Читать книгу Essay on the Principles of Translation - Alexander Fraser Tytler Lord Woodhouselee - Страница 8

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WHETHER IT IS ALLOWABLE FOR A TRANSLATOR TO ADD TO OR RETRENCH THE IDEAS OF THE ORIGINAL.—EXAMPLES OF THE USE AND ABUSE OF THIS LIBERTY

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 accessory, 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.

To-morrow in the church to wed,

Impatient both prepare;

But know, fond maid, and know, false man,

That Lucy will be there.

There bear my corse, ye comrades, bear,

The bridegroom blithe to meet,

He in his wedding-trim so gay,

I in my winding-sheet.

Thus translated by Bourne:

Jungere cras dextræ dextram properatis uterque,

Et tardè interea creditis ire diem.

Credula quin virgo, juvenis quin perfide, uterque

Scite, quod et pacti Lucia testis erit.

Exangue, oh! illuc, comites, deferte cadaver,

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.[15]

Achilles (in the first book of the Iliad), won by the persuasion of Minerva, resolves, though indignantly, to give up Briseis, and Patroclus is commanded to deliver her to the heralds of Agamemnon:

Ως φατο· Πατροκλος δε φιλω επεπεἰθεθ’ εταιρω·

Εκ δ’ ἄγαγε κλισιης Βρισηιδα καλλιπαρηον,

Δῶκε δ’ αγειν· τω δ’ αυτις ιτην παρα νηας Αχαιων·

Ἡ δ’ αεκουσ’ ἁμα τοισι γυνὴ κιεν.

Ilias, A. 345.

“Thus he spoke. But Patroclus was obedient to his dear friend. He brought out the beautiful Briseis from the tent, and gave her to be carried away. They returned to the ships of the Greeks; but she unwillingly went, along with her attendants.”

Patroclus now th’ unwilling Beauty brought;

She in soft sorrows, and in pensive thought,

Past silent, as the heralds held her hand,

And oft look’d back, slow moving o’er the strand.

Pope.

The ideas contained in the three last lines are not indeed expressed in the original, but they are implied in the word αεκουσα; for she who goes unwillingly, will move slowly, and oft look back. The amplification highly improves the effect of the picture. It may be incidentally remarked, that the pause in the third line, Past silent, is admirably characteristic of the slow and hesitating motion which it describes.

In the poetical version of the 137th Psalm, by Arthur Johnston, a composition of classical elegance, there are several examples of ideas superadded by the translator, intimately connected with the original thoughts, and greatly heightening their energy and beauty.

Urbe procul Solymæ, fusi Babylonis ad undas

Flevimus, et lachrymæ fluminis instar erant:

Sacra Sion toties animo totiesque recursans,

Materiem lachrymis præbuit usque novis.

Desuetas saliceta lyras, et muta ferebant

Nablia, servili non temeranda manu.

Qui patria exegit, patriam qui subruit, hostis

Pendula captivos sumere plectra jubet:

Imperat et lætos, mediis in fletibus, hymnos,

Quosque Sion cecinit, nunc taciturna! modos.

Ergone pacta Deo peregrinæ barbita genti

Fas erit, et sacras prostituisse lyras?

Ante meo, Solyme, quam tu de pectore cedas,

Nesciat Hebræam tangere dextra chelyn.

Te nisi tollat ovans unam super omnia, lingua

Faucibus hærescat sidere tacta meis.

Ne tibi noxa recens, scelerum Deus ultor! Idumes

Excidat, et Solymis perniciosa dies:

Vertite, clamabant, fundo jam vertite templum,

Tectaque montanis jam habitanda feris.

Te quoque pœna manet, Babylon! quibus astra lacessis

Culmina mox fient, quod premis, æqua solo:

Felicem, qui clade pari data damna rependet,

Et feret ultrices in tua tecta faces!

Felicem, quisquis scopulis illidet acutis

Dulcia materno pignora rapta sinu!

