44 



E. J. SEWELL, ESQ., ON THE 



the work of many very different writers. The first clause, there- 

 fore, viz., that the Bible is a book — is a mis-statement. 



It may be thought that even though it be a mis-statement, 

 that is a matter which lias no bearing on the business of trans- 

 lation. But this is not so. Let us substitute in the original 

 phrase the true description. The Bible is the remains of an 

 ancient literature by many different authors, and therefore it 

 ought to be dealt with in the matter of translation like — like 

 what ? like other ancient literatures by many different authors. 

 But who has ever translated a literature ? And it will in practice 

 be found that whenever anyone proposes to lay down rules for 

 translating the Bible borrowed from the experience of other 

 translators, the rules are derived from the translation of some 

 one book, or, at least, of the works of some one author, Plato or 

 Homer or Dante. Now let us suppose the case of a man trans- 

 lating into Chinese. If he had to deal with a straightforward 

 prose narrative, he might have no great difficulty, and the 

 principles on which he should work would be fairly simple and 

 straightforward. But let him next have to take in hand a 

 passage of imaginative and impassioned prose from the writings 

 of Milton or Burke or De Quincey. I need not occupy your 

 time by quoting them: the kind of passage I mean will be 

 familiar to you all. Now, the questions that would arise for 

 settlement in deciding how to render such passages as these into 

 Chinese would be far more numerous and more complicated 

 than in the case of a plain narrative. And if our imaginary 

 translator went on to render a poetical passage — for instance, 

 one of Shakespeare's sonnets, such as that beginning — 



Full many a glorious morning have I seen 

 Flatter the mountain-top with sovereign eye, 

 Kissing with golden face the meadows green, 

 Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy. 



and so on — after, I say, our translator had rendered this into 

 Chinese or Swahili, he would have been compelled to find 

 answers to a number of questions as to principles and methods 

 of translation which would not arise in dealing with a single 

 book or even with a single author. 



It will, I think, follow that the rules laid down even by very 

 eminent and successful translators who have dealt only with a 

 single book or a single author will by no means necessarily 

 apply, as general principles, in dealing with matter of such great 

 variety as the contents of all the books of the Old and New 

 Testaments. 



