Non-native speakers can never have access to the original text by reading it in the original. They are in fact “reading” a third text heavily colored by their own native-tongue and largely based on highly subjective notions of what that text is saying. I love reading languages other than English. I read several romance languages, a bit of Beowulf, some Latin and Greek (Zero Hebrew, alas) and a handful of African languages. But when I read them it is a solipsistic and ultimately narcissistic activity that may or may not have anything to do with the author’s original intent.
Here’s a bit of Ugo Foscolo’s Alla Sera:
e mentre guardo la tua pace, dorme
quello spirto guerrier ch’entro mi ruggeSource: Antonio Garbin
I love to quote that. I love the way it sounds. I think I know what it means. But until it has been carefully and capably translated into my language by someone intimately acquainted with early-19th century Italian language and culture and the rest of Foscolo’s writing, I am going to have an imperfect knowledge of this text.
Here’s my translation:
While I behold your peace,
The warrior spirit within me sleeps.
I don’t pretend that it is a perfect translation. But I use the lines for my own purposes here in the 21st century that Foscolo would probably find wholly incomprehensible.
Don’t get me wrong. I admire my friendly bloggers out there who are advocating the study of the original languages. I envy them. I aspire to be like them. But I utterly resist and reject the notion that a devout believer is missing out on the truth because he or she is ignorant of Greek and Hebrew. God’s Word is always translated. In translation its truth is discovered. The cognitive mechanism by which a translator re-expresses another language in his own tongue is in fact the divine means of expressing divine truth. I said it somewhere else and I’ll say it again: If you are reading a translation of the Bible, you are reading God’s Word. “Going to the Greek” is almost in every case a step backwards not forwards.
Related posts: Greek, Hebrew and the Joy of S-x, Freaks don’t want no Greek, How big is your brain?, Not Pastor and Professor But Mom and Dad
I utterly resist and reject the notion that a devout believer is missing out on the truth because he or she is ignorant of Greek and Hebrew.
So do I. But I do think that a Bible teacher or translator who is ignorant of them is missing out on the fullest available understanding of the Bible. That is not to say that they get full understanding of the Bible just from the original languages. There is much more to it than that. Also our understanding will never be full, because we do not fully understand the original culture etc. But we should surely do the best we can.
What studying Hebrew has done for me is to show me that I may have some misconceptions in the English I love that I was fed from my youth. I use the energy of my rebellion in my love for God for God loved me in English first. The issues with translation then come to power and governance structure in the churches – and to the risk of power over others in the use of words. Someone said – it shall not be so among you. Learn the languages then but with love and in the Spirit – not with disdain, put down, or superiority. Bless the bloggers all – and the e-lists many for there is a good try at mutual help – let our energies be directed to such good. And yes, sometimes it means tearing down the presumptuous.
Bob, you make me think with your point about “power and governance structure in the churches”. I’m not quite sure what point you want to make. I certainly reject any use of the original languages to support a priestly or pastoral caste who know the languages and exclude those who don’t. So, while I think knowing the languages is important mostly for pastors etc, and translators, it is also important that some lay people, like myself, know the languages and can check that they are not being abused for the sake of “power and governance structure in the churches”.
O evening! . . .
You make me wander with my thoughts on paths
that lead to the eternal void, and all the while,
this evil time fleets by, and with it the mass
of care departs, and self-destructs along with me
and while I contemplate your peace,
the warrior spirit that roars within me sleeps.
A love sonnet to the evening, and to the end of strife which it entails (my translation).
It’s true that God’s Word (and Foscolo’s poetry) is always given in translation. The question is, how many steps backward are you willing to take in order to take, at least potentially, twice as many steps forward?
If you translate God’s Word from the Good News Bible, you take one step backward, and potentially two steps forward. If you translate the Word from the KJV, you take three steps backward, and potentially six steps forward. And if you translate the Word from the Hebrew, the Aramaic, or the Greek, you take six steps backward, and potentially twelve steps forward.
John Hobbins
ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com
Glorious poem! What is he referring to in “della fatal quiete tu sei l’imago”?
Could “Sera” be the girl that got away?
Glorious poem! What is he referring to in “della fatal quiete tu sei l’imago”?
Could “Sera” be the girl that got away? I’m thinking of Petrarch’s Laura.
I wish I knew for sure. It’s almost worth returning ad fontes to find out, isn’t it?
Foscolo wrote a history of the Italian sonnet, and consciously wrote within that tradition.
I wrote a wild and dark translation last night but I don’t dare publish it until Tuesday out of respect for my kind readers who don’t want to be shocked first thing on a Monday morning.
Oh, and what the heck is “ad fontes”?
Lingamish,
I don’t know how limited your internet access is but what you can do when faced with an expression like “ad fontes” is copy and paste it into google and the first hit will tell you that,
“Ad fontes is a Latin expression which means “to the sources.” (lit. “to the fountain”) It is associated with the renewed study of Greek and Latin classics …”
Of course, if you would rather tease people for using elitist and obscurantist expressions that is fine too…
using elitist and obscurantist expressions
I’m chief among sinners on that count. I understand vaguely the idea of ad fontes but here I wasn’t sure what he meant. Possibly time-traveling back to ask Ugo himself.
Wait til you see the doozy in today’s post.
[...] Related post: The Third Text [...]
[...] Note: For one of my favorite posts/rants on this same subject see The Third Text. [...]