Page:Essay on the Principles of Translation - Tytler (1791, 1st ed).djvu/198

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Chap. XII.
TRANSLATION.
183

of the phraseology of Motteux. Now, Motteux, though he has frequently assumed too great a licence, both in adding to and retrenching from the ideas of his original, has upon the whole a very high degree of merit as a translator. In the adoption of corresponding idioms he has been eminently fortunate, and, as in these there is no great latitude, he has in general preoccupied the appropriated phrases; so that a succeeding translator, who proceeded on the rule of invariably rejecting his phraseology, must have, in general, altered for the worse. Such, I

    que se commençaron á cubrir las casas, sobre rusticas estacas sustentadas, no mas que para defensa de las inclemencias del cielo.

    Entonces sí, que andaban las simples y hermosas zagalejas de valle en valle, y de otero en otero, en trenza y en cabello, sin mas vestidos as aquellos que eran menester para cubrir honestamente lo que la honestidad quiere.

have