Dear List,
Concerning the issue of translation, when I had to
investigate how best to render ( for myself) Kinbote's reference in his foreword
to "through a glass, darkly", I found versions that favored "mirror" and
others that mentioned simply "dark glass" ( tintarron, perhaps?).
Trying to compile information about various English translations, I discovered
that lack of fidelity to the Saint James version or to some other
translation could lead to charges of heresy in England that turned around a
single noun. Myself, I tend to translate the "dark glass" not as a
mirror ( I seem to remember that Kinbote takes these words up somewhere
else as common glass).
Checking through B.Boyd's annotations to Ada
I learned that Nabokov was cognizant with various translations of the Bible
in English and commented on them. Still, I haven't yet found one specific matter
having been taken up by him, so I wonder if I might raise it to the
list without straying too far from our objective?
My question is related to the rendering of "Our
Lord's prayer" in English. I was hearing it as recited in Portuguese and,
remembering it in English, I was struck but a curious "swooner" in the latter.
In Portuguese we pray " do not let us fall into temptation" whereas in English
the words are " lead us not into temptation".
In a Catholic site at the internet I found:
"We therefore ask our Father not to "lead" us into temptation. It is difficult
to translate the Greek verb used by a single English word: the Greek means both
"do not allow us to enter into temptation" and "do not let us yield to
temptation." (Cf. Mt 26 41).
Whenever I heard the Lord's prayer in English ( by
Catholics or by Protestants) these exact words were maintained.
Does
anyone know why it was necessary to "translate the Greek verb by a SINGLE
English word"?