124
6 Conclusion: An Enriched Experience
A translator should endeavour to replicate differences in the original. To ignore
variations in the Greek, and use only ‘north’, ‘east’, ‘south’, and ‘west’ whenever
any of the nine simple (one-word) cardinal terms in Greek is used, might seem
regrettable: it offers the reader less than one might; it could be a missed opportunity
to clarify the text; it may sometimes amount to falsifying the text.
Should we then veer to the opposite extreme, and always communicate the original senses of the terms? Geographical areas might in that case be said to extend
‘from the settings to the risings’, barbarian peoples to live ‘towards the midday’ or
‘in the dawn’, one place to lie ‘towards the setting’ from another, and so on. This has
something to commend it, in reminding the reader that the original texts are from a
very different cultural milieu
52
; but one risks attempting to teach the reader a new
vocabulary and change their understanding in a way that they may find rebarbative.
A translator cannot afford to lose their audience. We might gloss each term with an
insertion such as ‘(i.e. the north)’; but if we were to do so at every occurrence we
would make many passages less legible. The more serious problem with this
approach is that, on the basis of context, it is evident that Greek authors, as we have
shown, very often use these eight cardinal terms metonymically, no hint of their
primary meanings (e.g. ‘bear’, ‘dawn’, ‘setting’) being intended or needed. We must
fall back on the regular cardinal terms in English.
Is the use of English compass bearings justified in the case of phrases denoting
either cardinal or ordinal points, or in the case of wind names? Should we render the
unfamiliar Thraskias as ‘north-west’ or ‘north-west wind’, the phrase ‘sun’s settings’ as ‘west’, and so on? But this, too, would impoverish the reader’s experience
and, as we have seen, can make texts harder to understand as well as diverging further from the original.
As Fowler remarks of the split infinitive, the correct response to such anxieties is
to ‘know and distinguish’.
53
A middle way seems best. A familiar starting-point for
translators is to try to replicate for modern readers, as far as possible, the effect a
text may be thought to have had upon ancient readers (or listeners),
54
rather than to
follow an ephemeral modern style. (Some early Penguin Classics volumes have
been said to adopt the style of a 1950s British civil servant.
55
) A suitable compromise, inevitably involving subjectivity at certain points, would be, as Raymond
Dawson opined in 1993, to offer a version that while ‘as close to the original as
52 Cf. R. B. Rutherford, reviewing Woodman 2004, at BMCR 2005.07.15, on ‘defamiliarising
(emphasising [a work’s] alien or remote qualities)’.
53 Fowler 1965, 579–82, at 579: ‘The English-speaking world may be divided into (1) those who
neither know nor care what a split infinitive is; (2) those who do not know, but care very much; (3)
those who know and condemn; (4) those who know and approve; and (5) those who know and
distinguish.’
54 A view famously expounded by Arnold 1861.
55 D. Nightingale, pers. comm, c.1978.
D. G. J. Shipley
6 Conclusion: An Enriched Experience
A translator should endeavour to replicate differences in the original. To ignore
variations in the Greek, and use only ‘north’, ‘east’, ‘south’, and ‘west’ whenever
any of the nine simple (one-word) cardinal terms in Greek is used, might seem
regrettable: it offers the reader less than one might; it could be a missed opportunity
to clarify the text; it may sometimes amount to falsifying the text.
Should we then veer to the opposite extreme, and always communicate the original senses of the terms? Geographical areas might in that case be said to extend
‘from the settings to the risings’, barbarian peoples to live ‘towards the midday’ or
‘in the dawn’, one place to lie ‘towards the setting’ from another, and so on. This has
something to commend it, in reminding the reader that the original texts are from a
very different cultural milieu
52
; but one risks attempting to teach the reader a new
vocabulary and change their understanding in a way that they may find rebarbative.
A translator cannot afford to lose their audience. We might gloss each term with an
insertion such as ‘(i.e. the north)’; but if we were to do so at every occurrence we
would make many passages less legible. The more serious problem with this
approach is that, on the basis of context, it is evident that Greek authors, as we have
shown, very often use these eight cardinal terms metonymically, no hint of their
primary meanings (e.g. ‘bear’, ‘dawn’, ‘setting’) being intended or needed. We must
fall back on the regular cardinal terms in English.
Is the use of English compass bearings justified in the case of phrases denoting
either cardinal or ordinal points, or in the case of wind names? Should we render the
unfamiliar Thraskias as ‘north-west’ or ‘north-west wind’, the phrase ‘sun’s settings’ as ‘west’, and so on? But this, too, would impoverish the reader’s experience
and, as we have seen, can make texts harder to understand as well as diverging further from the original.
As Fowler remarks of the split infinitive, the correct response to such anxieties is
to ‘know and distinguish’.
53
A middle way seems best. A familiar starting-point for
translators is to try to replicate for modern readers, as far as possible, the effect a
text may be thought to have had upon ancient readers (or listeners),
54
rather than to
follow an ephemeral modern style. (Some early Penguin Classics volumes have
been said to adopt the style of a 1950s British civil servant.
55
) A suitable compromise, inevitably involving subjectivity at certain points, would be, as Raymond
Dawson opined in 1993, to offer a version that while ‘as close to the original as
52 Cf. R. B. Rutherford, reviewing Woodman 2004, at BMCR 2005.07.15, on ‘defamiliarising
(emphasising [a work’s] alien or remote qualities)’.
53 Fowler 1965, 579–82, at 579: ‘The English-speaking world may be divided into (1) those who
neither know nor care what a split infinitive is; (2) those who do not know, but care very much; (3)
those who know and condemn; (4) those who know and approve; and (5) those who know and
distinguish.’
54 A view famously expounded by Arnold 1861.
55 D. Nightingale, pers. comm, c.1978.
D. G. J. Shipley