1 Introduction
The status of translation within published commentaries on classical texts has had a mixed history. One can think for instance of a classic commentary such as the three volumes of Fraenkelâs commentary on the Agamemnon, which comes with a complete translation.1 On the other hand, the commentaries that advanced students might encounter at school or University, such as the âOxford Redsâ for commentaries on texts such as books of Virgilâs Aeneid, or the volumes of the Cambridge âGreen and Yellowâ, are not volumes that typically provide a separate translation at all.2 In part, this might be seen as an understandable consequence of the need to supply texts which could be studied at school or undergraduate level, and it is certainly not a straightforward task to conduct classes on a text with students who are expected to be able to translate the text they are studying, but who happen also to have the translation open in front of them.3
Scholarship on commentaries has flowered in recent years. Three noted edited volumes on commentaries have been at the heart of recent scholarship on classical commentaries, Glenn Mostâs CommentariesâKommentare (1999), Roy Gibson and Christina Krausâ The Classical Commentary (2002), and, most recently, in 2016, the volume edited by Christina Kraus and Christopher Stray entitled Classical Commentaries: Explorations in a Scholarly Genre.4 Within several of the papers in these volumes, there are important observations on the place of translations in commentaries: thus Susan Stephens considers how the absence of translations in many scholarly editions of fragmentary texts carries with it sometimes unhelpful assumptions about audience;5 Patrick Finglass offers several valuable pages on the role of Jebbâs elegant and influential translations in his editions of Sophocles, and their tendency at times to obscure textual difficulties;6 Salvador Bartera notes the varied provision of translation of harder passages from Tacitus in school commentaries in the nineteenth century;7 Penelope Wilson looks at the interrelationship of translation and commentary in Jean-François Vauvilliersâ 1772 translation (with commentary) of a selection of Pindaric odes.8
The most recent of these three volumes explicitly offers a chapter with the word âtranslationâ in its title. The paper in question, âTranslation and Commentaryâ by Stuart Gillespie,9 deals with Popeâs translation of Homerâs Iliad and its accompanying notes, instead of offering more general reflections on the use of translation in the classical commentary considered more broadly. Nevertheless, Gillespieâs paper does make an important point about what translation can do, which is to point towards the way in which for Pope, âpoeticalâ responses to the Iliad can themselves be analogous to the contribution which can be offered by commentary. Gillespie quotes a useful passage from the Essay on Criticism (1712) on the way in which Homer is best understood through looking at the text of Virgil, which is described as âCommentâ here:10
Alexander Pope, Essay on Criticism 124â125, 128â129Be Homerâs Works your Study, and Delight,Read them by Day, and meditate by Night â¦Still with Itself comparâd, his Text peruse,And let your Comment be the Mantuan Muse.
Very similar to this, but in prose, is the passage in Popeâs Introduction to his translation of the Iliad, in which he again advises the avoidance of commentaries in undertaking a translation:
What I would further recommend to him, is to study his author rather from his own text, than from any commentaries, how learned soever, or whatever figure they may make in the estimation of the world; to consider him attentively in comparison with Virgil above all the ancients, and with Milton above all the moderns.11
Both of these passages from Pope convey the important idea that one poetic text more broadly can provide a commentary on another.
This is obviously something different from the experience of the writer of the academic commentary on Statiusâ Silvae, but there is nevertheless an important point latent here, with Popeâs translation of Homerâs Iliad envisaged as a work which in itself is a kind of commentary on Homerâs Iliad, even in the format of a translation. We can similarly compare Victoria Moulâs 2007 article which looks at Ben Jonsonâs translation of Horace as a kind of commentary.12 The issue here, however, in both cases is not so much the question of translationâs role when published with a commentary, but what translation on its own can do in terms of explicating a text.13
2 Translation and Statius
If we turn to Statius, even something published purely as a text and translation of Statius can nevertheless also be felt to contribute in the manner of a commentary. Shackleton Baileyâs Loeb edition of Statiusâ Silvae comments on the fact that his translation will be of interest to commentators:14
The notes to my translation include, beside basic information to make it intelligible, much hermeneutic and/or revelatory material, such as may concern any commentator to come. Textual matters are mostly relegated to the Critical Appendix.
