New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-09-17
The Art Of Translation.


Nine. de Lafayette said that a poor
translator is like footman charged by his
mistress with the delivery of a graceful
message: "The more delicate the compli-
ment, the more certain it is that the mes
senger will spoil it." The Italian proverb
about "translators, traitors" is known the
world over. Translation is one of the fine
arts in theory. In practice it is usually
the reverse. It requires the rarest Of
gifts, of which thorough familiarity with
the resources of two languages is but the
teginning. 1t requires a sympathetic
knowledge of two cultures, two perspec-
tives, two attitudes toward life and their
expression in art No wonder that only
very few succeed in it. The King James
translation Of the Bible remains the
noblest example of the art in the English
language. The Greek dramatists have
found worthy Interpretation. But it is not
Of the classics that we would speak, but
Of the here and the now.
And in the here and the now all roads
cad to Russia, the country Of the most
difficult and subtle language since classic
Greek; the country, also, whose life is
most foreign to us in all the Western
world. Turgenev asserted that his books
could not be translated; that Russian did
rot bear translation into foreign tongue
without loss of those very elements which
make Russian literature what it Is. And
row a Russian woman, Nine. Jarintzov, in
a book on "The Russians and Their Lam
euage," informs us that her country s.
tongue reflects so many of the subtletiesI
of her nations mind that in large num-
Der of cases anything like an adequate
rendering is entirely impossible. There
are, she explains, no equivalents whatever
for many significant Russian words.
Gogol she pronounces altogether untrans-
latable. Incidentally she pays high trib-
ute to Mrs. Garnett's exceptional ability
as translator from the Russian.
But the masters Of all literatures have
suffered at the hands Of their translator
traitors. A poet like Bayard Taylor, who
turned Faust" into an English classic, vs.
rare. Among the Germans Heine has per
haps suffered most grevously of all. And
the modern Frenchmen! They have been.
bowdlerized as well as traduced without
scruple or art. st. Simon, Balzac, Ste
Beuve were fortunate in finding Miss
Wormeley, but Daudet lola, Bourget gen
orally fell into merciless hands. And the
Russians in the early days of their vogue.
They mostly reached us at second hand,
via German or French translations, them
selves none too good.
The root Of the matter lies not, how
ever, so much in the difficulties, the re-
ouirements Of the art, as in the low tinan-
cial value placed upon 1t by publishers.
II rarely pays the very men and women
best equipped for it. Mr.. Alfred a. knopf,
who makes a speciality Of the modern Rus
slams, complained only the other day that
conditions force him to buy his transla-
tons unseen, and INFESTED, in collabora-
ton with English publishers who are
feverishly taking advantage of the present
favorable book market. That competent,
&C nscientious, artistic translators can
easily be found if the work is made worth
their while is proved by Mrs Garnet )
English edition Of Dostoievsky, and, in a
no less difficult field, though the subtletics|
there are psychological rather than lin
guistic, by Mr.. Teixera de Mattos's trans
lations of Maeterlinck. 1t is a welcome
sign of the times that Stephen Graham
has begun the translation Of all that nc
considers best in the work Of the most in
tcresting of the new Russians, Alexander
Kuprin.