WELSH LITERATURE

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 135, 10 June 1933, Page 18

WELSH LITERATURE

TRANSLATIONS WANTED

Mr. Stanley Baldwin, as chief • guest at a,recent meeting '■ of tho Welsh Society in London, referred, to ' tho many translations of the classics that had' been printed in AVelsh, .and suggested that it would bo an admirable return for all they had borrowed if some of tho translators would begin to p vay back and to turn into English examples of the finest works of Welshmen in prose and in verse for the benefit of tho monoglot English. It was no good- speaking of tho inherent difficulty of a language. He knew Welsh was a difficult language for Englishmen to learn* It could not be mora difficult than Arabic or ■ Persian, and they had from those languages the "Arabian Nights" and tho "Rubaiyat." It could not be more difficult than translation from a Greek chorus, ■which Gilbert Murray had done. In all translations they must • have failures. It was worth the occasional failures to have.the successes. "Do not hoard your treasures,'' he said. -"Share them, not only with that band of brothers, but with the stranger at the gate, of whom I am tho chief. (Laughter.) Homer, Virgil, and Horace have been translated hundreds of times into English. People go on trying to reach perfection. There is no reason why you should not go on trying to reach perfection in Welsh translations. There is a lot of good stuff waiting to coino across the border. Why ran not we have it? (Cheers.) Most of you have read your Omar. I wonder how many of you remember that FitzGerald could not find a publisher for it, and when about fifty copies of it were put on the market Swinburne bought one for 2d. 'For years they could not find out who was the translator, yet today it can bo bought in every kind of binding and is on every girl's dressing table.". Ho knew that there were a number of translations from tho AVelsh in existence, but to Englishmen they were not easily accessible. Wo had no idea in England that they were producing poetry at all. That was why ho urged -young scholars in Wales who had the very rare gift of translation to exorcise it for the benefit of their neighbours. ■ He Understood that Mr. . Lloyd George was going to publish a book about tho Great War or the small peace. (Laughter.) Why should not Mr. Lloyd George devote his attention to translating some Welsh sermons for the benefit of English preachers? Might there not be some Welshmen, living in London who would, follow in the footsteps of the American banker and soldier who had given to the world the Loeb Library with the Greek or the Latin text on the one page and the English rendering on the opposite page1? It would help to keep alive tho love for their language, which must be difficult at times when a family lived far away from Wales in exile.