Whereas the position taken by Shackleton Bailey, that the notes to the translation can be of help to future commentators, may be regarded as a variation on the regular use of commentary on a Greek or Latin text as an exegetical tool, there have been more unqualified recognitions of the role of translation. Consider the recent translation of selections of the Silvae by Anthony Howell and Bill Shepherd, which has been considered one of the more lively translations.15 Carole Newlands, in an important review of the translation in the journal Translation and Literature, however, points out that the translation often illuminates something that might have been overlooked:16
A sense of this poetryâs tonal range is evident too: Howell and Shepherd are alert to Statiusâ humour and wit, a quality often overlooked by translators and critics, as well as to his emotional depth.
Likewise, Newlands also points out in her closing remarks that the translations can draw attention to elements of nuance, or even of subversion in the midst of praise poetry:17
As twenty-first-century readers of Statius they also importantly appreciate the possibility of subversion in panegyric, and note his skilful use of irony.
Turning from translations of Statius to commentaries, the preface to Michael Dewarâs excellent commentary on Thebaid 9 offers a striking discussion of the function of translation in a commentary:18
The translation can lay no claim to literary merit, but seeks merely to provide a reasonably accurate key to a difficult text without wholly sacrificing the flavour and exuberance of the original.
What seems to be implied here is something rather unambitious: the choice of the word âkeyâ evokes those old-fashioned and very literal translations of texts such as those published in the famous series âKellyâs Keys to the Classicsâ.19 Nevertheless, Dewarâs comment here rather undersells the high quality of his translation, and the fact that it does play an exegetic part in the overall aim of the volume of commentary on Thebaid 9, as well as succeeding splendidly in conveying the âflavour and exuberanceâ of Statiusâ writing.20 The value of translation for commentaries had, twenty years before Dewarâs commentary, been noted by Cambridge University Press in 1971, when giving guidelines for what Cambridge âOrangeâ commentaries should seek to do: the first guideline is: âTo elucidate the sense where necessary; sometimes translation is the most economical way of doing thisâ.21
A rather more positive sense of what translation might hope to achieve is conveyed with admirable economy by Kathleen Coleman in the âEditorâs Prefaceâ to her edition of Silvae 4 where she remarks (1988: v), âI hope that the translation will elucidate both text and commentaryâ. This raises the intriguing possibility that not only might a translation have something to contribute to our understanding of the text, but that a translation might also reveal something about the commentary. From this point of view, the discussion of translation in the second volume of the three-volume critical text and translation of Statiusâ epic poems produced by Barry Hall, Anne Ritchie, and Mike Edwards is worth pausing on for a moment.
In introducing their translation of the Statian epics, Ritchie and Hall begin with the unremarkable point that they are seeking to make an accurate prose rendering of the Latin: âOur translation of the Thebaid and Achilleid has one primary objective, and that is to represent in English prose as far as we can what we believe to be the uppermost meaning of Statiusâ Latinâ. However, the editors then make the point that characterizations such as âthe brusqueness of Tydeusâ and âthe dignified utterance of Adrastusâ can be something which they are aiming to achieve.22 They then go on, much more strikingly, to adumbrate, what they see as an additional purpose for translation:23
We have a secondary purpose also in providing a translation, and that is to obviate the need to write critical notes on the lines where we print conjectures, ours or those of others. The others have in some cases set down their arguments on paper and published them, but our noble precursors Gronovius, Heinsius, Bentley, and Markland often do no more than record their suggestions, with or without a commendatory scribe or lege or recte. That indeed was all they needed to do since they could count on a readership which knew Latin intimately and was not only receptive to change but positively eager to welcome it, if it was good. Today change is so far unwelcome in many quarters that even the slightest alteration of a text comes in for protest, and large-scale alteration is met with incredulity. It is as though there were a conspiracy to agree in the comfortable belief that emendation has had its day and the texts of the Latin poets are now as good as they possibly can be. We, however, believe that our great predecessors, the giants on whose shoulders we stand, would have been the first to acknowledge that, while they themselves had indeed done much, there was still much to be done.
We may sum up like this. Because we do not see that five pages of commendation are better than five lines, if the conjecture is right, we have decided to skip even the five lines and let the translation speak for us. If the translation is true to the text and both are true to the precise sense required by the content, we consider that we have done enough to prove our case.
