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are now almost worn clean out of use, which I
do not disallow, so it be done with judgment.
Some others would ampliate and enrich their
native tongue with more vocables, which also
I commend, if it be aptly and wittily assayed.
So that if any other do innovate and bring up
to me a word afore not used or not heard, I
would not dispraise it: and that I do attempt to
bring it into use, another man should not cavil
at. [296] George Pettie also defends the use of
232 Early Theories of Translation
inkhorn terms. Though for my part, he says,
I use those words as little as any, yet I know
no reason why I should not use them, for it
is indeed the ready way to enrich our tongue
and make it copious. [297] On the whole, how-
ever, it was safer to advocate the formation of
words from Anglo-Saxon sources. Golding says
of his translation of Philip of Mornay: Great
care hath been taken by forming and deriving
of fit names and terms out of the fountains of
our own tongue, though not altogether most
usual yet always conceivable and easy to be un-
derstood; rather than by usurping Latin terms,
or by borrowing the words of any foreign lan-
guage, lest the matters, which in some cases
are mystical enough of themselves by reason
of their own profoundness, might have been
made more obscure to the unlearned by set-
ting them down in terms utterly unknown to
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them. [298] Holland says in the preface to his
translation of Livy: I framed my pen, not to
any affected phrase, but to a mean and popu-
lar style. Wherein if I have called again into use
some old words, let it be attributed to the love
of my country s language. Even in this mat-
ter of vocabulary, it will be noted, there was
something of the stimulus of patriotism, and
the possibility of improving his native tongue
must have appealed to the translator s creative
power. Phaer, indeed, alleges as one of his mo-
tives for translating Virgil defence of my coun-
try s language, which I have heard discommended
of many, and esteemed of some to be more than
barbarous. [299]
Convinced, then, that his undertaking, though
difficult, meant much both to the individual
and to the state, the translator gladly set about
making some part of the great field of foreign lit-
234 Early Theories of Translation
erature, ancient and modern, accessible to En-
glish readers. Of the technicalities of his art he
has a good deal to say. At a time when prefaces
and dedications so frequently established per-
sonal relations between author and audience,
it was natural that the translator also should
take his readers into his confidence regarding
his aims and methods. His comment, however,
is largely incidental. Generally it is applicable
only to the work in hand; it does not profess
to be a statement, even on a small scale, of
what translation in general ought to be. There
is no discussion in English corresponding to
the small, but comprehensive treatise on -La
maniere de bien traduire d une langue en autre-
which Etienne Dolet published at Lyons in 1540.
This casual quality is evidenced by the pecu-
liar way in which prefaces in different editions
of the same book appear and disappear for no
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apparent reason, possibly at the convenience
of the printer. It is scarcely fair to interpret
as considered, deliberate formulation of prin-
ciples, utterances so unpremeditated and frag-
mentary. The theory which accompanies secu-
lar translation is much less clear and consec-
utive than that which accompanies the trans-
lation of the Bible. Though in the latter case
the formulation of theories of translation was
almost equally incidental, respect for the orig-
inal, repeated experiment, and constant crit-
icism and discussion united to make certain
principles take very definite shape. Secular trans-
lation produced nothing so homogeneous. The
existence of so many translators, working for
the most part independently of each other, re-
sulted in a confused mass of comment whose
real value it is difficult to estimate. It is true
that the new scholarship with its clearer esti-
236 Early Theories of Translation
mate of literary values and its appreciation of
the individual s proprietary rights in his own
writings made itself strongly felt in the sphere
of secular translation and introduced new stan-
dards of accuracy, new definitions of the lati-
tude which might be accorded the translator;
but much of the old freedom in handling ma-
terial, with the accompanying vagueness as to
the limits of the translator s function, persisted
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