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108 The Translator’s InvisibilityThe ancients obviously translated little in that most real sense andmost moderns, deterred by the difficulties of true translation, alsoseem to be satisfied with imitation and paraphrase. Who wouldwant to contend that nothing has ever been translated into Frenchfrom the classical languages or from the Germanic languages! Buteven though we Germans are perfectly willing to listen to thisadvice, we should not follow it.(Lefevere 1977:88)French exemplifies those languages that are “captives of too strict abond of classical expression outside of which all is reprehensible,”especially the innovations and deviations introduced by foreignizingtranslation. In a satiric dialogue from 1798, A.W.Schlegel had alreadymade explicit the nationalist ideology at work in identifying Frenchculture with a domesticating translation method:Frenchman:German:German:Frenchman:German:The Germans translate every literary Tom, Dick,and Harry. We either do not translate at all, or elsewe translate according to our own taste.Which is to say, you paraphrase and you disguise.Frenchman: We look on a foreign author as astranger in our company, who has to dress andbehave according to our customs, if he desires toplease.How narrow-minded of you to be pleased only bywhat is native.Such is our nature and our education. Did theGreeks not hellenize everything as well?In your case it goes back to a narrow-minded natureand a conventional education. In ours education isour nature.(ibid.:50) 4Schlegel’s dialogue indicates the metaphysical underpinnings ofGerman nationalism, its assumption of a biological or racialessence from which the national culture issues: “education is ournature.” This agrees both with Schleiermacher’s view that “ournation” possesses a “mediating nature” and with the organicmetaphor he uses to describe the effect of foreignizing translationon German: