TRANSLATION     WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?
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MOLIERE'S

TARTUFFE

(Page 4)

LANGUAGE AND SENSE  
The appropriate use of language is not only a translation issue in Tartuffe, it's also one of the main themes of the play. Tartuffe uses words as a way of manipulating people, concealing his essential corruptness beneath the surface piety of his expression. Gullible characters like Orgon and Mme. Pernelle are taken in by his language; the wiser ones -- Dorine, Cleanthe, Elmire -- see through it. A central problem for the translator of Tartuffe is to accurately convey the ways in which Tartuffe uses words to gain power and control over other people. 

Particularly difficult to translate are the speeches where Tartuffe uses words associated with the religious values he pretends to represent. These words were highly significant to Moliere's seventeenth-century French Catholic audience, but their meanings can be easily lost when translated into modern English. 

One example occurs in the passage in Act III, sc. 3, where Tartuffe attempts to convince Elmire  that there's no contradiction between his spiritual beliefs and his passionate attraction to Elmire. In the boxes below, you'll see the original French version of this passage and a literal translation;  I've highlighted the words that are particularly important.

The words eternal/temporal, quietude/beatitude (rhymed with each other for emphasis) would have had spiritual resonances for Moliere's audience. When Tartuffe uses the first pair -- eternal/temporal --  his strategy is to convince Elmire that love of a beautiful woman like herself  is the same as loving heavenly beauty. Of course the real problem is that the word love (l'amour in French) can be used in very different ways that he's trying to obscure -- the purely sexual, animal love he feels for Elmire is not at all like the spiritual, abstract love that draws an individual closer to God.  

The second pair of words -- quietude/beatitude -- also suggest religious values that Tartuffe is undermining. True quietude (peace of mind) and beatitude (happiness), as Moliere's audience would have known, derive from the awareness that one is blessed by God. Tartuffe is saying, though, that in Elmire he has found his quietude and beatitude -- in effect, she's become the source of his salvation. Moliere's audience would immediately recognize this as a form of blasphemy, putting love for a mortal woman above love for God. 

Now let's look at how two translators -- Richard Wilbur and Donald Frame -- have translated these lines. Again, I've highlighted the key words.

The most obvious difference between Wilbur's version and the literal version is that love of the temporal (in the literal version) is translated by Wilbur as love for earthly pulchritude. The word pulchritude, which means great physical beauty, seems to have been chosen mainly for the rhyme; it has the disadvantage of being much more explicit and suggestive than the original word temporal without containing the religious associations that are part of Tartuffe's manipulative strategy. In the second pair of lines, Wilbur substitutes salvation and bliss for the original words quietude and beatitude. The words Wilbur uses have the necessary religious implications, but the need for a rhyme forces Wilbur to reverse the order in which the words of the final line are given. In the original version, Elmire is said to be the source of Tartuffe's pain or beatitude, with beatitude emphasized at the end of the line.  Wilbur, however, translates this with On you depends my bliss -- or desolation, putting emphasis on the pain Tartuffe will feel if he can't have Elmire, rather than the joy he'll experience if he does get her. 

Frame's version arrives at different solutions. For temporal love, Frame uses the phrase other love. This gives him a rhyme with the phrase that ends the first line, eternal beauties far above. The disadvantage here is that the phrase other love is vague and doesn't emphasize the contrast between spiritual and worldly types of love that Tartuffe, contrary to standard religious practice, is saying are really alike. In the second couplet, Frame uses the words quietude and beatitude, exactly the same words that occur in the original version. Since these words can be used in English as well as in French, Frame's choice has the advantage of being accurate and preserving the original word order and rhymes. The disadvantages, however, are that the words quietude and beatitude aren't commonly used in modern English, are difficult for actors to speak, and may not be meaningful to modern audiences.

Another example of the problems involved in translating Tartuffe's main speeches occurs near the end of Act IV, sc, 5, the climactic scene where Tartuffe attempts to seduce Elmire while unaware that Orgon is hiding under the table. Tartuffe's persuasive strategy reaches its culmination in the following lines, given below in the original form and a literal translation. The key words are highlighted.

Tartuffe's strategy here again is to convince Elmire that having an affair with him won't be sinful. The crucial words occur when he says, in the literal version, evil only comes from being known and it's not a sin that's a sin in silence --  in other words, an action is not evil unless other people know about it. In other words, he's saying that there's no higher authority than other human beings and in effect, denying the existence of God. Now look at these translations by Slater and Hampton:

Here again, the translations have both advantages and disadvantages. Both translations come close to the literal version of the final line, it's not a sin that's a sin in silence -- Slater with if you sin in silence, it's not a sin and Hampton with sinning in silence is no sin at all. Both are less successful, however, with the other key phrase, evil only comes from being made known. Slater's version -- no wickedness exists until it's been exposed -- does convey the idea of the original wording but wickedness lacks the much stronger implications of the word evil and seems to have been chosen mainly because a three-syllable word was needed to fill out the line. Hampton's version -- the only evil/ is to make a great noise about things -- has an even bigger problem. It changes the meaning of the original version, so that now the evil is in making something known, rather than in its becoming known.

The point of this analysis is not to criticize the translators' choices but to demonstrate how difficult it is to translate the key passages in the play -- those passages where Tartuffe's religious hypocrisy is meant to be most fully manifested to the audience. Each translator's choices illustrated on this page have involved balancing a number of considerations: accuracy, performability, verse form, and the need to make sense of ideas less meaningful to a modern audience than they were in Moliere's time. 

EXERCISE D. 
On this page you've seen examples of how Tartuffe uses  words that he hopes will convince Elmire to submit to his desires. Write your own version of a similar kind of speech. If you wish, you can put this into a modern context where the person speaking is using modern language in an attempt to persuade another person to give in to what this person wants. Write this as convincingly as you can, using the kinds of persuasive words that such a person might actually use. The speech can be written either in prose or verse, but try to make it at least 5-6 lines.

Please go to PAGE 5 for the conclusion of this module on Tartuffe.