Here we see the power that translation can have in the process of editing a critical text. Scholars may not always applaud the textual choices that are made in a work such as Hallâs edition of the Thebaid, which self-consciously aims at a bold approach to the text of Statiusâ epic poems; nevertheless, there is an extremely important point here, that translation can have a key role in the process of explaining textual decisions made by editors.24 Very striking, however, is the closing remark to the effect that translation can simply replace critical discussion (âBecause we do not see that five pages of commendation are better than five lines, if the conjecture is right, we have decided to skip even the five lines and let the translation speak for usâ), which looks back to the critical practice of much earlier scholars who might simply propose an emendation to the text and say nothing more by way of explanation.
In fact, the process of elucidating the text and providing glosses that one might be inclined to call translation does not even need to be done in a different language. Here is Marklandâs Latin note (and his text) on Silvae 5.1.185â186 where Statius represents Priscilla telling Abascantus that after the death of his wife Priscilla the fates and gods have no further power over him:25
Non in te Fatis, non jam caelestibus ullisArbitrium: mecum ista fero.]Recte haec interpretantur Gevartius, Elect. III, 9. et Barthius. Sensus est: nulla Fata invida, nulli Dii, posthac tibi nocebunt: consumtae enim et exhaustae sunt eorum vires hac tanta plaga quam tibi per interitum meum intulerunt: Ego omnia infortunia mecum aufero.
Neither the Fates, nor any of the gods now have anypower over you: all that I am taking with me.26Gevartius, Elect. III, 9 and Barthius interpret these words correctly. The sense is: No inimical fates, no Gods, will harm you after this: for their strength has been spent and exhausted by this blow so great that they have brought to bear on you through my death: I am taking all unlucky things away with me.
This note shows Markland both offering straightforward rendering (signalled with Sensus est) of Statius in what we would call paraphrase or even translation if this was a different language, with nulla Fata invida, nulli Dii, posthac tibi nocebunt and Ego omnia infortunia mecum aufero, but also expounding the text in the manner of a traditional commentator with the words that separate those two renderings, where he expands on Statiusâ point, and explains that the fates and the gods have used up all their powers in the blow which they have inflicted on Abascantus through bringing about Priscillaâs fatal illness and impending death. For all that we do not here have an example of translation into another language, the note shows neatly how part of the commentatorâs task can be to render the sense of the text being commented on: Sensus est.
A recent work on the text of Statius, Gauthier Libermanâs very important edition and textual notes,27 which engages with tremendous energy in textual criticism of the poems, also makes considerable use of translation in its argumentation. Here for instance is Libermanâs note on the phrase luxuriae confine timens at Silvae 5.2.74, from a passage where Statius praises the virtues of the young Crispinus:
Silv. 5.2.73â75 (with the text and typography of Liberman)hinc hilaris probitas et frons tranquilla nitorqueluxuriae confine timens pietasque per omnesdispensata modos â¦
74 timens Barth, approuvé par Markland: tenens M, défendu par Gibson qui traduit abusivement âwhich keeps to the right side of luxuryâ. HÃ¥kanson observe avec raison que confine tenens signifie ââ¯âsplendour dwelling in the boundary zone to luxuryâ, which is quite the opposite to what must be expected between pudor et docti legem sibi dicere mores on the one hand, pietasque per omnes | dispensata modos on the other, and in comparison with 1,3,92â. La confusion teneo/timeo est un classique â¦
Here the textual issue in terms of palaeography focuses, as Liberman rightly points out, on the classic confusion of timeo and teneo. But the discussion begins with two possible approaches to translation, according to whether one reads timens or tenens. What is interesting here is not so much the issue of what text one might read, but instead the way in which translation in this note is actually the first method used to address the textual problem. Only secondarily does Liberman turn to the issue of the possible corruption of timens to tenens in palaeographical terms. The issue of sense and meaning is rightly at the heart of this note, and it is notable not only that Liberman places the palaeographical question second, but also that he, reasonably enough, does not feel the need to give extensive documentation on the latter point.
