8 APRIL 1871, Page 16

BOOKS.

PROFESSOR JOWETT'S TRANSLATION OF PLATO.* [FIRST ARTICLE.] THE appearance of Professor Jo wett's long-expected translation of Plato is sure to give rise to a discussion of the principles upon which such a translation should be made. Two things are to be carefully distinguished in criticizing a work like this ; the object which the translator has had in view, and the extent to which he has succeeded in attaining it. The works of Plato form a turning- point in the history of philosophy, and may be regarded, as they have been regarded by Mr. Grote, almost entirely from the historical and philosophical point of view. In this case it is sufficient if the translator has grasped clearly the thoughts of the philosopher, and the dialectical method by which he reaches them ; and if he enables us to follow the chain of reasoning, with a full understanding of the meaning of the terms employed, and the successive links of the argument, he has done all that we can fairly claim from him. He takes up his position as an interpreter of the ideas of Plato to the student of the development of human thought, and if we understand that this is all at which he is aiming, we cannot blame him if he does not give us more. Of course, with any great writer the dress of the thought often forms an integral portion of the thought itself, and so must be preserved as far as possible, but still the details of the language may fairly be con- sidered as of subordinate importance. But then, on the other hand, Plato is not only a great thinker ; he is a consummate artist, working with supreme genius and the most laborious care on the finest material that was ever at the command of a literary craftsman. The simple sentence which stands at the beginning of the Republic was found on his tablets after his death, arranged in ten different permutations of the words. The great majority of his dialogues bear upon them the traces of the most minute elaboration of style ; the arguments sometimes are tentative, un- satisfactory, and inconsistent, but the one thing never wanting (except in the Laws, the production of his declining years,) is the exquisite harmony of the language, the clear and eloquent diction, the artistic skill with which all the resources of the most expressive of languages are brought to bear upon the perfect modulation of every sentence. If Plato is to be to English readers anything like what he was to the Greeks of his own day, his translator must show not only the fullest sympathy with his mode of thought, and a true appreciation of the intellectual and moral conditions under which he was working, but also a faithful adherence to the minutest details of his style, so far as the genius of the English language allows of it. In other words, a slipshod, free translation, whatever the other merits that it may possess, can never be the ideal translation of Plato. Now it is with feelings of very deep

• The Dialogues of Plato, Translated into English, with Analysis and Introductions By B. Jowett, Master of Balliol College, Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford. 4 vols. Oxford : Clarendon Press. 1871. regret that we find Professor Jowett deliberately contenting him- self with what we hold to be the lower and the less worthy standard. His version is in spirited, vigorous English ; it has a force, an eloquence, and often a delicate humour that make it most delightful reading; but when we place it side by aide with the Greek, the defect too often appears ; it is not as faithful as the copy of a work of highest art should be. This is so serious a charge, that we must support our words by instances in proof. It would not perhaps be fair to place any extracts from Mr. Jowett's translation side by aide with the versions which Dr. Thompson has given occasionally in his notes to the Phzdrus and the Gorgias; we cannot expect in a translation of all the genuine dialogues, that union of perfect precision with matchless grace which the Cambridge editor shows in isolated passages. But let us take a well-known passage from the Phzdrus, part of the charming description of the scene of the dialogue : lite- rally rendered it runs as follows :—" And notice again, if you please, how lovely and exceedingly sweet is the pleasant breeze of the place : it echoes back summer-like and shrill to the choir of the cicalas." In Mr. Jowett's version it stands : "Moreover, there is a sweet breeze, and the grasshoppers chirrup." Now we would ask what can be the advantage of laxity such as this ? Mr. Jowett may think that the details of the scenery are of little importance, but that was evidently not the opinion of Plato. In the whole of this passage every word is selected with the nicest care, and what we want is something of the same nice care in the version of his words. Instances of similar licence are to be found on almost every page, not always, it is true, marring the finish of Plato's art as grievously as in the example which we have quoted, but in every case giving us something which Plato did not write. We have only to compare a page of Mr. Jowett's translation of the Gorgias with the corresponding passage as rendered by Mr. Cope, to see how little is gained and how much is lost by such a freedom. The latter, while admitting that the interest of the work depends in no slight degree upon the external form and graces of style, holds that these can be best retained and the true spirit of the author only conveyed by a literal version. Mr. Jowett does not anywhere state his theory of translation, but we can gather it suffi- ciently from his practice. Take, for instance, the remarks of Polus on the position of Archelaus (p. 471. C). Mr. Cope renders them faithfully enough as follows :—" Doubtless therefore now, as he is the greatest criminal in Macedonia, he is the most miserable of all the Macedonians, and not the happiest ; and I daresay there are a good many people in Athens, with yourself at their head, who would rather take the place of any Macedonian whatever, than that of Archelaus." This is good enough English, and well brings out the force of every word in the original. Let us see how Mr. Jowett thinks it necessary to recast the sentence :—" And, now as he is the greatest criminal in all Macedonia, he may be supposed to be the most miserable and not the happiest, and I daresay that his misery would not be desired by any Athenian, and by you least of all,—certainly not ; he is the last of the Macedonians whose lot you would choose." Here we have quite sufficient modification of the words of Plato, to prevent Mr. Jowett's version from being a faithful representation of them to the English reader, and yet the gain is imperceptible. In very many cases, serious harm is done to the force as well as to the fidelity of the translation by this unhappy laxity. In the first place, the order of the words, which by scholars like Mr. Cope and Dr. Thompson is rightly retained, as far as allowed by the genius of the English language, Mr. Jowett appears to regard as of little or no importance. Compare, for instance, the Master of Trinity's version, "if I resolve that any one of them should have his head broken, broken it shall be," with Mr. Jowett's, "if I am disposed to break his head, he will have his bead broken," where we may notice, en passant, that the active sense ascribed to xterEctyivat is at the least misleading. Instances of this are to be found in almost every case where we have the means of comparing the two. This may seem to be a matter of little importance, but no small portion of the vigour of a version depends upon the observance of the stricter rule.

