has something, at first view, very captivating in it. It has all the
appearance imaginable of justice and good order; and very many persons,
without any sort of partial purposes, have been led to adopt such
schemes, and to pursue them with great earnestness and warmth. Though I
have no doubt that the minute, laborious, and very expensive _cadastre_,
which was made by the King of Sardinia, has done no sort of good, and
that after all his pains a few years will restore all things to their
first inequality, yet it has been the admiration of half the reforming
financiers of Europe; I mean the official financiers, as well as the
speculative."--_Memoirs of Sir Philip Francis_, ii. 126.]
[Footnote 19: Mill, _History of British India_, vi. 433.]
[Footnote 20: Elphinstone, _History of India_, p. 77.]
[Footnote 21: Lord Lawrence said: "Light taxation is, in my mind, the
panacea for foreign rule in India." Bosworth Smith, _Life of Lord
Lawrence_, vol. ii. p. 497.]
[Footnote 22: The essential portions of this despatch, in so far as the
purposes of the present argument are concerned, are given in Sir Richard
Temple's work (p. 185), and in Bosworth Smith's _Life of Lord Lawrence_,
vol. ii. p. 186.]
[Footnote 23: Goldwin Smith, _Lectures on the Study of History_, p.
154.]
II
TRANSLATION AND PARAPHRASE
_"The Edinburgh Review," July 1913_
When Emerson said "We like everything to do its office, whether it be a
milch-cow or a rattlesnake," he assumed, perhaps somewhat too hastily in
the latter case, that all the world understands the functions which a
milch-cow or a rattlesnake is called upon to perform. No one can doubt
that the office of a translator is to translate, but a wide difference
of opinion may exist, and, in fact, has always existed, as to the
latitude which he may allow himself in translating. Is he to adhere
rigidly to a literal rendering of the original text, or is paraphrase
permissible, and, if permissible, within what limits may it be adopted?
In deciding which of these courses to pursue, the translator stands
between Scylla and Charybdis. If he departs too widely from the precise
words of the text, he incurs the blame of the purist, who will accuse
him of foisting language on the original author which the latter never
employed, with the possible result that even the ideas or sentiments
which it had been intended to convey have been disfigured. If, on the
other hand, he renders word for word, he will often find, more
especially if his translation be in verse, that in a cacophonous attempt
to force the genius of one language into an unnatural channel, the whole
of the beauty and even, possibly, some of the real meaning of the
original have been allowed to evaporate. Dr. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, in an
instructive article on Translation contributed to the _Encyclopaedia
Britannica_ quotes the high authority of Dryden as to the course which
should be followed in the execution of an ideal translation.
A translator (Dryden writes) that would write with any force or
spirit of an original must never dwell on the words of his author.
He ought to possess himself entirely, and perfectly comprehend the
genius and sense of his author, the nature of the subject, and the
terms of the art or subject treated of; and then he will express
himself as justly, and with as much life, as if he wrote an
original; whereas he who copies word for word loses all the spirit
in the tedious transfusion.
In the application of Dryden's canon a distinction has to be made
between prose and verse. The composition of good prose, which Coleridge
described as "words in the right order," is, indeed, of the utmost
importance for all the purposes of the historian, the writer on
philosophy, or the orator. An example of the manner in which fine prose
can bring to the mind a vivid conception of a striking event is Jeremy
Collier's description of Cranmer's death, which excited the enthusiastic
admiration of Mr. Gladstone.[24] He seemed [Collier wrote] "to repel the
force of the fire and to overlook the torture, by strength of thought."
Nevertheless, the main object of the prose writer, and still more of the
orator, should be to state his facts or to prove his case. Cato laid
down the very sound principle "rem tene, verba sequentur," and
Quintilian held that "no speaker, when important interests are involved,
should be very solicitous about his words." It is true that this
principle is one that has been more often honoured in the breach than
the observance. Lucian, in his _Lexiphanes_,[25] directs the shafts of
his keen satire against the meticulous attention to phraseology
practised by his contemporaries. Cardinal Bembo sacrificed substance to
form to the extent of advising young men not to read St. Paul for fear
that their style should be injured, and Professor Saintsbury[26]
mentions the case of a French author, Paul de Saint-Victor, who "used,
when sitting down to write, to put words that had struck his fancy at
intervals over the sheet, and write his matter in and up to them." These
are instances of that word-worship run mad which has not infrequently
led to dire results, inasmuch as it has tended to engender the belief
that statesmanship is synonymous with fine writing or perfervid oratory.
