CHAPTER XI

OF THE TRANSLATION OF IDIOMATIC PHRASES.—EXAMPLES FROM COTTON, ECHARD, STERNE.—INJUDICIOUS USE OF IDIOMS IN THE TRANSLATION, WHICH DO NOT CORRESPOND WITH THE AGE OR COUNTRY OF THE ORIGINAL.—IDIOMATIC PHRASES SOMETIMES INCAPABLE OF TRANSLATION.

While a translator endeavours to give to his work all the ease of original composition, the chief difficulty he has to encounter will be found in the translation of idioms, or those turns of expression which do not belong to universal grammar, but of which every language has its own, that are exclusively proper to it. It will be easily understood, that when I speak of the difficulty of translating idioms, I do not mean those general modes of arrangement or construction which regulate a whole language, and which may not be common to it with other tongues: As, for example, the placing the adjective always before the substantive in English, which in French and in Latin is most commonly placed after it; the use of the participle in English, where the present tense is used in other languages; as he is writing, _scribit_, _il écrit_; the use of the preposition _to_ before the infinitive in English, where the French use the preposition _de_ or _of_. These, which may be termed the _general_ idioms of a language, are soon understood, and are exchanged for parallel idioms with the utmost ease. With regard to these a translator can never err, unless through affectation or choice.[53] For example, in translating the French phrase, _Il profita d’un avis_, he may choose fashionably to say, in violation of the English construction, _he profited_ of _an advice_; or, under the sanction of poetical licence, he may choose to engraft the idiom of one language into another, as Mr. Macpherson has done, where he says, “Him to _the strength of Hercules_, the lovely Astyochea bore;” Ον τεκεν Αστυοχεια, βιη Ηρακληειη· _Il._ lib. 2, l. 165. But it is not with regard to such idiomatic constructions, that a translator will ever find himself under any difficulty. It is in the translation of those particular idiomatic phrases of which every language has its own collection; phrases which are generally of a familiar nature, and which occur most commonly in conversation, or in that species of writing which approaches to the ease of conversation.

The translation is perfect, when the translator finds in his own language an idiomatic phrase corresponding to that of the original. Montaigne (_Ess._ l. 1, c. 29) says of Gallio, “Lequel ayant été envoyé en exil en l’isle de Lesbos, on fut averti à Rome, _qu’il s’y donnoit du bon temps_, et que ce qu’on lui avoit enjoint pour peine, lui tournoit à commodité.” The difficulty of translating this sentence lies in the idiomatic phrase, “_qu’il s’y donnoit du bon temps_.” Cotton finding a parallel idiom in English, has translated the passage with becoming ease and spirit: “As it happened to one Gallio, who having been sent an exile to the isle of Lesbos, news was not long after brought to Rome, that _he there lived as merry as the day was long_; and that what had been enjoined him for a penance, turned out to his greatest pleasure and satisfaction.” Thus, in another passage of the same author, (_Essais_, l. 1, c. 29) “_Si j’eusse été chef de part_, j’eusse prins autre voye plus naturelle.” “_Had I rul’d the roast_, I should have taken another and more natural course.” So likewise, (_Ess._ l. 1, c. 25) “Mais d’y enfoncer plus avant, et de _m’être rongé les ongles à l’étude d’Aristote_, monarche de la doctrine moderne.” “But, to dive farther than that, and to have _cudgell’d my brains in the study of Aristotle_, the monarch of all modern learning.” So, in the following passages from Terence, translated by Echard: “_Credo manibus pedibusque obnixè omnia facturum_,” Andr. act 1. “I know he’ll be at it tooth and nail.” “_Herus, quantum audio, uxore excidit_,” Andr. act 2. “For aught I perceive, my poor master may go whistle for a wife.”

In like manner, the following colloquial phrases are capable of a perfect translation by corresponding idioms. _Rem acu tetigisti_, “You have hit the nail upon the head.” _Mihi isthic nec seritur nec repitur_, Plaut. “That’s no bread and butter of mine.” _Omnem jecit aleam_, “It was neck or nothing with him.” Τι προς τ’ αλφιτα; Aristoph. _Nub._ “Will that make the pot boil?”

