OF THE TRANSLATION OF IDIOMATIC PHRASES.—EXAMPLES FROM COTTON,
ECHARD, STERNE.—INJUDICIOUS USE OF IDIOMS IN THE TRANSLATION,
WHICH DO NOT CORRESPOND WITH THE AGE OR COUNTRY OF THE
ORIGINAL.—IDIOMATIC PHRASES SOMETIMES INCAPABLE OF TRANSLATION.
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.[53] 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._ l. 1, 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 enjoint 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_, l. 1, c. 29) “_Si j’eusse
été 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. 1, c. 25) “Mais d’y enfoncer plus avant, et de
_m’être rongé les ongles à l’étude 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 Echard: “_Credo
manibus pedibusque obnixè omnia facturum_,” Andr. act 1. “I know he’ll be
at it tooth and nail.” “_Herus, quantum audio, uxore excidit_,” Andr. act
2. “For aught I perceive, my poor master may go whistle for a wife.”
In like manner, the following colloquial phrases are capable of a perfect
translation by corresponding idioms. _Rem acu tetigisti_, “You have hit
the nail upon the head.” _Mihi isthic nec seritur nec repitur_, Plaut.
“That’s no bread and butter of mine.” _Omnem jecit aleam_, “It was neck
or nothing with him.” Τι προς τ’ αλφιτα; Aristoph. _Nub._ “Will that make
the pot boil?”
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 pœniteat_;
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. Echard, 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:
_Enimvero, Dave, nihil loci est segnitiæ neque socordiæ._
_Quantum intellexi senis sententiam de nuptiis:_
_Quæ si non astu providentur, me aut herum pessundabunt;_
_Nec quid agam certum est, Pamphilumne adjutem an auscultem seni._
TERENT. _Andr._ act 1, sc. 3.
The translation of this passage by Echard, 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 off 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 English, he unwittingly
puts into his mouth allusions to the manners of modern France or
England.[54] This, to use a phrase borrowed from painting, may be termed
an offence against the _costume_. The proverbial expression, βατραχω
ὑδωρ, in _Theocritus_, is of similar import with the English proverb,
_to carry coals to Newcastle_; but it would be a gross impropriety to
use this expression in the translation of an ancient classic. 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 éloigné 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, Echard 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 pistrina_, 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 Sosia 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.[55] The same ancients, in Mr. Echard’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_[56] for pleasure, like the king of
France, and sail about from port to port,” _Navibus magnis mercaturam
faciam_, Pl. Rud. act 4, sc. 2.
In the Latin poems of Pitcairne, we remark an uncommon felicity in
cloathing pictures of modern manners in classical phraseology. In
familiar poetry, and in pieces of a witty or humorous nature, this has
often a very happy effect, and exalts the ridicule of the sentiment, or
humour of the picture. But Pitcairne’s fondness for the language of
Horace, Ovid, and Lucretius, has led him sometimes into a gross violation
of propriety, and the laws of good taste. In the translation of a Psalm,
we are shocked when we find the Almighty addressed by the epithets of
a heathen divinity, and his attributes celebrated in the language and
allusions proper to the Pagan mythology. Thus, in the translation of the
104th Psalm, every one must be sensible of the glaring impropriety of the
following expressions:
Dexteram invictam canimus, Jovemque
Qui triumphatis, hominum et Deorum
Præsidet regnis.
Quam tuæ virtus tremefecit orbem
Juppiter dextræ.
Et manus ventis tua Dædaleas
Assuit alas.
facilesque leges
Rebus imponis, quibus antra parent
Æoli.
Proluit siccam pluvialis æther
Barbam, et arentes humeros Atlantis.
Que fovet tellus, fluviumque regnum
Tethyos.
Juppiter carmen mihi semper.
Juppiter solus mihi rex.
In the entire translation of the Psalms by Johnston, we do not find a
single instance of similar impropriety. And in the admirable version
by Buchanan, there are (to my knowledge) only two passages which are
censurable on that account. The one is the beginning of the 4th Psalm:
O Pater, O hominum _Divûmque_ æterna potestas!
which is the first line of the speech of Venus to Jupiter, in the 10th
_Æneid_: and the other is the beginning of Psalm lxxxii. where two entire
lines, with the change of one syllable, are borrowed from Horace:
Regum timendorum in proprios greges,
Reges in ipsos imperium est _Jovæ_.
In the latter example, the poet probably judged that the change of
_Jovis_ into _Jovæ_ removed all objection; and Ruddiman has attempted to
vindicate the _Divûm_ of the former passage, by applying it to saints
or angels: but allowing there were sufficient apology for both those
words, the impropriety still remains; for the associated ideas present
themselves immediately to the mind, and we are justly offended with the
literal adoption of an address to Jupiter in a hymn to the Creator.
If a translator is bound, in general, to adhere with fidelity to the
manners of the age and country to which his original belongs, there
are some instances in which he will find it necessary to make a slight
sacrifice to the manners of his modern readers. The ancients, in the
expression of resentment or contempt, made use of many epithets and
appellations which sound extremely shocking to our more polished ears,
because we never hear them employed but by the meanest and most degraded
of the populace. By similar reasoning we must conclude, that those
expressions conveyed no such mean or shocking ideas to the ancients,
since we find them used by the most dignified and exalted characters. In
the 19th book of the _Odyssey_, Melantho, one of Penelope’s maids, having
vented her spleen against Ulysses, and treated him as a bold beggar who
had intruded himself into the palace as a spy, is thus sharply reproved
by the Queen:
Παντως θαρσαλεη κυον αδδεες, ουτι με ληθεις
Ερδουσα μεγα εργον, ὁ ση κεφαλη αναμαξεις.
These opprobrious epithets, in a literal translation, would sound
extremely offensive from the lips of the περιφρων Πηνελοπεια, whom
the poet has painted as a model of female dignity and propriety. Such
translation, therefore, as conveying a picture different from what the
poet intended, would be in reality injurious to his sense. Of this sort
of refinement Mr. Hobbes had no idea; and therefore he gives the epithets
in their genuine purity and simplicity:
Bold bitch, said she, I know what deeds you’ve done,
Which thou shalt one day pay for with thy head.
We cannot fail, however, to perceive, that Mr. Pope has in fact been more
faithful to the sense of his original, by accommodating the expressions
of the speaker to that character which a modern reader must conceive to
belong to her:
Loquacious insolent, she cries, forbear!
Thy head shall pay the forfeit of thy tongue.
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 Diable Boiteux est aimable;
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 _naïveté_ of
the last line, which is idiomatical, and has no strictly corresponding
expression in English:
J’avois un jour un valet de Gascogne,
Gourmand, yvrogne, et assuré menteur,
Pipeur, larron, jureur, blasphémateur,
Sentant la hart de cent pas à la ronde:
Au demeurant le meilleur filz du monde.
Although we have idioms in English that are nearly similar to this, we
have none which has the same _naïveté_, and therefore no justice can be
done to this passage by any English translation.
In like manner, it appears to me impossible to convey, in any
translation, the _naïveté_ of the following remark on the fanciful
labours of Etymologists: “Monsieur,—dans l’Etymologie il faut compter les
voyelles pour rien, et les consonnes pour peu de chose.”