But again, this freedom of translation is very apt to encourage a careless rendering or entire omission of the numerous par- ticles which lend such life to the writings of every Greek author, but, above all, Plato. Mr. Cope on this point well re- marks :—" In omitting these particulars, we sacrifice in a great measure the expression, so to call it, of the dialogue. It is by these in a great degree that the irony,. the insinuation, the sneer, modesty, delicacy, reserve, hesitation, diffidence, vehemence, reso- lution, positive assertion, contempt, indignation, derision, and numberless other shades and refinements of thought, feeling, and character are conveyed, or, at any rate, aided and heightened ;

they give point to an observation and connection to an argument ; they are the light shades and delicate touches of the picture—like the play of features in the actor—hard to catch, easy to overlook or to misapprehend, but essential no less to the harmony and finish, the expression and character of the performance." It is certainly one of the hardest tasks of a translator to find adequate equiva- lents for these, but it is, nevertheless, one of his most imperative duties. We do not know whether Mr. Jowett holds that the lax style of translation which he has adopted absolves him from this duty ; we are quite sure that he frequently, almost habitually, neglects it, to the very great injury of his version. Sometimes, indeed, his omissions run the risk of being positively misleading, at; in the following passage of the Gorgias, which we quote first in the words of the Master of Trinity, and afterwards in those of Mr. Jewett :—" These statements, which were before shown in the course of our past discussion to be as I say, are, however uncouth the expression may sound, held firmly and tied fast by a chain of argument strong as iron or as adamant, as would seem, at any rate, on a prima, facie view."—" These things, which have been already set forth in the previous discussion as I now state them, have been fixed and fastened, if I may use an expression which is certainly bold, in iron and adamantine bonds, as would appear on the face of them." Here, besides the omission of yoih,, we may notice that 9coivra is much more fairly rendered "shown " than " set forth," being the usual Platonic phrase for truths which present themselves in the course of a logical discussion ; and that aypotxov means much more than "bold." Callicles had previously applied the epithet to a metaphor of his own, but Socrates, with his usual dpeivstco, declines to use it of any words of his opponent (substituting for it vtailz6v, which is the true equivalent of " bold"), and yet applies it with all its force of meaning to language of his own. This is a case in which inexact translation quite robs us of a very characteristic touch. It is much less common to find Professor Jowett making any slip, where it really affects the course of the argument ; but in one or two passages, in our judgment, he has done so. In Gorg.

