Schmitt C.B. (ed.) The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy
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Translation, terminology and style
87
Greek
lexical
and syntactic forms (particles, word order, certain participles,
various negative constructions) not present in classical Latin, medieval
translators developed codes which enabled them to map Greek originals on
to Latin versions with such precision
that
modern scholars can sometimes
reconstruct the Greek from the Latin.
27
What such versions can have meant
to contemporary readers who knew neither the translator's code nor the
Greek
that
it represented remains a puzzle, though the inclination of most
medieval
commentators to
treat
the Latia text as primary, not
intermediary, betrays the philological poverty of their philosophy. But it
was
tradition, not ignorance of Greek,
that
shaped the decisions
of
the best
medieval
translators. Jerome, who agreed with
Cicero
and Horace
that
sensus
was the criterion for secular translation, had as a student of the early
rabbis and a reader
of
the Septuagint insisted on rendering the
Bible
verbum
e
verbo since even its word order was an act
of
God.
Given
the celebrity
of
the
Vulgate
and its centrality for Christian philosophy, it was natural
that
Boethius
and
John
Scotus Eriugena should imitate Jerome in their
philosophical
translations and
that
later scholars should
follow
them.
28
While
the choice of meaning over word begins to distinguish Renaissance
philosophical
translation from
that
of this earlier age, it does not complete
the distinction nor do justice to the complexity of translation theory in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Besides meaning and word, four other
choices
for the locus of correspondence in translation emerged in the early
modern period: language (lingua), structure (ratio), content (res) and style
(eloquentia, elegantia, venustas etc.).
Faced
directly or indirectly with questions about the need for new
versions
of texts already available in medieval translation, Renaissance
scholars routinely replied by echoing Chrysoloras' denunciation of the
verbal
method. Yet the response of the most famous of the Renaissance
theorists, Leonardo Bruni, was more modulated: 'First I preserve all the
meanings (sententias). . .; then,
if
it can be rendered word for word without
any awkwardness or absurdity, I do so gladly;
if
not,... I depart a bit from
the words to avoid absurdity.'
29
He and other Renaissance translators also
27.
Troilo
1931-2,
pp. 276-7; Pelzer 1964, pp. 159-60; Minio-Paluello
1972,
pp. 203-4,
2
5
f"
2
, 259-60;
Dictionary of Scientific Biography 1970-80, ix, p. 436 ('William of
Moerbeke');
Goldbrunner 1968,
p.
208.
28. Troilo
1931-2;
Bruni 1928, p. 96; Schwarz 1944; Kloepfer 1967, p.
19;
Stinger
1977,
pp.
19-20,101-
2,
107.
29.
Bruni
1741,1,
p. 17: 'Primo igitur sententias omnes ita conservo ut ne vel minimum quidem ab illis
discedam. Deinde si verbum verbo sine ulla inconcinnitate aut absurditate reddi potest, libentissime
omnium id ago; sin autem non potest, . . . paulisper a verbis recedo ut declinem absurditatem';
Medioevo e Rinascimento 1955, 1, p. 363 (Garin).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
88
Translation, terminology and style
explained why a consistent ad
verbum
method was unworkable. One great
obstacle was idiom: because a phrase like gero tibi
morem
('I humour you')
was
not the sum of its
lexical
parts
('I do' 4- 'to you' + 'conduct'), making
each word a unit of translation was literally senseless. Another was the
necessity for translating a
given
Greek word, such as Xoyos, by a variety of
Latin words (verbum, sententia, dispositio,
ratio)
in the same text, or the desire
to render a single Greek word, such as alo&rjrd, periphrastically in Latin (ea
quae sensibuspercipiuntur) .
30
Such technical considerations, reinforced by the
Ciceronian
conviction
that
the aesthetic and semantic properties of
language were inseparable and, perhaps, by the ambiguity of the word
sententia ('meaning'/'sentence'), convinced most
of
Bruni's successors to opt
for
meaning over word. But in the sixteenth century, some translators who
specialised
in philosophy, like Simone Simoni, praised the verbal method
for
its precision and for its terminological continuity with the medieval
textual tradition. Even in Bruni's century, George of Trebizond, whose
work
as a translator was broader
than
Simoni's, explicitly preferred to
render philosophical texts 'word for word as far as Latinity permits', a
decision
which seems to have governed Ficino's translating as
well.