The oratory in which Demosthenes excelled, Professor Bury says,[27] "was
one of the curses of Greek politics."
The attention paid by the ancients to what may be termed tricks of style
has probably in some degree enhanced the difficulties of prose
translation. It may not always be easy in a foreign language to
reproduce the subtle linguistic shades of Demosthenic oratory--the
Anaphora (repetition of the same word at the beginning of co-ordinate
sentences following one another), the Anastrophe (the final word of a
sentence repeated at the beginning of one immediately following), the
Polysyndeton (the same conjunction repeated), or the Epidiorthosis (the
correction of an expression). Nevertheless, in dealing with a prose
composition, the weight of the arguments, the lucidity with which the
facts are set forth, and the force with which the conclusions are driven
home, rank, or should rank, in the mind of the reader higher than any
feelings which are derived from the music of the words or the skilful
order in which they are arranged. Moreover, in prose more frequently
than in verse, it is the beauty of the idea expressed which attracts
rather than the language in which it is clothed. Thus, for instance,
there can be no difficulty in translating the celebrated metaphor of
Pericles[28] that "the loss of the youth of the city was as if the
spring was taken out of the year," because the beauty of the idea can in
no way suffer by presenting it in English, French, or German rather than
in the original Greek. Again, to quote another instance from Latin, the
fine epitaph to St. Ovinus in Ely Cathedral: "Lucem tuam Ovino da, Deus,
et requiem," loses nothing of its terse pathos by being rendered into
English. Occasionally, indeed, the truth is forced upon us that even in
prose "a thing may be well said once but cannot be well said twice" (τὸ
καλῶς εἰπεῖν ἅπαξ περιγίγνεται, δὶς δὲ οὐκ ἐνδέχεται), but this is
generally because the genius of one language lends itself with special
ease to some singularly felicitous and often epigrammatic form of
expression which is almost or sometimes even quite untranslatable. Who,
for instance, would dare to translate into English the following
description which the Duchesse de Dino[29] gave of a lady of her
acquaintance: "Elle n'a jamais été jolie, mais elle était blanche et
fraîche, _avec quelques jolis détails"_? On the whole, however, it may
be said that if the prose translator is thoroughly well acquainted with
both of the languages which he has to handle, he ought to be able to pay
adequate homage to the genius of the one without offering undue violence
to that of the other.
The case of the translator of poetry, which Coleridge defined as "the
best words in the best order," is manifestly very different. A phrase
which is harmonious or pregnant with fire in one language may become
discordant, flat, and vapid when translated into another. Shelley spoke
of "the vanity of translation." "It were as wise (he said) to cast a
violet into a crucible that you might discover the formal principle of
its colour and odour, as seek to transfuse from one language into
another the creations of a poet."
Longinus has told us[30] that "beautiful words are the very light of
thought" (φῶς γὰρ τῷ ὄντι ἴδιον τοῦ νοῦ τὰ καλὰ ὀνόματα), but it will
often happen, in reading a fine passage, that on analysing the
sentiments evoked, it is difficult to decide whether they are due to
the thought or to the beauty of the words. A mere word, as in the case
of Edgar Poe's "Nevermore," has at times inspired a poet. When Keats,
speaking of Melancholy, says:
She lives with Beauty--Beauty that must die--
And Joy, whose hand is ever on his lips,
Bidding adieu,
or when Mrs. Browning writes:
... Young
As Eve with Nature's daybreak on her face,
the pleasure, both of sense and sentiment, is in each case derived alike
from the music of the language and the beauty of the ideas. But in such
lines as
Arethusa arose from her couch of snows, etc.,
or Coleridge's description of the river Alph running
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea,
it is the language rather than the idea which fascinates. Professor
Walker, speaking of the most exquisitely harmonious lyric ever written
in English, or perhaps in any other language,[31] says with great truth:
"The reader of _Lycidas_ rises from it ready to grasp the 'two-handed
engine' and smite; though he may be doubtful what the engine is, and
what is to be smitten."
