The Perception Of The Translator In 1536 And 1546
Those who suppose translators lead hard lives today might want to consider the fate of their Sixteenth Century colleagues
. During the ten years between 1536 and 1546, three famous translators met their death. One was tortured first and then burned at the stake in that great center of civilization, Paris. The second was strangled and then burnt in the city of Antwerp. And even though our third colleague died more naturally, it wasn't because half of Europe didn't long to see him hanged, drawn, quartered, and impaled in pieces.
In the most dramatic of these cases, the ostensible reason for the translator's execution was that he had inserted three extra words in his translation, words not clearly present in the original. And in this one particular case, the "accreditation experts" were at least literally correct. The original Greek from Axiochus, a philosophical dialogue attributed to Plato, ran as follows, as transliterated into English:
Hoti peri men tous zntas ouk estin, hoi de apothanontes ouk eisin hste oute peri se nun estin, ou gar tethnkas oute ei ti pathois, estai peri sesu gar ouk esei.
The translation by tienne Dolet, our profession's most famous martyr, did in fact add three extra words and a great many others besides, though one of his biographers defends their use as adding to the clarity:
Pour ce qu'il est certain que la mort n'est point aux vivants: et quant aux defuncts, ilz ne sont plus: donques la mort les attouches encore moins. Parquoy elle ne peult rien sur toy, car tu n'est pas encores prest deceder; et quand tu seras dcd, elle n'y pourra rien aussi, attendu que tu ne seras plus rien du tout. (Sixteenth Century text as cited by Ballard and Copley-Christie)
The Greek is difficult, to say the least, though not because the words are at all obscure or exotic: in fact any second-year Greek student is likely to have encountered them. It is the particle-ridden and elliptical nature of these outwardly simple words that presents the problem, and few translators could make any sense of the passage without adding words to the text. I will take the easy way out and first translate Dolet's own translation from the French:
Since it is certain that death is not at all among the living: and as for the dead, they no longer are: therefore, death touches them even less. And hence death can do nothing to you, for you are not yet ready to die, and when you have died, death will also not be able to do anything, since you will no longer be anything at all.
In both the French and the English, it is the last three italicized words that furnished the grounds for execution. I am grateful to our colleague Dr. John Siolas for providing a more literal rendering of the Greek text (which he studied in school), as it highlights some of the problems this text has presented for various translators:
Hence, this is not for those who have lived, and not for those who have died; therefore, neither one is for you, you have not died, nor have you suffered; these have not yet happened to you.
Experienced translators are likely to recognize the nature of the problem. One requires truly deep knowledge of such texts to be absolutely certain of their meaning. So much is elliptical or left unsaid or couched in extremely simple terms that the worst offense Dolet can be charged with is perhaps excessive zeal. Unfortunately his accusers of 1546 were equally zealous, and it was their judgment which finally brought him him, at the age of 37, to the stake.
Now it's in German and finished; anyone can read and study the text; you can let your eyes run over three or four pages without ever hitting on a snag; and you don't even notice the stones and tree stumps that were there, because now you pass over all that as though on a well-polished surface; but we really had to sweat and take great pains before we could clear that road of stones and stumps.
Until the passage of these ten pivotal years, translators in the West had been viewed far more readily as heroes than as villains. They had opened all the ancient arts and sciences to the world around them, not only philosophy, astronomy, and geometry but the more advanced range of Arab mathematics, not to mention medicine, optics, and other sciences. They had even opened the door to the enormously popular studies of alchemy, geomancy, and astrology.
After 1546 this view of our field began to change, and increasing emphasis would be placed on the inadequacy of
translators and even the translation process itself. Despite the remarkable work of poet-translators like Chapman, Dryden, and Pope, it is this view which has largely prevailed until the present day. Thus, whenever we claim that we are going to change the public perception of the translatorwhich this writer firmly believes is possiblewe are not speaking of a simple overnight cure but of diagnosing and treating a complex and durable set of social attitudes, which may indeed have roots reaching back as long as 450 years ago.
Aunes Oversettelser AS has been in the business for 26 years, and we are specialized in technical
translations. We are specializing in the Nordic languages, and can offer services into Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Icelandic. The premier translation agency for Norway and the Nordic region! Technical translation services for businesses in the Nordic countries and translation agencies world-wide.
by: carmen
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