Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 08:02:20 -0600 From: George Trail <gtrail-AT-UH.EDU> Subject: Re: PLC: Enameled In Fire >> >>You are absolutely right, so what you do is give the poet the benefit of >>the doubt, and assume that this is _not_ how he is using it, since, as I >>said earlier, it would be redundant as well as trite. > >M.C.: *What* poet, ferchrissake? We are dealing with some nineteenth >century translator of Plutarch, who may or may not have been able to >distinguish poetry from his posterior. Might this stout gentleman, whoever >he was, have been redundant or trite? You betcha! > > In a sense this whole discussion is silly, redundant, and trite. It >was not - I guess I must repeat - *Plutarch* who used the image "enameled >in fire", but some translator. Why did he use it? Because he thought it >sounded good; I suppose, but does anyone *really* care about the poetic >intentions of some anonymous 19th-century hack? Did he accurately render >Plutarch's Greek original? No, if, as I continue to think, the passage in >question is the one I posted from the Erotikos, where the word translated >as "enamelled" simply means "mixed". > > Are there no critical editions out there which actually *identify* >Plutarch's citation? Until we find out *with certainty* what Plutarchean >passage is being translated, we're just pissing in the wind. > > Peevishly, Mike. > >Michael Chase Yes, dear, whatever you say. But regardless of the, uh, weight, of the translator, her work was sufficient to elicit the admiration of Mr. Emerson, who, I suggest, would read it as having a surface coated with fire. Puts me in mind of the Paterian oxymoron, "to burn always with this hard gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life." (1873). When one is dealing with a tranlation, after all, one ought to deal with the translation. _If_ we had the text translated we might argue about the aptness of the translation, but to that end I suggested that seeking some variant of "enameld" was less likely of success that seeking some version of "coated" or "covered" or, god knows (and she would),"painted." Cheerfully, g --- from list phillitcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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