There are few efforts more conducive to humility than that of the translator trying to communicate an incommunicable beauty. Yet, unless we do try, something unique and never surpassed will cease to exist except in the libraries of a few inquisitive book lovers.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Translating great beauty requires humility, yet trying is necessary to preserve unique works for others.
- In plain terms
- Trying to translate hard beauty is humble work but keeps important culture alive.
- What can you take from it?
- Attempt to share beauty even if it is difficult.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What work do you try to preserve?
- Where do you show humility in effort?
Another view
Some works may resist translation regardless of effort.
More from Edith Hamilton
He [Aeschylus] was, first and last, the born fighter, to whom the consciousness of being matched against a great adversary suffices and who can dispense with s…
Permalink to quote #2 Even of old the Christian world, so bitterly antagonistic to any ideas not specifically contained in their creeds and dogmas, made an exception in Socrates' ca…
Permalink to quote #3 It has always seemed strange to me that in our endless discussions about education so little stress is laid on the pleasure of becoming an educated person, the…
Permalink to quote #4
Related quotes
The average English critic is a don manque, hopelessly parochial when not exaggeratedly teutonophile, over whose desk must surely hang the motto (presumably in…
Constant LambertConstant Lambert quote #1 I sometimes wondered what the use of any of the arts was. The best thing I could come up with was what I call the canary in the coal mine theory of the arts. T…
Kurt VonnegutKurt Vonnegut quote #1 The European boys have small ideas but they sure know how to dress 'em up.
George GershwinGeorge Gershwin quote #1