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Thinking through translation with metaphors! edited and with an introduction
by James St. Andre.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-\-905763-22-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
. Translating and interpreting. 2. Metaphor. 1. St. Andre, James.
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 (1

mston David (ed.) (1996) Stages o/Translation, Bath: Absolute Press. Imitating Bodies and Clothes
hn, Thomas (1979) 'Metaphor in Science', in Andrew Ortony (ed.) Metaphor
Refashioning the Western Conception of Translation
and Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 409-19.
koff, George and Mark Johnson Metaphors We Live By, Chicago: University
l~
BENVANWYKE

I
of Ch icago Press, 1980.
Guin, Ursula (1974) The Dispossessed, NY: Harper & Row, publishers. Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis (IUPUI), USA
da, Eugene (1959) 'Principles ofTranslation as Exemplified by Bible Trans­
lating', in Reuben Brower (ed.) On Translation, Cambridge, MA: Harvard

I
Abstract. The concepts of translation and metaphor are inti­ i
1
University Press, 11-31. mately c;:onnected in'the West, Not only do they share a common
.___ (1964) Toward a Science o/Translating: With Special Reference to Prin­ etymology in many European languages, but both have been
ciples and Procedures Involved in Bible Transating, Leiden: E. J. Brill.
.___ and Charles R. Taber (196911982) The Theory and Practice oJTranslation
designated as secondary forms of representation in the Pla­ II
(Helps for Translators 8), Leiden: United Bible Societies, 2nd reprint.
rtony, Andrew (ed.) (1979) Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge
tonic tradition. Consequently, translation and metaphor have
undergone similar revisions in contemporary, post-Nietzschean
philosophy, which has given them positions ofprimary impor­
l
University Press.
tance. One metaphor that has frequently been used to describe
eddy, Michael J. (1979) 'The Conduit Metaphor - A Case of Frame Conflict
translation is that of dressmaking - meaning is viewed as a
in Our Language about Language', in Andrew Ortony (ed.) Metaphor and
body and the translator s job is to redress this meaning in the
Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 284-324.
clothes of another language. Using this common metaphor, I
jordan, Roger and Tozo Takayanagi (1896) Sunrise Stories: A Glance at the
will highlight a common thread in our conception oJtranslation
Literature ojJapan, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, TrUbner & Co., Ltd.
that has basically remained unchanged throughout the ages, a
~ound, Nicholas (2005) 'Translation and its Metaphors: The (N+ 1) Wise Men
thread that can be tied directly to Plato s theory ojrepresentation.
1 Nietzsche radically placed into question this Platonic model,
and the Elephant', Skase Journal of Translation and Interpretation 1( ):
beginning with a reformulation of the traditional relationship
47-69. between metaphor and truth. After examining the implications
,chon, Donald A. (1979) 'Generative Metaphor: A Perspective on Problem-
Setting in Social Policy', in Andrew Ortony (ed.) Metaphor and Thought, ofhis critique ofPlatonism, I will turn to Nietzsche s own use of
the metaphor ofdress, which will help us recast our conception
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 254-83.
of translation by focusing on elements that have traditionally
;nell-Hornby, Mary (1988) Translation Studies: An Integrated Approach,
been left out oJthe picture.
Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
:iteiner, George (1975) After Babel: Aspects oj Language and Translation,
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or
London & New York: Oxford University Press.
no influence on society.
Tymoczko, Maria (1999) Translation in a Postcolonial Context: Early Irish
Mark Twain
Literature in English Translation, Manchester: S1. Jerome.
Vinay, Jean-Paul and Jean Darbelnet (1958) Stylistique comparee duJranqais
The concepts of translation and metaphor are intimately connected in the
et de l'anglais. Methode de traduction, Paris: Didier.
West. Not only do they share a common etymology in many European lan­
guages, but both have suffered a similar fate in the Western, Platonic tradition
in which they have been designated as secondary forms of representation.
Consequently, translation and metaphor have undergone similar revisions in
contemporary, post-Nietzschean philosophy, which has given them posi­
tions of primary importance. Many projects in translation studies over the
last twenty years or so have greatly benefited from theory inspired by
post-Nietzschean thought, such as deconstruction, postcolonial studies,
18'
and gender studies; theorists like Barbara Johnson, Rosemary Arrojo,
Lawrence Venuti, Douglas Robinson, Vicente Rafael, Annie Brisset, and
Sherry Simon, among many others, have radically rethought the traditional
notion oftranslation inherited from the Platonic tradition. In vein with these
projects I would like to take a step back and illustrate, via metaphor, the
extent to which our conception of translation has been fundamentally shaped
by Plato's theory of representation and, in light of this, what Nietzsche's
critique of Platonism means for our conception of translation.
After a brief introduction to metaphor and its relationship to translation,
I will examine one particular metaphor that, because it is so closely wrapped
up with our general notion of(naked) truth, will provide a perfect image with
which to consider the relationship between Platonic thought and the most
basic notion of translation. The metaphor of translation as the redressing
of a body of meaning in the clothes of another language will allow us to
touch upon many of the fundamental concerns that have dominated Western
discourse on translation, and, thus, highlight a common thread in our con­
ception that has basically remained unchanged throughout the ages, a thread
that can be tied directly to Plato's theory of representation. In this context,
I can also show some of the basic implications that Nietzsche's critique
of Platonism has for our conception of translation. Nietzsche formulates
metaphor very differently from the tradition inherited from Aristotle, and
with Nietzsche's work we can enrich our discussion on two levels. In the
first place, as metaphor and translation hold much in common, his revision
of the former will help us begin to rethink the latter. In addition, although
we will first see the metaphor ofdress as an illustration of Plato's theory of
representation, we can also find it in Nietzsche, but used in a way that clearly
illustrates his subversion of the Platonic model. Following Nietzsche, we
will be able to recast our conception oftranslation by focusing on elements
that have traditionally been left out of the picture.
1. Metaphor and Translation
The word for translation in English, as well as in many other European
languages, comes from the Latin trans/atio, which is a translation of the
Greek metaphora, the word from which English derives "metaphor". In
anCIent Greek, metaphora was used in the sense that we employ the word
"metaphor" today, as well as for translation from one language into an­
other. Thus, related in this way, translation and metaphor both imply the
notion of carrying over or transferring meaning from one word or phrase
to another.
l'f
Aristotle, Plato's most famous disciple, is credited with one of the
which he gives in his Poetics amidst clas­
sifications of different words and parts of speech, and which S.H. Butcher
translates as:"metaphor is the application of an alien name by transference"
from one category to another "by analogy" (XXI). Because metaphors
employ words that are alien to what they denote, they are not proper. Ar­
istotle defines "current or proper" words as those "which [are] in general
use among a people", and contrasts them with "strange words", which are
those "in use in another country" (ibid.). Elsewhere he equates "strange"
words with "unusual ... (or rare) words, metaphorical, lengthened any-
in short, that differs from the normal idiom" (Poetics:XXIl). The
"proper" (which comes from the idea of "one's own") is bound to what
is considered to be a kind of shared domestic normalcy, while metaphors,
together with "strange" and "unusual" words, are marked by their devia­
tion from this norm, a category that includes (or indeed, is defined by)
languages spoken in other countries. I Translation traffics between the
elements of a similar opposition as it attempts to say in a language, "in
use in another country", something that was originally said in the com­
mon language of a different people. Eric Cheyfitz points out that, with
Aristotle's definition, metaphor and translation are both founded on "a
kind of territorial imperative, in a division ... between the domestic and
the foreign", since both attempt to transfer "an alien name into a familiar
context" (1997:36).
