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On Translating Aristophanes: Ends and Means1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Alan H. Sommerstein
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Extract

There will never be a perfect translation of Aristophanes. There have been many translations, with many and diverse merits: one thinks of the poetical grace of F. L. Lucas, the deftness of Godley and Bailey, the easy naturalness of John and Patricia Easterling, the zest of B. B. Rogers, the modernity of Douglass Parker and his associates; but combine all these and you are still left a long way from a perfect translation—for there is much truth in the paradox that the only really perfect translation is the original. The Greek and Latin scholar is more aware of this than most people, and the lover of Aristophanes more still. Yet translations there must be—not only for the ‘general reader’, but increasingly nowadays for the student who wants to know more about ancient literature but is not yet (and in too many cases may never be) competent to study it in the language in which it was written; nor should we forget those who produce plays, and those who go to see them. And it matters a great deal whether the people who meet Aristophanes in these ways are brought to appreciate his qualities as comedian and dramatist. For Aristophanes' own contemporaries did, Plato among them; and if he was really boring or obscure or both (so the reader may argue), his contemporaries must have been so too.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , October 1973 , pp. 140 - 154
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1973

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References

page 140 note 2 Greek Drama for Everyman (London, 1954).Google Scholar

page 140 note 3 ‘The Clouds of Aristophanes, adapted for performance by the Oxford University Dramatic Society in 1905 and 1928, with an English version by A. D. Godley and C. Bailey’, Oxford, 1928.

page 140 note 4 ‘Aristophanes, The Clouds: the Greek text performed at Cambridge in February 1962, with an English translation by H. J. and P. E. Easterling’, Greek Play Committee, Cambridge, 1962.

page 140 note 5 The Comedies of Aristophanes (London, 1902–1915).Google Scholar Rogers's translation may also be found in the Aristophanes volumes of the Loeb Classical Library.

page 140 note 6 The Complete Greek Comedy, ed. Arrowsmith, W., Ann Arbor, 1961–.Google Scholar The translators in this series have been Douglass Parker, William Arrowsmith, and Richmond Lattimore.

page 142 note 1 Aristophanes, Plays I and II (Oxford, 1970).Google Scholar

page 143 note 1 It is true that The Clouds in its extant form is a reading text that was never an acting text; but the parabasis shows clearly that the revision of the play was made with a view to a second production.

page 143 note 2 Except by putting the text into the hands of the audience, as used to be done at the Cambridge Greek Play.

page 144 note 1 The Clouds of Aristophanes (London, 1911).Google Scholar

page 144 note 2 Cf. Socrates' comments on his pronunciation (872 f.).

page 145 note 1 In Aristophanes: Lysistrata and Other Plays (Penguin Books, forthcoming). The Acharnians and The Clouds are translated here also.

page 145 note 2 The exception is the translation of Lysistrata, with Peace, by Alastos, Doros (London, 1953).Google Scholar

page 146 note 1 I similarly used rhymed verse for the four speeches in the choral scene which replaces the parabasis in Lysistrata (614–705).Google Scholar

page 146 note 2 Aristophanes: The Wasps, The Poet and the Women ( = Thesmophoriazusae), The Frogs (Penguin Books, 1964).Google Scholar

page 147 note 1 This indeed appears to have been the ancient practice (see Pickard-Cambridge, A. W., The Dramatic Festivals of Athens 2 [Oxford, 1968], 157 ff.).Google Scholar

page 147 note 2 The Chorus, if they make preparations to dance, regularly announce them during the κομμάτιον which precedes this speech (cf. Ach. 627Google Scholar, Peace 729).Google Scholar

page 149 note 1 In his remarks on the plays in Greek Drama for Everyman, 368 ff.Google Scholar

page 150 note 1 I do not believe anything has been lost at the end of Lysistrata. The supposition that there has been loss seems to arise from the erroneous assumption that the chorus, or a chorus, is on stage during the Spartan's song; in fact the chorus make their exit at 1294 (cf. the final lines of Ach., Birds, and Eccl.), and the dance which follows is performed by extras who at no stage have anything to sing.

page 150 note 2 Persia being regarded as a far greater threat to Greek independence than any Greek state (cf. 1133–4).

page 151 note 1 Mitchell, T., The Comedies of Aristophanes (London, 1822)Google Scholar prints Richard Cumberland's translation of The Clouds.

page 151 note 2 The Comedies of Aristophanes translated into corresponding English metres (London, 1837).Google Scholar

page 151 note 3 Cleonymus and his shield appear to have parted company in 424; Aristophanes first refers to the incident in The Clouds (353)Google Scholar, even though Cleonymus was already a favourite butt of his (five mentions in The Acharnians and The Knights).

page 152 note 1 But the ingenious adaptation by William Arrowsmith should be mentioned. He makes Socrates claim that ‘Ameinias’ is a plural form, and that by dropping the -s it becomes obvious that the person referred to is ‘a singular woman’.

page 152 note 2 I do not count as an anachronism, however, the use of a joke that, as it happens, has a present-day reference but is not essentially modern; for example, making Wrong in The Clouds (1058 f.)Google Scholar, when at a loss for a reply to one of Right's arguments, say simply ‘I refute that’, and pretend or imagine that by so saying he has disposed of the argument —a favourite ploy with some controversialists today, but a possible refuge for the ‘weaker argument’ when driven into a corner in any age.

page 153 note 1 Provided one is paying attention to what Dikaiopolis is saying, rather than to the opening chapters of Herodotus.