Translation and interpretation during the Middle Ages

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ing centuries. This may easily be noticed even from the latest (1992 and 1997) Ukrainian publications of the Holy Scriptures. For example, in Genesis 10:8 «Куш же породив Німрода 13... А Міцраїм породив лудів, і анамів, і легавів, і невтухів, і патрусів, і каслухів... 15 А Ханаан породив Сидона, свого перворідного, та Хета... Similarly in the Ukrainian Version of the Matthew's Gospel¹: Авраам породив Ісака, а Ісак породив Якова, а Яків породив Юду й братів його. Юда ж породив Фареса та Зару від Тамари. Фарес же породив Есфома, а Есером породив Арама. Арам породив Амінадава, Амінадав породив Наасона... (Chronicles, 1-46)².

English translators of the Bible have already for some centuries resorted to faithful sense-to-sense conveying of this and many other expressions. So they have managed to avoid these and several other literalisms of many Ukrainian (and Russian) Bible translators. Cf. Cush was the father (був батьком) of Nimrod... Mizraim was the father of the Ludities, Anamites Lehabites, Naphtuhites, Pathrusites, Casluhites... Canaan was the father of Sidon his firstborn and of the Hittites... Similarly in Matthew's Gospel: Abraham was the fa­ther of Isaac, Isaak the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers. (Matthew, 1)³.

Much was translated in ancient times also from Greek into Egyptian and vice versa, and partly from Hebrew into Greek. The next best known translation of the Old Testament into Greek, but performed this time meaning-to-meaning/sense-to-sense, was accomplished by Simmachus in the second century BC.Later on, with the political, economic and military strengthening of the Roman Empire, more and more translations were performed from Greek into Latin. Moreover, much of the rich literature of all genres from ancient Rome has developed exclusively on the basis of translations from old Greek. This was started by the Roman-Greek scholar Livius Andronicus who made a very successful translation of Homer's poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey in 240 BC, and thus laid the beginning and the foundation for a rich Latin belles-lettres tradition. That first successful translation was followed by no less successful translations of Greek dramas made by two Roman men of letters who were also translators, namely, Naevius (270 - 201 BC) and Annius (239 -169 BC).

¹ See: Біблія або Книги Святого Письма... Видання Місійного товариства «Нове
життя». Україна, Київ, 1992, р.9.

² See: Новий Завіт (Проект). - Київ, Біблійні Товариства, 1997, р.7.

³ See: The Holy Bible. New International Version. Zondervan Publishing House -
Grand Rapids, Michigan (USA), 1984, p.521.

A significant contribution to Roman literature in general and to the theory of translation in particular was made by the outstanding statesman, orator and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC), who brought into Latin the speeches of the most eloquent Greek orators Demosthenes (385? - 322 BC) and Aeschines (389-314 BC). Cicero became famous in the history of translation not only for his literary translations but also for his principles of the so-called «sense-to-sense» translation, which he theoretically grounded for translations of secular works. These principles appeared to have been in opposition to the principle of strict word-for-word translation employed by the translators of the Septuagint. Cicero held the view, and not without grounds, that the main aim of translators was to convey first of all the sense and the style of the source language work and not the meaning of separate words and their placement in the source language work/ passage. Cicero's principles of «sense-for-sense translation» were first accepted and employed by the outstanding Roman poet Horace (65-8 BC), who translated works from Greek into Latin. Horace, however, had understood and used Cicero's principles in his own, often unpredictable way: he would change the composition and content of the source language works that he translated. Moreover, he would introduce some ideas of his own, thus making the translated works unlike the originals. This way of free interpretation from the source language works in translation was accepted and further «developed» in the second century AD by Horace's adherent Apuleius (124 -?), who would still more deliberately rearrange the ancient Greek originals altering them sometimes beyond recognition. This, perhaps, was the result of an attitude of benign neglect by the Romans towards the culture of the Greeks, which began to be absorbed by the stronger empire. The Roman translators following the practice of Horace, and still more of Apuleius, began systematically to omit all «insignificant» (in their judgement) passages, and incorporate some ideas and even whole stories of their own. The translators began introducing references to some noted figures. Such a kind of translation made the reader doubt whether the translated works belonged to a foreign author or were in fact an original work. This practice of Roman translators, that found its expression in a free treatment of secular source language works on the part of the most prominent Roman men of letters, little by little fostered an unrestricted freedom in translation, which began to dominate in all European literatures throughout the forthcoming centuries and during the Middle Ages. There were only a few examples

of really faithful sense-to-sense translations after the afore-mentioned Greek translation of the Old Testament by Simmachus (second cen­tury BC) and its Latin translation by Hieronymus (340-420) in the fourth century AD.The latter demanded that translation should be performed not «word-for-word» but «sense-for-sense» (non verbum e verbo, sedsensum expremere de sensu). Unlike Cicero, who wanted to see in a translation the expressive means of the source language work well, Hieronymus saw the main objective of the translator first of all the faithful conveying of the content, the component parts, and the composition of the work under translation.

