Читать книгу Post-Biblical Hebrew Literature: An Anthology онлайн

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Wherever possible, I have attempted to retain the flavor of the original, and the translation is literal as far as the English idiom would allow. In a number of cases, notably Judah ha-Levi’s letter (XVIII, 3), a free rendering would, I fear, be meaningless. To my mind, only a literal translation is capable of doing justice to a literature of this kind. The King James’ Version of the Bible owes part of its charm to its literalness. Those translators were fortunate in writing during the formative period of the English language, before the various idioms became fixed. But even in more recent times the superiority of Burton’s Arabian Nights must be partly ascribed to its quaint literalness. This method has been wisely followed by Chenery and Steingass in translating Al-Hariri’s Assemblies, though they lacked Burton’s artistic skill. The average reader is probably not aware that the literal translator imposes upon himself a much severer task than the writer who merely gives a free rendering. The former, if he is a conscientious worker, attempts to reproduce everything, while the latter often allows himself to omit or vary difficult expression which task the translator’s skill. The unchary reader finds the free translation smooth and easy, and is liable to condemn the literal one, which is necessarily rugged.