The writer, to be sure, is
dealing with the originals. Let us more humbly sit at the feet of
the translators. 'Highly gifted individuals,' or no, the sort of
thing the translators wrote was 'And God said, Let there be
light,' 'A sower went forth to sow,' 'The Kingdom of Heaven is
like unto leaven, which a woman took,' 'The wages of sin is
death,' 'The trumpet shall sound,' 'Jesus wept,' 'Death is
swallowed up in victory.'
Let me quote you for better encouragement, as well as for
relief, a passage from Matthew Arnold on the Authorised
Version:
The effect of Hebrew poetry can be preserved and transferred
in a foreign language as the effect of other great
poetry cannot. The effect of Homer, the effect of Dante, is
and must be in great measure lost in a translation, because
their poetry is a poetry of metre, or of rhyme, or both; and
the effect of these is not really transferable. A man may make
a good English poem with the matter and thoughts of Homer
and Dante, may even try to reproduce their metre, or rhyme:
but the metre and rhyme will be in truth his own, and the
effect will be his, not the effect of Homer or Dante.
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