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a non Nabokovian question to the list, if I may?
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Dear List,
Concerning the issue of translation, when I had to investigate how best to render ( for myself) Kinbote's reference in his foreword to "through a glass, darkly", I found versions that favored "mirror" and others that mentioned simply "dark glass" ( tintarron, perhaps?). Trying to compile information about various English translations, I discovered that lack of fidelity to the Saint James version or to some other translation could lead to charges of heresy in England that turned around a single noun. Myself, I tend to translate the "dark glass" not as a mirror ( I seem to remember that Kinbote takes these words up somewhere else as common glass).
Checking through B.Boyd's annotations to Ada I learned that Nabokov was cognizant with various translations of the Bible in English and commented on them. Still, I haven't yet found one specific matter having been taken up by him, so I wonder if I might raise it to the list without straying too far from our objective?
My question is related to the rendering of "Our Lord's prayer" in English. I was hearing it as recited in Portuguese and, remembering it in English, I was struck but a curious "swooner" in the latter. In Portuguese we pray " do not let us fall into temptation" whereas in English the words are " lead us not into temptation".
In a Catholic site at the internet I found: "We therefore ask our Father not to "lead" us into temptation. It is difficult to translate the Greek verb used by a single English word: the Greek means both "do not allow us to enter into temptation" and "do not let us yield to temptation." (Cf. Mt 26 41).
Whenever I heard the Lord's prayer in English ( by Catholics or by Protestants) these exact words were maintained.
Does anyone know why it was necessary to "translate the Greek verb by a SINGLE English word"?
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Concerning the issue of translation, when I had to investigate how best to render ( for myself) Kinbote's reference in his foreword to "through a glass, darkly", I found versions that favored "mirror" and others that mentioned simply "dark glass" ( tintarron, perhaps?). Trying to compile information about various English translations, I discovered that lack of fidelity to the Saint James version or to some other translation could lead to charges of heresy in England that turned around a single noun. Myself, I tend to translate the "dark glass" not as a mirror ( I seem to remember that Kinbote takes these words up somewhere else as common glass).
Checking through B.Boyd's annotations to Ada I learned that Nabokov was cognizant with various translations of the Bible in English and commented on them. Still, I haven't yet found one specific matter having been taken up by him, so I wonder if I might raise it to the list without straying too far from our objective?
My question is related to the rendering of "Our Lord's prayer" in English. I was hearing it as recited in Portuguese and, remembering it in English, I was struck but a curious "swooner" in the latter. In Portuguese we pray " do not let us fall into temptation" whereas in English the words are " lead us not into temptation".
In a Catholic site at the internet I found: "We therefore ask our Father not to "lead" us into temptation. It is difficult to translate the Greek verb used by a single English word: the Greek means both "do not allow us to enter into temptation" and "do not let us yield to temptation." (Cf. Mt 26 41).
Whenever I heard the Lord's prayer in English ( by Catholics or by Protestants) these exact words were maintained.
Does anyone know why it was necessary to "translate the Greek verb by a SINGLE English word"?
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm