Translation Based On Cicero

INTRODUCTION

The aim of this chapter is not to attempt a comprehensive history of translation or translators through the ages; this would be beyond the scope of any book. Instead, the main focus is the central recurring theme of ‘word-for-word’ and ‘sense-for-sense’ translation, a debate that has dominated much of translation theory in what Newmark (1981: 4) calls the ‘pre-linguistics period of translation’. It is a theme which Susan Bassnett, in ‘The history of translation theory’ section of her Translation Studies, sees as ‘emerging again and again with different degrees of emphasis in accordance with differing concepts of language and communication’ (2002: 50).

In this chapter, we focus on a select few of the influential and readily available writings from the history of translation based on the criterion of the influence they have exerted on the history of translation theory and research. Of course, this is a restricted selection and the list of further reading will note some of the others that have a justifiable claim for inclusion. There has also historically been a very strong tendency to concentrate on western European writing on translation, starting with the Roman tradition; the rich traditions of non-western cultures have until recently been neglected, although, since the publication of the first edition of this book, there has been an ever-growing list of publications in English addressing the wider geographic framework. Building on the basis of the earlier Translators Through History (Delisle and Woodsworth 1995) and Baker’s The Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies (1998/2008), there have appeared volumes on writings on Asian traditions (Hung and Wakabayashi 2005), on China specifically (Chan 2004, Cheung 2006), and on a range of non-western thought on translation (Hermans 2006a, 2006b). This chapter also includes some of these newer findings, and readers are again encouraged to consider the issues as they relate to the history and translation traditions of their own countries and languages.

WORD-FOR-WORD' OR 'SENSE-FOR-SENSE'?

Up until the second half of the twentieth century, western translation theory seemed locked in what George Steiner (1998: 319) calls a ‘sterile’ debate over the ‘triad’ of ‘literal’, ‘free’ and ‘faithful’ translation. The distinction between ‘word-for-word’ (i.e. ‘literal’) and ‘sense-for-sense’ (i.e. ‘free’) translation goes back to Cicero (first century BCE) and St Jerome (late fourth century CE) and forms the basis of key writings on translation in centuries nearer to our own.

Cicero outlined his approach to translation in De optimo genere oratorum (46 BCE/ 1960 CE), introducing his own translation of the speeches of the Attic orators Aeschines and Demosthenes: And I did not translate them as an interpreter, but as an orator, keeping the same ideas and forms, or as one might say, the ‘figures’ of thought, but in language which conforms to our usage. And in so doing, I did not hold it necessary to render word for word, but I preserved the general style and force of the language. (Cicero 46 BCE/1960 CE: 364) The ‘interpreter’ of the first line is the literal (‘word-for-word’) translator, while the ‘orator’ tried to produce a speech that moved the listeners.

In Roman times, ‘word-for-word’ translation was exactly what it said: the replacement of each individual word of the ST (invariably Greek) with its closest grammatical equivalent in Latin. This was because the Romans would read the TTs side by side with the Greek STs. The disparagement of word-for-word translation by Cicero, and indeed by Horace, who, in a short but famous passage from his Ars Poetica (20 BCE?),2 underlines the goal of producing an aesthetically pleasing and creative text in the TL, had great influence on the succeeding centuries.

Thus, St Jerome, the most famous of all translators, cites the authority of Cicero’s approach to justify his own Latin revision and translation of the Christian Bible, commissioned by Damasus, bishop of Rome. In a work that was to become known as the Latin Vulgate, Jerome revised and corrected earlier Latin translations of the New Testament and, for the Old Testament, decided to return to the Hebrew, a decision that was controversial to those who maintained the divine inspiration of the Greek Septuagint (Rebenich 2002: 53–4).

His translation strategy is formulated in De optimo genere interpretandi, a letter addressed to his friend, the senator Pammachius, in 395 CE. In perhaps the most famous statement ever on the translation process, St Jerome, defending himself against criticisms of ‘incorrect’ translation, describes his strategy in the following terms: Now I not only admit but freely announce that in translating from the Greek – except of course in the case of the Holy Scripture, where even the syntax contains a mystery – I render not word-for-word, but sense-for-sense. (St Jerome 395 CE/1997: 25) Although some scholars (e.g. Lambert 1991: 7) argue that these terms have been misinterpreted,5 Jerome’s statement is now usually taken to refer to what came to be known as ‘literal’ (word-for-word) and ‘free’ (sense-for-sense) translation.

Jerome rejected the word-for-word approach because, by following so closely the form of the ST, it produced an absurd translation, cloaking the sense of the original. The sense-for-sense approach, on the other hand, allowed the sense or content of the ST to be translated. In these poles can be seen the origin of both the ‘literal vs. free’ and ‘form vs. content’ debate that has continued until modern times. To illustrate the concept of the TL taking over the sense of the ST, Jerome uses the military image of the original text being marched into the TL like a prisoner by its conqueror (Robinson 1997b: 26). Interestingly, however, as part of his defence St Jerome stresses the special ‘mystery’ of both the meaning and syntax of the Bible, for to be seen to be altering the sense was liable to bring a charge of heresy. St Jerome’s statement is usually taken to be the clearest expression of the ‘literal’ and ‘free’ poles in translation, but the same type of concern seems to have occurred in other rich and ancient translation traditions such as in China and the Arab world. For instance, Hung and Pollard use similar terms when discussing the history of Chinese translation of Buddhist sutras from Sanskrit (see Box 2.1).

