des Fontaines thus translates: "A peine un petit nombre de ceux qui montoient le vaisseau purent se sauver à la nage." Of this translation Voltaire justly remarks, "C'est traduire Virgile en style de gazette. Où est ce vaste gouffre que peint le poête, gurgite vasto? Où est l'apparent rari nantes? Ce n'est pas ainsi qu'on doit traduire l'Eneide." Voltaire, Quest. sur l'Encyclop. mot Amplification.
If we are thus justly offended to hear Virgil speak in the style of the Evening Post or the Daily Advertiser, what must we think of the translator, who makes the solemn and sententious Tacitus express himself in the low cant of the streets, or in the dialect of the waiters of a tavern?
Facile Asinum et Messalam inter Antonium et Augustum bellorumn præmiis refertos: Thus translated in a version of Tacitus by Mr Dryden and several eminent hands: "Asinus and Messala, who feathered their nests well in the civil wars 'twixt Antony and Augustus." Vinolentiam et libidines usurpans: "Playing the good-fellow." Frustra Arminium præscribi: "Trumping up Arminius's title." Sed Agrippina libertam, nurum ancillam, alaque eundem in modum muliebriter fremere: "But Agrippina could not bear that a freedwoman should nose her." And another translator says, "But Agrippina could not bear that a freedwoman should beard her." Of a similar character with this translation of Tacitus is a translation of Suetonius by several gentlemen of Oxford[1], which abounds with such elegancies as the following: Sestio Gallo, libidinoso et prodigo seni: "Sestius Gallus, a most notorious old Sir Jolly." Jucundissimos et omnium horarum amicos: "His boon companions and sure cards." Nullam unquam occasionem dedit: "They never could pick the least hole in his coat."
The description of the majesty of Jupiter, contained in the following passage of the first book of the Iliad, is allowed to be a true specimen of the sublime. It is the archetype from which Phidias acknowledged he had framed his divine sculpture of the Olympian Jupiter.
Λμταροσιας δ΄ υρα χαιτα επερρωσωντο ανακτος
Κρατος απ΄ αθανατοιο, μεγαν δ΄ ελελδιεν Ολυμπον.
Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod,
The stamp of fate, and sanction of the God:
High heaven, with trembling, the dread signal took,
And all Olympus to its centre shook.Pope.
Certainly Mr Hobbes of Malmesbury perceived no portion of that sublime which was felt by Phidias and by Mr Pope, when he could thus translate this fine description:
Wherewith displayed were his locks divine;
Olympus shook at stirring of his godhead,
And Thetis from it jump'd into the brine.
But a translator may discern the general character of his author's style, and yet fail remarkably in the imitation of it. Unless he is possessed of the most correct taste, he will be in continual danger of presenting an exaggerated picture or a caricatura of his original. The distinction between good and bad writing is often of so very slender a nature, and the shadowing of difference so extremely delicate, that a very nice perception alone can at all times define the limits. Thus in the hands of some translators, who have discernment to perceive the general character of their author's style, but want this correctness of taste, the grave style of the original becomes heavy and formal in the translation; the elevated swells into bombast, the lively froths up into the petulant, and the simple and naif degenerates into the childish and insipid.
In the fourth Oration against Catiline, Cicero, after drawing the most striking picture of the miseries of his country, on the supposition that success had crowned the designs of the conspirators, closes the detail with this grave and solemn application:
Quia mihi vehementer hæc videntur misera atque miseranda, idcirca in cos qui ea perficere voluerunt, me severum, vehementemque præbeo. Etenim quæro, si quis paterfamilias, liberis suis a servo interfectis, uxore occisa, incensa domo, supplicium de servo quam acerbissimum sumserit; utrum is clemens ac misericors, an inhumanissimus et crudelissimus esse videatur? Mihi vero importunus ac ferreus, qui non dolore ac cruciatu nocentis, suun dolorem ac cruciatum lenierit.
How awkwardly is the dignified gravity of the original imitated, in the following heavy, formal, and insipid version.
"Now as to me these calamities appear extremely shocking and deplorable; therefore I am extremely keen and rigorous in punishing those who endeavoured to bring them about. For let me put the case, that a master of a family had his children butchered, his wife murdered, his house burnt down by a slave, yet did not inflict the most rigorous of punishments imaginable upon that slave: would such a master "appear merciful and compassionate, and "not rather a monster of cruelty and inhumanity? To me that man would "appear to be of a flinty cruel nature, "who should not endeavour to soothe "his own anguish and torment by the "anguish and torment of its guilty "cause[2]."
Ovid, in describing the fatal storm in which Ceyx perished, says:
Fluctibus erigitur, cœlumque æquare videtur
Pontus.———
An hyperbole, allowable in poetical description; but which Dryden has exaggerated into the most outrageous bombast:
And in the fires above the water fries.
In the first scene of the Amphitryo of Plautus, Sofia thus remarks on the unusual length of the night:
Nisi item unam, verberatus quam pependi perpetem.
Eam quoque, Ædepol, etiam multo hæc vicit longitudine.
Credo equidem dormire solem atque appotum probe.
Mira sunt, nisi invitavit sese in cœna plusculum.
To which Mercury answers:
Ego Pol te istis tuis pro dictis et malefactis, furcifer,
Accipiam, modò sis veni huc: invenies infortunium.
Eachard, who saw no distinction between the familiar and the vulgar, has translated this in the true dialect of the streets:
"I think there never was such a long night since the beginning of the world, except that night I had the strappado, and rid the wooden horse till morning; and, o' my conscience, that was twice as long[3]. By the mackins, I believe Phœbus has been playing the good-fellow, and 's asleep too. I'll be hang'd if he ben't in for't, and has took a little too much o' the creature."
"Mer. Say ye so, slave? What, treat Gods like yourselves. By Jove, have at your doublet, Rogue, for scandalum magnatum. Approach then, you'll ha' but small joy here."
"Mer. Accedam, atque hanc appellabo atque supparasitabo patri." Ibid. sc. 3.
"Mer. I'll to her, and tickle her up as my father has done."
"Sofia. Irritabis crabrones." Ibid, act 2. sc. 2.
"Sofia. You'd as good p—ss in a bee-hive."
Seneca, though not a chaste writer, is remarkable for a courtly dignity of expression, which, though often united with ease, never descends to the mean or vulgar. L'Estrange has presented him through a medium of such coarseness, that he is hardly to be known.
Probatos itaque semper lege, et siquando ad alios divertere libuerit, ad priores redi.—Nihil æque sanitatem impedit quam remediorum crebra mutatio, Ep. 2.—"Of authors be sure to make choice of the best; and, as I said before, stick close to them; and though you take up others by the bye, reserve some select ones, however, for your study and retreat. Nothing is more hurtful, in the case of diseases and wounds, than the frequent shifting of physic and plasters."
Fuit qui diceret, Quid perdis operam? ille quem quæris elatus, combustus est. De benef. lib. 7. c. 21.—"Friend, says a Fellow, you may hammer your heart out, for the man you look for is dead."
Cum multa in crudelitatem Pisistrati conviva ebrius dixisset. De ira, lib. 3. c. II. "Thrasippus, in his drink, fell foul upon the cruelties of Pisistratus."
From the same defect of taste, the simple and natural manner degenerates into the childish and insipid.
J'ai perdu mon serviteur,
Colin me délaiffe.
Helas! il a pu changer!
Je voudrois n' y plus songer:
J'y songe sans cesse.
Rousseau, Devin de Village.
Colin leaves me with disdain.
Naughty Colin! hateful thought!
To Colinette her Colin's naught.
I will forget him—that I will!
Ah, t'wont do—I love him still.