Talks on Writing English. First Series

TRANSLATION

As the intimate intercourse of the inhabitants of the earth increases, the necessity of setting over literature from one tongue to another is every day greater. One nation is no longer content with its own science or its own literature. Each is greedy for the intellectual treasures of the whole race. Whatever of thought, of experience, of imagination has been recorded by the men of any country, is of interest to the readers of all, and there is therefore a steadily increasing demand for versions of foreign books.

Translation has come to be almost a distinct profession. The increased exercise of the art has raised greatly the standard of excellence demanded. It is true that there is still a great deal of slip-shod work offered to the public, but even cheapness is ceasing to be an effectual recommendation for bad translations when good ones are to be had. It is now necessary for the writer who makes this his business to learn his trade pretty thoroughly. The days of schoolboy renderings are about over, and some translators, like Miss Katherine Wormeley, have raised their work to so high a level that it is almost entitled to take rank with original production.

Translation is in the mind of the general public associated with rendering into extremely scraggly English the “Commentaries” of CÆsar or the “Æneid” of Virgil. Most of us have been through experiences like that of Betty in “A Woodland Wooing:”—

“Just listen to this stuff. I’ve got the rest of it, but I can’t make head or tail out of this.”

“Well, what is it?” demanded Bob.

“‘Him likewise perchance furious alike impelling, and the spoils of the Ægean deity whatsoever by means of madness notwithstanding to be about to be sacrificed.’ There, that is the very best I can make out of it.”

“Well,” returned Bob, with brotherly candor, “you are a muff. That’s plain enough. Don’t you see: ‘He also declared himself about to be sacrificed, an offering to the insatiate Ægean deity; not caring to live, moreover, impelled by furious madness, but ready alike to finish and be forgotten.’ That is as easy as rolling off a log.”—Ch. iii.

This idea, however, it is needful to lay aside if the subject is to be discussed intelligibly, for Translation has come to be treated as a serious matter, and to be developed like any other intellectual pursuit.

The first fact to be accepted in considering Translation is that it is impossible exactly to render into one language what has been written in another. The race that has made each tongue has impressed its own character upon it in every syllable, in every idiom. It is not difficult to repeat in one speech the general idea of what is said in another, and for practical purposes this is often all that is required. The directions for making a machine, the particulars of a shipment of grain, the questions one asks in shopping may with no especial difficulty be changed from language to language. When it comes to thoughts, and still more when emotions are to be dealt with, it is impossible to give in two tongues precisely the same shade of meaning. The delicate aroma of a piece of literary art is as surely diminished or lost in translation as a man becomes a foreigner and noticeably strange when removed from his own country to another. Even in practical affairs this is sometimes a serious consideration. The meaning in different languages of the phrases most nearly equivalent is so far from being identical that in important treaties between nations of differing speech it is necessary to agree beforehand what tongue shall be considered authoritative in case of dispute. In scientific books it is common to find that a translator is forced to add the original to his version of some sentence or phrase because there is no exact equivalent. Words cannot completely express thought in any case, and to this constant infirmity of language is in translation added the difficulty that the words of one tongue cannot accurately represent the precise shade of idea phrased by another.

Professor Wendell remarks:—

Each language names ideas in a way peculiarly its own. The common agreement on arbitrary symbols that at length results in the vocabulary of any language is sure to produce symbols that stand for peculiar aspects of real thoughts and emotions which language tries to define,—for aspects in other words which differ from those named by any other tongue; and what is thus plainly true of words by themselves is just as true of words in combination…. In its vocabulary, in its grammar, in its entirety, each language must express the lasting meaning of life in aspects different from those expressed by any other.—Stelligeri, p. 103.

It follows that the best that a translator can hope to do is to give the nearest approximation to the original that the language into which he is changing it is capable of. The problem is not unlike that of the engraver who is endeavoring to reproduce a picture painted with the brush. At every point he is forced to decide what combination of lines and spaces will best represent the work before him. He knows that it is impossible by any arrangement of lines actually to reproduce the brush-work of the painter, and so he goes on considering what effect among those within his reach most nearly approaches this.