In this scenario there is an explicit hierarchy as the proper is considered
to be closer to "truth" than tropes such as metaphor. Aristotle states, "the
clearest style is that which tlses only current or proper words" (Poetics:
XXII). Proper words are clearer because they allegedly deal literally with
what they denote and present an unequivocal truth. Metaphor is considered
an ornament, and, while certainly a useful tool for poetic expression, it is
seen as secondary to proper forms of representation. A metaphor cannot
provide access to truth on its own because its parts must be substituted with
proper ones, or, as Aristotle says, "if we take a strange ( or rare) word, a
metaphor, or any similar mode of ex pression, and replace it by the current
or proper term, the truth of ollr observation will be manifest" (ibid.). In this
sense, metaphor is always deemed, to some extent, "improper" because it
has to be translated into "proper" terms before its truth is to be seen.
..,..at~~h~r is seen as a secondary form of representation, Aristotle
I Eric Cheyfitz points out that "xenikos", which Buchner translates as "unusual", also
means "foreign" (1997:36).
20
praises it: proper use of metaphor "is the mark of genius, for to make good
metaphors implies an eye for resemblances" (ibid.). This "eye for resem­
blances" is fundamental for the Platonic model to function because, as we
will see, the very basis for discovering truth and essences is founded on the
ability to draw similarities. Plato's is, after all, a philosophy of sameness.
Aristotle sees the use of metaphor as a question of style, and style,
for him, wavers between "perspicuity", obtained by using "ordinary" and
"common" words, and "distinction", resulting from uncommon usage
(ibid.). To properly use metaphor one must "observe propriety", avoid being
"grotesque", and always use "moderation" (ibid.). The notion of proper and
improper ways of forming metaphors highlights, once again, the hierarchy
with which we are dealing. Not only is metaphor, by definition, opposed
to "the proper", but the latter is also the standard for how the (always "im­
proper") practice of metaphor is to be conducted.
We can now begin to introduce our particular metaphor of study. Aristo­
tle associates metaphors with riddles because "the essence of a riddle is to
express true facts under impossible combinations", something that cannot
be done by "any arrangement of ordinary words" (ibid.). By investigating
translation as redressing, we can uncover some elements that have been
considered the "true facts" of translation in the West. Before delving into
the bodies and clothes that make up this metaphor, however, I would
like to return to an aspect of the domestic/foreign dichotomy mentioned
above, and the proper/improper binary it implies. Translators are often
seen as mediators between domestic and foreign contexts, and much of
the discourse regarding the proper and improper ways of performing this
task calls for privileging one of these two contexts. Friedrich Schleierm­
acher sums up all approaches to translation with this dichotomy saying
that, ultimately, there are just two: "reader-to-author" (which favours the
foreign) and "author-to-reader" (favouring the domestic) (2002:229). He
proclaims, in Douglas Robinson's translation, that these are the "only
two translation methods with a clearly defined goal; there is no third. In
fact no other approach is possible" (ibid.). Schleiermacher is not alone in
believing this is the case, and, in a sense, many of the other dichotomies
associated with translation - word-for-word/sense-for-sense, content/
form, and the currently more fashionable domestication/foreignization
_ can be linked to this opposition. The metaphor of dress will help us see
these oppositions in action, and witness how it has assisted translators
in dealing with the question of how they are to transport foreign bodies
into their own languages.
21
2. The Body/Clothes
In this section I will trace a thread through the history of translation dis­
course by examining remarks that revolve around the metaphor of dress
employed by many translators to describe their craft. I will call this meta­
phor the "body/clothes", and, although it takes on many appearances, in
all of them we can see the same underlying assumption, i.e., that language
consists of a core of meaning that is contained inside the words used to
represent it. This structure is found in many other "container" metaphors,
such as vessels or boxcars (Cf. Nida 1975: 190), but I will focus primarily
on those that deal with bodies and the objects that represent them, which
are generally described as clothes, although we will also see them take
the form of other things we use to present ourselves, such as hairstyles or
manners of speaking.
By reflecting upon the conception highlighted by the body/clothes
we can also begin to appreciate translation in its broader relationship to
metaphor and truth, a reflection facilitated by the fact that this metaphor
is intertwined with countless other metaphors we Lise to discuss tfLIth,
ones that are so ingrained in our language that we probably do not even
consider them metaphors. 2 For example, we "unveil" and "unmask"
appearances to "discover" and "recover" that which "embodies" the
"naked truth".
We can introduce the body/clothes with what may be considered a
common sense view of translation. In 1791 Alexander Tytler summarizes
some expectations of what translators must do to successfully perform
their task. After "thoroughly comprehending the sense" of the author, he
says, a translator must "discover the true character ofthe aLithor's sty Ie",
and "ascertain with precision to what class it belongs" (2002:210). These
"characteristic qualities" must then be rendered "equally conspicuous in
the translation as in the original", and ifnot done properly, the translator
"will present [the author] through a distorting medium, or exhibit him in
a garb that is unsuitable to his character" (ibid.). Fashion is, indeed, very
serious business, especially when, as in the cases of the translator-tailors
I will be discussing, the authors being dressed are some of the greatest
celebrities imaginable, such as Homer, Montaigne, and even God.
~ See Lakoff and Johnson (1980) for an in depth look at how metaphors an integral,
albeit often overlooked, role in shaping our reality.

'2..'­
2.1. Undressing and Redressing
In a translation by Harris Rackman, Cicero says that he is "well aware" that
his project oftranslating Greek philosophy, "attempting as it does to present
in a Latin dress subjects that the philosophers of consummate ability and
profound learning have already handled in Greek, is sure to encounter criti­
cism from different quarters" (2002: I 0).3 We have here an early example
of the narrative we will follow throughout this section. In the first place,
Cicero illustrates the classic belief in a split between content and form in
language, allowing one to imagine translation as an act that attempts to keep
the same body of meaning while merely changing its representation. While
different languages are said to have different ways of expressing the same
things, everyone knows, especially the translator, that a translation cannot
reproduce the body of the original in its totality, but this is not really Cicero's.
concern. Like so many after him, he sees translation as a way of affirming
his language, showing that the fabric of Latin is capable of expressing the
same kinds of complex subject matter as Greek. Thus, translation allows
Cicero to showcase his budding language and, at the same time, it gives
him the opportunity to introduce modes of expression previously absent
in Latin by coining words and idioms "by analogy ... provided only they
[are] appropriate" (2002:7), in a manner reminiscent ofAristotle's call for
the proper fonnation ofmetaphors.
Several hundred years later, Saint Jerome, defending himself from ac­
cusations of practicing improper translation, asks us to consider a comment
made by the translator Evagrius in a preface, which we can do via Paul
Carroll's translation: "a literal translation from one language into another
conceals, as with a coat,4 the original sense, just as an exuberance of grass
3 Cicero does not actually use any word that refers to dress in this passage, although
the image implied is similar to the one suggested by the body/clothes. A more literal
translation of this fragment might be: "I will deliver over into Latin letters that which
the philosophers of consummate ability and profound learning have already handled in
Greek". Rackman's choice seems to reflect how commonplace this metaphor is in our
culture to illustrate the split between content and form.
4 Jerome uses a form of the verb "operiiJ", which means to "cover", "conceal", "bury",
First I have now done as the people of God were commanded to
as well as "clothe". The clarification "as with a coat" in the translation is unnecessary,
but Carroll, perhaps for some of the same reasons Rackman decided to clothe Cicero
with this metaphor, opted to reference both senses of this word. All of the remaining
translations of the quotes related to our metaphor already use literal renderings of the
words in the originals that refer to bodies and clothes and 1 will not, therefore, comment
any further on the originals.
"Z.."S
strangles the crops" (2002:26). Literal, or word-for-word translation, as
anyone who has tried their hand can verify, creates awkward phrases because
one cannot match up words from two languages that simply do not match.
