Page:The Dialogues of Plato v. 1.djvu/14



xiv Balliol College, who read over the Republic in the Second Edition and noted several inaccuracies.

In both editions the Introductions to the Dialogues have been enlarged, and essays on subjects having an affinity to the Platonic Dialogues have been introduced into several of them. The analyses have been corrected, and innu- merable alterations have been made in the Text. There have been added also, in the Third Edition, headings to the pages and a marginal analysis to the text of each dialogue. At the end of a long task, the translator may without impropriety point out the difficulties which he has had to encounter. These have been far greater than he would have anticipated ; nor is he at all sanguine that he has succeeded in overcoming them. Experience has made him feel that a translation, like a picture, is dependent for its effect on very minute touches ; and that it is a work of infinite pains, to be returned to in many moods and viewed in different lights.

I. An English translation ought to be idiomatic and interesting, not only to the scholar, but to the unlearned reader. Its object should not simply be to render the words of one language into the words of another or to preserve the construction and order of the original ; — this is the ambition of a schoolboy, who wishes to show that he has made a good use of his Dictionary and Grammar ; but is quite unworthy of the translator, who seeks to pro- duce on his reader an impression similar or nearly similar to that produced by the original. To him the feeling should be more important than the exact word. He should remember Dryden's quaint admonition not to ' lacquey by the side of his author, but to mount up behind him.' He must carry in his mind a comprehensive view of the whole