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58 The Translator’s Invisibilityshould “fit” the foreign text “naturally and easily.” Fluency isimpossible to achieve with close or “verbal” translation, which inhibitsthe effect of transparency, making the translator’s language seemforeign: “whosoever offers at Verbal Translation,” wrote Denham,shall have the misfortune of that young Traveller, who lost hisown language abroad, and brought home no other instead of it:for the grace of Latine will be lost by being turned into Englishwords; and the grace of the English, by being turned into the LatinPhrase.(Denham 1656:A3 r )Denham’s privileging of fluency in his own translation practicebecomes clear when his two versions of Aeneid II are compared. The1636 version is preserved in the commonplace book of LucyHutchinson, wife of the parliamentary colonel, John Hutchinson, withwhom Denham attended Lincoln’s Inn between 1636 and 1638(O’Hehir 1968:12–13). The book contains Denham’s translation ofAeneid II–VI—complete versions of IV–VI, partial ones of II and III.Book II is clearly a rough draft: not only does it omit large portions ofthe Latin text, but some passages do not give full renderings, omittingindividual Latin words. There is also a tendency to follow the Latinword order, in some cases quite closely. The example cited by TheodoreBanks is the often quoted line “timeo Danaos et dona ferentes,” whichDenham rendered word for word as “The Grecians most whenbringing gifts I feare” (Denham 1969:43–44). The convoluted syntaxand the pronounced metrical regularity make the line read awkwardly,without “grace.” In the 1656 version, Denham translated this line morefreely and strove for greater fluency, following a recognizably Englishword-order and using metrical variations to smooth out the rhythm:“Their swords less danger carry than their gifts” (Denham 1656:l. 48).Denham’s fluent strategy is most evident in his handling of theverse form, the heroic couplet. The revision improved both thecoherence and the continuity of the couplets, avoiding metricalirregularities and knotty constructions, placing the caesura to reinforcesyntactical connections, using enjambment and closure to subordinatethe rhyme to the meaning, sound to sense:1636While all intent with heedfull silence standÆneas spake O queene by your command

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