Compensation. In such cases a translator is not bound to take the nearest idiomatic correspondent to the original. Suppose this presents some peculiarity of form, say an antithesis, which cannot be reproduced because its members are not such as would occur in contrast in the translating language, then, if antithesis is an indispensable part of the impression to be conveyed by the original, the translation may be made antithetical in some other way. When reading Charles Lamb's 'Complaint of the Decay of Beggars in the Metropolis' I came upon a translation of the Epitaphium Canis by Vincent Bourne, 'most classical and at the same time most English of the Latinists,' which seems to be an example of unconscious compensation. Bourne had written Exiguum hunc Irus tumulum de cespite finxit, etsi inopis, non ingratae munuscula dextrae, quod memoret fidumque canem dominumque benignum, in which the fourfold que of the last line and a half at once arrests attention. Lamb renders This slender tomb of turf hath Irus rear'd, The virtues of the Beggar and his Dog. Here in the first part the rendering is not unreasonably free; but at the end, where the Latin is more obstinate, it lapses into paraphrase, in which however the effect of the quadruple que seems to be traceable in the otherwise motiveless doubling of the phrase 'to attest.' In rendering Lucan's 'Dream of Pompey' VII 9 (no. 7) I had to sacrifice the impressive poly syllable Pompeiani; but I hope the reader will feel I have given him some compensation in the following line'. Great caution undoubtedly should be exercised in Compensation. To adopt part of a phrase of Tytler op. cit. p. 22 'the superadded idea shall have the most necessary connection with the original thought,' and nothing must be introduced which the author, were he his own translator, might not be expected to approve. But I think Sir George Young is too absolute when he says (Preface to his Sophocles, 1888), 'I heartily repudiate the doctrine of compensation whereby, when beauty has been missed, other ornament is imported to make up the general effect.' For the principle underlying compensation is that the translator should deliver full weight. The metaphor is well illustrated by a striking passage of Cicero de optimo genere dicendi 14 'non uerbum pro uerbo necesse habui reddere sed genus omne uimque uerborum seruaui. non enim ea adnumerare lectori putaui oportere sed tamquam appendere.' 1 The shift here is stylistic. It must be distinguished from shifts required by some difference of idiom. As where tu, oúye, ¿yú do not convey a contrast of persons but mark emphasis such as is expressed by Eng. do, did, or by stress on a particular word as in Ter. Hec. 153 'reddi patri autem cui tu nil dicas uiti | superbumst,' not 'with whom you can find no fault' but 'with whom no fault can be found,' Hor. Od. 1 9. 16 ‘neque tu choreas,' ' nor dances.' So oúye Plato, Gorg. 527 D, ¿yw—¿μol, Demosth. Phil. III § 17, where English would stress the verbs. Mr Tolman (p. 56), forgetting that printed English now refuses to indicate the emphasis of speech even where it can, gives for 'l'état c'est moi' the cumbrous rendering' The state-it is I' instead of 'I am the state,' not the same as 'I am the state' with which he confuses it. CHAPTER III TRANSLATION OF VERSE Up till now we have been considering Translation in its general aspects. We now consider it in relation to special forms. Notwithstanding some uncertainty as to the exact lines of demarcation, the world of literature is still parted into two great continents, Prose and Verse, and our cardinal principle would seem to require that prose should be translated by prose and verse, if possible, by verse. On the first half of this proposition there is no controversy. About the second, though at first sight equally self-evident, there has been no little disagreement. Verse in itself is a more powerful engine than prose; it has a further range and its impact is heavier. Hence the sacrifice entailed by rendering verse into prose is a very real one, and one which we are not surprised to hear from Mr Archer the author of 'Peer Gynt' refused to allow. His decision, which is that also of most translators of modern poems and of many translators of ancient ones, accords with the considered judgment of the accomplished scholar who has translated the Aeneid into both, that the metrical form of the original is a feature which a translator is bound to preserve. Long before Abraham Cowley, in the Preface to his Pindarique Odes, pertinently asked—'I would gladly know what applause our best pieces of English Poesie could expect from a Frenchman or Italian, if converted faithfully, and word for word into French or Italian prose.' How far a verse, that is a good verse translation of verse surpasses a rendering in prose a few examples will show. How poor appears the Loeb translation of Juvenal, haud facile emergunt quorum uirtutibus obstat res angusta domi, It is no easy matter anywhere for a man to rise when poverty stands in the way of his merits, when set by Johnson's Slow rises worth by poverty depress'd. Wickham's of Horace, Satires II ii. Cur eget indignus quisquam te diuite? Why is any in want who does not deserve it, while you have wealth? by Pope's How dar'st thou let one worthy man be poor? and the Loeb translation of Catullus, odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. I hate and love. Why I do so, perhaps you ask. I know not, but I feel it, and I am in torment. when compared with Mrs Krause's I hate yet love. You ask how this can be. I only know its truth and agony. Why we say a good verse translation, the version of Thomas Moore will show: I love thee and hate thee, but if I can tell The cause of my love and my hate, may I die! I feel it alas! I can feel it too well, That I love thee and hate thee, but cannot tell why. Interesting proof of this superiority of verse to prose is supplied by the results of Metaphrase1. In his 1 Above, p. I. little book of 'Echoes from the Greek Anthology (1919),' Mr J. G. Legge has played the part of metaphrast to a number of the prose renderings of Dr Mackail. I cite the following: Ναύτιλε, μὴ πεύθου τίνος ἐνθάδε τύμβος ὅδ ̓ εἰμί ἀλλ ̓ αὐτὸς πόντου τύγχανε χρηστοτέρου. Α. Ρ. VII 350. Mariner, ask not whose tomb I am here, but be thine own fortune a kinder sea. MACKAIL. Seafarer, ask me not whose tomb I be, LEGGE. Πολλὰ λαλεῖς, ἄνθρωπε, χαμαὶ δὲ τίθῃ μετὰ μικρόν. ΧΙ 300. σίγα καὶ μελέτα ζῶν ἔτι τὸν θάνατον. Thou talkest much, O man, and thou art laid in earth after a little; keep silence, and while thou yet livest, meditate on death. MACKAIL. The grave is near, waste not in talk thy breath; Ποῦ σοι τόξον ἐκεῖνο παλίντονον οἵ τ ̓ ἀπὸ σεῖο LEGGE. ποῦ πτερά; ποῦ λαμπὰς πολυώδυνος; ἐς τί δὲ τρισσὰ εἰμὶ καὶ ὑλαίης ἔκγονος εὐφροσύνης. ἀλλ ̓ ἐγὼ ἐς καθαρὴν μερόπων φρένα πυρσὸν ἀνάπτω ἐκ δ ̓ ἀρετῶν στεφάνους πισύρων πλέκω· ὧν ἀφ ̓ ἑκάστης App. Plan. 201. Where is that backward-bent bow of thine and the reeds that leap from thy hand and stick fast in mid heart? Where are thy wings? Where thy grievous torch? And why carriest thou three crowns in thy hands and wearest another on thy head?— I spring not from the common Cyprian, O stranger, I am not born from earth, the offspring of sensual joy; but I light the I Love |