480 E, he translates Et apa is rtvet xaxt.); if any one would harm another ; " but as the poet Gray long ago said, this leads to so monstrous a conclusion that we can hardly understand it, even in the mouth of the master of paradox,—Socrates. It is surely much better to translate it literally, "if, after all, it is our duty to do harm to any one," so long as we can do it without harm to ourselves, where Socrates is taking up the premisses of his opponent, and showing the absurdities to which they lead. We cannot quite understand what Mr. Jowett means (in Phsedr. 255 C) by "fluttering the passages of the wings ; " it is far more intelligible if we punctuate after &mrrspiliouv, supplying aior6v, and connect rets b,. cloud ri;:a IrrEPCZP with the following &past: and in the same passage, " as a breeze or an echo leaps from the smooth rocks and rebounds to them again," must be a mistrans- lation for " as a wind or a sound, rebounding from smooth and solid bodies, travels back to the point of its departure," as it is rightly given by Dr. Thompson. Nor can we admire the rainy passages in which he has endeavoured to give a modern tone to the language of the Athenian philosopher. "A bad lot" is language which strikes us far from pleasantly from the lips of Socrates ; "liberty, equality, and fraternity" have other associations for us than those of the Agora or the banks of the Ilissus. Mr. Jowett pleases us little when in the Euthydemus (p. 285) he thrusts in, with- out the shadow of a warrant in the Greek, the metamorphosed pro- verbfint experiment um in corpore senis ; he pleases us still lees when in the Republic he translates a sentence of Plato (very inadequately) by a couplet from Absalom and Achitophel. This tendency to modernize the old Greek philosopher comes out sometimes in another way which is positively misleading to the English reader. In going through a dialogue like the Plitedo, he would be struck again and again with phrases almost or exactly identical with those that are familiar to him in the pages of the Bible, and he could not fail to be impressed with the strange coincidences in thought and language. But the scholar would see at once that the Greek of Plato by no means bears so close a resemblance to the Greek of St. Paul or St. James, as the English of Professor Jowett bears to the English of the Authorized Version. The words of St. James, for instance, " Whence come wars and fightings among you ? coins they not hence, even of your lasts [or pleasures, bond] that war in your members," have a remarkable parallel in the Phado (p. 66 C). "For wars, too, and factions, and fightings are occa- sioned by nothing else but the body and its desires Cintluthictr]." But this parallelism is surely not a sufficient justification for Mr. Jowett's translation :—" For whence come wars, and fightings, and factions ? whence but from the body and the lusts of the body?" The last two points upon which we have been dwelling

are probably peculiar to Mr. Jowett, but in the other character- istics of his style of translation he is but the coryphteus of a somewhat numerous school. And it is just because he is the fore- most and ablest representative of this school, that we have dwelt at length on what may seem to be subordinate points. The excellencies of his translation are so many and so fascinating, that young scholars are extremely likely to take it as a model ; and nothing, we are sure, could be more dangerous. If a thorough and profound acquaintance with an author, an entire sympa- thy with his mode of thought, and we may add, the co- operation of several of the most distinguished Oxford lecturers cannot preserve a version, based upon the principle of laxity, from the numerous drawbacks to which we have called attention, we can readily imagine the results to which it is likely to lead in less skilful and experienced hands. If these things are done in the green tree, what will be done in the dry? The translations of the classical writers of Greece and Rome, pursued after the fashion of which Mr. Jowett has given us so brilliant and attractive a speci- men, will still retain many of its advantages. As a study of one of the most important periods in the history of human thought, as an initiation into the tentative methods of early metaphysics and psychology, as supplying us with some of the best materials for the science of historic criticism, it will always be most valuable. But the training to precision of thought and grace of expression, the patient investigation of the author's meaning by the closest study of his every word, the careful reproduction of his lightest shade of meaning in our own translation, in a word, almost all that disciplines rather than informs the mind will be gone, if our younger students are encouraged to take Mr. Jowett's translation of Plato as their model.

Liberavimus animas nostras. Hitherto we have had to speak of Mr. Jowett almost solely as of one who has lent the weight of his vast authority to a school which we are persuaded is doing very much to injure precise and accurate scholarship among us. In another article, we hope to enter on a far more pleasant task, that of doing justice to the brilliant, acute, sympathetic, and most suggestive introductions to the several dialogues, which make this work, in spite of its deficiencies, one of the most valuable contributions that has been made for years to the history of human thought.