Of Apples and Pears

CHAPTER XXXVI

Traduttore traditore, commenced ringing in my p. 247ears, and I asked myself whether I should be acting honourably towards the publisher, who had committed to me the delicate task of translating him into German;

Had I treated Ab Gwilym in this manner?  Even when translating his Ode to the Mist, in which he is misty enough, had I attempted to make Ab Gwilym less misty?  No; on referring to my translation, I found that Ab Gwilym in my hands was quite as misty as in his own.  Then, seeing that I had not ventured to take liberties with people who had never put themselves into my hands for the purpose of being rendered, how could I venture to substitute my own thoughts and ideas for the publisher’s, who had put himself into my hands for that purpose?  Forbid it every proper feeling—so I told the Germans, in the publisher’s own way, the publisher’s tale of an apple and a pear.

I at first felt much inclined to be of the publisher’s opinion with respect to the theory of the pear.  After all, why should the earth be shaped like an apple, and not like a pear?—it would certainly gain in appearance by being shaped like a pear.  A pear being a handsomer fruit than an apple, the publisher is probably right, thought I, and I will say that he is right on this point in the notice which I am about to write of his publication for the Review.  And yet I don’t know—said I, after a long fit of musing—I don’t know but what there is more to be said for the Oxford theory.  The world may be shaped like a pear, but I don’t know that it is; but one thing I know, which is, that it does not taste like a pear; I have p. 248always liked pears, but I don’t like the world.  The world to me tastes much more like an apple, and I have never liked apples.  I will uphold the Oxford theory—besides, I am writing in an Oxford Review, and am in duty bound to uphold the Oxford theory.  So in my notice I asserted that the world was round; I quoted Scripture, and endeavoured to prove that the world was typified by the apple in Scripture, both as to shape and properties.  ‘An apple is round,’ said I, ‘and the world is round—the apple is a sour, disagreeable fruit; and who has tasted much of the world without having his teeth set on edge?’  I, however, treated the publisher, upon the whole, in the most urbane and Oxford-like manner; complimenting him upon his style, acknowledging the general soundness of his views, and only differing with him in the affair of the apple and pear.

From G Borrow- "Lavengro"