I pass over the superadded idea in the second line, lachrymæ fluminis instar erant, because, bordering on the hyperbole, it derogates, in some degree, from the chaste simplicity of the original. To the simple fact, “We hanged our harps on the willows in the midst thereof,” which is most poetically conveyed by Desuetas saliceta lyras, et muta ferebant nablia, is superadded all the force of sentiment in that beautiful expression, which so strongly paints the mixed emotions of a proud mind under the influence of poignant grief, heightened by shame, servili non temeranda manu. So likewise in the following stanza there is the noblest improvement of the sense of the original.

Imperat et lætos, mediis in fletibus, hymnos,

Quosque Sion cecinit, nunc taciturna! modos.

The reflection on the melancholy silence that now reigned on that sacred hill, “once vocal with their songs,” is an additional thought, the force of which is better felt than it can be conveyed by words.

An ordinary translator sinks under the energy of his original: the man of genius frequently rises above it. Horace, arraigning the abuse of riches, makes the plain and honest Ofellus thus remonstrate with a wealthy Epicure (Sat. 2, b. 2).

Cur eget indignus quisquam te divite?

A question to the energy of which it was not easy to add, but which has received the most spirited improvement from Mr. Pope:

How dar’st thou let one worthy man be poor?

An improvement is sometimes very happily made, by substituting figure and metaphor to simple sentiment; as in the following example, from Mr. Mason’s excellent translation of Du Fresnoy’s Art of Painting. In the original, the poet, treating of the merits of the antique statues, says:

queis posterior nil protulit ætas

Condignum, et non inferius longè, arte modoque.

This is a simple fact, in the perusal of which the reader is struck with nothing else but the truth of the assertion. Mark how in the translation the same truth is conveyed in one of the finest figures of poetry:

with reluctant gaze

To these the genius of succeeding days

Looks dazzled up, and, as their glories spread,

Hides in his mantle his diminish’d head.

In the two following lines, Horace inculcates a striking moral truth; but the figure in which it is conveyed has nothing of dignity:

Pallida mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas

Regumque turres.

Malherbe has given to the same sentiment a high portion of tenderness, and even sublimity:

Le pauvre en sa cabane, où le chaume le couvre,

Est sujet à ses loix;

Et la garde qui veille aux barrieres du Louvre,

N’en défend pas nos rois.[16]

Cicero writes thus to Trebatius, Ep. ad fam. lib. 7, ep. 17: Tanquam enim syngrapham ad Imperatorem, non epistolam attulisses, sic pecuniâ 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 φιλοσκῴμμων συ γε· αλλα ποῦ το συμποσιον; ὡς καινον τι σοι ασμα των νεοδιδακτων 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:

Vertitur interea cœlum, et ruit oceano nox,

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?

Mean time the rapid heav’ns roll’d down the light,

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:

Meanwhile night rose from sea, whose spreading shade

Hides heaven and earth, and plots the Grecians laid.

Mr. Pope, in his translation of the Iliad, has, in the parting scene between Hector and Andromache (vi. 466), omitted a particular respecting the dress of the nurse, which he thought an impropriety in the picture. Homer says,

Αψ δ’ ὁ παϊς προς κολπον ἐϋζωνοιο τιθηνης

Εκλινθη ἰαχων.

“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 best 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, c. 11). Here the word modestiâ 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.”

A similar impropriety, not indeed affecting the sense, but offending against the dignity of the narrative, occurs in that passage where Tacitus relates, that Augustus, in the decline of life, after the death of Drusus, appointed his son Germanicus to the command of eight legions on the Rhine, At, hercule, Germanicum Druso ortum octo apud Rhenum legionibus imposuit (An. l. 1, c. 3). There was no occasion here for the historian swearing; and though, to render the passage with strict fidelity, an English translator must have said, “Augustus, Egad, gave Germanicus the son of Drusus the command of eight legions on the Rhine,” we cannot hesitate to say, that the simple fact is better announced without such embellishment.