Charmides | Page 5

Balliol College, with whom I
had read over the greater part of the translation. I was also indebted to
Mr. Evelyn Abbott, Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, for a complete
and accurate index.
In this, the Third Edition, I am under very great obligations to Mr.
Matthew Knight, who has not only favoured me with valuable
suggestions throughout the work, but has largely extended the Index
(from 61 to 175 pages) and translated the Eryxias and Second
Alcibiades; and to Mr Frank Fletcher, of Balliol College, my Secretary.
I am also considerably indebted to Mr. J.W. Mackail, late Fellow of
Balliol College, who read over the Republic in the Second Edition and
noted several inaccuracies.
In both editions the Introductions to the Dialogues have been enlarged,
and essays on subjects having an affinity to the Platonic Dialogues
have been introduced into several of them. The analyses have been
corrected, and innumerable alterations have been made in the Text.
There have been added also, in the Third Edition, headings to the pages
and a marginal analysis to the text of each dialogue.
At the end of a long task, the translator may without impropriety point
out the difficulties which he has had to encounter. These have been far
greater than he would have anticipated; nor is he at all sanguine that he
has succeeded in overcoming them. Experience has made him feel that
a translation, like a picture, is dependent for its effect on very minute

touches; and that it is a work of infinite pains, to be returned to in many
moods and viewed in different lights.
I. An English translation ought to be idiomatic and interesting, not only
to the scholar, but to the unlearned reader. Its object should not simply
be to render the words of one language into the words of another or to
preserve the construction and order of the original;--this is the ambition
of a schoolboy, who wishes to show that he has made a good use of his
Dictionary and Grammar; but is quite unworthy of the translator, who
seeks to produce on his reader an impression similar or nearly similar
to that produced by the original. To him the feeling should be more
important than the exact word. He should remember Dryden's quaint
admonition not to 'lacquey by the side of his author, but to mount up
behind him.' (Dedication to the Aeneis.) He must carry in his mind a
comprehensive view of the whole work, of what has preceded and of
what is to follow,--as well as of the meaning of particular passages. His
version should be based, in the first instance, on an intimate knowledge
of the text; but the precise order and arrangement of the words may be
left to fade out of sight, when the translation begins to take shape. He
must form a general idea of the two languages, and reduce the one to
the terms of the other. His work should be rhythmical and varied, the
right admixture of words and syllables, and even of letters, should be
carefully attended to; above all, it should be equable in style. There
must also be quantity, which is necessary in prose as well as in verse:
clauses, sentences, paragraphs, must be in due proportion. Metre and
even rhyme may be rarely admitted; though neither is a legitimate
element of prose writing, they may help to lighten a cumbrous
expression (Symp.). The translation should retain as far as possible the
characteristic qualities of the ancient writer--his freedom, grace,
simplicity, stateliness, weight, precision; or the best part of him will be
lost to the English reader. It should read as an original work, and
should also be the most faithful transcript which can be made of the
language from which the translation is taken, consistently with the first
requirement of all, that it be English. Further, the translation being
English, it should also be perfectly intelligible in itself without
reference to the Greek, the English being really the more lucid and
exact of the two languages. In some respects it may be maintained that
ordinary English writing, such as the newspaper article, is superior to

Plato: at any rate it is couched in language which is very rarely obscure.
On the other hand, the greatest writers of Greece, Thucydides, Plato,
Aeschylus, Sophocles, Pindar, Demosthenes, are generally those which
are found to be most difficult and to diverge most widely from the
English idiom. The translator will often have to convert the more
abstract Greek into the more concrete English, or vice versa, and he
ought not to force upon one language the character of another. In some
cases, where the order is confused, the expression feeble, the emphasis
misplaced, or the sense somewhat faulty, he will not strive in his
rendering to