Translation or Version. Both words are equally understood to mean a copy into a language of a discourse first expressed in another language as from Hebrew into Greek, from Greek into Latin, from Latin into French, etc. Ordinary usage, however, shows that these two words differ slightly, since the former is used in many cases when one could not use the latter; concerning the Scriptures, one talks about the Septuagint VERSION , the Latin (Vulgate) VERSION of the Bible , not the Septuagint TRANSLATION or the Latin (Vulgate) TRANSLATION . In contrast, Vaugelas is said to have provided, not an excellent version , but an excellent translation from Quintus Curtius.

It seems to me that a version is more literal, more attached to the original language's own processes, and more dependent, in its methods, on the technique of analytical construction. Translation is more concerned with the substance of thoughts, more careful to present them in a suitable form in the new language, and more dependent in its style on turns of phrase and idiomatic expressions in this language.

Hence, we say the Latin (Vulgate) version, and not the Latin (Vulgate) translation, because its author intended, out of respect for the holy text, to follow it literally and, in some way, to bring the Hebrew language to a popular level by using a semblance of Latin, the language from which he borrows the words.

Miserunt Judaie ab Jerosolimis sacerdotes & levitas ad eum, ut interrogarent eum: tu quis es? (John J. 19) These Latin words, but not idiomatic Latin, because such was not the author's intention; it is pure Hebraism that obviously comes across through this direct question, tu quis es : Romans would have preferred the indirect turn of phrase quis or quisnam esset ; but the integrity of the original text would have been compromised. Let us render this into our language by saying Jews sent him priests and Levites from Jerusalem, so that they would ask him, who are you? We will then have a French version of the same text: let us adapt the turn of phrase from our language to the same thought, and let us say, Jews sent him priests and Levites from Jerusalem to find out from him who he was and we have a translation.

The art of translation necessarily implies the art of version ; from this derives the fact that the translations from Greek or Latin into French that we assign to young people in our schools are appropriately called versions : first drafts of translation cannot and should not be called anything else.

The literal version is guided by the invariable process of analytical construction, which helps underline the idiomatic expressions of the original language and clarifies it by completing ellipses, by suppressing redundancies, and by bringing the deviations from the usual construction back to a correct natural order. See Inversion, Method, Supplement, etc.

To the discoveries of the literal version , the translation adds the proper turn of the genius of that language in which it claims to be understood: it uses analytical support only as a means to convey the thought; but it must convey this thought as it would be conveyed in the second tongue, as if it had been conceived in it and not drawn from a foreign language. Nothing may be cut off, nothing may be changed; otherwise it would no longer be a version or a translation , it would be a commentary.

Unable here to include a lengthy treatise on the principles of translation , let me just offer a general idea and start with an example of a translation that seems to me still reprehensible, even though it was crafted by a great master.

In his book entitled Brutus or Illustrious Orators , Cicero says: (ch. xxxj.) Quis uberior in dicendo Platone? Quis Aristotele nervosior? Theophrasto dulcior? Here is how M. de la Bruyere conveyed this speech on Theophrastus in French: "Who is more fecund and abundant than Plato? More solid and firmer than Aristotle? More pleasant and softer than Theophrastus? "

This is then a commentary rather than a translation, and a useless commentary, to say the least. Uberior does not signify both more abundant and fecund; fecundity engenders abundance, and there exists the same difference between the two as between cause and effect; fecundity was Plato's genius, and it has produced the abundance still found in his writings.

In its proper sense, Nervosus means nervous; and the immediate effect of this happy constitution is strength caused by nerves, both its instrument and its source: the figurative sense may replace the proper sense only by analogy, and nervosus must equally convey both strength or the cause of strength. Nervosior therefore does not mean more solid and firmer; the strength at stake in dicendo is energy.

Dulcior (more pleasant and softer); dulcior still means only softness , and to say "pleasant" is to add to the original: pleasantness may be an effect of softness, but it may be caused by something entirely different. Besides, why change the original? This is no longer a translation but a commentary, and it is no longer a copy but a disfiguration.

Add to this the fact that, in his so-called translation , M. de la Bruyere does not at all take into account these words in dicendo, even though in the original they are essential for determining the sense of these three adjectives uberior, nervosior, dulcior: for the analytical construction, which is the foundation of the version and consequently of the translation, implies the following sentence; quis fuit uberior in dicendo, prae Platone? quis fuit nervosior in dicendo, prae Aristotle? quis fuit dulcior in dicendo prae Theophrasto? Now, from the moment expression is at stake, it is obvious that these adjectives must express the effects that have produced the causes existing in the genius of the great men in question here.

These reflections would lead me to translate the passage in question in the following way: Who has more abundance in his elocution than Plato? More nerve than Aristotle? More softness than Theophrastus? If this translation is not as exact as it could be, I believe that at least I have shown what must be kept: the order of ideas in the original, the precision of its phrasing, the specificity of its terms. (See Synecdoche, par. 11 in the critique of a translation by M. du Marsais, and under the word Method, the version and the translation of a passage by Cic.) I admit that it is not always an easy task but he who does not perform it well does not attain the goal.

Nothing more difficult indeed and nothing rarer than an excellent translation , because nothing is more difficult or more rare than to find the happy medium between the freedom of the commentary and the servitude of the letter. Too scrupulous an attachment to the letter destroys wit, and wit gives life; too much freedom destroys the characteristic features of the original and becomes an unfaithful copy.

It is unfortunate that the passage of centuries has purloined the translations Cicero had made of Demosthenes' and Eschines' famous orations from Greek into Latin: they would appear be sure models for us to follow: all it would take would be to confer with them with intelligence to then translate successfully. Let us judge this by the method he had assigned himself in this type of work and to which he himself answers in his treatise de optimo genere oratorum . This is the most precise but most enlightened and truthful summary of rules fit to follow in translation ; and it may replace the most elaborate principles as long as one understands its meaning. Converti ex atticis , he says, duorum eloquentissimorum nobilissimas orationes inter se contrarias, Eschinis Demosthenisque; nec converti ut interpres, sed ut orator, sententiis iisdem, & earum formis tanquam figuris; verbis ad nostram consuetudinem aptis, in quibus non verbum pro verbo necesse habui reddere, sed genus omnium verborum vinque servavi. Non enim ea me annumerare lectori putavi oportere, sed tanquam appendere. (B. E. R. M.)