The vocabulary of this description (such as the gloss on ‘yiyi’) shows the influence of modern western translation terminology, the general thrust of the argument being similar to the Cicero/St Jerome poles described above. Aesthetic and stylistic considerations are again noted, and there appear to be the first steps towards a rudimentary differentiation of text types, with non-literary STs being treated differently from literary TTs. Some of the issues, such as transliteration, relate most clearly to the problem of translation of foreign elements and names into a non-phonetic language (Chinese).

Box 2.1

Sutra translation provided a fertile ground for the practice and discussion of different translation approaches. Generally speaking, translations produced in the first phase [eastern Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms Period (c. 148–265)] were word-for word renderings adhering closely to source-language syntax. This was probably due not only to the lack of bilingual ability amongst the [translation] forum participants, but also to a belief that the sacred words of the enlightened should not be tampered with.

In addition to contorted target-language syntax, transliteration was used very liberally, with the result that the translations were fairly incomprehensible to anyone without a theological grounding. The second phase [Jin Dynasty and the Northern and Southern Dynasties (c. 265–589)] saw an obvious swing towards what many contemporary Chinese scholars call yiyi (free translation, for lack of a better term). Syntactic inversions were smoothed out according to target language usage, and the drafts were polished to give them a high literary quality.

Kumarajiva was credited as a pioneer of this approach. In extreme cases, the polishing might have gone too far, and there are extant discussions of how this affected the original message. During the third phase [Sui Dynasty, Tang Dynasty and Northern Song Dynasty (c. 589–1100)], the approach to translation was to a great extent dominated by Xuan Zang, who had an excellent command of both Sanskrit and Chinese, and who advocated that attention should be paid to the style of the original text: literary polishing was not to be applied to simple and plain source texts. He also set down rules governing the use of transliteration, and these were adopted by many of his successors. (Hung and Pollard 1997: 368)

Translation choices were expounded in the prefaces to these texts, perhaps the most influential being by the religious leader Dao’an, who directed an extensive translation ‘programme’ of the sutras in the fourth century CE. These prefaces considered ‘the dilemma which ever faced Buddhist translators: whether to make a free, polished and shortened version adapted to the taste of the Chinese public, or a faithful, literal, repetitious and therefore unreadable translation’ (Zürcher 2007: 203). Interestingly, as Zürcher discusses, there was an attempt by Dao’an to regulate the strategy to be employed in translating new texts. In the preface to the translation of the Prajña¯pa¯ramita¯ (382 CE), Dao’an lists five elements where deviation was acceptable (flexibility of Sanskrit syntax, enhancement of literariness of the ST, omission of repetition in argumentation, in introductions and of summaries) and three factors that necessitated special care (the directing of the message to a new audience, the sanctity of the ST words and the special status of the STs themselves as the cumulative work of so many followers).

These points were to influence the work of the great Kuchan translator and commentator Kumarajiva and those who followed him until the sixth century CE. Over recent years, there has been increased interest from the west in Chinese and other writing on translation and this has highlighted some important theoretical points. With specific reference to sutra transmission from the first to eighth centuries CE, Eva Hung (2005: 84–5) notes the problematization even of concepts such as ‘original text’ and ‘source language’, since these teachings were originally recited orally, leading to many variant STs, and there may have been ‘half a dozen or more’ Central Asian source languages involved before Sanskrit achieved its dominant position.

In many cases the Sanskrit version has been lost but the Chinese has survived, which of course means both that there is no longer any way of checking against any supposed ST and also that the Chinese for many has ‘become’ the source. Usually, also, the TTs were a collaborative effort, the draft translation of the spoken source being produced orally by a bilingual and written down by assistants before revision; explanations added by the Master also sometimes found their way into the TTs (Zürcher 2007: 31). Chan Leo Tak-hung (2001: 199–204) discusses the problems of English equivalents for Chinese terms such as yiyi, which he claims has been used too freely and in reality most closely matches sense-for-sense translation or even semantic correspondence (see Chapter 3); the opposite of yiyi is zhiyi, which has been translated as ‘straightforward’ or ‘direct’ translation, closely corresponding to the ST in the interests of ‘faithfulness’. The ‘literal’ and ‘free’ poles surface once again in the rich translation tradition of the Arab world, which created the great centre of translation in Baghdad.