It is not perhaps possible to produce a happier instance of translation by corresponding idioms, than Sterne has given in the translation of _Slawkenbergius’s Tale_. “_Nihil me pœnitet hujus nasi_, quoth Pamphagus; that is, My nose has been the making of me.” “_Nec est cur pœniteat_; that is, How the deuce should such a nose fail?” _Tristram Shandy_, vol. 3, ch. 7. “_Miles peregrini in faciem suspexit. Dî boni, nova forma nasi!_ The centinel look’d up into the stranger’s face.—Never saw such a nose in his life!” _Ibid._

As there is nothing which so much conduces both to the ease and spirit of composition, as a happy use of idiomatic phrases, there is nothing which a translator, who has a moderate command of his own language, is so apt to carry to a licentious extreme. Echard, whose translations of _Terence_ and of _Plautus_ have, upon the whole, much merit, is extremely censurable for his intemperate use of idiomatic phrases. In the first act of the _Andria_, Davus thus speaks to himself:

_Enimvero, Dave, nihil loci est segnitiæ neque socordiæ._ _Quantum intellexi senis sententiam de nuptiis:_ _Quæ si non astu providentur, me aut herum pessundabunt;_ _Nec quid agam certum est, Pamphilumne adjutem an auscultem seni._

TERENT. _Andr._ act 1, sc. 3.

The translation of this passage by Echard, exhibits a strain of vulgar petulance, which is very opposite to the chastened simplicity of the original.

“Why, seriously, poor Davy, ’tis high time to bestir thy stumps, and to leave off dozing; at least, if a body may guess at the old man’s meaning by his mumping. If these brains do not help me out at a dead lift, to pot goes Pilgarlick, or his master, for certain: and hang me for a dog, if I know which side to take; whether to help my young master, or make fair with his father.”

In the use of idiomatic phrases, a translator frequently forgets both the country of his original author, and the age in which he wrote; and while he makes a Greek or a Roman speak French or English, he unwittingly puts into his mouth allusions to the manners of modern France or England.[54] This, to use a phrase borrowed from painting, may be termed an offence against the _costume_. The proverbial expression, βατραχω ὑδωρ, in _Theocritus_, is of similar import with the English proverb, _to carry coals to Newcastle_; but it would be a gross impropriety to use this expression in the translation of an ancient classic. Cicero, in his oration for Archias, says, “_Persona quæ propter otium et studium minime in judiciis periculisque versata est._” M. Patru has translated this, “Un homme que ses études et ses livres ont éloigné du commerce du _Palais_.” The _Palais_, or the Old Palace of the kings of France, it is true, is the place where the parliament of Paris and the chief courts of justice were assembled for the decision of causes; but it is just as absurd to make Cicero talk of his haranguing in the _Palais_, as it would be of his pleading in Westminster Hall. In this respect, Echard is most notoriously faulty: We find in every page of his translations of _Terence_ and _Plautus_, the most incongruous jumble of ancient and of modern manners. He talks of the “Lord Chief Justice of Athens,” _Jam tu autem nobis Præturam geris?_ Pl. Epid. act 1, sc. 1, and says, “I will send him to Bridewell with his skin stripped over his ears,” _Hominem irrigatum plagis pistori dabo_, Ibid. sc. 3. “I must expect to beat hemp in Bridewell all the days of my life,” _Molendum mihi est usque in pistrina_, Ter. Phormio, act 2. “He looks as grave as an alderman,” _Tristis severitas inest in vultû_, Ibid. Andria, act 5.—The same author makes the ancient heathen Romans and Greeks swear British and Christian oaths; such as “Fore George, Blood and ounds, Gadzookers, ’Sbuddikins, By the Lord Harry!” They are likewise well read in the books both of the Old and New Testament: “Good b’ye, Sir Solomon,” says Gripus to Trachalion, _Salve, Thales!_ Pl. Rudens, act 4, sc. 3; and Sosia thus vouches his own identity to Mercury, “By Jove I am he, and ’tis as true as the gospel,” _Per Jovem juro, med esse, neque me falsum dicere_, Pl. Amphit.