It may be observed, moreover, that one of the main difficulties to be
encountered in translating some of the masterpieces of ancient
literature arises from their exquisite simplicity. Although the
indulgence in glaring improprieties of language in the pursuit of
novelty of thought was not altogether unknown to the ancients, and was,
indeed, stigmatised by Longinus with the epithet of "corybantising,"[32]
the full development of this pernicious practice has been reserved for
the modern world. Dryden made himself indirectly responsible for a good
deal of bad poetry when he said that great wits were allied to madness.
The late Professor Butcher,[33] as also Lamb in his essay on "The Sanity
of True Genius," have both pointed out that genius and high ability are
eminently sane.
In some respects it may be said that didactic poetry affords special
facilities to the translator, inasmuch as it bears a more close relation
to prose than verse of other descriptions. Didactic poets, such as
Lucretius and Pope, are almost forced by the inexorable necessities of
their subjects to think in prose. However much we may admire their
verse, it is impossible not to perceive that, in dealing with subjects
that require great precision of thought, they have felt themselves
hampered by the necessities of metre and rhythm. They may, indeed,
resort to blank verse, which is a sort of half-way house between prose
and rhyme, as was done by Mr. Leonard in his excellent translation of
Empedocles, of which the following specimen may be given:
οὐκ ἔστιν πελάσασθαι ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖσιν ἐφεκτὸν
ἡμετέροις ἢ χερσὶ λαβεῖν, ᾗπερ τε μεγίστη
πειθοῦς ἀνθρώποισιν ἁμαξιτὸς εἰς φρένα πίπτει.
We may not bring It near us with our eyes,
We may not grasp It with our human hands.
With neither hands nor eyes, those highways twain,
Whereby Belief drops into the minds of men.
But Dr. Symmons, one of the numerous translators of Virgil, said, with
some truth, that the adoption of blank verse only involves "a laborious
and doubtful struggle to escape from the fangs of prose."[34]
A good example of what can be done in this branch of literature is
furnished by Dryden. Lucretius[35] wrote:
Tu vero dubitabis et indignabere obire?
Mortua cui vita est prope iam vivo atque videnti,
Qui somno partem maiorem conteris aevi,
Et vigilans stertis nec somnia cernere cessas
Sollicitamque geris cassa formidine mentem
Nec reperire potes tibi quid sit saepe mali, cum
Ebrius urgeris multis miser undique curis,
Atque animi incerto fluitans errore vagaris.
Dryden's translation departs but slightly from the original text and at
the same time presents the ideas of Lucretius in rhythmical and
melodious English:
And thou, dost thou disdain to yield thy breath,
Whose very life is little more than death?
More than one-half by lazy sleep possest,
And when awake, thy soul but nods at best,
Day-dreams and sickly thoughts revolving in thy breast.
Eternal troubles haunt thy anxious mind,
Whose cause and case thou never hopest to find,
But still uncertain, with thyself at strife,
Thou wanderest in the labyrinth of life.
Descriptive poetry also lends itself with comparative ease to
translation. Nothing can be better than the translation made by Mr.
Gladstone[36] of _Iliad_ iv. 422-32. The original Greek runs thus:
ὡς δ' ὅτ' ἐν αἰγιαλῷ πολυηχέι· κῦμα θαλάσσης
ὄρνυτ' ἐπασσύτερον Ζεφύρου ὕπο κινήσαντος·
πόντῳ μέν τε πρῶτα κορύσσεται, αὐτὰρ ἔπειτα
χέρσῳ ῥηγνύμενον μεγάλα βρέμει, ἀμφὶ δέ τ' ἄκρας
κυρτὸν ἐὸν κορυφοῦται, ἀποπτύει δ' ἁλὸς ἄχνην·
ὧς τότ' ἐπασσύτεραι Δαναῶν κίνυντο φάλαγγες
νωλεμέως πόλεμόνδε. κέλευε δὲ οἷσιν ἕκαστος
ἡγεμόνων· οἱ δ' ἄλλοι ἀκὴν ἴσαν, οὐδέ κε φαίης
τόσσον λαὸν ἕπεσθαι ἔχοντ' ἐν στήθεσιν αὐδήν,
σιγῇ, δειδιότες σημάντορας· ἀμφὶ δὲ πᾶσι
τεύχεα ποικίλ' ἔλαμπε, τὰ εἱμένοι ἐστιχόωντο.