While Cicero remarks that texts can be redressed, Jerome tells us that not
all clothes are equal, and some are, unfortunately, fashioned in a way that
covers up or even kills the body of the original.
Jumping ahead some 1200 years we can introduce two contemporaries,
John Denham and John Dryden, who provide us with examples that most
explicitly label the pieces of the body/clothes. In the preface to his transla­
tion of Virgil's "Destruction of Troy", Denham writes, "as speech is the
apparel of our thoughts, so are there certain garbs and modes of speaking
which vary with the times, the fashion of our clothes being not more subject
to alteration than that of our speech" (2002: 156). Dryden has a similar take
on fashion in the preface to his translations of Ovid's Epistles. He main­
tains that when languages match gracefully one should certainly translate
literally. But this is seldom the case, and "what is beautiful in one is often
barbarous, nay sometimes nonsense, in another" (2002: 173). Words are
"outward ornaments", and though they sometimes "may be so ill chosen as
to make it appear in an unhandsome dress, and to rob it ofits native luster"
(ibid.: 174), the ultimate duty of the translator-tailor is "to vary but the dress,
not to alter or destroy the substance" (ibid.: 173).
Considering such remarks, how should one dress these foreign bodies
to keep their "native luster"? After condemning clothes that strangle the
sense, Jerome promotes an equally aggressive stance, praising Hillary the
Confessor who "did not bind himself to the drowsiness ofliteral translation,
or allow himself to be chained to the literalism of an inadequate culture,
but, like some conqueror, he marched the original text, a captive, into his
native language" (2002:26). An inadequate culture would be one that does
not have its own (proper) way of dressing foreign ideas, and would thus
need to copy the original words literally. More than a millennium later,
Thomas Drant describes his redressing of Horace by making a reference to
the Bible verse Jerome might have had in mind (Deuteronomy 21: 11-14)
when he complimented Hilarv the Confessor:
do with their captive women that were handsome and beautiful:1
have shaved offhis hair and pared offhis nails, that is, I have wiped
away all his vanity and superfluity of matter. .. 1 have EngJished
things not according to the vein of the Latin propriety, but of his
own vui!!ar tongue ... ' have pieced his reason, eked and mended
2Y
his similitudes, mollified his hardness, prolonged his cortall kind of
speeches, changed and much altered his words, but not his sentence
.... (Cited in Chamberlain 2000:318)5
Not only does Drant redress Horace, but he even chops offhis hair and nails.
The appearance ofthe translation does not resemble the original's since he
has "changed and much altered his words", but, because the body he has
captured can be separated from its representational elements, he can still
leave Horace's "sentence" untouched. This separation of content and form
proposed at least since Cicero allows translators to commit inappropriate
acts against the foreign appearance of the original, while maintaining the
belief that they are leaving its body untouched.
Not everyone, however, has felt we have to talk about importing foreign
bodies in such violent terms. In 1603, John Florio equates his translations
of Montaigne's Essays with children, taken out of the head of the author,
then adopted and raised in the setting of the target language. He says, "I
yet at least a fondling foster-father, having transported it from France to
England; put it in Eng\ ish clothes; taught it to talk our tongue (though many
times with ajerk ofthe Frenchjargon); would set it forth to the best service
I might" (2002: 131-132). Montaigne's thoughts are his children, and Florio
fosters them by dressing and schooling them like elegant children of his
own time. One does not have to look far for examples of others who express
the same wish to have a translation read as if it were originally written in
that language. Denham, for example, writes, "if Virgil must needs speak
English, it were fit he should speak not only as a man of this nation, but as
a man ofthis age" (2002: 156). For his part, Dryden, in his "Dedication of
the Aeneis" says, "I have endeavored to make Virgil speak such English as
he would himself have spoken, if he had been born in England, and in this
present (2002:174).
The now (in)famous expression les belles irifideles often represents an
extreme type of domestic redressing. It was originally coined to describe
the work of Nicholas Perrot d'Ablancourt who gives us a variation of the
body/clothes metaphor when describing his redressing ofthe Assyrian writer
Lucian in French. David Ross translates him as saying:
5 The gendering oftranslation is woven into many metaphors used to describe this activ­
and the body/clothes is no exception. Especially considering that it is a metaphor
that so explicitly deals with handling and taking over naked bodies, it would be easy to
draw a parallel study ofthe gendering process it often involves. For the moment, though,
I refer readers to Lori Chamberlain's essay, from which this quote was taken, for an
insightful account of the interface between gender and metaphors of translation.
«':.)
I do not always bind myself either to the words or to the reason­
ing of this author; and I adjust things to our manner and style with
his goal in mind. Different times demand different reasoning as
well as different words; and ambassadors are accustomed, for fear
of appearing ridiculous to those they strive to please, to dressing
themselves according to the fashion of the country where they are
sent. (2002: \58-159)
Foreign texts are like visitors, ambassadors who adopt the fashions of their
host culture in order to please the target readership. Examples abound of
how clothes vary across cultures in the way they relate to the bodies
cover and represent. Much of the wardrobe used by U.S. college students
would be seen as inappropriate in, say, Saudi Arabia, and, likewise, a woman
wearing a hijab in many parts ofthe U.S. would stand out rather than blend
in like she would in Saudi Arabia. D' Ablancourt gives us several concrete
examples of how he tailors words to fit meaning. When translating Lucian
he notices that "all similes having to do with love speak of that of boys,
which was not strange to Grecian morals, and which is horrifying to our
own", and he decides simply to omit them (2002: 158). In addition, Lucian
makes constant references to Homer, something that was commonplace
to the ancient audience, but "would nowadays be pedantic", thus produc­
ing an impression on the French readership that would be "quite contrary
to [Lucian's] intention; for we are talking here about elegance, and not
about erudition" (ibid.). His radical redressing of Lucian is by no means
an insult to the author for, in D' Ablancouts's view, this is the only way to
r,r"" ensure the proper transfer of the body: "It was thus necessary to change
all that in order to have a pleasing result; otherwise, it would not be
Lucian" (2002: 158).
As we know, the expression les belles in{ideIes implies that a translation
cannot be both beautiful and faithful. However, because he holds beauty
and elegance as the most important qualities of the texts he translates,
D'Ablancourt considers that his infidelities towards the appearance of the
original are necessary to properly (and faithfully) reproduce its essence. His
w
is a faithful brand of infidelity, not altogether different from the impropriety
exhibited by Hillary the Confessor and Drant when they enslaved texts for
own good.
We have been looking at the body/clothes as a metaphor that shows trans­
lation as a process in which some kind of body of meaning is slipped out
of its original clothes and redressed in others that are intended to represent
the same thing in another language. Although the translators in this section

2(P
use their tailoring license to varying degrees, they all suggest that adequate
translation requires changing the "proper" language of the original for the
"proper" language of the target culture (which, unfortunately, will always
be, to some degree, "improper" with respect to the original). Fidelity, in
this context, involves recovering the body at all costs, often at the expense
of the fashion in which it was originally portrayed.
2.2. Keeping your Eyes on the Clothes
The German Romantics objected to the vision of translation we have been
laying out thus far because it obscures what they consider to be one of the
most enticing characteristics of the original:its foreignness. This does not
imply that the German Romantics subscribe to the kind of literal approaches
that the translators in the previous section scorn, or that they are in direct
opposition to all those employing the body/clothes (with the exception,
perhaps, of 0' Ablancourt). However, whereas our metaphor has illustrated
an "author-to-reader" approach up to this point, what distinguishes this next
group of translators is that they utilize the body/clothes to advocate for a
"reader-to-author" view of their craft.
