A Log Cabin Out of Stone: - Dartmouth College

to bring. Thus, the word translation itself means simply “brought across.” He has
literally brought Vergil’s poem across, and perhaps his metaphorical translation is
the truest thing to Eclogue 1 that we will ever understand. This kind of translation
is more beneficial for the fluent readers of the original than for the readers who
are reading it as a substitute. Vergil wrote a poem about loss, and the end of a
beautiful existence. David Slavitt too has told us the narrative that Vergil has told
us, but he has also given us an equivalent feeling of loss, but loss for the Roman
poets. He has told us what Vergil told him, and then he has reconstructed the
poem based on Vergil’s and given us something new. This approach to
translation is very bold, and of course, not everyone will agree about its merit.
Conclusion
David Slavitt said of Robert Fitzgerald’s translation of The Aeneid that it
is a “fine translation, which is not merely a rendering into English of the Latin
text but a view of the poem, an act of criticism and vision of a consistently high
level.” 25 A translation does not have to be the second best way to read a text.
Yes, it is probably always better to read the original, but a good translation can
open doors and provide a new way to look at something without writing an
entirely new poem. Translation is not only a way to give a reader access to a
foreign poem, but also a way to give fluent readers in the original language an
alternative way to read a poem.
I do not intend to mimic Slavitt’s approach; however, I do identify with
his approach in trying to bring something new to reading the original. I am not
25 Slavitt, xi.
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