There was intense translation activity in the ‘Abba¯sid period (750–1250), centred on the translation into Arabic of Greek scientific and philosophical material, often with Syriac as an intermediary language (Delisle and Woodsworth 1995: 112). Baker (1998: 320–1), following Rosenthal (1965/94), describes the two translation methods that were adopted during that period: The first [method], associated with Yuh. anna Ibn al-Batrı¯q and Ibn Na¯ ‘ima al-H. imsi, was highly literal and consisted of translating each Greek word with an equivalent Arabic word and, where none existed, borrowing the Greek word into Arabic. (Baker 1998: 320–1) According to Baker, this word-for-word method proved to be unsuccessful and had to be revised using the second, sense-for-sense method: The second method, associated with Ibn Ish. a¯q and al-Jawahari, consisted of translating sense-for-sense, creating fluent target texts which conveyed the meaning of the original without distorting the target language. (Baker 1998: 321) Once again, the terminology of this description is strongly influenced by the classical western European discourse on translation; yet, this does not negate the applicability in the Arab culture of the two poles of translation which were identified by Cicero and St Jerome. Of course, there are also other ways of considering the question. Salama-Carr (Delisle and Woodsworth 1995: 112–15) concentrates more on the way translation strategies ‘helped establish a new system of thought that was to become the foundation of Arabic–Islamic culture – both on the conceptual and terminological levels’ with, over the years, the increased use of Arab neologisms rather than transliteration. Arab translators also became very creative in supplying instructive and explanatory commentaries and notes.

However, Dimitri Gutas, writing from a historical perspective, rejects a simplistic chronological explanation for the shifts in translation style in the ‘Abba¯ sids’ organized translation programme of scientific and philosophical works from ancient Greece and instead emphasizes the social, political and ideological factors involved. He contends (Gutas 1998: 138–50) that it was the demand for translators to work on such a wealth of texts that led to their increased professionalization and improved knowledge of Greek but that the divergences of style should be explained not as an evolution but on the basis of the various ‘translation complexes’ (groupings of translators and patrons) which operated independently on different corpora, such as the translations of the Galenic and Hippocratic works, the translation of philosophical works, the translation of the Aristotelian Organon and the translations of Euclid, each with different goals.

IMITATION

‘imitation’: ‘forsaking’ both words and sense; this corresponds to Cowley’s very free translation and is more or less adaptation. imitations of Cicero are key to understanding the originality of its literary enterprise.

Where the translator ( if now he has not lost that name ) assumes the liberty, not only to vary from the words and sense, but to forsake them both as he sees occasion; and taking only some general hints from the original, to run division on the groundwork, as he pleases.

Underlying the utopian view of imitation meant in this way, one glimpses the myth of a translation that shouldn’t appear translated, a translated text that wouldn’t present itself as an original. The imitator must give the reader the illusion of reading in the original, and all cultural references must be modified to prevent the reader from feeling altogether out of place.

Utopian because the dream behind such approach is writing as if the author would have written if he had lived in the Chronotope as the translator. If Pindar had lived in England in Cowley’s time (this is Drydwn’s example) how would he have written his odes? the answer that I might give is that maybe he wouldn’t have written any odes, but rather a novel instead. But then what should the translator do: write a novel based on the odes? and also as a regards contents, this reasoning can take a wide target. If the content of a standard ode was ethic and civil, should the translator introduce an ethic – civil content to her meta text comparable (in a system sense) to that in the original, making the necessary changes? Let us see what Dryden says:

I take imitation of an author, in their sense, to be an Endeavour of a later poet to write like one who has written before him, on the same subject; that is not to translate his word, or to be confined to his sense, but only to set him as a pattern, and to write, as he supposes that author would have done, had he lived in our age, or in our country (Dryden 1680; 19).

Dryden substantially disclaims such an extremism, as he does its opposite, Metaphrase or “verbal translation” (meaning “word for word”) as a favors a middle road.

As rightly state Douglas Robinson, it is a paradox that the root of “imitate” etymologically meaning “mimic”, “slavishly copy” , in translation studies ends up meaning something totally different, the exact opposite: “doing something totally different from the original author, wandering too far too freely from the words and the sense of the SL text” (Robinson 1998:111).

In figurative art, one distinguishes imitation from the original, from the authentic work of art. In the case of translation, the imitation being considered almost a synonym of “free translation” recalls another myth of the old school: the one according to which a “faithful” translation coincides with the original, while “free” translation is “just an imitation”.

Leaving aside etymologic absurdities, to conclude, I must say that this category of imitation is very unproductive in the scientific field.

SUMMARY

Much of western translation theory from Cicero to the twentieth century centred on the recurring debate as to whether translations should be literal (word-for-word) or free (sense-for-sense), a diad that is famously discussed by St Jerome in his translation of the Bible into Latin. Controversy over the translation of the Bible was central to translation theory in the west for over a thousand years. Early theorists tended to be translators who presented a justification for their approach in a preface to the translation, often paying little attention to (or not having access to) what others before them had said. Dryden’s proposed triad of the late seventeenth century marked the beginning of a more systematic and precise definition of translation, while Schleiermacher’s respect for the foreign text was to have considerable influence over scholars in modern times. Recently, there has been increased interest in the west in Chinese discourse on translation, centred on the translation of Buddhist sutras and the position of Yan Fu.