| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: tears were falling on the crust. Suddenly he
dropped the bread, seized her wrist, and im-
printed a kiss on her hand. She was not fright-
ened. Through his forlorn condition she had
observed that he was good-looking. She shut
the door and walked back slowly to the kitchen.
Much later on, she told Mrs. Smith, who shud-
dered at the bare idea of being touched by that
creature.
"Through this act of impulsive pity he was
brought back again within the pale of human rela-
Amy Foster |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: verse; and without tags of this sort, a translation of
Homer in verse cannot well be made to hold together.
There can be then, it appears, no final English translation
of Homer. In each there must be, in addition to what is
Greek and eternal, the element of what is modern, personal,
and fleeting. Thus we trust that there may be room for 'the
pale and far-off shadow of a prose translation,' of which
the aim is limited and humble. A prose translation cannot
give the movement and the fire of a successful translation
in verse; it only gathers, as it were, the crumbs which
fall from the richer table, only tells the story, without
The Odyssey |
