On April 9, 1778, Johnson and Boswell dined at the home of Sir Joshua Reynolds, where Edward Gibbon and David Garrick, among others, were also present. The subject of translations, including Pope’s Homer, emerged. “We must try its effect as an English poem,” Johnson said, “that is the way to judge of the merit of a translation. Translations are, in general, for people who cannot read the original.” Meaning most of us.
Boswell recalled “the
vulgar saying, that Pope’s Homer was not a good representation of the original,”
to which Johnson replied: “Sir, it is the greatest work of the kind that has
ever been produced.” Boswell then gives himself the best lines: “The truth is,
it is impossible perfectly to translate poetry. In a different language it may
be the same tune, but it has not the same tone. Homer plays it on a bassoon;
Pope on a flagelet [a recorder-like flute].”
Garrick notes James Elphinston’s
translations of Martial are “the most extraordinary,” though his judgment is
not flattering. “He consulted me upon it, who am a little of an epigrammatist
myself, you know,” Garrick said. “I told him freely, ‘You don’t seem to have
that turn.’ I asked him if he was serious; and finding he was, I advised him
against publishing. Why, his translation is more difficult to understand than
the original.” Johnson concurs: “Sir, you have done what I had not courage to
do. But he did not ask my advice, and I did not force it upon him, to make him
angry with me.”
We are fortunate as R.L.
Barth has, in Garrick’s words, “that turn.” He is our most gifted epigrammist
and has returned to translating Martial’s epigrams. Here is II.30:
“Old friend, I ask a loan
from you today.
Your money bags are
bursting, but you say,
‘You’ll get rich taking up
the law.’ Quite nice:
I ask for money, Caius,
not advice.”
And VI.19:
“Come on, Posthumus, when
I paid my fee,
I thought I hired a lawyer
who would sue
The neighbor who absconded
with three goats.
There’s no assault or
rape, no battery.
Simple? Just prove it to
the judge? Oh, no,
With purple prose and a
bad actor’s gestures,
You rant of Cannae, the
Mithridatic war,
Those lying, frenzied
Carthaginians,
Sulla, and Marius. Come
on, Posthumus,
Just tell the judge about
my stolen goats.”
1 comment:
I wonder if John Dryden's translation of Plutarch's "Lives" - tweaked by Arthur Hugh Clough in the 19th century - is considered a good translation. (As I understand it, Dryden translated some of it himself, but mostly supervised others who did the bulk of the translating. [They did the work. He got the credit. Some things never change.]) Also: have the "Lives" been re-translated in modern times?
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