Around 1766, almost as if addressing our present discussion, Johann
Gottfried von Herder uses the body/clothes metaphor in his essay translated
by Douglas Robinson as "The Ideal Translator as Morning Star" to ridicule
the kind of approach 0' Ablancourt exemplifies par excellence:
The French, too proud of their national taste, assimilate everything
to it rather than accommodating themselves to the taste of another
time. Homer must enter France a captive, clad in French fashion,
lest he offend their eye; must let them shave of his venerable beard
and strip off his simple attire; must learn French customs and,
whenever his pleasant dignity still shines through, be ridiculed as
a barbarian. We poor Germans, on the other hand lacking as we
do a public, a native country, a tyranny of national taste - just want
to see him as he is. (2002:208)
Herder lambastes many ideas we saw surface earlier with the body/clothes,
such as ..those suggested by the captive metaphor put forth by both Hillary
the Confessor and Drant. Dryden, Denham, and 0' Ablancourt all caution
that what may be beautiful in one language can be barbarous in another
and should be amended, and 0'Ablancourt's examples of how he eradi­
cated the "barbarous" in his translations make him the epitome of what
'2.."1­
Herder understands as "the French", who are too proud to see the author
"as he is".
A few decades later, Herder'S contemporary August Withem von
Schlegel extends a similar criticism to other Europeans claiming they are
"incapable ofentering deeply into a uniquely foreign mode of being" (trans.
Douglas Robinson 2002:217):
The fact that [our fellow Europeans] have among them so many
supposed lovers of classical antiquity should not fool us; how
many of them must first mentally dress a Greek or Roman up in
some modish attire before they can find him attractive? Whereas
the German inclination is unquestionably to read the ancients in
their own sense.
These Europeans dress up the foreign authors in disguises that more re­
semble themselves than the authors they purportedly translate. By merely
seeking equivalences from one culture and language to another, their readers
will only see reflections of their own cultures and miss the enriching pos~
sibilities of the foreign. "As a result", Schlegel writes, "they are stuck with
either domestic poverty or domestic wealth" (2002:217). Although national
pride is not always regarded as a good thing, as is evident in Herder's at­
tack on the French, much of the discourse on translation produced by the
German Romantics is underlined by a similar kind of patriotism. Echoing
Herder's comments, Schlegel remarks, "there is in the spirit ofour language,
as in the character of our nation - if indeed the two are not one and the
same thing - a most versatile malleability" (2002:216-7). This malleabil­
ity, he feels, coupled with the disposition of his countrymen, allows them
to truly embrace, reproduce, and read the foreign on its own terms. He is
proud of "the German passion to know the foreign truly and deeply; the
German willingness to enter into the most exotic thought patterns and the
most outlandish customs; [and] the ardor with which Germans embrace
authenticity of content, no matter how unusual the garb in which it ap­
pears" (ibid. :217).
Herder sees his praise of the Gennan public and language as distinct
from the kind of nationalism he claims the French exhibit. The French are
"too proud of their national taste" to see beyond themselves. Their customs
and literary fashions become the filters through which they see everything,
and, thus, they only have access to a very distorted version ofthe original.
His fellow Germans, on the other hand, lack "a public, a native country, a
tyranny of national taste", and are thus more capable of, as Schlegel puts

~
it, "read[ing] the ancients in their own sense" (ibid.). It seems that the
German Romantics generally posit a national character that is marked by
a shared lack of a dominant tradition that would veil their contact with the
foreign. They are proud that their pride is mitigated, though I must point
out that the German Romantic tradition that grew from their work is also
a veil or a filter through which the foreign is handled. We will return to
this idea shortly, but for the moment, we can end here with one more im­
age that illustrates a difference between how the two approaches we have
been examining understand their role in presenting foreign bodies. While
D' Ablancourt gives us the image of the diplomat dressing to the tastes of
the host country, Herder says that the translator should act as a "tour guide"
who brings the readers to the foreign place. Speaking for the German read­
ership he writes, "we will gladly make this journey with the translator, if
only he would take us with him to Greece and show us the treasures he has
found" (2002:208).
2.3. Back and Forth Between Bodies and Clothes
"Reader-to-author" and "author-to-reader" approaches have no doubt
highlighted different aspects of the translation process. On the one hand,
we are shown that, in the process of translating a text from one language
into another, the "clothes" will always be different, and if there is not a
certain degree of conformity to domestic fashions the original may not be
understood. On the other hand, those translators who have discussed their
craft like the Romantics did make us reconsider our relationship to differ­
ence and our search for sameness in translation by reminding us that the
original is also defined by its foreign modes of expression.
We cannot, however, really separate these two approaches into such neat
categories. For all the passionate condemnation of "literalism" expressed
by the translators in the first section, they still demonstrate that a literal
approach is actually the first one they try, and is desirable, if they do not
find the result awkward. Though D' Ablancourt flaunts his radically domes­
ticating approach, he writes that "there are many places that [he] translated
word for word", and he did so whenever possible, "at least as much as
can be done in an elegant translation" (2002: 159). Jerome, the champion
of sense-for-sense translation, even posits that a word-for-word approach
should be adhered to when translating the Bible, which, as we know, is his
most important translation project. For his part, Schlegel admits that, while
it is desirable to adapt the target language to the original, "every language
27
has certain establ ished bounds ... that cannot be overstepped without
translator] being quite rightly accused of speaking no true language at
all ... " (2002:218). One must always filter the foreign through domestic
structures, regardless of how much the domestic culture wants to emulate
the foreign. All ofthe translators we have seen, no matter how dramatically
they argue for one approach over another, hint at the fact that translation
always involves both bringing readers to authors and vice versa.
The opposition of content and form has been implicit in much of our
discussion and, appropriately, the body/clothes has been used directly in
conjunction with this dichotomy. Eugene Nida notes that "the content of
a message can never be completely abstracted from the form, and form is
nothing apart from content", but we must give priority to one side or the
other, depending on the text (2000: 127). For example, with "the Sermon
on the Mount ... , the importance of the message far exceeds considerations
of form. On the other hand, some of the acrostic poems of the Old Testa­
ment are obviously designed to fit a very strict formal 'straight jacket'"
(ibid.). Nida, a Bible translator, is generally concerned with transmitting a
certain clear "message", and more often than not he privileges the content,
because too much "adherence to the letter kills the spirit" (ibid.: 131). Or,
to say it again with our metaphor, Nida quotes William Cooper, a transla­
tor of Goethe, who says, "it is better to cling to the spirit of the poem and
clothe it in language and figures entirely free from awkwardness of speech
and obscurity of picture" (ibid.: 131). Although he says that they are ulti­
mately inseparable, he treats content and form as two separate sides of a
gradient, suggesting that translators will have to focus more or less on one
side or the other. But how do we decide which texts should be placed in
a "straight-jacket" of form and which ones are allowed a little more room
for the message to move around? Is there anything inherent in the text that
tells us which, or do we decide what side of the dichotomy to lean towards
based on our literary tradition (or, in Nida's case, church doctrine)?
Let us put aside the question as to whether one should privilege bodies or
clothes, content or form, domestic or foreign elements, and focus on what all
the body/clothes users have in common:ultimately their goal is to produce
a textual attire that will most fulIy allow the original body to shine through.
