VII The Present Translation
From what has preceded, it will appear that the path of the translator of the Quaestiones Naturales is beset with snares. At best he has a choice of difficulties, It may perhaps, therefore, be well to say a word or two upon the method in which these have been dealt with on the present occasion.
A translator’s prime duty is to follow his author, for which purpose he must first understand him, a requirement not very easily here fulfilled. The texts of the Q.N. vary greatly, as already indicated, and it is no easy matter to select any one that might be consistently followed. The most recent and best text, the Teubner, edited by Gercke, has strong claims, and had it been my good fortune to have it by me when the translation was made, I should have been tempted to adopt it simpliciter, even though in many details it departs somewhat violently from the accepted arrangement. As it was, it did not come to hand until the translation was finished and paged for publication, so that full use could not be made of it. In a few cases its corrections had been anticipated; in some its readings have been adopted; some that could not be incorporated are referred to in a note on the subject.
The text being settled, the translator must, if possible, put himself in the author’s position and obtain his point of view.
In science, particularly, the milieu of the author must be caught if his thoughts are to be accurately reproduced. The danger of attributing to Seneca ideas that were unknown to him and that are due to modern analysis and discovery has to be constantly present to one’s mind. For example, “homogeneity,” “elasticity,” “electricity,” “gas,” “explosion,” etc., are a few of the terms that his language suggests, but that would probably convey a wrong impression of his conception of the phenomena to which they relate. They have been thus ruled out. Nor is Seneca consistent in the use of the terms he employs; he has no scientific vocabulary. In a separate note attention is called to his words for “air” and “atmosphere”; but there are many other terms that belong to the same category. These are, for instance, three words for “thick” or “dense,” crassus, densus, spissus, which he seems to use almost indifferently, at any rate without any precise discrimination. So with terms like “impetus” (impulse, onset) “impulsus” (shove, impulse), “ictus” (stroke, blow), “vis” (force, quantity, amount), “curro” (to run (river), to revolve (heavenly body)), and its compounds, eo (to go), and its compounds, etc., etc.
Apart from any peculiarity of Seneca, Latin allows the use of adjectives and pronouns, whose distinctive gender points their reference, where English requires substantives or their equivalent. Latin, too, often conveys by mere suggestion where English requires explicit expression. This is particularly so with connectives, where a separate clause may be required to develop the nuance of a subtle collocation. In general, assuming—and it is no great stretch—that the author meant to express something, whether right or wrong, I have endeavoured to ascertain what that something was and to convey it to the English reader. In doing so I have had no scruple in using more words than Latin, or in making explicit what I conceived to be implicit, or in varying the rendering of the same term to suit the context and idiom. Ambiguity has, as far as possible, been avoided and even removed. At the same time the author has been followed as closely and faithfully as may be. Where he repeats a term purposely, as he frequently does, the repetition is retained, though a variant might have sounded more euphonious. Probably, in some cases—it may be in a good many—the meaning has been misconceived; certainly, there will be difference of opinion in regard to readings adopted for translation, where one had to be taken and two or more almost equally good had to be left out. Ruhkopf was the text chiefly used; in addition Koeler and the Variorum Edition of Bouillet were constantly at hand, and I have been much indebted to all three in questions of interpretation. Nisard’s French Translation has also been of some service, indirectly by suggestion perhaps rather than directly; in a few passages the translation is from a different text from that printed on the same page. The old Tauchnitz text has been habitually consulted, while Gercke’s text has been carefully collated throughout. The latter does not mention Ruhkopf at all in his Bibliography—surely an involuntary omission. There is a useful Bibliography also in Bouillet, but the date of his Edition is as far back as 1830. To my regret I have not been able to procure Lagrange’s famous French Translation, and the same remark applies to several German works of repute. Lodge’s Translation (1614) was not of any service for my purpose.
THE NATURAL QUESTIONS OF L. ANNAEUS
SENECA ADDRESSED TO LUCILIUS