| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: to the text of each dialogue.
At the end of a long task, the translator may without impropriety point out
the difficulties which he has had to encounter. These have been far
greater than he would have anticipated; nor is he at all sanguine that he
has succeeded in overcoming them. Experience has made him feel that a
translation, like a picture, is dependent for its effect on very minute
touches; and that it is a work of infinite pains, to be returned to in many
moods and viewed in different lights.
I. An English translation ought to be idiomatic and interesting, not only
to the scholar, but to the unlearned reader. Its object should not simply
be to render the words of one language into the words of another or to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Myths and Myth-Makers by John Fiske: adopted it, were it not that by incidental references, and
especially by his allusions to the legendary literature of the
Jews, Mr. Gladstone shows that he means more by the title than
it can fairly be made to express. An author who seeks to
determine prehistoric events by references to Kadmos, and
Danaos, and Abraham, is at once liable to the suspicion of
holding very inadequate views as to the character of the epoch
which may properly be termed the "youth of the world." Often
in reading Mr. Gladstone we are reminded of Renan's strange
suggestion that an exploration of the Hindu Kush territory,
whence probably came the primitive Aryans, might throw some
Myths and Myth-Makers |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: They are simple people,' he repeated. He rattled away at such
a rate he quite overwhelmed me. He seemed to be trying to make
up for lots of silence, and actually hinted, laughing, that such
was the case. `Don't you talk with Mr. Kurtz?' I said.
`You don't talk with that man--you listen to him,' he exclaimed
with severe exaltation. `But now--' He waved his arm, and in
the twinkling of an eye was in the uttermost depths of despondency.
In a moment he came up again with a jump, possessed himself
of both my hands, shook them continuously, while he gabbled:
`Brother sailor . . . honour . . . pleasure . . . delight . . .
introduce myself . . . Russian . . . son of an arch-priest . .
Heart of Darkness |
