Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/24

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NOTES AND QUERIES. G* s. XIL JULY 4, 1903.

by Alex. Fraser Tytler (third edition, 1813, Edinburgh, Constable), dedicated to James Gregory, M.D., F.R.S., Royal Physician in Scotland. He defines good translation to be " that in which the merit of the original work is so completely transfused into another language, as to be as distinctly apprehended, and as strongly felt, by a native of the country to which that lan- guage belongs, as it is by those who speak the lan- guage of the original work."
 * Essay on the Principles of Translation '

He proceeds to lay down the laws :

1. That the translation should give a com- plete transcript of the ideas of the original work.

2. That the style and manner of writing should be of the same character with that of the original.

3. That the translation should have all the ease of original composition.

The book abounds with specimens of good and bad translations, chieflv from the classics, as well as some comparative renderings of 1 Hudibras ' in French by Voltaire and Col. Francis Townley, and of ' Don Quixote ' by Smollett and Motteux. Translations of Hadrian's lines, "animula, vagula, blandula," &c., are given (pp. 234-6), in Greek by Casau- bon, French by Fontenelle, English by Prior, with a note upon Pope's imitative * Dying Christian to his Soul.' These citations will indicate the scope of this thoughtful and suggestive work.

Humours of translation are on record. My excellent friend Mr. W. F. Kirby, F.L.S., a veteran of science and rare literary lore, tells me of a French version of Hamlet's speech, "Angels and ministers of grace defend us,' fee.

Mon Dieu, qu'est-ce que c'est que cela? The translation of poetry has from time out of mind possessed a fascinating power to men of genius. Tytler thinks that a superior degree of liberty is allowed to a poetic trans- lator in amplifying, retrenching, or embellish- ing his original, especially in the case of lyrics, as compared with the more exacting demands upon a translator of prose. Here are the opinions of some masters. Dr. Samuel Johnson says (Boswell, iii. c. i.) :

" Poetry, indeed, cannot be translated, and there fore it is the poets that preserve the languages."

Matthew Arnold, in an address on Milton remarks :

" Verse translation may give whatever of charn is in the soul and talent of the translator himself but never the specific charm of the verse and poet translated.''

M. le Vicornte de Vogue, in his 'Roman Russe,' speaking of Russian lyrical poetry writes :

Les poetes russes ne sont et ne seront jamais raduits. Un poeme lyrique est un etre vivant d'une vie furtive qui reside dans I'arrangement des nots ; on ne transporte pas cette vie dans un corps stranger."

A Russian reviewer of a small effort of my own in this way spoke of the curious effect produced by English sibilants on Slavonic jars.

The Oxford Professor of Poetry, Dr. A. C. Bradley, in his inaugural lecture, 'Poetry for Poetry's Sake,' delivered two years ago, says that in true poetry it is strictly im- possible to express the meaning in other words ; a translation " is a new product, some- thing like the poem." As an instance he takes Virgil's line

Tendebantque manus ripae ulterioris amore, and shows how the concise beauty of expres- sion is inadequately rendered in a longer English form.

What Dr. Bradley finds here Goethe en- counters in English poetry (Eckermann, 30 December, 1823) :

"Wir sprachen darauf von Uebersetzungen, wobei er mir sagte, dass es ihm sehr schwer werde, englische Gedichte in deutschen Versen wieder- zugeben. 'Wenn man die schlagenden einsilbigen Worte der Englander,' sagte er, ' mit vielsilbigen oder zusammengesetzten deutschen ausdriicken will, so ist gleich alle Kraft und Wirkung verloren.' "

I understand that Coleridge's translation of Schiller's ' Wallenstein ' was executed in a spirit of distaste, a portion being omitted, which was translated by Sir Theodore Martin in one of the reviews a few years ago. Atten- tion was directed in 'N. & Q.' not long since to Shelley's defective rendering of a portion of Goethe's 'Faust.'

It is an old, sad story that translations of sacred books and hymns are a fertile source of logomachy and misunderstanding, e.g., the history of the different versions of the Eng- lish Bible and the still unsettled questions of language and consequent exegesis.

FRANCIS P. MARCHANT.

Brixton Hill.

CLARE MARKET (9 th S. xi. 309). The shops of old London were frequently distinguished by duplicated signs, like that of the " Two Negroes' Heads " in Clare Market, merely, it seems, for the sake of added pictorial interest. Other specific reasons there no doubt were for the employment of two objects as, for instance, where such objects were derived from the arms of one of the City companies : the "Two Guns," a sign in Bloomsbury in the eighteenth century, from the Gunsmiths' arms ; or the "Two Lions and Wheatsheaf," near Temple Bar, which seems to have been a reversal of the arms of the Starchmakers'