Marcus Tullius Cicero. “De optimo genere oratorum”
Lecturer’s Notes
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“I thought it my duty to undertake a task which will be useful to students, though not necessary for myself. That is to say I translated the most famous orations of the two most eloquent Attic orators, Aeschines and Demosthenes, orations which they delivered against each other. And I did not translate them as an interpreter, but as an orator, keeping the same ideas and the forms, or as one might say, the “figures” of thought, but in language which conforms to our usage. And in so doing, I did not hold it necessary to render word for word, but I preserved the general style and force of the language. For I did not think I ought to count them out to the reader like coins, but to pay them by weight, as it were. The result of my labour will be that our Romans will know what to demand from those who claim to be Atticists and to what rule of speech, as it were, they are to be held.”
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Translation as a means to improve style and language.
Cicero emphasized translating the spirit of the text over a word-for-word translation.
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The Interpreter
Approach: Literal ('word-for-word') translation
Status: Lower social standing
Criticism: Often perceived as having limited education and cultural knowledge
Style: Considered pedantic and sometimes vulgar
The Orator
Goal: create oral discourses to captivate listeners
Approach: Went beyond mere word-for-word translation
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In Roman times, ‘word-for-word’ translation was exactly what it said: the replacement of each individual word of the ST (in Greek) with its closest grammatical equivalent in Latin.
The majority of the Roman population would read the TTs side by side with the Greek STs.