Mr. Gladstone, who evidently drew his inspiration from the author of
"Marmion" and "The Lady of the Lake," translated as follows:
As when the billow gathers fast
With slow and sullen roar,
Beneath the keen north-western blast,
Against the sounding shore.
First far at sea it rears its crest,
Then bursts upon the beach;
Or with proud arch and swelling breast,
Where headlands outward reach,
It smites their strength, and bellowing flings
Its silver foam afar--
So stern and thick the Danaan kings
And soldiers marched to war.
Each leader gave his men the word,
Each warrior deep in silence heard,
So mute they marched, them couldst not ken
They were a mass of speaking men;
And as they strode in martial might
Their flickering arms shot back the light.
It is, however, in dealing with poetry which is neither didactic nor
descriptive that the difficulty--indeed often the impossibility--of
reconciling the genius of the two languages becomes most apparent. It
may be said with truth that the best way of ascertaining how a fine or
luminous idea can be presented in any particular language is to set
aside altogether the idea of translation, and to inquire how some master
in the particular language has presented the case without reference to
the utterances of his predecessors in other languages. A good example of
this process may be found in comparing the language in which others have
treated Vauvenargues' well-known saying: "Pour exécuter de grandes
choses, il faut vivre comme si on ne devait jamais mourir."
Bacchylides[37] put the same idea in the following words:
θνατὸν εὖντα χρὴ διδύμους ἀέξειν
γνώμας, ὅτι τ' αὔριον ὄψεαι
μοῦνον ἁλίου φάος,
χὥτι πεντήκοντ' ἔτεα
ζωὰν βαθύπλουτον τελεῖς.[38]
And the great Arab poet Abu'l'Ala, whose verse has been admirably
translated by Mr. Baerlein, wrote:
If you will do some deed before you die,
Remember not this caravan of death,
But have belief that every little breath
Will stay with you for an eternity.
Another instance of the same kind, which may be cited without in any way
wishing to advance what Professor Courthope[39] very justly calls "the
mean charge of plagiarism," is Tennyson's line, "His honour rooted in
dishonour stood." Euripides[40] expressed the same idea in the following
words:
ἐκ τῶν γὰρ αἰσχρῶν ἐσθλὰ μηχανώμεθα.
To cite another case, the following lines of _Paradise Lost_ may be
compared with the treatment accorded by Euripides to the same subject:
Oh, why did God,
Creator wise, that peopled highest Heaven
With spirits masculine, create at last
This novelty on Earth, this fair defect
Of Nature, and not fill the World at once
With men as Angels, without feminine;
Or find some other way to generate
Mankind?
Euripides wrote:
ὦ Ζεῦ, τί δὴ κίβδηλον ἀνθρώποις κακόν,
γυναῖκας ἐς φῶς ἡλίου κατῴκισας;
εἰ γὰρ βρότειον ἤθελες σπεῖραι γένος,
οὐκ ἐκ γυναικῶν χρῆν παρασχέσθαι τόδε.[41]
Apart, however, from the process to which allusion is made above, very
many instances may, of course, be cited, of translations properly so
called which have reproduced not merely the exact sense but the vigour
of the original idea in a foreign language with little or no resort to
paraphrase. What can be better than Cowley's translation of Claudian's
lines?--
Ingentem meminit parvo qui germine quercum
Aequaevumque videt consenuisse nemus.
A neighbouring wood born with himself he sees,
And loves his old contemporary trees,
thus, as Gibbon says,[42] improving on the original, inasmuch as, being
a good botanist, Cowley "concealed the oaks under a more general
expression."