31
Although
early modern scholars rejected the word as a unit
of
translation
in their ideological statements, in practice important translators like Ficino,
George
of Trebizond and Bruni continued to strive for some measure of
verbal correspondence when rendering philosophical texts. They had two
practical reasons for doing so. First, since the whole terminological
structure of western philosophy after
Cicero
rested on direct or indirect
Latinisation of Greek texts,
there
was a premium on preserving an
intellectual edifice erected at such cost. Lorenzo
Valla
was apparently
willing
to dispense with terminological continuity in order to advance his
own
powerful but idiosyncratic philosophy of language, as Perion and
others were ready to sacrifice it on the altar of Ciceronianism. But not all
Renaissance translators were so radical; their caution is evident in the fact
that
much
of
their work lies along a continuum between original translation
and simple revision.
32
Here was a second motive for modifying
rather
than
discarding the verbal method: revising, which for an acquired language is
30. Medioevo e Rinascimento 1955, 1, p. 344 (Garin); Bruni 1928, p. 84; Platon et Aristote 1976, p. 384
(Stegmann); Schmitt 1983a, p. 75.
31.
George of Trebizond 1984, p- i9
J
: 'conatus sum, ut in Physico etiam
feci
auditu, verbum verbo
prout Latinitas
patitur
reddere'; Minio-Paluello 1972, p. 265;
Harth
1968, p. 56; Schmitt 1983a, p.
81;
Hankins 1983, pp.
150—1.
32.
Garin
1951,
pp. 61,66-7,70,74,78;
Seigel
1968, pp.
116-19;
Schmitt 1983a, pp. 65-6; Hankins 1983,
pp. 154, 209-10.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Translation, terminology
and
style
8
9
quicker
and
safer
than
translating de
novo,
inclines one
to
consider
and
often
to preserve
a
predecessor's choice
of
words.
The
evolution
of
texts through translation
by
revision
is
visible
in the
following
Latin versions
—
two
medieval,
six
early modern
—
of
the
first
sentence
of the
Nicomachean Ethics,
a
favourite
of
humanist translators;
changes
in
successive versions
are
italicised:
1.
Паса
т€.ууг)
ка1
ттаоа
pe&oSos,
opoicos
be irpa^is те ка1
TTpoaipeais,
ayad'ov
TWOS
i<f)L€o6aL 8OK€L-
816
каХа>д
аттеф^уауто
rayad'ov, ov
TTOLVT'e^tVrcu.
(I.I
(i094
a
i-3),
ed.
I.
Bywater;
22
words)
2.
Every
art
and every mode
of
enquiry
-
likewise,
moral action and choice
-
is
thought
to
aim
at
some good;
thus
they have rightly defined the good as
that
at which
all
things aim. (B.
P.
Copenhaver;
33
words)
3.
Omnis
ars
et
omnis doctrina, similiter autem
et
operatio
et
proheresis boni
alicuius
operatrix esse videtur; ideoque optime enuntiant bonum, quod
omnia optant.
(Ethica nova;
c.
1200;
23
words)
33
4.
Omnis ars
et
omnis doctrina, similiter autem
et
actus
et
eleccio
bonum quoddam
appetere
videtur;
ideo bene enunciaverunt
bonum, quod omnia
appetunt.
(Robert Grosseteste;
1246-7;
22
words)
34
5.
Omnis
ars
omnisque
doctrina, similiter autem
et
actus
et
electio bonum
quoddam appetere videtur;
quapropter
bene
ostenderunt
summum
bonum,
quod
omnia appetunt. (Leonardo Bruni;
1416—17;
22
words)
35
6. Omnis
ars
omnisque doctrina, similiter autem
et
actu
et
electio bonum
quodam appetere videtur; quo
circa
bene enunciaverunt
ipsum bonum,
quod
omnia appetunt. (Giannozzo Manetti; before 1457;
23
words)
36
7.
Omnis
ars
omnisque doctrina,
atque
actus
itidem
et electio bonum quoddam
appetere videtur; quapropter bene
veteres
bonum ipsum
id esse dixerunt,
quod
omnia appetunt. (Johannes Argyropulos;
c.
