OK, so older English sometimes gives us pause. What in the world does Holden Caulfield mean by this?
Women kill me. They really do. I don’t mean I’m oversexed or anything like that—although I am quite sexy. I just like them, I mean. They’re always leaving their goddam bags out in the middle of the aisle.
Nowadays complaining about women leaving their bags out isn’t half as taboo as saying, “Well, I am quite sexy.” The problem of course is that in such a highly Freudian world as ours, even Jane Austen seems troublesome when she talks about people being “intimate” or having “intercourse,” despite meaning nothing sexual at all. Even “love-making” back in her day meant saying sweet things to each other rather than doing something raunchy.
Nevertheless, let me say a few words in favor of older English—or, at least, older translations. I find very often in theology that older, even nineteenth-century translations are actually not only more accurate but even more understandable than recent gobbledygook.
Take for instance Tertullian’s Adversus Marcionem. Ernest Evans published a translation as recent as 1972. At the start of book II we find:
Marcion could only build up his falsehood by first breaking down the truth. He had to pull the other thing down before he could build up as he desired. In such a way do people build who have no tackle of their own.
OK, fine enough I guess. “The other thing” is vague and “no tackle of their own” sounds outdated and odd. Though I respect Evans as a scholar, the worst part is not that his text is confusing but rather that it’s a poor translation. The Latin reads:
Non enim poterat aedificare mendacium sine demolitione veritatis. Aliud subruere necesse habuit, ut quod vellet exstrueret. Sic aedificat qui propria paratura caret.
Here we find several problems. “Breaking down” obscures the clear construction/demolition imagery in the original. “Aliud” is not “the other thing” but rather “something else.” “Necesse habuit” is better rendered as “he took it to be necessary” rather than “he had to.” And most significantly, that weird part about “no tackle of their own” actually renders “propria” twice, taking it both as “something appropriate to the matter” (=”tackle”) and as “of their own.”
Yet the meaning is not that this would-be builder simply lacks materials but rather that this lack is evidence of poor preparation. A much better 1878 translation by Peter Holmes reads:
For he could not build up his mendacious scheme without pulling down the system of truth. He found it necessary to demolish some other thing, in order to build up the theory which he wished. This process, however, is like constructing a house without preparing suitable materials.
In addition to fixing Evans’s errors, Holmes’s “mendacious scheme” is a much better rendering of “mendacium” because it is clear that we’re not talking about a single lie but rather a broader mendacious system. While I think Holmes did not need to supply “a house,” he is almost certainly correct that Tertullian has such an edifice in mind when he talks about construction. This and many other examples lead me to conclude that Holmes is just the better translator. Not only is his version easier to read, but it’s also truer to the Latin text.
Looking at the issue more broadly, there are several reasons why older texts often (but not always) provide more accurate and readable translations. These include:
1. Older translation policies often prioritize literal translation over dynamic equivalency. Ironically, sometimes newer translators try so hard to make something make sense in common parlance that the text actually makes less sense on the whole. It’s like how too often we use the term “grown-up” when speaking to kids, as though they were incapable of understanding the word “adult.”
2. Older forms of English are more fluid and flexible. Nineteenth-century writers can still get away with “Made he the right decision?” rather than “Did he make the right decision?” and in some cases such word order can provide a more poetic and more accurate rendering.
3. Latin was more broadly taught and used by past generations. Now, we barely even teach our kids the rules of proper English!
4. Older translations do not waste time and energy on gender-neutralization and politically-correct terminology. I’m not strictly against gender-neutralization. Yet I do find that very often translators who emphasize this end up glossing over important aspects of meaning in order to cater to mere linguistic activism.
This latter point carries a caveat, however, in regard to the word “man.” Ironically, the word “human” is usually a more accurate rendition of the Latin homo than the older term “man.” Yet in English, the word “human” has long been awkward and has not had the kind of poetic function that “man” has had. So while “man” is in a sense less lexically accurate, it often carries a fluidity of meaning that is more functionally accurate in actual usage.
Tertullian is not the only case where the older translation stands out. Off the top of my head I can point to the 1857 Sibree translation of Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of World History (whose excellence is visible by its heavy reuse in the recent Alvarado translation; see my review). There’s also the older translation of Solovyov’s Lectures on Godmanhood, which I find far better than Jakim’s newer one.
Nevertheless, I always caution my students about using texts that are too old. If you can’t read a text because you keep confusing ſ with f, then ſurely you ſhould ſeek ſecurity in ſomething reſent!