> I struggled with this because there are those classicists. I partly just want to shake them and make them see that all translations are interpretations. What

> I struggled with this because there are those classicists. I partly just want to shake them and make them see that all translations are interpretations. What is a translation, that's the heart of the matter. Many people argue that translation is simply impossible, because the meaning of a text depends on its connexions to a whole cultural world, and if you take that text out of its cultural background and put it in another one, then it simply doesn't work anymore. It's like a transplant, but more complicated; if you do a heart transplant, at least all hearts are similar and connect to arteries in the same way; a translation is like trying to transplant an organ across species. For instance, it seems most readers of classic Russian literature are of this opinion -- no other language renders Russian novels appropriately. (I don't read Russian so I wouldn't know.) And yet, transplants do work. To pursue the transplant metaphor, they work when the organ performs the same function in the new organism as it did in the original one. So I don't think the translator's work is simply to "interpret" the source, if that word means "to understand deeply and then reproduce with one's own personality and artistic biais". The task of the translator is to produce a text for a new audience, that produces an effect to that audience, as close as possible as the original text on the original audience. There's this retired English teacher who translated the first book of the Harry Potter series in ancient Greek; it's different of course, since there are no native ancient Greek speakers left, and so his "audience" is unclear; but the description of the challenges he faced makes for a great and fun read: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/harry_potter.htm http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/harry_potter.htm