An Open Letter on Translating | Page 6

that it becomes a clear and complete German expression.
We do not have to ask about the literal Latin or how we are to speak German - as these asses do. Rather we must ask the mother in the home, the children on the street, the common person in the market about this. We must be guided by their tongue, the manner of their speech, and do our translating accordingly. Then they will understand it and recognize that we are speaking German to them.
For instance, Christ says: Ex abundatia cordis os loquitur. If I am to follow these asses, they will lay the original before me literally and translate it as: "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." Is that speaking with a German tongue? What German could understand something like that? What is this "abundance of the heart?" No German can say that; unless, of course, he was trying to say that someone was altogether too magnanimous, or too courageous, though even that would not yet be correct, as "abundance of the heart" is not German, not any more than "abundance of the house, "abundance of the stove" or "abundance of the bench" is German. But the mother in the home and the common man say this: "What fills the heart overflows the mouth." That is speaking with the proper German tongue of the kind I have tried for, although unfortunately not always successfully. The literal Latin is a great barrier to speaking proper German.
So, as the traitor Judas says in Matthew 26: "Ut quid perditio haec?" and in Mark 14: "Ut quid perditio iste unguenti facta est?" Subsequently, for these literalist asses I would have to translate it: "Why has this loss of salve occurred?" But what kind of German is this? What German says "loss of salve occurred"? And if he does understand it at all, he would think that the salve is lost and must be looked for and found again; even though that is still obscure and uncertain. Now if that is good German why do they not come out and make us a fine, new German testament and let Luther's testament be? I think that would really bring out their talents. But a German would say "Ut quid, etc.." as "Why this waste?" or "Why this extravagance?" Even "it is a shame about the ointment" - these are good German, in which one can understand that Magdalene had wasted the salve she poured out and had done wrong. That was what Judas meant as he thought he could have used it better.
Now when the angel greets Mary, he says: "Greetings to you, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you." Well up to this point, this has simply been translated from the simple Latin, but tell me is that good German? Since when does a German speak like that - being "full of grace"? One would have to think about a keg "full of" beer or a purse "full of" money. So I translated it: "You gracious one". This way a German can at last think about what the angel meant by his greeting. Yet the papists rant about me corrupting the angelic greeting - and I still have not used the most satisfactory German translation. What if I had used the most satisfactory German and translated the salutation: "God says hello, Mary dear" (for that is what the angel was intending to say and what he would have said had he even been German!). If I had, I believe that they would have hanged themselves out of their great devotion to dear Mary and because I have destroyed the greeting.
Yet why should I be concerned about their ranting and raving? I will not stop them from translating as they want. But I too shall translate as I want and not to please them, and whoever does not like it can just ignore it and keep his criticism to himself, for I will neither look at nor listen to it. They do not have to answer for or bear responsibility for my translation. Listen up, I shall say "gracious Mary" and "dear Mary", and they can say "Mary full of grace". Anyone who knows German also knows what an expressive word "dear"(liebe) is: dear Mary, dear God, the dear emperor, the dear prince, the dear man, the dear child. I do not know if one can say this word "liebe" in Latin or in other languages with so much depth of emotion that it pierces the heart and echoes throughout as it does in our tongue.
I think that St. Luke, as a master of the Hebrew and Greek tongues, wanted to clarify and articulate the Greek word "kecharitomene" that the angel used. And I think that the angel Gabriel spoke with