Another occasion where translation allows something similar occurs at Silvae 5.1.235â237, where Statius praises his fatherâs influence and support for his poetic endeavours. Here I cite first from my text and translation,28 before moving on to examine how I approached the passage in my commentary.
tu cantus stimulare meos, tu pandere factaheroum bellique modos positusque locorummonstrabas.
You spurred on my song, you expounded the deeds of heroes and showed me the modes of war and the placement of scenes.
On a straightforward level, we may feel that translation seeks to present a clean view of what a passage meansâit may be wrong on some occasions, but the process of providing a translation is an attempt to offer readers a sense of what the passage means, of how it should be construed. Within a commentary, however, a commentator has more scope to explore ambiguities. In this passage, there are two areas under consideration: one concerns how one construes the initial infinitives, and one concerns the meaning of the various noun phrases.
First, the issue with the verbs. The note below on the passage begins by looking at the question of whether monstrabas should be construed with the infinitives or whether or not they should be seen as historic. In retrospect, I suspect that I was perhaps rather dogmatic on some of the issues here, though at least one effect of the note is that it does encourage the reader to consider different outcomes.
The language is nevertheless ambiguous. cantus stimulare meos, which establishes poetic instruction as the theme of these lines, must be taken as a historic infinitive. This passage seems an exception to the rule that the historic infinitive is not found in the second person (K.âS. i. 135).29 Nevertheless even an unparalleled rarity is preferable to construing stimulare with monstrabas; it is far more convincing for Statius to say that his father gave impetus to his poetry, than to say that his father showed him how to give impetus to his poetry. The remaining portion of the sentence can be construed in two ways. pandere facta heroum is either another historic infinitive clause, or an object clause dependent on monstrabas (for this construction see OLD s.v. monstro 2). With a historic infinitive, Statiusâ father gives instruction on the deeds of heroes of a descriptive kind, similar to his teaching of Homer (148), where merely the content of a poem is taught. For pandere in a didactic context compare 156â157 tu pandere doctus | carmina Battiadae. Alternatively, with pandere dependent on monstrabas, pandere facta heroum monstrabas would mean âyou used to show/were showing me how to expound the deeds of heroesâ, so that Statius is claiming that his father taught him the techniques of epic.30
The note then moves on to discussion of the noun phrases:
The ambiguities continue. Thus bellique modos, the âmodes of warâ, can be construed either as an addition to pandere facta heroum, or with positusque locorum, as the object of monstrabas. positusque locorum has an air of paradox, perhaps referring, as Gatti in ThLL x/2. 92. 36â39 speculates (âan intellegas quomodo poeta locos ponere i. describere debeatâ), to the procedures for topographical description; see also Curtius (1953), 200, who compares âterrarumque situsâ at Hor. Ep. 2. 1. 252 and Luc. 10. 178. The phrase might also have structural connotations, denoting the arrangement of subjects in a poem; for locus as a technical term for a topic, see OLD s.v. locus 24.
Looking back with hindsight at this part of the note, and setting it alongside the translation, I am probably most troubled by the printed translationâs âthe placement of scenesâ for positusque locorum, a choice which was I suspect motivated unconsciously by the desire to avoid translating the phrase as âthe placement of placesâ or something similar, which would in a sense be an unthinking first attempt at translating positusque locorum.
On occasion, the commentatorâs note can take the form of evaluation of rival translations, as part of an aim of providing exegesis of the text, without consideration of textual matters. Here is the note in my commentary on Silvae 5.1.87â88, from a larger passage where Statius explains the various responsibilities of Abascantus (Silv. 5.1.83â87). I present my text and translation, and then the specific note on 87â88:31
ille paratismolem immensam umeris et uix tractabile pondusimposuit (nec enim numerosior altera sacracura domo), magnum late dimittere in orbemRomulei mandata ducis, uiresque modosqueimperii tractare manu;
He placed on shoulders that were ready a massive burden, a weight that could scarcely be carried (for no other task in the sacred household is more varied), the dispatch of the orders of the Romulean lord into the great world far and wide, and the handling of the powers and means of command.
87â88. uiresque modosque | imperii tractare manu: Slaterâs translation âto have in hand and to control all the strengths of the Empireâ32 not only ignores modos but applies an almost geographical meaning to imperii, which seems better taken as referring to the emperorâs imperium, his right of command. Mozleyâs âto handle all the powers and modes of empireâ33 is a closer translation. Weaver (1994), 349 interprets this phrase and the succeeding lines as evidence for Abascantus actually travelling with Domitian on campaigns, but the indirect questions of lines 88â91 seem to point to knowledge of the far corners of the empire from a distance.