In this scenario, we can easily make associations to the classic metaphor of
the translator's (in)visibility, as translators have been expected to fashion a
text that appears as ifit were not there so that only the truth of the original
is seen. The essential core imparted by the author must remain intact. Few
would argue, for example, with Schlegel's vague claim that "truth must
so
be the translator's highest, indeed virtually his only, mandate" (2002:217,
emphasis). Or that, in order to comply with this mandate, "we are", as
Dryden notes, "bound to the author's sense" (2002: 175), which, "generally
speaking, is to be sacred and inviolable" (ibid.: 173). D' Ablancourt, while
boasting of his beautifully unfaithful exploits, still claims to have "per­
mitted [Lucian's] opinions to remain completely intact, because it would
not otherwise be a translation" (2002: 158). For their part, the Romantics
wanted simply to "see Homer as he is". Waiter Benjamin, according to
Harry Zohn's translation, believes that "a real translation is transparent;
it does not cover the original, does not block its light, but allows the pure
language, as though reinforced by its own medium to shine upon the original
more fully" (2000:81). This is directly related to many of our metaphors
of truth. We use "seeing" to mean "knowing", and must "look" through all
those layers of words to what is believed to be inside them. Whatever is
found inside, whether it be the author's "sense", "opinions", or "purpose",
it is this truth that translators must simultaneously discover and recover in
a way that their work appears as if it were not there.
Ofcourse, translation cannot disappear. A translation can never simulta­
neously copy both the original's content and form, all its words and sense,
or make the foreign into the same, nor can it ever complete the one goal
with which it has been charged: total reproduction. Thus, it will always be
marked by a difference or deviation from the original. All of the translators
we have been examining, no matter how much they praise their transla­
tions, or translation itself, affirm the secondary status of the work they do.
Schlegel, for example, says the translator, "is so greatly at a disadvantage"
to the author (2002:218), and that "it goes without saying that in the end
even the finest translation is at best an approximation to an indeterminable
degree" because it is impossible to achieve "precisely the same results with
totally different tools and means" (ibid.:220). Florio calls his translation
"this defective edition ... delivered at second hand" (2002: 131). Dryden
accepts that "the wretched translator" is the author's servant, saying that
"he who invents is master of his thoughts and words", and therefore,
"slaves we are, and labour on another man's plantation" (2002:175).
Denham offers some of the most self-effacing remarks and flagellates
himself with the body/clothes to show he has tried his best to express the
true Homer:
If this disguise I have put upon him (I wish I could give it a better
name) fit not naturally and easily on so grave a person, yet it may
';r I
become him better than that fool's-coat wherein the French and
Italian have oflate presented him; at least, 1hope, it will not make
him appear deformed, by making any part enormously bigger or
less than the life (I having made it my principal care to follow him
... ). Neither have 1 anywhere offered such violence to his sense as
to make it seem mine and not his .... (2002: 156)
!.
Naturally, he also solemnly swears: "I have not the vanity to think my
copy equal to the original" (ibid.). When his expression is not as full as the
original; he accepts the blame (it is not a defect of the original), and where
his translations are fuller, he rejects the credit, saying it is, ultimately, the
author's doing: "if they are not his own conceptions, they are at least the
result of them" (ibid.).
The common conception of translation we have unfolded with the
body/clothes - as a process of relentless pursuit to recover an essence,
although it can never realize this goal exhibits characteristics that are
strikingly similar to what Socrates terms "imitation" in Book X of The
Republic. In the next section I will present an overview of Socrates's view
of representation, which will help us situate the body/clothes within this
larger conceptual tradition.
3. Translation at the Third-Remove
Every imitator "is by nature third from the king and the truth", G.M.A Grube
translates Socrates as saying to his friend Glaucon while the two discuss
what and whom to include in their utopian Republic (Republic:597e). As
is well known, Plato posits that everything in this world is a representation
of an ideal form, a perfect and eternal essence that embodies the truth of
what is being represented. Carpenters, for example, model their beds on
the idea of the true bed, which is why it is recognizable as such, and con­
versely, the forms are acquired based on rationally examining individual
;B:'
particulars (ibid. :596a).
Whereas some representations are modelled after their correspond­
ing forms, imitations are modelled on other representations, and are thus
secondary modes of presenting truth. A carpenter fashions a bed in the
image of the ideal Bed, but painters look to physical beds as their models,
producing secondary imitations that merely reflect the appearance of a
bed. "The imitation is far removed from the truth", Socrates says, "for
it touches only' a small part of each thing and a part that is itself only an

3<..
image" (ibid. :598b). Each representation is like another layer over the truth
of what it represents, obscuring, each time, a little more of the essence
Socrates sees underneath.
Poets are similar to painters in that they merely supply us with images
of the physical world. 6 Poems are "third remove from that which is
are easily produced without knowledge of the truth (since they are only
images, not things that are)" (ibid.:598e-599). In addition, it is clear to
Socrates that poets know nothing of truth:"! suppose that, if [the poet]
truly had knowledge of the things he imitates, he'd be much more serious
about actions than about imitations ofthem" (ibid.:599b). Poets are only
interested in aesthetic reactions, and Socrates believes that iftheir verses are
stripped of adornments, poems have no substance to show for themselves
(ibid. :60 I b).
Imitation is mentioned throughout the Dialogues and Socrates even
condemns Plato's medium to the third remove as the latter writes the former
into history. Writing, Socrates contends, is like a painting because neither
can answer for itself. When one asks questions of texts "they go on telling
you just the same thing forever" (Phaedrus:275d-e, trans. R. Hackforth).
Socrates compares written texts to children, who cannot defend themselves,
and often need their creator-parents to come to their aid (ibid.:275e).
Socrates's interlocutor, Phaedrus, calls writing "dead discourse", and says
that "living speech [is] the original of which the written discourses may
fairly be called a kind of image" (ibid.:276a).
Plato, who left us with well over a thousand pages of writing, does
not, perhaps, fully agree, and today we certainly do not treat his oeuvre as
mere "dead discourse". For Socrates, the ideal form is the true original to
be represented, but today texts written by authors are generally considered
original works, and their "essence" is treated with a reverence similar to
that which Socrates shows towards forms. The notions of the "original" and
authorship have changed throughout the ages,7 and, although the comparison
may not be completely parallel, the traditional view of translation we have
seen in the body/clothes follows a pattern that is similar to Socrates's notion
of imitation. The original "essence" of a text is believed to stem from the
author's thoughts, which are comparable to the first remove. These thoughts
6Although I will refer to poets and poetry, the word used in Greek, "poiesis", does not
refer to what we now consider poetry, but, instead, to creation in general, and literary
creation \n particular.
mitting only that which mimics and will instil the "rhythms of someone
7 See, for example, Foucault's essay "What is an Author?" for an interesting discussion
who leads an ordered and courageous life" (ibid.:39ge). Luckily for Plato,
on the historically constructed figure we call the author.
j)
give rise to the original text (second remove), which is the basis for the
translation (third remove imitation). Ifwe were to follow what Socrates has
said of writers, we would have to say that translation is a fourth-remove
form of representation; however, I am focusing here on the common notion
that translations only provide us with representations of the original texts
authors create to represent their thoughts. The translation is but an image
of the original because it is created without a direct link to truth. One might
say a translator is, as Glaucon says ofthe painter, "an imitator of what oth­
ers make" (Republic:597d). Many of the cliches related to translators and
translation resonate with the comments Socrates makes about imitators.
As a reflection, perhaps, of his claim that it is better to "make the thing
imitated than its image", and that anyone who could do both would choose
the former (ibid. :599a-b), translators are often called frustrated writers who
would write originals if only they could. In the Platonic tradition we are
also continually reminded that something is always "lost in translation",
and more will go missing with each (re)move away from the origin.
Imitation is not only considered an inferior form of representation, but
it is also seen as potentially dangerous because it easily deceives. When
discussing poetry, Socrates declares, "the most serious charge against
imitation" is "that with a few rare exceptions it is able to corrupt even
decent people" (ibid. :605c). Poetry corrupts because, instead of appealing
to reason, it stirs up the emotions, clouding one's ability to ascertain truth.
