The Art of Translation

translation is an art form. It's a form of poetry. It requires immense linguistic skill, because it's not an exact science either. How we might translate this stuff to day is very different than how they would have translated it in the nineteenth century. A lot of times we're working on one translation that's gone down and down and down through the years. You know, so many references to sacred prostitution in explicit terms come from ancient greece. And in that area, budden goes on the hunt for first hand accounts from people living in classical greece at the time sacred prostitution would have been practised. The words used don't always translate directly to sex worker.