Here, the issue of translation of imperii is at the heart of the discussion. Whatever one makes of the position I advocate in this note, it is certainly true that there is an issue which arises with how to translate imperii, which I translate in the printed translation as âcommandâ: should it be seen as referring to the geographical concept of the Roman empireâs territories, or is it more about command in more abstract terms? In a way, one is tempted here to see Mozleyâs translation as the most successful, partly because of the subtle difference between his âempireâ, and Slaterâs âthe Empireâ, where the addition of the definite article, alongside the initial capital for âEmpireâ, slides the meaning unambiguously towards the meaning of geographical empire, whereas Mozleyâs empire can evoke geography, but it also evokes a slightly older usage in English where âempireâ denotes the capacity of command (OED II, âSenses relating to rule or governmentâ) in ways analogous to usages of Latin imperium.
A good example of the complementarity of commentary and translation is found in Gabriel Lagunaâs translation and note on Silvae 3.1.164â165. Commenting on nunc ipse in limine cerno in line 164, Laguna notes the emphatic usage of ipse:34
Nunc ipse in limine cerno | solventem voces et talia dicta ferentem: el ipse enfático (â¨â¨con mis propios ojosâ©â©) subraya el carácter milagroso de la epifanÃa: cf. Verg. ecl. X.26 Pan deus Arcadiae venit, quem vidimus ipsi. La correción de Domicio a ipsum es innecesaria. Courtney, por su parte, imprime incomprensiblemente un punto y coma tras limine.
The translation offered for ipse ⦠cerno in the parallel text and translation has âAhora veo con mis propios ojos al diósâ.35 The reader of the translation alone might wonder why we have the idiomatic phrase âcon mis propios ojosâ introduced when there is no word for eyes in the Latin, but the commentary starts by making the excellent observation that ipse should be seen as emphatic, and repeats the phrase from the translation, âmis propios ojosâ and then illustrates the point with a parallel from Virgilâs Eclogues. But there is also more that we can learn here on the role of translation. Having confirmed his view of the usage of ipse as emphatic and made the point both through providing a translation and through providing a parallel, Laguna considers other approaches to editing the text (in terms of punctuation) which are not needed. The translation also, by the way, helps to enforce the point made about there being no need for the emendation of Domizio Calderini, ipsum, since the translation has âveo ⦠al diósâ, indicating that the sense of the god Hercules being the object of Latin cerno can be clearly understood from the context. The translation in this case works very well as a means of reinforcing the commentary and also subtly suggests why various approaches to editing the text might not be needed.
Another aspect of translation worth considering is the way in which the process of translation can sometimes force an issue,36 and can make the commentator take a view on how a word is to be rendered. At Silvae 3.1.17â19, Statius comments on the rapid process of building the temple to Hercules:
stupet ipse laboresannus, et angusti bis seno limite menseslongaevum mirantur opus.
I give here Lagunaâs translation of the text:37
El año mismo queda estupefacto ante los trabajos; y unos breves meses, separados por doce barreras, admiran esta obra destinada a perdurar.
In his commentary, Laguna discusses the issue of the sense that is to be given to the word longaevum here,38 rejecting the idea that the temple is old, given that it is a new construction; likewise, he argues that the suggestion of Vollmer, that longaevum is an acknowledgement of the fact that the temple took a long time to build, misses the point that this was a work which in fact was constructed rapidly, hence the amazement of the year at the buildingâs completion. The year would hardly be amazed if this was a long, drawn-out construction. Laguna instead proposes that the word should be understood as prospectively long-lasting, âduraderoâ, âperenneâ, and in his translation translates the word as âesta obra destinada a perdurarâ. Arguably, the process of translation with a commentary compels taking a definitive view on meaning in the same way as establishing a critical text will also involve the editor in making decisions on what text to print. The use of a translation is therefore something which usefully makes the commentator take a view on the meaning of a particular passage.