1460;
24
words)
37
8. Omnis
ars
omnisque
discendi
via,
actio item atque
electio bonum quoddam
expetere
videtur; quapropter bene
id
esse bonum ipsum
asseruerunt,
quod
omnia
expetunt.
(Giovanni Bernardo Feliciano;
1541;
23
words)
38
9.
Ars
omnis
et
omnis doctrina,
itemque
actio
et
propositum
bonum aliquod
expetere videtur;
itaque probe
bonum
dejinierunt,
id
quod expetunt omnia.
(Adrien
Turnebus; 1555;
21
words)
39
10.
Omnis
ars
omnisque
docendi
via,
atque institutio
itemque actio
et
consilium
bonum aliquod appetere videtur;
iccirco
pulchre
veteres
id
esse bonum
pronunciaverunt,
quod omnia appetunt. (Denys Lambin; 1558;
25
words)
40
The
translators render Aristotle's twenty-two Greek words with
a
maximum
of
twenty-five Latin words,
and
although these vary consider-
ably
across
the
eight versions — especially
for
problematic terms like
33.
Pelzer 1964,
p.
133.
34.
Aristotle 1972,
p. 1.
35.
Aristotle 1479,
sig.
bi
r
. 36.
Garin 1951,
p. 72.
37.
Aristotle 1549a,
p.
603.
38.
Aristotle
and
Averroes 1562-74,
in, p. 1.
39. Aristotle 1567,
p. 1. 40.
Aristotle 1566,
p. 1.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
90
Translation, terminology
and
style
fxe&oSos,
7Tpoaipeois,
Taya&ov
and
aTre^iqvavTO
—
the
continuity from
revision
to
revision
is
clear.
On
average, about three-quarters
of the
text
remains stable, reckoning stability
as the
tendency
to
preserve features
of
earlier versions
and
counting even stylistic
and
minor changes;
in
fact,
though this single case cannot necessarily
be
taken
as
representative,
it
suggests
greater distance between Grosseteste
and the
older medieval
version
than
between Grosseteste
and
Bruni
or
Lambin. Medieval
translations
ad
verbum
influenced even
the
humanist productions meant
to
replace them.
The
humanists' desire
to
make language (lingua)
an
additional locus
of
correspondence
for
translation
is a
stronger clue
to
their philological
intentions
than
criticism
of
the verbal method. Bruni formulated this point
most clearly
and
repeated
it
several times:'A translation is entirely correct if
it corresponds
to the
Greek;
if
not,
it is
corrupt. Thus,
all
argument about
translation moves from
one
language (lingua)
to
another.'
41
His conception
of
translation
as the
transference
of an
author's text from lingua Graeca
to
lingua Latina meant
that
both version
and
original, along with their
linguistic
contexts, were human objects, ephemeral
but
philologically
accessible,
conditioned
by
time
but
knowable through history.
The
very
different ideas
of
Bruni's most forceful critic,
Alonso
de
Cartegena,
highlight
the
diachronic character
of
Bruni's philological scheme
of
translation. Where Bruni insisted
on
fidelity
to the
historically contingent
language
of the
original,
Alonso
required fidelity
to a
privileged
metachronic structure (ratio) discoverable
in the
text
but
unconstrained
by
history
and
expressible
in any
language. 'Reason (ratio)
is
common
to
every
people',
he
argued, 'though
it
is expressed
in
various idioms. So let
us
discuss
whether
the
Latin language supports
[a
translation],
. . .
whether
it
agrees
with
reality
(res
ipsae),
not
whether
it
accords with
the
Greek.' Alonso's
views
were compatible with
the
philosophical grammar
of
the later Middle
Ages
which, despite
its
unconscious commitments
to
Latin
as the
learned
lingua franca, attempted
to
expose timeless structures belonging
to
language-in-general
and
deriving somehow from reality.
His
thoughts also
foreshadowed
the
witty question
that
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola asked
later
in the
century
in his
debate with Ermolao Barbaro:
'Can
people
live
without hearts
if
they
are all
tongue (lingua),
are
they
not
then
. . .
simply
dead dictionaries (glosaria)V Pico meant
that
a
language, whose phonetic
41.
