Note 53 — Chapter XI

There is, however, a very common mistake of translators from the French into English, proceeding either from ignorance, or inattention to the general construction of the two languages. In narrative, or the description of past actions, the French often use the present tense for the preterite: Deux jeunes nobles Mexicains jettent leurs armes, et viennent à lui comme déserteurs. Ils mettent un genouil à terre dans la posture des supplians; ils le saisissent, et s’élancent de la platforme.—Cortez s’en débarasse, et se retient à la balustrade. Les deux jeunes nobles périssent sans avoir exécuté leur généreuse entreprise. Let us observe the aukward effect of a similar use of the present tense in English. “Two young Mexicans of noble birth throw away their arms and come to him as deserters. They kneel in the posture of suppliants; they seise him, and throw themselves from the platform.—Cortez disengages himself from their grasp, and keeps hold of the ballustrade. The noble Mexicans perish without accomplishing their generous design.” In like manner, the use of the present for the past tense is very common in Greek, and we frequently remark the same impropriety in English translations from that language. “After the death of Darius, and the accession of Artaxerxes, Tissaphernes accuses Cyrus to his brother of treason: Artaxerxes gives credit to the accusation, and orders Cyrus to be apprehended, with a design to put him to death; but his mother having saved him by her intercession, sends him back to his government.” Spelman’s Xenophon. In the original, these verbs are put in the present tense, διαβαλλει, πειθεται, συλλαμβανει, αποπεμπει. But this use of the present tense in narrative is contrary to the genius of the English language. The poets have assumed it; and in them it is allowable, because it is their object to paint scenes as present to the eye; ut pictura poesis; but all that a prose narrative can pretend to, is an animated description of things past: if it goes any farther, it encroaches on the department of poetry. In one way, however, this use of the present tense is found in the best English historians, namely, in the summary heads, or contents of chapters. “Lambert Simnel invades England.—Perkin Warbeck is avowed by the Duchess of Burgundy—he returns to Scotland—he is taken prisoner—and executed.” Hume. But it is by an ellipsis that the present tense comes to be thus used. The sentence at large would stand thus. “This chapter relates how Lambert Simnel invades England, how Perkin Warbeck is avowed by the Duchess of Burgundy,” &c.