On occasions, translations have an important role to play in the process of editing the text itself. This is already apparent in Slaterâs 1908 translation of Statius (without accompanying text). After explaining that he has used the recent Oxford edition of J.S. Phillimore,39 Slater acknowledges that he has on occasion made alterations to the text, at times introducing existing conjectures or indeed new ones of his own published for the first time with his translation:40
It seemed convenient to accept that text as a general rule, even in places where other readings presented greater attractions. But it will probably be admitted that more latitude is permissible in Statius than in other authors, and I have therefore occasionally allowed myself to adoptâusually in passages of more than ordinary difficultyâeither a rival emendation, or a stop-gap conjecture of my own. The author of each such reading is named in the note. The variants for which I am myself responsible are indicated by an asterisk; some of these last were published in the Journal of Philology (vol. xxx, pp. 133â160),41 others are new.
In a context where the appropriate locations for publication of textual criticism on ancient texts were (and arguably remain) journal articles or critical editions, it is strikingly and impressively unorthodox that Slater chose the format of a translation as a means of disseminating his most up-to-date work on the text of Statiusâ Silvae.
Recent Statius commentaries often make use of translations as an argumentative method in arguing for particular readings in the text. A good example is Harm-Jan van Damâs commentary on 2.6.95, where van Damâs text prints ubi nota reis facundia raptis?, which occurs as part of a passage where Statius is encouraging Flavius Ursus to resume his typical activities such as forensic oratory and not surrender himself overmuch to grief for the loss of Philetos. Harm-Jan van Dam, whose commentary does not come with a translation, nevertheless makes extensive use of translation and near-translation in his note on the text here. I quote parts of what is quite a long note, where van Dam argues that instead of reading reis, we should read aliis, which gives a quite different sense:42
The usual explanation of this phrase is âwhere is your eloquence, which is well-known to defendants who are brought into court?â. This then leads to the conclusion that Ursus was a solicitor â¦
The text is not completely satisfying ⦠[various parallels for usages of rapere are given here]
The question can imply âUrsus, you are neglecting your professionâ; but then it fits somewhat strangely in the context of reproaches that Ursus does torment Philetus and himself. Or St. merely means âwhy do you not use your famous eloquence now to cure yourself?â This is what E.-F. (153 §â¯74)43 takes it to mean, and it seems to be the most obvious explanation. It is possible that Statius throws in the defendants here (reis) as an extra compliment to Ursus. Nevertheless, the text would, I think, be more satisfactory with aliis instead of reis.
The phrase ubi nota aliis facundia raptis? would mean âwhere is your eloquence, which is well-known when others are dead?â. The question then implies âyou could always console others, now help in consoling yourselfâ. It is the answer to quid ⦠foves et ⦠amas, as solvisti is the answer to quid ⦠crucias. This argument is frequently employed by Statius himself, as âI am able to console, for I am experiencedâ ⦠[parallels omitted] ⦠or as âI could always comfort others, but now I seem to be unable to comfort myselfâ ⦠[parallels omitted]
The corruption nota reis could have its origin in nota liis â¦
Though aliis is attractive, I do not venture to print it here.