Birkenmajer 1922,
p.
189: 'interpretatio autem omnis recta,
si
Graeco respondet, vitiosa
si non
respondet. Itaque omnis interpretationis contentio unius linguae
ad
alteram est'; ibid.,
pp.
194,
204;
Bruni 1928,
p. 83;
Troilo
1931-2,
p. 383;
Harth
1968,
p. 46.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Translation, terminology and style
9i
properties make it a material entity, can
fall
short
of
the deeper, immaterial
thoughts it tries to express, which, so he argued, is why Pythagoras would
have
preferred to explain his philosophy through silence
rather
than
speech.
42
Pico
also wrote
that
Cicero
advised 'settling the thought
(mens) rather
than
the expression (dictio), taking care to guide the reason (ratio), not the
speech
(oratio)', but Bruni and most other humanists took the opposite
lesson
from
Cicero
and Quintilian
—
the primacy of oratio over ratio as the
distinctly human activity. Bruni consequently saw translation as a
transformatio
orationis, where oratio represented an indissoluble amalgam of
semantic and aesthetic values.
43
This implied
that
style (eloquentia, elegantia)
was
also a locus of correspondence between text and version, and it
stimulated the translator's own artistic ambitions. Bruni knew
that
Cicero
in his translations had rejected the duties of a mere go-between (interpres),
insisting on the orator's creative role.
Likewise,
Poggio
Bracciolini claimed
the rights of an author (scriptor) for himself as translator.
Valla
and Dolet
urged the translator not to reproduce but to improve upon the formal
qualities of the original, and Bruni compared his work to
that
of the poet,
sculptor or painter,
thus
attributing to the translator the artist's autonomy.
Introducing a revision of his Physics translation, Argyropulos advised
'transferring the author's sententiae but using a greater number
of
words
to
extend their meaning', and in his De anima Perion called himself 'an
interpreter and evaluator of words . . . not of content (res)'.
44
The
Ciceronian
Perion carried the oratorical ideal in translation to its extreme
by
confining
himself
to the philological dimension
of
the text and ignoring
its philosophical content, but most Renaissance translators regarded content
(res) as another locus
of
correspondence. Even
Argyropulos,
often dismissed
as a paraphraser, admitted
that
'both issues are rightly of concern to us . . .
42.
Birkenmajer 1922, p. 166: 'Ratio enim omni nationi communis est, licet diversis idiomatibus
exprimatur. An ergo Latina lingua toleret proprieque scriptum sit et rebus ipsis concordet, non an
Graeco
consonet, discutiemus'; Prosatori latini 1952, p. 820: 'qui, excordes, toti
sunt
lingua, nonne
sunt
mera, ut Cato ait, mortua glosaria?
Vivere
. . . sine corde nullo modo possumus'; ibid., pp. 810,
813-14;
Harth
1968, pp. 44-8; Ashworth
1974a,
pp. 26-7;
Apel
1963, p. 162.
43.
Prosatori latini 1952, p. 814: 'Tullius . . . sciebat
tarn
prudens quam eruditus homo, nostrum esse
componere mentem potius quam dictionem, curare ne quid aberret ratio, non oratio'; Chomarat
1981,1,
pp. 62-7;
Seigel
1968, p.
159;
Apel
1963, p.
171;
Kelley
1970a, pp. 28-9;
Harth
1968, pp. 43,
53-
44.
Garin 1951, p. 84: 'recte quidem sententias referentes auctoris, latius autem eas explicandas
pluribusque verbis'; Aristotle
1553a,
p. 100: 'Verborum enim in iis sum, non rerum, explanator
atque aestimator'; Platon etAristote
1976,
p. 363 (Cranz); Minio-Paluello
1972,
p. 268; Schwarz 1944,
p.
74; Cuendet 1933, p. 382; De Petris
1975,
p. 18; Gravelle
1972,
p. 281; Bruni 1928, pp. 83-6, 127;
Apel
1963, pp.
181-2;
Critical Prefaces 1950, p. 81.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
92
Translation, terminology and style
understanding of content . . . and elegance of language'. However, the
distinction between res and ratio as bases of translation remains unclear in
Renaissance theorists, and the meaning of terms as broad as these was
predictably slippery. To
Alonso
de Cartagena res could mean 'the reality
represented' by a text, while for Salutati it seems to have meant something
like
'style' as
well
as 'content'.
