The Single Act of the Resurrection
Christ is risen! A translation is always a balancing act between an ungrammatical, too-strict word-for-word replacement and a new work merely "inspired by" the original text. I've always loved the way John Dryden describes the issue in his essay "Ovid and the Art of Translation." Dryden defines three distinct styles of translation: "metaphrase, or turning an author word by word, and line by line, from one language into another"—about which he later says, "'Tis much like dancing on ropes with fettered legs: a man may shun a fall by using caution; but the gracefulness of motion is not to be expected"—"paraphrase, or translation with latitude, where the author is kept in view by the translator, so as never to be lost, but his words are not so strictly followed as his sense; and that too is admitted to be amplified, but not altered," and finally "imitation, where the translator (if now he has not lost that name) assumes the ...