Egypt tombs suggest pyramids not built by slaves

[Paullus Scipio]

Duncan wrote:

I'm afraid that it does actually mean "spear". Derivation and meaning are two separate issues.
I never said it didn't - of course it does - but it did not ORIGINALLY mean spear, just as 'car' did not originally mean 'motor vehicle'. Nor is the word for 'spear' "derived" from the word for 'shaft' - they are the same word,'Doru'. Over time a word which meant 'tree,stem,shaft' came to mean 'spear' AS WELL.

You seem to have a peculiar view of the art of translating. No translator would describe a warrior brandishing a "floorboard", just because one of the meanings of doru happens to be a plank.
Again, I never suggested one would - you are just setting up your own 'straw men' to knock down.
Another of the meanings happens to be "spear", which is perfect in this context.
Another 'straw man' since I never said otherwise, and so not a fair example....so I will give a better one. Suppose a future translator came across a passage in an eighteenth century book that referred to people getting into a 'car'. Knowing that one of its literal meanings is 'motor vehicle' he translates it thus - and unknowingly creates an anachronism, because motor vehicles did not exist then. It is not enough for a translator to know the several meanings of a word, they must know the history/etymology of the word also...... As to the "Art" of translating, it is indeed just that. Yet if your advocacy of just literal translation came to pass, all we would be left with would be the all-too-literal translations we get from computers, which as everyone knows are 'gobbledygook'.

By your analogy, we would need to argue that one of the meanings of Aeguptioi was "slaves", which it manifestly is not.
Please read what I actually wrote. I stated that the pyramid builders were not slaves in any technical sense, but that by one of the Greek definitions of 'slave', Herodotus and his readers would regard them as such. To Greeks, the subjects of an Absolute ruler were not 'free' men, but 'slaves'
My literal translation of the Herodotus passage allows the intelligent reader to make his/her own judgement,
neither "intelligence" nor "judgement" has anything to do with it, it is a matter of knowledge. If the reader is unaware of how Herodotus and the Greeks defined 'free' men (eleutheroi), then that reader would not know that to a Greek, the subjects of an Absolute ruler were all his 'slaves' (Douloi), because they were completely subject to his will.
.. whereas De Selincourt has overstepped his brief as translator by adding his own interpretation, which should properly be confined to a Commentary.
In your view perhaps. Most readers find travelling to and fro from copious footnotes or a commentary tedious.De Selincourt was trying to avoid this, for the reader's benefit, yet still convey the right shades of meaning, and I think he succeeded admirably. Literal translations and long-winded commentaries are for the specialist, or the academic world, not the general reader....
The mere fact that we are arguing about this shows that he has failed to translate the passage accurately.
In the words of Mr Spock; "Illogical, Captain ! " - disagreement, or even argument about a thing does not change the thing itself....and not only that, but one can argue that De Selincourt's translation conveys the meaning behind the words better than a 'literal' one, and so is more "accurate"in that sense. Compared to your 'literal' translation, it has the virtue of getting across how Greeks/Herodotus saw such people.They were subject to the will/whims of an Absolute ruler ( Pharoah) and so were all his 'slaves'. BTW, this attitude was what made many Greeks so opposed to 'Tyranny', because in becoming a sole ruler, a 'Tyrant' "enslaved" the people......
At the very least, he should indicate which bits are original Herodotus and which bits are his own interpretation.
....For academic purposes, perhaps. For the general reader it is unneccesary, and since all translation involves 'interpretation' ( unless you go back to the mechanical variety and its consequent gobbledygook), where do you draw the line ? After all, the words 'translator' and 'interpreter' are largely synonymous.