45
ORATORY
AND
STYLE
IN
PHILOSOPHICAL
DISCOURSE
Salutati's student Roberto Rossi prefaced his version of the Posterior
Analytics with an apologetic defence of style: 'How would it harm the
work',
he asked, 'if it were more pleasant?' By the end of the century,
eloquence
was better established as a value in philosophical translation. It
was
the
chief
motivation, for example, of Ermolao Barbaro's unfulfilled
plan for a complete Latin Aristotle, in which he would 'render all the works
and enhance them with as much clarity, taste and elegance as possible'.
46
Despite
elements of continuity between their work and
that
of their
medieval
predecessors, Renaissance translators constructed their sense of
style
in terms of historical polemic, against the backdrop of the regretted
decline
of antiquity into barbarity and the contemporary campaign to
recover
ancient culture. The obligation to translate philosophy was
given
in
the humanist programme, yet it was important
that
duty should not be
drudgery,
that
it should be an ennobling service to high culture. This is what
made Bruni's slogan of
transformatio
orationis so meaningful in its time. If
translation was akin to oratory, then it was fit work for the intellectual hero,
the orator, as
Cicero
and Quintilian had described him. But oratorical
translation also implied commitment to classical rhetoric, an approach to
language
which since the age
of
the sophists had possessed its own technical
baggage
as
well
as certain anti-philosophical impulses. Thus, when Bruni
obliged
the translator of Plato or Aristotle to render figures of speech
(jigurae dicendi) and embellishments (exornationes) as
well
as meaning, he had
in mind something
that
was profounder
than
prettification but also unlike
poetry.
47
45.
Argyropulos to Cardinal Delia Rovere in his second version of the De anima, cited by Minio-
Paluello
1972, p. 268: 'Utrumque curae non iniuria nobis est . . . rerum inquam notitia . . . et
elegantia linguae . . .';
Seigel
1968, pp.
116—17.
46.
Roberto Rossi's dedication
of
his version
of
the Posterior Analytics, c. 1406, cited in Garin
1951,
p. 60:
'Quod
si suavior etiam ilia fuisset, quid tamen in hoc opere detrimenti?'; ibid., p. 88: 'omnes
Aristotelis
libros converto, et quanta possum luce, proprietate, cultu exorno'; ibid., pp. 89-90.
47.
Seigel
1968, pp. 6-19,
31-62,
103; Bruni 1928, pp. 86-90,
133-4;
Harth
1968, pp. 53, 56, 58; De
Petris 1975, pp. 24-5.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Translation, terminology and style
93
But
since Boethius had set out to make a Latin Aristotle,
there
existed
another, anti-rhetorical strain of philosophical translation which feared a
view
like Bruni's as a
threat
to meaning.
Alonso
represented this other
tradition when he complained
that
one 'who think[s] to subjugate moral
meaning to eloquence, ... to subordinate the most involved arguments of
the sciences to the rules
of
eloquence,
does not understand
that
the rigour of
science
abhors the adding and subtracting of words
that
belongs to
charming persuasion'. Giovanni
Pico,
George of Trebizond, Johannes
Dullaert and others also represented it when they said
that
eloquence was
unnecessary or indeed undesirable in philosophical discourse.
48
There were
concomitant objections to pleasure as a goal of philosophical translation,
even
though in making their work enjoyable and easy to read the basic
motive
of
the humanist translators was pedagogic. In general, since oratory
was
meant to result in action, the persuasion
that
Alonso
distrusted was the
primary object of eloquence: translation must charm if it hopes to teach.
Moreover,
translation as
transformatio
orationis required an oratorical
education in language, letters and history. Bruni considered this humanist
curriculum an antidote to the barbarism of the schools, but a university
philosopher like Agostino
Nifo
worried
that
it would disqualify the young
for
the study
of
philosophy.
Bruni called the orator 'the agent
of
truth',
but
Pico
wished to exclude his rhetorical
arts
from philosophy because they
were
deceptive and beguiling.
49
These anxieties were justified.