Often practised alongside written translation before Christian era and during the first centuries, was also the viva voce translation. Some theoretical principles of interpretation were already worked out by the then most famous men of letters. Among them was the mentioned above poet Horace who in his Ars Poetica (Poetic Art) pointed out the difference between the written translation and typical oral interpretation. He emphasized that the interpreter rendered the content of the source matter «as a speaker», i.e., without holding too closely to the style and artistic means of expression of the orator. Interpreters were, for a considerable time, employed before the Chris­tian era and afterwards in Palestinian synagogues where they sponta­neously (on sight) interpreted the Torah from Hebrew into Aramaic, which the Palestinians now freely understood.

The Middle Ages (ca. 500 AD -1450 AD) are characterized by a general lack of progress and a constant stagnation in many spheres of mental activity including translation and interpretation, which continued to be practised, however, in the domains of ecclesiastic science and the church. Thus, interpreting from Greek into Latin is known to have been regularly employed in the 6^lh century AD by the Roman church. One of the best interpreters then was the Scythian monk Dionisius Exiguus. The last historically confirmed official inter­pretation under the auspices of the church, this time from Latin into Greek, took place during the pontificate of Pope Martin I during the Lateran Council in 649. Interpreting outside the church premises was and is widely carried on up to the present day by Christian and other

religious missionaries who continue to work in various languages and in different countries of the world. Written translation as well as oral interpretation naturally continued to be extensively employed during the Middle Ages in interstate relations, in foreign trade and in military affairs (especially in wartimes). The primary motivation (рушійною силою) for linguistic endeavours in those times remained, quite naturally, the translation of ecclesiastic literature from the «holy languages» (Hebrew, Greek and Latin). Due to the continual work of an army of qualified researching translators, practically all essential Christian literature was translated during the Middle Ages in most European countries. Moreover, in some countries translations greatly helped to initiate their national literary languages and literatures. A graphic example of this, apart from the already mentioned name of Livius Andronicus, may be found in English history when King Alfred the Great (849-901) took an active part in translating manuals, chronicles and other works from ancient languages and thus helped in the spiritual and cultural elevation of his people. His noble work was continued by the abbot and author Aelf ric (955? -1020?) who would paraphrase some parts of the work while translating and often adding bona fide stories of his own. Yet, Aelfric would consider this technique of rendering as a sense-to-sense translation. Abbot Aelfric himself admitted, that in his translation of the Latin work Cura Pastoralis under the English title The Shepherd's (i.e. Pastor's) Book, he performed it «sometimes word-by-word» and «sometimes according to the sense», i.e. in free translation.

These same two approaches to translation were also charac­teristic of other European countries of the Middle Ages. Thus, word-for-word translation was widely practised in the famous Toledo school in Central Spain (the twelfth and thirteenth centuries) where the out­standing translator of that country Gerhard of Cremonas worked. The adherence to word-for-word translation was predetermined by the subject-matter which was turned there from Arabic into Spanish. Among the works translated there were scientific or considered to be scientific (as alchemy), mathematical works (on arithmetic, algebra, geometry, physics, astronomy), philosophy, dialectics, medicine, etc. However, in Northern Spain, another school of translation functioned where the «sense-to-sense» approach was predominant and transla­tions there were mostly performed from Greek into Hebrew (usually through Arabic). These same two principles, according to Solomon

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Ibn Ajjub, one of the greatest authorities on translation in the middle of the thirteenth century, were practised in the southern Italian school (Rome), which had fallen under a strong Arabic cultural influence as well. Secular works were translated in this school with many deliberate omissions/eliminations, additions, and paraphrases of their texts, which consequently changed the original works beyond recognition. This was the logical consequence of the method initiated by Horace and his adherent Apuleius, who applied their practice to free treatment of secular works under translation. That approach, meeting little if any resistance, dominated in European translation of secular works all through the Middle Ages and up to the 18^th century. The only voice against the deliberate and unrestricted «freedom» in translation was raised by the English scientist and philosopher Roger Bacon (1214? -1294), who strongly protested against this kind of rendering of Aristotle's works into English. In his work Opus Majus he de­manded a thorough preliminary study of the source language works and a full and faithful conveyance of their content into the target language.

No less intensively practised alongside of the free sense-to-sense rendering in Europe during the Middle Ages was the strict word-for-word translation. Its domain of employment was naturally restricted to ecclesiastic and philosophic works. By this method the first ever translation of the Bible from Latin into English was accomplished in 1377-1380 by the noted religious scientist and reformer John Wycliffe/ Wycklif (1320? - 1384) who worked at the translation together with his helpers N.Hereford and J.Purvey.

Strict word-for-word translation continued to be constantly em­ployed during the Middle Ages, and even much later in most Euro­pean countries to perform translation of scientific, philosophic and juridical matter. An illustrative example of this is found in Germany of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Thus, the prominent translator and literary critic Nicolas von Wyle (1410-1478) openly and officially demanded that translators of Latin juridical documents alter the German target language syntactically and stylistically as much as possible to mirror some particular peculiarities of classical Latin source language, which enjoyed the position of a world language in those times.

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