Take also the case of the well-known Latin epigram:
Omne epigramma sit instar apis: sit aculeus illi;
Sint sua mella; sit et corporis exigui.
It has frequently been translated, but never more felicitously or
accurately than by the late Lord Wensleydale:
Be epigrams like bees; let them have stings;
And Honey too, and let them be small things.
On the other hand, the attempt to adhere too closely to the text of the
original and to reject paraphrase sometimes leads to results which can
scarcely be described as other than the reverse of felicitous. An
instance in point is Sappho's lines:
καὶ γὰρ αἰ φεύγει, ταχέως διώξει,
αἰ δὲ δῶρα μὴ δέκετ', ἄλλα δώσει,
αἰ δὲ μὴ φίλει, ταχέως φιλήσει
κωὐκ ἐθέλοισα.
So great a master of verse as Mr. Headlam translated thus:
The pursued shall soon be the pursuer!
Gifts, though now refusing, yet shall bring
Love the lover yet, and woo the wooer,
Though heart it wring!
Many of Mr. Headlam's translations are, however, excellent, more
especially those from English into Greek. He says in his preface:
"Greek, in my experience, is easier to write than English." He has
admirably reproduced the pathetic simplicity of Herrick's lines:
Here a pretty baby lies,
Sung to sleep with Lullabies;
Pray be silent and not stir
The easy earth that covers her.
μήτηρ βαυκαλόωσά μ' ἐκοίμισεν· ἀτρέμα βαῖνε
μὴ 'γείρῃς κούφην γῆν μ' ἐπιεσσόμενον.
Many singularly happy attempts to render English into Latin or Greek
verse are given in Mr. Kennedy's fascinating little volume _Between
Whiles_, of which the following example may be quoted:
Few the words that I have spoken;
True love's words are ever few;
Yet by many a speechless token
Hath my heart discoursed to you.
οἶδα παῦρ' ἔπη λαλήσας· παῦρ' ἔρως λαλεῖν φιλεῖ·
ξυμβόλοις δ' ὅμως ἀναύδοις σοὶ τὸ πᾶν ᾐνιξάμην.
The extent to which it is necessary to resort to paraphrase will, of
course, vary greatly, and will largely depend upon whether the language
into which the translation is made happens to furnish epithets and
expressions which are rhythmical and at the same time correspond
accurately to those of the original. Take, for instance, a case such as
the following fragment of Euripides:
τὰ μὲν διδακτὰ μανθάνω, τὰ δ' εὑρετὰ
ζητῶ, τὰ δ' εὐκτὰ παρὰ θεῶν ᾐτησάμην.
There is but little difficulty in turning this into English verse with
but slight resort to paraphrase:
I learn what may be taught;
I seek what may be sought;
My other wants I dare
To ask from Heaven in prayer,
But in a large majority of cases paraphrase is almost imposed on the
translator by the necessities of the case. Mr. William Cory's rendering
of the famous verses of Callimachus on his friend Heraclitus, which is
too well known to need quotation, has been justly admired as one of the
best and most poetic translations ever made from Greek, but it can
scarcely be called a translation in the sense in which that term is
employed by purists. It is a paraphrase.
It is needless to dwell on the difficulty of finding any suitable words
capable of being adapted to the necessities of English metre and rhythm
for the numerous and highly poetic adjectives in which the Greek
language abounds. It would tax the ingenuity of any translator to weave
into his verse expressions corresponding to the ἁλιερκέες ὄχθαι
(sea-constraining cliffs) or the Μναμοσύνας λιπαράμπυκος (Mnemosyne of
the shining fillet) of Pindar. Neither is the difficulty wholly confined
to poetry. A good many epithets have from time to time been applied to
the Nile, but none so graphic or so perfectly accurate as that employed
by Herodotus,[43] who uses the phrase ὑπὸ τοσούτου τε ποταμοῦ καὶ οὕτω
ἐργατικοῦ. The English translation "that vast river, so constantly at
work" is a poor equivalent for the original Greek. German possesses to a
greater degree than any other modern language the word-coining power
which was such a marked characteristic of Greek, with the result that it
offers special difficulties to the translator of verse. Mr. Brandes[44]
quotes the following lines of the German poet Bücher:
Welche Heldenfreudigkeit der Liebe,
Welche Stärke muthigen Entsagens,
Welche himmlisch erdentschwungene Triebe,
Welche Gottbegeistrung des Ertragens!