The methods of the translator of course vary with the nature of the original with which he has to deal. In rendering documents which have to do with practical affairs the chief consideration is strict exactness of idea. If one attempts to translate a scientific treatise, the most important point is absolute accuracy. It is in any case necessary to write correct and clear English, but Force and Elegance may for the moment be left practically out of consideration,—or, rather, are considered as in importance subordinate to Clearness. To say in our tongue as precisely as possible what the author has said in his is the translator’s first care, and to express, too, the material, literal, scientific meaning of this as it would appear to a reader of the original. Here there is no question of atmosphere, of suggestion, of connotation. The emotional element of literature may and indeed must be ignored here. The intellectual quality is the only thing to be regarded.

All this is comparatively easy. If one knows the languages from which and into which he is translating, he should have no especial difficulty in changing a scientific paper from one to another. His knowledge of the subject will of course affect the ease and accuracy of the result; and of course the comparative richness of the scientific vocabulary of the languages is to be taken into account. In general terms, however, this sort of translation calls for the exercise of the intellectual faculties only; and whatever depends upon the intellect may be acquired by any one who has an intellect, if he choose to take the trouble.

When it is a question of a version in another tongue of literature in its higher sense the matter at once becomes more complicated. Here there is not only the idea to be considered, but the suggestion, the flavor, the peculiar quality of style and individuality. There must be an attempt to give some impression of the effect produced in the original by euphony, by what we speak of as word-color, meaning thereby the melody and the peculiar quality which terms have from suggestions so subtle that it is all but impossible to analyze them. All these requirements thrust themselves upon the translator, and he must struggle to achieve the impossible in transferring these from one language to the other. The difficulties of the undertaking are well illustrated by George Henry Lewes, in the following passage:—

Words are not only symbols of objects, but centres of associations; and their suggestiveness depends partly upon their sound. Thus there is not the slightest difference in meaning expressed when I say, “The dews of night began to fall,” or, “The nightly dews commenced to fall.” Meaning and metre are the same; but one is poetry, the other prose. Wordsworth paints a landscape in this line:—

The river wanders at its own sweet will.

Let us translate it into other words: “The river runneth free from all restraint.” We preserve the meaning, but where is the landscape? Or we may turn it thus, “The river flows, now here, now there, at will,” which is a very close translation, much closer than any usually found in a foreign language, where, indeed, it would in all probability assume some such form as this, “The river, self-impelled, pursues its course.” In these examples we have what is seldom found in translations, accuracy of meaning expressed in similar metre; yet the music and the poetry are gone, because the music and the poetry are organically dependent upon certain peculiar arrangements of sound and suggestion.—Life of Goethe, 2d ed., p. 466. Quoted in Genung’s “Practical Rhetoric.”

It is in the rendering of works which belong to that department of literature to which is given the name belles-lettres that translation is most difficult and also most common. Poetry, fiction, essays, and kindred forms are most frequently the subject of the worker at this craft. Here the form is often of importance as great as that of the idea. To give merely a literal version of the exact ideas in the original would do no more toward reproducing it than a photograph does toward reproducing the Sistine Madonna or a plaster cast the Venus of Melos. Indeed, of the formally literal translation it is hardly too much to say that it really represents the original no more than a collection of paint-tubes containing all the colors in a painting would represent the picture. The value in the painting lies in the manner in which the tints have been arranged and varied, blended here and contrasted there. In literature, the value lies in the cunning blending and contrasting, the arrangement and variety with which ideas are presented. Shelley said of the chant of the archangels which opens the “Prologue in Heaven” of Goethe’s “Faust” that not only is it “impossible to represent in another language the melody of the versification,” but that “even the volatile strength and delicacy of the ideas escape in the crucible of translation.” Every one who has attempted to translate a work of imaginative merit must appreciate this.

Of course, the first thing which a translator considers is the setting over of the ideas from one tongue to another, yet it seems to me a great mistake to make first a version which is simply literal, and then to try to mould it over into forms of literary grace. Of course, this is a matter which must to a certain extent depend upon individual temperament, but it is certainly true here as in other work that a phrase or a sentence can be more readily shaped and modified while it is fresh than when it has cooled and hardened. Translation is no mechanical operation, and no mechanical excellence will suffice. It is therefore well to aim at excellence of quality from the first, instead of attempting to add it as it were by an afterthought.