This shortened form of the note, deliberately omitting what we often suppose to be the bread and butter of the commentary,44 the collection of parallels (which van Dam certainly provides generously throughout the whole of his commentary), shows neatly how translation and paraphrase can loom large in discussion of the writing of textual notes on the poem. In contrast to Barry Hallâs position discussed above where the translation is a convenient way of avoiding not only the long textual note, but even the textual note of five lines, we can see here instead how translation can be a crucial part of the exegetical process for the commentator, even when confronted with a question of editing the text.45
It is interesting to compare Carole Newlandsâ commentary on the same book of the Silvae. When she engages with the same problem, she prefers to accept the reading reis, but also makes use of translation as a key exegetical tool. Again, I cite the commentary leaving out the parallels provided:46
95 ubi nota reis facundia raptis? âwhere is that eloquence well known to defendants suddenly called away to court?â Ursus seems to have been a lawyer. But rapere in the sense of âsummon to courtâ otherwise always appears with an adjunct such as in ius ⦠[parallels omitted] Van Dam thus proposes taking rapere in its sense of âto snatch away by deathâ (2.1.1n.) and by emending reis to aliis, with the idea that since Ursus was skilled in consolation âwhen others had been snatched away by deathâ, he should now do a better job of consoling himself. But this sense is strained and invalidates St.âs role as a consoler. Raptis pinpoints the difference between the living and the dead by a play on the two meaningsânot those snatched away by death but those snatched off to court have now to be Ursusâ proper concern. The call to resume oneâs duties is typical of consolatory literature â¦
Even for two scholars on opposing sides of the argument, the process of translation, of understanding the sense, is a crucial aspect of the interpretative process for the commentator. This is also perhaps a moment to comment on a particular feature of the Cambridge Green and Yellow commentaries. For sure, these commentaries do not provide a separate translation of the text that is being commented on, which is hardly surprising given that they are âaimed primarilyâ, as the Cambridge University Press website tells us, at âundergraduate and graduate students of either languageâ.47 However, a striking feature of recent Green and Yellow commentaries is a greater willingness to provide translations of words or phrases, as we see Newlands doing here. Providing a translation gives the commentator an immediate opportunity in cases where the sense is disputed to put her cards on the table and make it clear how the sense is to be construed. One could well argue that the textual note in Newlandsâ commentary is much more economical than van Damâs, but both commentators share the approach of offering a translation at the outset of their notes, as a way into further discussion, even though neither of these two editions of Silvae 2 is printed with a full accompanying translation.
3 Conclusion
The topic of the role of translation within critical scholarship on ancient texts is clearly vast. In this paper, I hope to have shown, using recent commentaries on Statiusâ Silvae, that translation is a vital resource which finds a place even in the most traditional areas of classical philology, the editing of text and the writing of commentaries. Whether or not the editor or commentator provides a complete translation of the text, translation is a key exegetical tool. It provides commentators and editors who avail of it with a means of exploring different ways of construing the sense of a passage of Greek or Latin, and it can act as a supplement to the notes in commentary, making clear what the editor believes the sense of the passage to be. It is also a key means for the process of editing a text.
It is worth reflecting that the practice of translation more broadly is beginning to enjoy the respect it properly deserves as a research endeavour within the academy. Beyond the confines of the discipline of âTranslation Studiesâ, translation has historically enjoyed less prestige in universities. A measure of changing attitudes to translation, however, is evident in a joint appeal issued in 2015 by academics from learned societies in a number of disciplines in the United Kingdom, including, from the world of classics, the Council for University Classical Departments and the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies. The signatories to the document were asking for translation to be given proper consideration as research. The specific context for their document, âTranslation as Research: A Manifestoâ,48 was the United Kingdomâs Research Excellence Framework (REF), the process whereby research in different disciplines is assessed at a national level, usually at intervals of around six years. Their comment on the significance of translation, which they describe as comparable to âmore established forms of research, such as the production of scholarly editionsâ, is a useful point of closure for this paper, which has sought to show how translation is something of vital importance even to the editor and the commentator working on classical texts:
Translations require and embody high levels of specialized knowledge and scholarship, both linguistic and cultural (or do so in many cases). In this regard translation is closely comparable to other more established forms of research, such as the production of scholarly editions. In some instances a particular scholar will be perfectly placed to translate a particular text. Moreover, the process of translation can be expected to deepen and alter the translator-scholarâs own understanding of the text, in ways that feed into teaching and further scholarship. And this process can produce a translationâalso an interpretationâthat is original, significant and rigorous, that contributes to the creation, development and maintenance of the intellectual infrastructure of subjects and disciplines, and that is a significant intervention in intellectual and cultural life.49
Fraenkel (1950); see further the important treatment of Fraenkelâs commentary by Stray (2016).
On âOxford Redsâ, see Henderson (2002), (2006), (2007); on Cambridgeâs âGreen and Yellowâ (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics) series of commentaries, see Easterling (2007), Gibson (2016) 347â351, 363 and n. 73, and note the memorable comment of Bartera (2016) 130: âthese commentaries are often learned commentaries disguised as school commentariesâ.