Regarding the painter who can only make images, Socrates warns, "ifhe is
a good painter and displays his painting of a carpenter at a distance, he can
deceive children and foolish people into thinking that it is truly a carpenter"
(ibid. :598c). Socrates tells us we need to recognize imitations for what they
are, always remembering their secondary place in relation to that which they
imitate. All of the translators we have discussed express, implicitly and often
explicitly, their subservience to the original, maintaining that it is, in fact,
the glorious original that ultimately contains the author's truth. They seem
to be reassuring readers in the Platonic tradition that their work is indeed
secondary, and hail the original as their forever-unattainable goa\.
Socrates acknowledges the usefulness of imitation if it is created and
received in the right conditions. Music and poetry, for example, can help
produce "a moderate and good character" in the citizens of the Republic
by instilling them with a sense of grace and harmony (ibid.:40 Ia). He then
selects the kind of poetry and music he would allow in his Republic, per­


3~
Socrates also tolerates writing. Even though a text "drifts all over the place",
and runs the risk offaIling into the hands of those who will misunderstand
it (Phaedrus:275d-e), Socrates never prohibits writing like he eventually
does with poetry. He does, though, establish some guidelines:the author
must have full knowledge about what is being written, and write in the
clearest manner possible (ibid. :277b-c). In the Western tradition there has
been a constant background echo of "traduttore, traditore", but the "neces­
sary evil" of translation has generaIly been tolerated provided that it too,
above all, seeks to re-present the original truth. Whereas Socrates tolerates
poetry in Book III of The Republic, in Book X he sees it as sufficiently
dangerous to ban it altogether. Similarly, the history of translation in the
West is fraught with cases in which it has been prohibited, especiaIly when
the originals are considered to contain a whoIly important truth that cannot
run the risk of being misrepresented.We all know from the biographies of
Bible translators such as Etienne Dolet and William Tyndale that breaking
this ban, or circulating what is considered mistranslations of the Word, can
have serious consequences.
Although the traditional conception oftranslation clearly views the task
as one ofthird remove representation, when people are not speaking directly
about it by name, they often do what Socrates forbids, and consider transla­
tions as second-remove representations. Texts and authors are consumed all
over the world in translation, debated and picked apart word by word with
hardly any mention that what is being attributed to the author is often, in
fact, a product of its translation. Examples can be found everywhere. We
only need to look at the way translations have traditionally been marketed
or, as Lawrence Venuti has shown, the way world literature is taught, to
find practices that attempt, in a sense, to ignore the presence of translation
(see, for example, Venuti 1998:89-95). The international news media con­
stantly quotes from world leaders whose words shape our global political
discourse, but pays Iittle attention to the fact that the "sound bites" it throws
around might not reaIly be what was said. s So much of what we call truth
is based upon translated texts that, according to our dominant "philosophy
of truth", are mere images, shadows of the originals we are trying to read
and decipher. Through this "third-remove" practice we have constructed
8 Ai;an illustration, see Juan Cole's detailed commentary on the often-repeated quote
attributed to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in which he allegedly threatens
to "wipe Israel off the map". Cole, who makes it explicit that he is by no means a sup­
porter of Ahmadinejad, convincingly shows that the quote is not only the result of a
mistranslation, but it has also been taken out of its original context to support a certain
agenda that is attempting to demonize the Iranian state.
!:5
our beliefs on everything from the nature of beds and souls to our view of
the language we use to discuss them. Ifwe are to believe that we have the
ability to attain truth, it is necessary to forget that much of what we "know"
comes to us through translation, something that, by definition, cannot give
us the whole truth.
It is with the notion of forgetfulness that we can begin to introduce the
work of Friedrich Nietzsche. According to him, the aforementioned for­
getfulness is part and parcel of the Platonic model of truth. In his critique
1/' of Plato, Nietzsche attacks some of the most basic notions that sustain the
system of truth we have seen underlying the body/clothes. At first glance it
will seem that this attack renders our metaphor an impossible model for a
post-Nietzschean conception of translation. However, a fundamental aspect
of Nietzsche'S work is the reversal of the relationship between metaphor
and truth, and this will allow us to revitalize the metaphor that seems to
have been killed by him, and rethink what we call translation.
4. Removing the Focus on Removes
Socrates claims that "we hypothesize a single form in connection with many
things to which we apply the same name" (Republic:596a), and Nietzsche
begins his attack at this basic level. If we "hypothesize" forms based on
their particular representations, then not only do we base essences on "im­
"0.
perfect" representations, but, in order to attain them, we must forget all the
.;5 differences between things of "the same name". Contrary to how Socrates
discusses beds, in his essay translated by Daniel Breazeale as "On Truth
and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense",9 Nietzsche writes:
Every concept arises from the equation of unequal things. Just as
a certain leaf is never totally the same as another, so it is certain
that the concept "leaf' is formed by arbitrarily discarding these
individual differences and by forgetting the distinguishing aspects.
This awakens the idea that, in addition to the leaves, there exists in
nature the "Ieaf':the original model according to which all leaves
were perhaps woven, sketched, measured, colored, curled, and
painted - but by incompetent hands, so that no specimen has turned
out to be a correct, trustworthy, and faithful likeness of the original
model. (1999:83)
9 I will focus on this essay, which was written early in Nietzsche's career but remained
unpublished in his lifetime, because it provides a succinct overview of many of the basic
themes he would develop in his later work.
~f,,;.
There are certainly differences between organic leaves and human-made
beds, but Socrates would say that the basic structure is the same regarding
the form (the true Bed or Leaf) and its temporal and imperfect representa­
tions (beds and leaves) (see Repub/ic:596c). Plato can only hypothesize
forms ifhe begins with the belief that they exist, and proceeds to "discover"
them by noting similarities among individual particulars. He attributes
differences to imperfections since nothing in this physical world can be a
perfect embodiment of its form. For Nietzsche, however, differences run deep,
and when we equate "unequal things", our "eyes merely glide over the surface
ofthings and see 'forms'" (1999:80). In a sense, we find what we are looking
for, ignoring that which might not confirm our vision of an ideal form.
Likewise, we create categories ofknow\edge and see the world through
them. For example, we establish the traits for the category "mammal", and
when we encounter a camel and verify that it exhibits these particular char­
acteristics, we are overjoyed, believing we have discovered something about
the essence of the camel (ibid. :85). Categories of knowledge do not tell us
anything about the "thing itself', but only reflect our own constructions of
the ways in which we envision the world. "All that we actually know about
these laws of nature is what we ourselves bring to them", Nietzsche writes,
and "if we are forced to comprehend all things only under these forms, then
it ceases to be amazing that in all things we actually comprehend nothing
but these forms" (ibid.:87).
Nietzsche argues that we have no access to forms and essences. 10 What
we call truth is not some fixed form or stable core inside the representational
removes that orbit (and hopefully point towards) it. Truth is:
a movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms:
in short. a sum of human relations which have been poetically and
rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which,
after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and bind­
ing. Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions; they
are metaphors that have become wom out and have been drained of
sensuous force, coins which have lost their embossing and are now
considered as metal and no longer coins. (ibid.:84)
10 Whereas Nietzsche generally indicates that he believes that there are no essences, he
says we have no way of knowing whether they exist or not, and in this essay he implies
that even if they do, we could not access them. A scientific category, for example, is a
human creation "and does not originate in the essence of things; although we should
not presume to claim that this contrast does not correspond to the essences of things:
that would of course be just as indemonstrable as its opposite" (1999:83-84).
if
Metaphorical expression, here, is not secondary to proper representations
of truth, it is the very material with which "proper" truth is constructed.