The first and essential requisite in making a translation is that it be English. By this is meant not only that it shall be made up of English words. It is not even sufficient that it be made up of English words so arranged that they may be understood. It is necessary that the English shall be sound and idiomatic. The ideal translation preserves nothing in its style to indicate that it was not originally written in the tongue in which it stands. It is the aim of the translator to approximate as closely to this standard of excellence as he is able. The sentence-structure of the German is more elaborate and more extended than our own. It is necessary that the translator of German works do not model his English version after this peculiarity of the original. The paragraph structure of the French is peculiarly broken and brief; yet the writer who sets work over from French into English is not permitted to let this fact determine the manner of his paragraphing in the latter language. Still more important is it that the idiom of the alien speech shall not leave its traces upon the style of the translation. This is the point in which all mechanical training fails. A friend gave me the other day a copy of the sign which was placed above the electric-light button in the chamber that he occupied in a hotel at Geneva: “One is begged on entering the room to press the button to let the light, and on parting again to extend it.” The man who wrote this rather remarkable direction knew his vocabulary tolerably well, but he had no idea of the English idiom. You have all of you seen innumerable examples of the same sort of blunder, and it is one which can be avoided only by an intimate acquaintance with the tongue into which one is translating.

Of the three great languages with which the translator is likely to have to do, French is by far the most idiomatic, German the least, while English in this respect stands midway between the other two. The problem in dealing with idioms is to find in one tongue expressions which are rather the equivalents of the original than a literal translation. The most nearly satisfactory renderings of the plays of Aristophanes which are to be found in our literature are those of John Hookham Frere, and they are probably among the least literal. Aristophanes was one of the most idiomatic of classic authors, and he indulged in slang as well as in idiom. To give an impression at all approximating to that of the original it is necessary constantly to depart from the exact words of the Greek text, especially when an attempt is made to preserve the feeling of the metrical effects of the comedies. In “The Birds,” the literal meaning of a certain passage is this: “Come … as many as in the furrows incessantly twitter around the clods so lightly with blithesome voice.” This is rendered by Frere:—

Rioting on the furrowed plain,
Pecking, hopping,
Picking, popping,
Among the barley newly sown.

The difference between the literal version and the other is that from the latter the reader gets something of the impression which the Greek carried to its auditors, while from the former nothing is to be obtained beyond the plain and exact meaning.

Those who have examined the translation of the “Phormio” which was furnished to the audience when that play was acted at Harvard in 1894 found there numerous illustrations of this use of equivalents in place of exact meaning. The character of the dialogue made it proper to employ modern slang to give the impression which the original conveyed to the audience for which it was written. Accordingly the Latin phrase which literally means “Gird up your loins” was translated “Brace up!” “Bring the old man” was rendered “Trot out your old man!” “Now what will be the talk of folk?” is made to read “Why, what will Mrs. Grundy say?” The whole is an amusing though perhaps somewhat extreme example of the modern idea of translating by the emotional equivalent instead of by the literal equivalent; of giving the phrase which shall make on the English-speaking reader the impression made by the original upon the reader who spoke the tongue in which the work was first written.

The method of turning foreign works into English which has until recently been the popular one is admirably illustrated by the versions of German novels which have been so successfully made by Mrs. A. L. Wister. Mrs. Wister once said to a young woman who applied to her for aid in getting translating to do, and who justified her application upon the ground that she was an excellent French and German scholar: “That is not the question. The thing is whether you are able to write English well. Anybody can find out the meaning of a French or German text; that is simply a matter of using a grammar and a dictionary. The secret of making an acceptable translation lies in the ability to express that meaning in good English.” This is admirably said, but it does not cover the whole ground. It is of the first importance that the translator write good English, but it is hardly to be supposed that the use of grammar and lexicon will give a writer that intimate and sympathetic acquaintance with foreign idioms without which it is impossible to make a version satisfactory in the modern sense.

Mrs. Wister is an excellent example of what might more correctly be called a “paraphraser” than a “translator.” It has been her custom to select some popular German novel, and from that to make a story which seemed to her likely to please the American public. She has allowed herself the widest liberty, even to the extent, if I am not misinformed, of suppressing characters and modifying situations which did not please her, or of otherwise altering the story in important particulars. The success with which her books have met has justified her practical wisdom in adopting this method of following literature as a bread-winning business. She set out to please the average story-reader, by providing for the market pleasantly exciting, clean, and entertaining books. She has done it well, and she has achieved the end she sought.

