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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: language the character of another. In some cases, where the order is
confused, the expression feeble, the emphasis misplaced, or the sense
somewhat faulty, he will not strive in his rendering to reproduce these
characteristics, but will re-write the passage as his author would have
written it at first, had he not been 'nodding'; and he will not hesitate to
supply anything which, owing to the genius of the language or some accident
of composition, is omitted in the Greek, but is necessary to make the
English clear and consecutive.
It is difficult to harmonize all these conflicting elements. In a
translation of Plato what may be termed the interests of the Greek and
English are often at war with one another. In framing the English sentence
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