Thursday, July 29, 2004
(5:12 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Thursday Translation Attempt II
Per Brey's request, here's my French translation. It comes from Henri Bergson's Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion, which I have been using as my reading text, proceeding at a very impressive page or two per day.L’individu qui fait partie de la société peut inflécher et même briser use nécessité qui imite celle-là, qu’il a quelque peu contribué à créer, mais que surtout il subit: le sentiment de cette nécessité, accompagné de la conscience de pouvoir s’y soustraire, n’en est pas moins ce qu’il appelle obligation.While reading, I remembered coming across a sentence that gave me trouble and thinking I should use it for this new weekly feature. I'm not sure if this is the exact sentence, but it's no slouch. Here's my initial attempt:
The individual who is a part of society can bend and even break a necessity that resembles the former [i.e., natural necessity--translator’s note], which he has contributed somewhat to creating, but which he submits to above all: the sensation of this necessity, accompanied by consciousness of being able to escape from it, is no less a part of that which he calls obligation.I'm fairly satisfied with this translation myself. The only part that feels questionable in my mind is the last phrase of the sentence ("n’en est pas moins ce qu’il appelle obligation"). Word by word, skipping the "ne," it would seem to go: "of it is not less that which he calls obligation," but I don't know how to make a good English sentence that captures exactly that. Hence what I put. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. I'd also like to find a more forceful translation for "sentement," but nothing in the dictionary really satisfied me.
