Re: Translation project: Plato's Cave Allegory

John Fisher wrote:

> >Here's a good link:
> ><http://members.xoom.com/_XOOM/the_republic/restatem.htm#book7>
>
> Yikes!  It's huge!  I've never translated anything remotely as big into
> Elet Anta.
Yeah, I probably understated the size a bit, but the main, important
passages are not too big, a couple paragraphs.

> Moreover, I'm somewhat conscious that people have devoted
> lifetimes to translating the Republic...and they didn't have to make up
> their target language as well!
This is true.  Ideally, it would be great to go straight from the Greek
to the [whatever language].  Unfortunately, this is, for the vast majority
of people in this group, very unpractical.

> Still...  I'll have a look.  I haven't any Greek; how near is this C20
> American version to the original?
I am myself only beginning my studies of Greek, and haven't yet
gotten to this (though we are reading Plato's _Apology_ in class);
so, I can't tell you definitely, but my impression is that it's a pretty
liberal, and Americanocentric, translation. The site says it was mean to put
Plato within the reach of the common man (as no one really needs to
read a lot of archaic English pronouns when the ideas involved are
abstruse enough).


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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: Deuterotom
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."

There's nothing particularly wrong with the
proletariat. It's the hamburgers of the
proletariat that I have a problem with. - Alfred Wallace
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