Welche Sich-Erhebung, Sich-Erwiedrung,
Sich-Entäussrung, völl'ge Hin-sich-gebung,
Seelenaustausch, Ineinanderlebung!
It is probable that these lines have never been translated into English
verse, and it is obvious that no translation, which did not largely
consist of paraphrase, would be possible.
Alliteration, which is a powerful literary instrument in the hands of a
skilful writer, but which may easily be allowed to degenerate into a
mere jingle, is of less common occurrence in Greek than in English,
notably early English, literature. It was, however, occasionally
employed by both poets and dramatists. Euripides, for instance, in the
_Cyclops_ (l. 120) makes use of the following expression, which would
serve as a good motto for an Anarchist club, ἀκούει δ' οὐδὲν οὐδεὶς
οὐδενός. Clytemnestra, also, in speaking of the murder of her husband
(_Ag._ 1551-52) says:
πρὸς ἡμῶν
κάππεσε, κάτθανε, καὶ καταθάψομεν.[45]
That Greek alliteration is capable of imitation is shown by Pope's
translation of the well-known line[46]:
πολλὰ δ' ἄναντα κάταντα πάραντά τε δόχμιὰ τ' ἦλθον·
O'er hills, o'er dales, o'er crags, o'er rocks, they go.
Pope at times brought alliteration to his aid in cases where no such
device had been adopted by Homer, as when, in describing the labours of
Sisyphus,[47] he wrote:
With many a weary step, and many a groan,
Up the high hill he heaves a huge round stone.
On the whole, although a good deal more than is contained in this
article may be said on either side, it would appear that, broadly
speaking, Dryden's principle holds good for prose translations, and that
experience has shown, in respect to translations in verse, that, save in
rare instances, a resort to paraphrase is necessary.
The writer ventures, in conclusion, to give two instances, in one of
which there has been comparatively but slight departure from the text of
the original Greek, whilst in the other there has been greater
indulgence in paraphrase. Both are taken from the Anthology. The first
is an epitaph on a shipwrecked sailor by an unknown author:
Ναυτίλε, μὴ πεύθου τίνος ἐνθάδε τύμβος ὅδ' εἰμί,
ἀλλ' αὐτὸς πόντου τύγχανε χρηστοτέρου.
No matter who I was; but may the sea
To you prove kindlier than it was to me.
The other is by Macedonius:
Αὔριον ἀθρήσω σε· τὸ δ' οὔ ποτε γίνεται ἡμῖν
ἠθάδος ἀμβολίης αἰὲν ἀεξομένης·
ταῦτά μοι ἱμείροντι χαρίζεαι, ἄλλα δ' ἐς ἄλλους
δῶρα φέρεις, ἐμεθέν πίστιν ἀπειπαμένη.
ὄψομαι ἑσπερίη σε. τί δ' ἕσπερός έστι γυναικῶν;
γῆρας ἀμετρήτῳ πληθόμενον ῥυτίδι.
Ever "To-morrow" thou dost say;
When will to-morrow's sun arise?
Thus custom ratifies delay;
My faithfulness thou dost despise.
Others are welcomed, whilst to me
"At even come," thou say'st, "not now."
What will life's evening bring to thee?
Old age--a many-wrinkled brow.
Dryden's well-known lines in _Aurengzebe_ embody the idea of Macedonius
in epigrammatic and felicitous verse:
Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay,
To-morrow's falser than the former day.
[Footnote 24: Morley's _Life of Gladstone_, vol. iii. p. 467.]
[Footnote 25: Weise, 1841, vol. ii. p. 303.]
[Footnote 26: _Loci Critici_, p. 40.]
[Footnote 27: _History of Greece_, vol. ii. p. 326.]