Valla,
who
spoke
of'the great sacrament
of
Latin
speech' and referred to 'the eloquent
.
. . [as] pillars of the church', taught
that
'petty reasonings of dialec-
ticians . . . metaphysical obscurities and . . . modes of signification should
not be mixed up in sacred enquiries . . . since [the Fathers] did not lay the
foundations of their arguments on philosophy'. He and Erasmus and
Juan
Luis
Vives
gave authoritative
voice
to the anti-philosophical impulse in
oratorical humanism, which was muted by an older conviction, present
48. Birkenmajer 1922, p. 175: 'errorem illorum . . . qui
putant
sententiam moralem eloquentiae
subiugandam . . . qui scientiarum districtissimas conclusiones eloquentiae regulis subdere vult, non
sapit, cum verba addere ac detrahere ad persuasionis dulcedinem pertinet, quod scientiae rigor
abhorret'; Grabmann
1926—56,1,
pp. 443-4; Fubini
1966,
p. 339; Schwarz 1944, p. 76; Gravelle 1972,
p.
276; Schmitt 1984, § vm, p.
133;
Vives
1979a,
pp.
20—1;
Hubert
1949,
p. 229; George
of
Trebizond
1984,
p. 303. It should be noted (cf. Gray 1963, pp. 507—10)
that
in Pico's debate on eloquence with
Barbaro, elements of irony, satire and rhetorical convention make a consistently literal
interpretation of his remarks problematic.
49.
Bruni 1928, pp.
133-4:
'poetae quidem multa conceduntur, quo in re ficta delectet . . .; oratori
autem, qui est veritatis actor, haec superflua verborum adjunctio . . . fidem rebus . . . minueret
.
. .'; Prosatori latini
1952,
p. 808; Medioevo e Rinascimento
1955,1,
p. 362 (Garin); Hubert 1949, p. 216;
DePetris
1975,
pp.
16-17;
W. F. Edwards
1969,
p. 85o;Harth 1968, p. 43; Heath
1971,
pp. 31,40,63-
4;
Ashworth
1974a,
p. 22, 1976, p. 358;
Vives
1979a,
pp. 20-1.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
94
Translation, terminology and style
from Petrarch to Bruni and beyond,
that
rhetoric could join with
philosophy in a practical, persuasive wisdom.
50
The
source of this belief, of course, was
Cicero,
whose philosophical
authority seemed as compelling to the humanists as
that
of Plato or
Aristotle.
They were aware of Cicero's achievements in translating Greek
philosophy and in creating a Latin philosophical terminology; his success
proved to them
that
his Latin was an adequate vehicle for philosophy.
Eventually,
however, the doctrinaire Ciceronianism
that
Erasmus ridiculed
and the dissatisfaction of professional philosophers with Ciceronian
versions more elegant
than
clear (Perion's De
anima
required a glossary in
more familiar Latin) betrayed the shortcomings of the oratorical style.
51
Censuring
Cicero
for confusing Aristotle's ivreXex^ta ('actuality') with
ivSeAexeLCL
('continuity'), Argyropulos went so far as to challenge the
competence
of
the master himself. Yet it was Cicero's professed admiration
for
Aristotle's eloquence
that
stimulated humanist translation
of
his works.
Unaware
that
Cicero
had found his 'golden stream of eloquence' in
Aristotle's
lost exoteric writings, Bruni and many others concluded from
his approval of Aristotle
that
the Stagirite's works had been ruined by the
barbarians and
that
his eloquence must be restored. Petrarch and George of
Trebizond, however, were ambivalent about the excellence of Aristotle's
style
or the best way to
translate
it, and others simply denied
that
he was
eloquent.
Valla
found his terminology in need
of
reform.
Vives
accused him
of
obscurantism. On the beauty
of
Plato's language consensus was stronger,
though George of Trebizond, warning
that
'too much . . . verbal
embellishment and ostentatious writing destroy all solemnity', noted
that
the Parmenides was denser and more concise
than
other dialogues.
52
50. Prosatori latini 1952, p. 596: 'Magnum ergo latini sermonis sacramentum . . . magnum profecto
numen . . . sancte ac religiose per tot saecula custoditur . . .'; p. 620: 'qui ignarus eloquentiae est,
hunc
indignum
prorsus
qui de theologia loquatur existimo. Et certe soli eloquentes. . . columnae
ecclesiae
sunt
. . .'; Renaissance Philosophy: New Translations, pp. 23-4 (L.