There is always in the mind of the literary man some doubt how far one author has the moral right thus to bejuggle the work of another, even in translation. One who has written cannot help being influenced by a sort of sub-consciousness of what his own feelings would be if a translator were to work such a transformation upon one of his books. Letting this pass, however, it is to be said that popular demands in regard to the quality and veracity of translations have steadily advanced. The paraphraser is now forced to appeal to a public intellectually lower than that he formerly addressed. The literary grade of the admirers of Mrs. Wister’s books is probably distinctly below what it was ten years ago. Her school may be said practically to have had its day; and the translator in the best sense has taken the place of the paraphraser.

It is not that the translator may not take liberties, as we have already seen in speaking of idiom. It is that where before liberties were taken for the pleasure or from the caprice of the paraphraser, variations are now supposed to be made by the translator for the sole purpose of imparting to the reader a better idea of the impression produced by the original on those who read it in its first form. Miss Wormeley, for instance, is publishing a version of the comedies of MoliÈre. She has decided that she can give the American reader who is unacquainted with French a better idea of the plays by rendering them into prose than by attempting the rhymed verse of the original. To the average American of to-day the effect is undoubtedly more satisfactory than that of any metrical version could be. This is an extreme instance, and it involves the difficulty of retaining the beauties and value of poetical forms in translation, but it illustrates the length to which variations from the original may legitimately go if they are made in the line of fidelity to the impression of the original.

The two great principles in translation, then, are faithfulness to the impression produced by the work in its own language, and faithfulness to the tongue into which it is rendered, especially in idiomatic constructions. It is to be remembered that the difficulty of producing a satisfactory version is never an excuse for any failure. The fact that one undertakes to make a translation is equivalent to a profession of ability to cope with whatever obstacles the task may present.

The value of translating as a help toward literary facility is a thing which should not be overlooked by the student. Whatever increases ease in the handling of language is of worth, and especially valuable is whatever forces the writer to greater exactness in the use of words and phrases. Reading aloud in English from a book in another language is excellent practice in the line of training the mind to quickness in the use of words; and this is especially good for one going into newspaper work.

It is going a little out of our way to comment here on the translation which comes into school work, but a word may not be amiss. It is always to be remembered, both by teacher and by pupil, that translation involves two languages, and one as fully as the other. Too often work of this sort is done as if the foreign language was the one to be considered exclusively. Students are allowed to give an approximate meaning of the Latin or the French which they are reading, putting their so-called translation into a verbal jargon which uses the English vocabulary, but which is no more English than the dictionary becomes a poem from having in it the words used in poetry. This is unfair to the student in several ways. It makes him hate what he is doing; it prevents his ever having anything like a proper or true idea of the value of the literature which he is mangling out of a foreign tongue into mongrel English. It destroys his feeling for his own language, and it makes it all but impossible for him to be taught English composition. More than one teacher who agonizes in spirit over the themes of his or her pupils, wondering why it is seemingly so impossible to teach them to write even reasonably well, might find an answer to the perplexing question by considering the English into which they are allowed to render their work in the languages. If pupils are let to translate from French and German and Latin into a sort of schoolroom dialect, inexact, unidiomatic, and lifeless, it is gross stupidity to expect that they will fail to be influenced by this. A pupil’s education is a unit. As long as it is assumed that his training in the languages is one thing, in mathematics another, and in geography or history a third, there is a constant loss of energy in counteracting the effects of this mistake. Every branch must be taught with a view to every other, and learned with a view to every other; and especially evident is it that in all teaching the matter of the proper use of the language of the learner should be kept always in sight. The translation which injures the pupil’s use of his own tongue does him a harm which cannot be atoned for by any knowledge it gives him of another.

It must by this time be apparent that translation in the best sense is really so closely allied to original work as hardly to be distinguished from it. In fact no writer can hope to produce successful versions of works of imagination who has not himself a genuine literary gift, carefully trained. The pathetic idea of so many young women that because they have taken lessons in French and German they can make their living by translating from those languages is quickly and painfully crushed by any attempt to carry it into practice; but there is far from being any adequate conception even among general writers of how difficult an art really good translation is. Yet so rapidly is public taste being educated in this matter that poor versions from other tongues become every day more and more futile and ineffective.

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