Rendering Homer
According to the historian John Julius Norwich, the most beautiful line in the entire Iliad comes in Book VII, after the single combat between Hector and Ajax; night is falling, and the herald Idaeus urges them to stop fighting:
But night is already at hand; it is well to yield to the night. (VII: 282)
The number of published English versions of the Iliad is a testament to the range of different translations a single text permits. In the case of Homer, there is a four hundred year old tradition of translations, and each version reflects both the original text and the contemporaneous state of the English language.
The first complete English translation of the Iliad was that of George Chapman, published in 1616:
Hereafter we shall warre againe till Jove our Herald be,
And grace with conquest which he will: heaven yeelds to night, and we.
Chapman’s version is composed in what is, to us, a visibly archaic English (the strange use of ‘we’ instead of ‘us’, for example); he uses the iambic heptameter, a popular contemporary verse form. A century later, Alexander Pope published a version in heroic couplets. This version, whilst it still sounds strange to modern ears, is couched in a more recognisable idiom:
But now the Night extends her awful shade;
The goddess parts you; be the night obey’d.
Flaxman’s slightly later translation has the more oratorial:
Night comes, to Night’s advance, brave warriors, yield.
Cowper’s blank verse rendering has a reputation for fidelity to the original:
But the Night
Hath fallen, and Night’s command must be obeyed.
Interestingly, Murray’s modern, prose version seems closer to the more flowery Seventeenth Century translations than Cowper’s:
Moreover night is now upon us, and it is well to yield obedience to night’s behest.
Although QuickSilver has yet to attempt a translation of Homer, one of the lessons to be learned from this wealth of different interpretations can be applied to all types of translation, namely, that there is really no such thing as ‘the perfect translation’. Even two native speakers will often come up with quite different translations of the same text, both of them equally correct and idiomatic.
Sigrun
22/05/2011 @ 18:21
hi, good blog, and a good understand! at least one for my book marks.
Rodolfo Peña
24/05/2011 @ 06:12
True, there’s no perfect translation, but try telling that to a PM who wants to dock you for 30% of your pay because some proofreader says his or her rendering of a translation is better than yours.
John Gray
25/05/2011 @ 09:33
@Rodolfo: how right you are. This is partly why it is so important, as an LSP or freelance translator, to maintain a close working relationship with your client’s in-house reviewer. We have observed a curious fact: if you don’t communicate directly with the reviewer, he or she will cover any translation with red ink (reviewers don’t always appreciate the difference between ‘preference’ and ‘correctness’); however, even a quick phone call to the reviewer in question invariably reduces the number of corrections by a significant degree.
(Mutters: I’m sure Chapman didn’t have to put up with this… )