Note that a feature of commentaries published by Aris and Phillips has been the use of facing translation: see further, e.g., Fantham (2002) 411 n. 13, Rowe (2002) 297 n. 10, who also has useful remarks on the importance of translation at 304 with nn. 28 and 29. For discussion of anxiety in earlier periods over even having notes on the page available as an impediment to the practice of translation in a classroom setting, see, e.g., Stray (2007) 94â95, Kraus (2016) 330â331; cf. Stray (1998) 96â102 on nineteenth century debates on the place of English as opposed to Latin for explanatory notes in classical books and in grammars for school use.
Most (1999), Gibson and Kraus (2002), Kraus and Stray (2016).
Stephens (2002) 81â83.
Finglass (2016) 28â33; cf. Stray (2007) on Jebb and Sophocles.
Bartera (2016) 125â129.
Wilson (2016).
Gillespie (2016).
Gillespie (2016) 301â302. In this volume, see Romanâs discussion of Polizianoâs composition of Silvae as a means of commenting on Statiusâ Silvae.
For this quotation, see the edition of Shankman (2009) 20.
Moul (2007).
Fowler (1999) 429 offers brief but important reflection on the difference between commentaries and ârival models for criticism such as the translation model, whereby the text in some way is transformed into another representation of itself in the act of criticism, or the performance model in which criticism bears the same relationship to the original text as a performance does to a play-text or musical scoreâ.
Shackleton Bailey (2003) 10.
Howell and Shepherd 2007. Newlands (2011) 30 praises âthe vivacious âversionsâ of Howell and Shepherd (2007), which have helped begin the process of removing the taint of fustian from the Silvae, making them more accessibleâ.
Newlands (2009) 115.
Newlands (2009) 116.
Dewar (1991) vii.
See, e.g., Lewers (1860), a literal translation of Ciceroâs De senectute and De amicitia.
For Dewarâs language of âflavour and exuberanceâ, compare the speculation of Slater (1908) 4 on what more extensive translation of Statius by Pope would have looked like: âHe would have reproduced something of the brilliancy and finish of the originalâ.
Easterling (2007) 178; cf. Gibson (2016) 349.
Hall, Ritchie, and Edwards (2007) 2.vii.
Hall, Ritchie, and Edwards (2007) 2.viii.
Cf. the positive assessment of Berlincourt (2010): âWas a new English rendering really needed, after the recent ones by Shackleton Bailey and, for the Thebaid only, Ross and Joyce? My answer is decidedly positive. In the first place, in keeping with its declared objective (II vii) of staying as close as can be to the Latin text and of adopting a language both natural and attentive to variations of stylistic level in the original, the present translation is very thorough and easy to read, and it succeeds in being an effective aid. Admittedly, what it helps us understand is an idiosyncratic text of Statiusâ epics, but exactly here is the second, related, reason why this translation is most welcomeâit is an indispensable companion to Hallâs text. Since the new text has been established with a strong focus on Statiusâ intended meaning, it is of vital importance that the reader gets, on every point, a clear view of how the editor understands what he chooses to printâ. In this volume see Pittà , who frequently resorts to translation in order to elucidate his decisions about the text.
Markland (1728) 352.
The translation of these lines from Statius is my own: Gibson (2006) 15.
Liberman (2010).
Gibson (2006) 52â55.
Kühner and Stegmann (1962) 1.135.
Gibson (2006) 356.
Gibson (2006) 8â9, 110.
Slater (1908) 173.
Mozley (1928) 275.
Laguna Mariscal (1992) 185.
Laguna Mariscal (1992) 67.
In this volume, Pittà makes a similar point about the process of close reading (see section 5, on Galatea in Silv. 1.4.76â78, pp. 117â120).
Laguna Mariscal (1992) 59.
Laguna Mariscal (1992) 134â135. See also Bessoneâs discussion of the passage in this volume (pp. 209â210).
Phillimore (1904); a second edition would follow in 1917.
Slater (1908) 5.
Slater (1907).
Van Dam (1984) 444â445.
Esteve-Forriol (1962) 153.
On parallels, see the discussion of Gibson (2002).
Again, Pittà âs chapter in this volume provides an excellent illustration of the relevance of translation for editing the text.
Newlands (2011) 222. See also Newlands in this volume on the process of writing her commentary (pp. 167â169).
On the âGreen and Yellowâ series, see n. 2 above. See also Newlands (pp. 167â168) in this volume.
Diverse Signatories (2015).
Diverse Signatories (2015), Section 4(i).
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