[Note: this post includes quotations from translations of ancient texts which contain explicit language--save your hate mail--it is for a legitimate scholarly purpose.]
During my studies within the field of classics it was quite routine for translators to liberally sprinkle expletives throughout their renderings of ancient Greek works and no one batted an eye when this was done. Every “four-letter” word was used and, depending upon the particular text, they could be used often. This was done because the translators fully believed that using these expletives was the way to faithfully render the texts they were reading–that is, these were coarse words within the ancient Greek register.
However, within biblical and ancient Near Eastern studies expletives are hardly ever used within translations but surely these words existed within these cultures.
There are several places in the Bible where various translations/translators have noted “coarse” language. For instance, the NET Bible says that the words that Saul used to describe his son in 1 Sam 20:30 were “very coarse and emotionally charged words.” In the note to this verse the NET Bible offers this translation: “You stupid son of a bitch!” while HALOT (796) gives the gloss: “bastard of a wayward woman.”
The famous New Testament example of a possible expletive appears in Philippians 3:8 which BDAG translates as “It’s all crap” and the NET Bible folks have an entire write up about it which they conclude that the word “stand[s] somewhere between ‘crap’ and ‘sh** [sic].’”
The only example of a translated expletive that I have seen in Mesopotamian writings appears in Martti Nissinen’s translation of a Mari letter in which a prophet complains: “I live amidst an abundance of shit and piss, eating reed of timinum” (p. 29). The word in question here is zû(m) which CDA translates as “excrement” and AHw gives the glosses “Kot, Exkremente; Schmutz.”
So, this leads us to three questions: How does one accurately determine which words within ancient literature are expletives? Once you have identified an expletive, how do you determine it’s strength within the target language? If there are expletives in the Bible, how should they be translated?
The Maculate Muse–I think by Jeffery Henderson–deals with the question re Greek (and Latin, I think). It has been a long time–20 years ago or so, when I was studying Aristophanes. When comedy or satire uses a word that is not found in other, more polite, texts, such as medical texts or even tragedy, and when the reference is to something sexual or related to other bodily functions, chances are it is obscene. So genre and context are clues. One example from Catullus, he was criticized by censors for mentioning kissing a boy–and he blurts out two words referring to violent sexual violation–he is deliberately using obscene language.
I don’t know if we have the comparative material or cultural appreciation to know when a word in Akkadian was considered obscene. John Gardner’s translation of Gilgamesh uses the standard English expletive to describe Enkidu’s sexual encounter with Samhat.
BTW, it’s not hard to define obscenity. It is the use of terminology that is considered shocking or offensive within a given social and linguistic group, especially when other words are available that are not considered as offensive (euphemisms or clinical terms). It probably is true that within every language there are sub-groups that would differ on which words belong to the category of obscene or offensive words; but the category exists and most people know how to draw from it within their own social group.
I suppose the definition could be refined a bit. Obscenity would be terms that maybe are considered offensive in general social contexts, but within certain subgroups or in specific situations, may be considered appropriate.
I have not followed up on this lead, but I think Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics has a section where he defines ??????????? with examples from Greek.
Colossians 3:8 and Didache 5.1 both list “shameful speech” as a vice to be put off.
Those question marks should be aischrologia.
Thanks Mark and John. The quote from Aristotle that you might be referring to is from Nicomachaen Ethics 4, 8 (English translation: http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.4.iv.html):
“To the middle state belongs also tact; it is the mark of a tactful man to say and listen to such things as befit a good and well-bred man; for there are some things that it befits such a man to say and to hear by way of jest, and the well-bred man’s jesting differs from that of a vulgar man, and the joking of an educated man from that of an uneducated. One may see this even from the old and the new comedies; to the authors of the former indecency of language was amusing, to those of the latter innuendo is more so; and these differ in no small degree in respect of propriety. Now should we define the man who jokes well by his saying what is not unbecoming to a well-bred man, or by his not giving pain, or even giving delight, to the hearer? Or is the latter definition, at any rate, itself indefinite, since different things are hateful or pleasant to different people? The kind of jokes he will listen to will be the same; for the kind he can put up with are also the kind he seems to make. There are, then, jokes he will not make; for the jest is a sort of abuse, and there are things that lawgivers forbid us to abuse; and they should, perhaps, have forbidden us even to make a jest of such. The refined and well-bred man, therefore, will be as we have described, being as it were a law to himself.”
I think that is the reference. Thanks.
I don’t have the book at home right now, but Alasdair Livingstone’s Literary Miscellany in the SAA series has some ribald language.
Translators should translate as they see fit. Ancient context and the modern purpose of the translation should be given priority in one’s choice of words.
I don’t have the exact passage at hand, but I remember in Ugaritic class translating the later parts of Baal’s Banquet and there was a description of one of the drunk gods rolling around in vomit and shit, or at least that was the translation given.
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