Valla,
'In praise of St
Thomas Aquinas'); Erasmus 1965, p. 190; Gray 1965, pp. 39-40, 45;
Apel
1963, pp.
184-5;
Chomarat
1981,1,
pp. 166, 188, 446-9, 602, 680-1,
11,
pp. 799,
1123-8;
Harth
1968, p. 63;
Seigel
1968,
pp. 6—19,
31-62,
103.
51.
Bruni 1928, p.
116;
Medioevo e Rinascimento
1955,1,
pp. 343, 355 (Garin);
Seigel
1968, pp. 4,
101-3;
L.
Jardine
1977, p. 149; Schmitt 1983a, p. 74; Birkenmajer 1922, p. 174; Platon et Aristote 1976, pp.
364-5 (Cranz) and pp. 383-4 (Stegmann); Erasmus 1965, pp.
xxxii-xlix;
Ebel 1969, p. 599.
52.
George of Trebizond 1984, p. 303: 'Verborum enim
ornatus
et compositionis pompa, si latius
confluat. . . omnem gravitatem suam infringit'; Medioevo e Rinascimento
1955,1,
pp. 349, 353, 363,
373 (Garin); Bruni
1741,1,
pp.
15-17;
Cicero,
Tusculan Disputations 1.10.22 and Academica
11.38.119;
Bruni 1928, pp. 45-8, 74; Cammelli
1941-54,11,
pp. 176-80; Birkenmajer 1922, p. 158; Garin 1951,
pp. 57-8; Prosatori latini 1952, p. 58; Minio-Paluello
1972,
p. 265; Breen 1968, pp. 30-1;
Seigel
1968,
pp.
31-62,
no,
121-2,
i35;Gravelle
1972,
pp. 275, 283-5;
Vives
1979»,
pp. 37-9; Camporeale 1972,
p.
229; Chomarat
1981,1,
p. 233; Platon et Aristote 1976, pp. 378, 388 (Stegmann); Schmitt 1983a,
p.
80; Hankins 1983, p. 102.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Translation, terminology and style
95
In general, the
effect
of the recovery and publication of Greek
philosophical texts was to encourage translations of them
that
were more
sensitive to classical Latin style
than
the efforts of medieval scholars. This
new emphasis on style was as much a result of
attitudes
towards the Greek
language as of progress in Latin philology.
Like
the ancient Romans they
admired, even those humanists who considered Latin the equal
of
Greek
or
its superior described the rival tongue in
terms
that
hinted admiration for its
powers.
If Greek was prolix, it was also rich in words; if it was abstract, it
was
also a good tool for formal analysis. All this loose comparison, however
misguided or narrowly motivated, focused the
translator's
attention
on the
formal properties of Greek and on means for achieving comparable or
compensating stylistic effects in Latin translation.
Valla,
who passionately
preferred Latin to Greek, maintained
that
it was a
better
medium for
philosophy because it was concrete and
that
many perplexities in
logic
could
be traced to the absence of this quality in Greek. The Byzantine
George
of
Trebizond was equally
ardent
for the pre-eminence
of
his native
tongue, and even Pier Candido Decembrio, an Italian, conceded
that
Aristotle
'explains weighty issues with words of such brevity
that
Latin
words can scarcely do justice to his Greek terms, which carry more
meaning'. Greek became inevitable in the humanist curriculum, and some
claimed
that
it was indispensable for philosophy. Writing in 1520, by which
time humanists had Latinised the whole Aristotelian corpus, Thomas More
told Martin Dorp
that
'Aristotle himself . . . could not be completely
known to you without a command of Greek letters . . . for nothing
of
his
has been so aptly translated
that
it would not
better
penetrate
the mind
if
it
were heard in his own words.'
53
More's ideal was not realised. While a
university philosopher
like
Jacopo Zabarella might have a good command
of
Greek,
among his colleagues it was not a universal
attainment.