The conceptual is itself metaphorical because it relies on abstraction and
comparison. We only need to look at "proper" definitions in dictionaries to
see that this is the case. II Translation cannot be defined without recourse
to metaphors of transporting solid objects (and often, literally, transport­
ing bodies) from one place, position or condition to another. We can never
describe translation "proper" without recourse to that "improper" form of
representation: metaphor. 12
Not only does Nietzsche believe that concepts and thoughts are meta­
phorical, but also that the language in which they are formulated was born
in metaphor. In the beginning "a nerve stimulus is transferred into an image:
first metaphor. The image, in turn, is imitated in a sound:second metaphor"
(ibid. :82), and from there a "movable host of metaphors" has been built
up around these first metaphors, evolving into the languages we speak. At
the same time, we expect language to name some "proper" truth outside of
itself. Here is where forgetfulness comes to the fore. In order to maintain
the traditional notion of truth it is necessary to forget that, deep down,
everything we know is constructed with material that has historically been
deemed "improper", since it is foreign to what it represents.
These insights have several important implications for our study. In the
first place, Nietzsche'S attack on Platonism shakes the foundations upon
which we have seen the body/clothes constructed. This metaphor has ex­
emplified and reinforced certain Platonic notions, and, if we cannot talk
of discovering a solid body that is re-represented in removes, then it may
seem that this metaphor is inadequate for describing translation in the post­
Nietzschean context However, the body/clothes has participated, along with
a host of other metaphors, in creating what we consider to be translation
(and truth), and because our traditional conceptions are so intertwined with
many of the Platonic notions that surfaced with our metaphor of study, to
According to the Webster sNew Twentieth Century Dictionary (McKechnie 1965), "to
translate" means, among other things, "to change from one place, position, or condition
to another; to transfer; specifically; to convey to heaven, originally without death; to
transfer (a bishop) from one see to another; to move (a saint's body, relics, etc.) from
one place of interment to another",
12 Although we cannot avoid metaphor, in the Platonic tradition there has been a constant
attempt to repress metaphorical representation in favor of proper forms, especially in
losophy. for example, Paul de Man (1979), Jacques Derrida (1982), or Sarah Kofman
(1993), who all show that, despite the efforts of many philosophers to subdue metaphor,
they cannot help but make recourse to this trope in their condemnation of it.
sv
rid ourselves of it would be to lose the vocabulary with which our thoughts
have been fashioned. We cannot create a new conception out of nothing.
Nietzsche writes that "the only way in which the possibility ofsubsequently
constructing a new conceptual edifice from metaphors themselves can be
explained is by the firm persistence of these original forms" (ibid.:90). For
the present study this means we must persist with the body/clothes, revisit­
ing the relationship between the bodies we all have and the ways in which
we represent them (us?).
4.1. Body/Clothes Refashioned
We can begin by looking at Nietzsche's own recourse to the body/clothes,
which illustrates his reversal of the Platonic conception of truth and rep­
resentation that we have been associating with this metaphor. In The Gay
Science he summarizes much ofour earlier discussion of his work by saying
(in Walter Kaufmann's translation):
What things are called is incomparably more important than what
they are. The reputation, name, and appearance, the usual measure
and weight ofa thing, what it counts for originally almost always
wrong and arbitrary, thrown over things like a dress and altogether
foreign to their nature and even to their skin - all this grows from
generation unto generation, merely because people believe in it,
until it gradually grows to be part of the thing and turns into its
very body. What at first was appearance becomes in the end, almost
invariably, the essence and is effective as such. (1974: 122, author's
emphasis).
Ifwe do not have access to the essence of things, and if the language we
use to denote truths is foreign to their being, then there is no possibility of
the kind of objectivity assumed by many who claim to espouse unveiled
truths, free from dissimulation and "spin", or free from the histories that
have named them. We cannot discover what things "are" with language,
we can only inquire into what they are called, and by whom. If language is
"wrong and arbitrary" with respect to essences, it is anything but a neutral
representation of "truth," and is, consequently, often not at all arbitrary in
regards to a certain "truth" one wants to convey.
This is very pertinent to translation because, in this scenario, not only
will a translation act as another veil, but it will be based, in part, on the
many other veils that participate in naming the original. Once again, the
.f7
Bible provides a good illustration because it has such a long history of inter­
pretations and translations that highlights the impossibility of determining
some ahistorical truth. Jerome's Vulgate, for example, may have been first
accused of being inaccurate,13 but, through the power invested in it by the
Holy Roman Empire, his version became the authentic word of God, not
as the source text for many subsequent translations, but also as the
ultimate authority for the foundation of much of the early church doctrine.
It is now impossible to separate this translation of the Bible (and all the
other ones) from the way in which we read the original, even if we do so in
its original languages. '4 The history of Bible translation shows how these
versions, "thrown over" the Bible like dresses, have accumulated over the
generations, turning "into its very body". If we follow tradition with its
incessant search for essences, or, in this case, the unmitigated Word, then
translation is problematic because each version adds another layer over
what we are trying to see. But translation is not necessarily problematic.
If we do not concede that words are veils over some original meaning we
are seeking, then translation does not add yet another veil that separates us
further from naked truth. The truth is in the veils. "We no longer believe
that truth remains truth when the veils are withdrawn; we have lived too
much to believe this", Nietzsche writes, and almost prudishly continues,
"today we consider it a matter of decency not to wish to see everything
naked" (1974:38). Since it is impossible to attain naked truth, Nietzsche
believes our time would be better spent deciphering how and by whom
these veils are named truth.
Regardless of whether this unattainable naked Truth exists or not, we do
have literal bodies that are associated with an identity we clothe to present
ourselves to the world. The metaphors are many to describe where identity
might reside inside us:in the blood, heart, gut, brain, or more out of reach
places such as the soul or the unconscious. But even if one of these "places"
is designated as the location of our true identity, this identity is never suffi­
ciently stuffed away inside to be kept safe from its external representations.
We have all heard the cliche "the clothes make the man" (which has also
13 See Augustine's letter to Jerome in which the fonner explains to the latter how his
translation provoked an uproar in a church because it did not conform to the version
people already knew (cited in Venuti 1999:78-79).
14 Nobody in our time is a native speaker ofAncient Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic, and there
is a good chance that most people who learn these languages do so in order to read the
of this book with which they already feel they are quite acquainted. They will
read the originals in light of the Bibles they already know, and, in a sense, read them as
translations of the texts through which they have come to know them.
4",
been used since the time of Cicero), and along these lines, Virginia Woolf
observes in Orlando that "there is much to support the view that it is clothes
that wear us and not we them; we may make them take the mould of arm
or breast, but they mould our hearts, our brains, our tongues to their liking"
(1928: 188). All of our clothes are costumes, and as we put them on, we
tend to become what we think they mean. This is more obvious in cases
where there are official uniforms, like in the military or in a court of law,
but I would say that it is not very different from the many cases when the
codes are not so explicitly formulated, such as when one adopts the dress
a hippie, punk, or business executive on vacation. Do we, then, choose
our clothes and follow them around? And where do these clothes that wear
us, or we them, begin and end?
When we take the fabric skin and stand there naked we are still
confronted with something that we often try shaping and sculpting to pres­
ent ourselves to the world. Though we may spend a lot of money and time
to do so, we generally feel that our bodies are still reflections of something
more profound that resides within them. However, this core cannot always
determine the appearance of our bodies, which age and malfunction against
our will, and much of what is associated with our bodies' exteriority no
doubt shapes the identity said to be inside them. These outward appearances
can even come to dominate people's entire conception ofthemselves. Alma
Grund, a character in Paul Auster's The Book ofIllusions, for example, has
a birthmark across one side of her face, and she explains to the protagonist
how it has shaped her identity. Inspired as a young girl by another character
with a similar mark from Nathaniel Hawthorne's story "The Birthmark",
Alma has come to realize:
Other people carried their humanity inside them, but I wore mine
on my face. This was the difference between me and everyone else.
