Part II. History of translation Chapter 1. Western traditions of translation § 1. Translation during antiquity

The first translation is traced to ancient Egypt (about 3000 B.C.) But European tradition is supposed to have started in ancient Rome.⁶¹ I.Tronsky claims that ancient Greek literature had nothing to do with translating fiction.⁶² Of course, this statement concerns only literary translation, since ancient Greeks had well-developed trade and cultural relations with other countries and, therefore, needed translators and interpreters.

The beginning of Roman literature is related to Livius Andronicus’ translating Odyssey from Greek into Latin. Livius was a Greek prisoner who had been captured by Romans and who did much for their culture. The father of Latin literature, Quintus Ennius, most famous for his Annales, also translated from Greek for the Latin theater.

The ancient world came to formulate the first conceptions of translation, developed as a result of the accumulation of translation experience. The primary challenge for the ancient translators and philosophers was the relationship between the source text and the target text. Two opposing schools appeared:

1. the rhetoric school of translation (Cicero, important for his translations of Greek philosophy into Latin, and Horace, who introduced the theme of translator as rival to the author) admitted a comparatively free translation of the source text and required strictly observing the rules of the target language;

2. the grammar school (beginning with the Bible translation from the second century) required word-for-word translation of Greek works into Latin.

Thus the Romans established the distinction between sense for sense and word for word translation.

As long as the Roman Empire existed, translation remained imperially important, with Emperor Augustus (63 BC – AD 14) setting up a translation office to assist in administering the Empire.

§ 2. Translation in the middle ages

The Middle Ages was the period when the Christian religion became firmly established. Naturally, the main object of translation was the Bible. At first, it was translated from Hebrew and Greek to Latin mostly. Latin had status as the target language, since it was the international language in science and church.

In the Middle Ages, the Holy Writ was believed to be a sacred book “where even the word order holds a mystery”,⁶³ not to be touched or changed. Therefore, transforming the form and content was considered to be a serious heresy, which resulted in the predominance of the literal translation of the Bible.

The greatest event in the early Middle Ages was the Bible as translated by St. Jerome (342-419/20). His Bible, known as the Vulgate, or standard Latin Bible, had great influence on succeeding generations of translators. During the Renaissance, he was regarded as the archetype of the humanist scholar, devoted to the beauty of correct form and language. Despite the fact that he had been neither a miracle worker nor a martyr to his faith, he was regarded as one of the Christian saints until the 17^th century, and recently the International Federation of Translators (FIT) has proclaimed Jerome’s feast day (September 30) International Translators Day.⁶⁴

Two years later, in the 4^th century A.D., the Bible was translated into Gothic, a Teutonic language by Bishop Wulfila (Ulfilas).

Of great significance in the history of translation was a translation school established in the 9^th century by the Anglo-Saxon king Alfred the Great. He inspired translators, who were mostly monks, to translate five Latin works into Old English. That was the first attempt at translating, as Alfred put it, “books that all men should know into the language that we can all understand,”⁶⁵ or the vernacular, mother tongue. The choice of source texts testifies to the wisdom of the king who would educate his people: books in history, geography, philosophy, theology, and ethics. The translation was mostly literal. One of the translators of those days was Aelfric (9-10^th c.), who made the first Latin to English glossary, an appendix to Latin Grammar; he claimed that translated words should preserve special features of the source language.

While the scientific text translation in those times was overly faithful to the source text, translations of fiction were, on the other hand, reworkings, conscious borrowings, and free adaptations of the ancient texts to the tastes and requirements of the translator’s community. To create a new work, a translator could combine several texts, extract and shift episodes, extend description of some abstracts, omit outdated phenomena and attitudes and so on. Therefore, these works might be called expositions rather than translations.