In Oxford
John
Case found Hellenists to consult, but he apologised for his own Greek
in trying to find stylistic grounds for calling the second book of the
Oeconomics
spurious. Philosophers commonly taught from Greek texts by
the middle of the sixteenth century, but they also continued to buy
Greekless
Thomistic commentaries. Some reasons for the slow penetration
53.
Hankins 1983, p.
130,11.
84: 'Ceterum res ponderosas adeo brevissimis verbis explicatPhilosophusut
vix
verba latina satisfaciant graeca quae significantiora
sunt';
ibid., pp. 96, 103;
Vives
1979a,
p. 192:
'Ad
Aristotelem ipsum venio . . . Hie ergo ipse non poterit
totus
tibi sine Graecarum peritia
litterarum
innotescere . . . quod nihil eius
tarn
commode versum est ut non idem ipsum suis ipsius
verbis acceptum in pectus influat potentius'; Bruni 1928, pp. 102-4; Baron 1966, pp. 284-5; Garin
1951,
p. 70; Camporeale 1972, pp. 173,
176-7;
Gravelle 1972, pp. 269-74, 281-4; Breen 1968, p. 10;
George
of Trebizond 1984, pp. 143, 160,
191-2.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
9
6
Translation, terminology and style
of
Greek
into the general world
of
philosophical discourse are evident. The
first group of Byzantines who brought Greek to the Italians might have
been regarded as incompetent Latinists even if they had succeeded in
mastering the language. Such prejudice reinforced a facile
distrust
of
Greek
that
went back to Petrarch and to Cato and was sustained by the absence of
adequate
lexical
and grammatical material through the fifteenth century.
Substitutes as poor as the
Graecismus
of Eberhard de Bethune or the
Derivationes
of Uguccione da Pisa could only deepen the unease of Italian
scholars whose Latinity began to grown refined in the fourteenth
century.
54
TERMINOLOGY,
TRANSLITERATION
AND
NEOLOGISM
When preparing Chrysoloras'
trip
to Florence, Salutati had urged a protege
studying with Manuel in Constantinople to 'bring as many
lexical
writers
(yocabulorum
auctores)
as can be obtained', but systematic help came
slowly.
Working
without the reference tools
that
modern scholars take for granted,
Traversari nearly despaired of his translation of Diogenes Laertius: 'One
stumbles into such a forest of terminology, . . .
that
I am almost without
hope
of
finding Latin words
that
translate
the Greek and are fit for the ears of
a learned reader.'
55
George of Trebizond encountered similar difficulties
with
Aristotle, but Bruni, whose experience as a
translator
was certainly
extensive,
struck a different pose:
I do not see how Latin letters are surpassed by Greek . .
.
Even
if
the Greek are richer
than
ours, how does this prevent us from saying elegantly in Latin just what was said
in Greek if, instead
of
chasing words like boys in a game, we
follow
the meanings of
what is said
(sententiae
dictorum)?
If
they can express anything in more
ways
than
we
can, this is actually a kind of superfluity and profusion, but our Latinity . . .
certainly has its tools and equipment, not profuse, to be sure, but powerful and
abundantly sufficient to every need.
Brum's dispute with
Alonso
de Cartagena, wherein he spent pages on the
proper rendering
of
raya&ov
(see above, pp. 89—90), testifies to his sensitivity
to philosophical diction, but his use above of the game metaphor, which
implies
that
words are secondary tokens in the
Sprachspiel,
reveals a contrary
and eirenic inclination to forget mere verbal differences as philosophically
54.
W. F. Edwards 1969, p. 844; Schmitt 1983b, p. 178; Stinger 1977, p. 103; B. Bischoffi96i, pp. 215-
16;
Chomarat 1981, pp.
209-11;
see below, p. 107.
55.
Salutati to Jacopo d'Angelo della Scarperia, cited in Cammelli
1941-54,
1, p. 33: 'Platonica velim
cuncta tecum portes et vocabulorum auctores quot haberi possunt . . .'; Traversari 1759, p. 310:
'Tanta illic offenditur vocabulorum silva, ac praecipue in explicandis disciplinis, ut fere desperem
Latina repeririposse, quae Graecis reddita erudito lectoriaures impleant'; Ullman 1963, pp.
118-24;
De
Petris 1975, p. 20; Stinger 1977, p. 72.
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