is also someone expected to express himself, to be revolutionary, to reject traditions and teachers. The literary translator is, however, not treated even as a secondary artist in this sense: he is not expressing himself and has no right to be revolutionary. Instead critics ask, Is the translation faithful to the original? Does it do justice to it? Does it betray it? Is it a reasonable facsimile? Are there any mistakes (and if so, they must be pointed out)? A director’s judgment might be mistaken, but he doesn’t make mistakes. A performer makes mistakes, but they do no harm to the original, and his “not doing justice” to the composition is less a matter of ethics than of personal competence and quirks. When a translator makes a mistake, or—even worse—boldly interprets, he has dealt a blow to the original. He is unfaithful, he is an abuser. He screws around, comes home in the middle of the night, and beats his wife. He is expected not to go out and fool around, but to stay home and be submissive. In fact, he is expected not to be a he at all, but a traditional she. She is a member of a helping profession, someone who nurses poems and stories into another language. This is what comes with the pleasures of service, the intimacy of submission. There is a serious double standard going on here: the translator is often unfaithful, the author never is. Why? Because although fidelity is a word that is used with respect to a person’s obligations to a spouse, who can be unfaithful himself, in the case of translation it is more a matter of a person’s obligations to her father, to someone who cannot be unfaithful back. Unlike in a marriage, the translator is the only one acting, the only one with obligations; the author has already done everything he has to do, and the original is the result of his completed act. The original can now only be acted upon. The original is an old father who must be taken care of, to whom obedience is owed, who has spent his life giving, giving, giving. Now it’s the translator’s turn to do her duty. Duty is the defining characteristic of a relationship based on one-way fidelity. As John Dryden wrote a few hundred years ago, if a translator’s work is successful, “we are not thanked; for the proud reader will only say, the poor drudge has done his duty.”* The first commandment of literary translation is, “Honor thy original and thy author.”
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