Page:Don Quixote (Cervantes, Ormsby) Volume 1.djvu/21

 Rh classes; there is no reason why what pleases the one should not please the other, or why a translator who makes it his aim to treat "Don Quixote" with the respect due to a great classic, should not be as acceptable even to the careless reader as the one who treats it as a famous old jest-book. It is not a question of caviare to the general, or, if it is, the fault rests with him who makes it so. The method by which Cervantes won the ear of the Spanish people ought, mutatis mutandis, to be equally effective with the great majority of English readers. At any rate, even if there are readers to whom it is a matter of indifference, fidelity to the method is as much a part of the translator's duty as fidelity to the matter. If he can please all parties, so much the better; but his first duty is to those who look to him for as faithful a representation of his author as it is in his power to give them, faithful to the letter so long as fidelity is practicable, faithful to the spirit so far as he can make it.

With regard to fidelity to the letter, there is of course no hard and fast rule to be observed; a translator is bound to be literal as long as he can, but persistence in absolute literality, when it fails to convey the author's idea in the shape the author intended, is as great an offence against fidelity as the loosest paraphrase. As to fidelity to the spirit, perhaps the only rule is for the translator to sink his own individuality altogether, and content himself with reflecting his author truthfully. It is disregard of this rule that makes French translations, admirable as they generally are in all that belongs to literary workmanship, so often unsatisfactory. French translators, for the most part, seem to consider themselves charged with the duty of introducing their author to polite society, and to feel themselves in a measure responsible for his behaviour. There is always in their versions a certain air of "Bear your body more seeming, Audrey." Viardot, for example, has produced a "Don Quixote" that is delightfully smooth, easy reading; but the Castilian character has been smoothed away. He has forced Cervantes into a French mould, instead of moulding his French to the features of Cervantes. It is hardly fair, perhaps, to expect a Frenchman to efface himself and consent to play second fiddle under any circumstances; but to look for a translation true to the spirit from a translator who holds himself free to improve his author is, as a Spaniard would say, "to ask pears from the elm tree." 