1 wasn't allowed to hide who I was. Every time people looked at
me, they were looking right into my sou I. ... [I] knew that I would
be defined by that purple blotch on my face. (2002: 121)
How we with our bodies certainly varies from person to person and
culture to but we can concede that our identity is not established
from "within" ourselves, reducible to something that exists free
from all the changing things we use to present (but that also seem to get
in the way of) our "true" identities. It is impossible to draw a line between
identity and its many representations because they are both simultaneously
shaping each other. Formulating an identity is always a changing process,
ifl
but, nevertheless, we still generally look inward for that "true self' at the
core of all these things that cannot quite represent us correctly, a core that
seems to continually elude a final designation.
A good illustration of the difficulty of arriving at a "true self' can be
found in a fragment from the poem "The Tobacco Shop", by Alvaro de
Campos, one of the many heteronyms used by the Portuguese poet Fer­
nando Pessoa. In the middle of the poem, the "poetic I" ("Alvaro", for the
sake of simDlicitv) wrestles with his clothes in the interminahle quest for
I made myself into something I did not
And what I could have made of myself I did not.
The carnival costume I was wearing was all wrong.
Soon they took me for someone I wasn't and I didn't disown it,
and I lost myself.
When I tried taking off the mask,
It was stuck to my face.
When I finally peeled it off and took a look in the mirror,
I'd grown older.
I was drunk and J didn't know now how to wear the costume I
hadn't taken off.
I threw the mask away and went to sleep in the dressing room
Like a stray dog the management tolerates
Because he's harmless
And I'm going to tell this story to show I'm sublime.
(Pessoa 1974:365, my translation)
Alvaro becomes something unexpected, out of Iine with whom he thought
he should be. His appearance does not adequately express him, but before
he can change it, others come to know him through this faulty dress. What
is more, Alvaro cannot get the mask off at first because it has grown to
be part of his face. When he finally manages, he sees he is no longer who
he was before.
What Alvaro experiences is the process we all go through as we de-
the fashions with which we present ourselves to the world. A child
is dressed by its parents according to the way they think it should look to
the world (both in the sense of looking at the world, and being seen
and this first relationship with clothes will have an impact on how the child
views fashion in the future. Thinking once again of clothes as language, we
can relate the enculturation we receive from fashion to the role language
L{1
plays in the construction of our identity as seen by psychoanalysis. One
of Jacques Lacan's translators, Bruce Fink, summarizes a basic Lacanian
notion of language:
We are born into a world of discourse, a discourse or language that
precedes our birth and that will live on after our death. Long before
a child is born, a place is prepared in its parents' linguistic universe:
the parents speak ofthe child yet to be born, try to select the perfect
name for it, prepare a room for it, and begin imagining what their
lives will be like with an additional member of the household. The
words they use to talk about the child have been used for decades,
if not centuries, and the parents have generally neither defined nor
redefined them despite many years of use. (1995:5)
Children are taught how to use the language and clothes that will define
them in accordance with long established traditions that are external to
them, although, I would also argue that we are constantly participating,
to some extent, in redefining what different clothes and words mean. Our
language, like our dress, is a collection of signifiers that are read with the
end of discovering the identity presumably inside them. We are born into
and raised in a particular heritage of representation, but just like texts we
go out into the world, where we will be read in many different ways and
acquire new meanings beyond the scope of our parents' control. The read­
ings others make of us certainly have a profound impact on how we end
up viewing ourselves as our "internal" identities must contend with how
others view our "external" appearances.
Similar to the way we struggle to establish our identity and represent it,
a text's identity is constantly being formed by its interaction with the world,
which includes the new forms it acquires through translation. Socrates
would say that a key difference between texts and human children is that the
former do not have a life inside them in the sense that our bodies do. In other
words, they do not have a life inside that can explain what they mean. Of
course, we often designate the voice behind the text as the father-author's,
but common sense tells us that parents are not always the best authorities
when it comes to the identity of their children. Just as there are infinite
varieties of relationships established and developed between children and
parents, there are infinite relationships between texts and authors, which
have had differing impacts on the resulting identities of the children-texts.
Likewise, texts are separate entities from their "parents" and will go out
and circulate in the world where authors cannot control the identities
'13
others create for them, which, in some cases, may playa more influential
role than that of the parents. 15
In the context of post-Nietzschean philosophy, texts can only have
life insofar as they are read and discussed. They need people constantly
explaining them "in other words" than the ones they say literally, and, in a
sense, they depend on the possibility of being translated because they can
only be meaningful when we relate them somehow to ourselves and our
language. If texts forever said the same thing regardless of context or his­
tory, there would be, for example, no quarrelling over which word or words
in the Bible do or do not warrant designations of second-class citizenship.
Just as a child dressed a certain way will look very different to one adult
than another, the original will be read differently across its diverse read­
ership. We cannot discover and recover essences, but, instead, add veils
that, depending on how they are received, may grow into part of the body
we are simultaneously trying to unveil. Because what we call truth does
not come from an inherent "essence" we can begin to rethink the relation­
ships from which it is derived. For more than two millennia the discourse
revolving around translation has mirrored the Platonic pursuit of unveiling
and representing essences, which could be free from the interference of
interpretations that do not properly belong to the texts in question. In this
scenario the appropriate behavior for translators has been to refrain from
taking part in creating the body under the clothes. Nietzsche's work has
great implications for translation studies because, in the absence of neutral
and objective truth, translators are endowed with a responsibility that goes
beyond the traditional expectations that they could simply repeat what the
original says, and we cannot ignore their agency as co-creators of the texts
whose identity they are helping to name.
15 We have seen this is the case with the Bible and we could also consider translations,
such as, for example, the many versions of The Arabian Nights, which have had a
fundamental role in the creation of what this text has become (cf., for example, Borges
2000). Or, we could think how, to the dismay of many, much ofthe "standard" tenninol­
ogy used in psychoanalysis is more a product of the English "Standard Edition" than
Freud's original words (cf. Kirsner 2007).
4~
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BENSHALOM
of Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies,
of Warwick, UK

Abstract. Translators are similar to actors: they both assum~

altered identities in an effort to modify a sign system and repre­
sent it in front of an audience. They are both praised for being
creative, but also blamed for being technicians; treated as ser­
vants oftruth, but also as masters ofdeceit. This paper aims at
developing the metaphor oftranslation as performancefurther
by isolating specific issues dealt with by actors and theatre
scholars and reviewing their relevance to translation practice.
One ofthese issues is the question oftime concept: translators,
used to revising their work when they wish, ml{Y still benefit from
strategies developed by performers who cannot go back in time
and correct their errors. Another issue involves impersonation.
Performance scholars, like Diderot and Stanislavski, have dealt
with the question whether practitioners who imitate a persona
should perfect their external performances or change their
internal natures. The conclusions they draw ml{Y be relevant
to translators. The limilS ofthis metaphor can be pushed even
further by adapting additional performance issues to the realities
oftranslalion. The acting metaphor thus exemplifies thefertility
ofinteraction between translation studies and other disciplines,
and contributes to the status oftranslation as an art.

Introduction

t 1. An Attractive Pair

Five years ago I was working on one of my first literary translations: a

satirical play called "Reading Hebron", written in English in 1996 by the
Canadian playwright Jason Sherman. This dark yet hilarious work contained
no less than sixty-four characters, each with his or her own background,
agenda and linguistic register. The characters were all speaking, shouting,
whispering or chattering using unique voices. Translating the play into
Hebrew gradually became a very vocal process: I was shouting, whisper­
ing and chattering along with my characters, looking for the best way to