But, first, we do have a few things to get out of the way so we all know what we are talking about. There are a number of English translations of Orthodox liturgical texts. The oldest are approximately a century old. Some of them use "Thou/Thee" for every second person singular. Some use "Thou/Thee" only for God. Some exclusively use "You/You". People often cobble together the texts from a variety of sources, so it's not all consistent. There is also the question of what Bible translation to use liturgically – I am not going to address that question. At the very least, we should be consistent, so how should we do this?
One plausible answer is that it does not really matter: we should make a choice and stick with it. If we pick up a text for something which does not conform to the mold, we can either fix it or leave it as it is (if, say, the text is only being used once).
Another plausible answer is that it does not really matter: we should only try not to sound completely ridiculous. This is much like the previous option, except that we do not care so much if some small parts are not the same as the others.
I am not competent to comment on either of these practical approaches and will, thankfully, never be in a position to decide on their implementation at any parish. However, I do feel quite qualified to discuss the theoretical questions in this debate (which the above two approaches neatly sidestep), as I have strong opinions about English style and usage. Fortunately, most people have some real opinion about how things ought to be, even if we all end as pragmatists, and I hope my few thoughts on this matter may help you realize that I am, as always, right.
Before I prove that I am right and you are, if you disagree, wrong, I ought to at least present the arguments of those who disagree with me. Here, then, is the compendium of errors:
- Thou/Thee is traditional liturgical English.
The Bible was written in such English. The Book of Common Prayer was written in such English. The Douay-Rheims Bible was written in such English. It was not until recent times that any church used any other sort of language. There are still some pockets in the English-speaking world that insist on using the Authorized Version. Accordingly, we Orthodox should use that idiom to translate our liturgy.
- The language of the liturgy should not be dumbed down like the newspaper or, worse, like casual conversation, text messages, or hip-hop music.
The liturgy is poetry. We must try to translate it in an idiom similar to that in which it was written. Also, we are serving the Almighty God. Though nothing is worthy of God, we should give what we can. A lot of modern translations of the Bible simply do not sound like they are the Bible because they are so dumbed down. Modern evangelical Protestant “praise and worship” music sounds like it could just as easily be about some girl you just fell for rather than the Almighty God. We must avoid this.
- Thou/Thee has the potential to be more theologically accurate.
There are some notable passages in Scripture where using the generic second person pronoun leads to some ambiguity where a distinction between singular and plural would yield clarity. Further, the use of the singular for God emphasizes the oneness of God: definitive proof for the Musulmans that we are not tritheists.
- Complete sets of liturgical texts exist in Thou/Thee, but they do not exist in real English.
Though this is a practical matter, rather than a theoretical matter, it is salient. If satisfactory texts already exist, why bother with all the work of ditching them just because they say Thou instead of You? Making yet another translation of the Horologion, for example, would mean a few thousand man hours, and to what end?
Please let me know if I am missing any major arguments for the use of “Thou/Thee” in liturgical translations or if these arguments can be made stronger. My next post will be my case and a rebuttal of these silly arguments.
17 comments:
I prefer Thee/Thou because it makes me feel fancy and superior. I also like the challenge, as a Reader, of pronouncing it in a way that is understandable - but, I was a classically trained actor, so I may have skills that most do not and I find it fun.
I do also like the connection it gives to 'older' Western and Christian ideas and literature. Subconsciously, it adds this kind of weight to anglophone believers - perhaps especially those with ancestry in the British Isles, as I do.
At the Greek church I read the Sunday epistle in, I set aside the NKJV STOTS Apostle book because it didn't have all (though most) of the proper readings, Prokeimena and Alleluias. There was also one of the ubiquitous GOARCH vanity translations in a tattered, Kinko's boung landscape set of Epistle readings. This was in more modern English. I purposefully bought CTOS's KJV-based Apostle and use that. I figure if a parish in America is going to insist on serving so much in Greek, they don't really care if they understand the service of the readings anyway, so I may as well enjoy myself and feel superior.
I can't believe SCOBA hasn't gotten their feces together to at least authorize a few standard, official series of consistent texts. They should make a rule that no English liturgical text can be used unless it has translated all of the regular services used in a parish (Horologion, Prayer Book, Menaion, Triodion, Pentecostarion) to cut down on idiosyncratic, hobbyist, vanity translations. This would allow for greater memorization and familiarity as well as musical arrangements in various styles.
I don't see how that could possibly be within the scope of SCOBA's mission or competence. At the least, I think it is very easy to guess why such an initiative has not materialized.
I do, from time to time, use the KJV psalter or the old BCP psalter for my own reading, so I sympathize with aesthetic arguments (indeed, I would not mind the archaism as much if our liturgical texts were of such quality: their shortcomings are one of my main arguments against them). I have great difficulty with such arguments, however, because they succumb so easily to the rebuttal that intentional archaism "may turn you gay". This is especially true for Orthodox converts, and one of the missions of this web-log is to stop that trend among Orthodox converts.
I thought Elizabeth Hapgood did a decent job the first time round.
I've been over this enough recently, so I'll just spice in with a few thoughts...
- Consistent translation, regardless of English style, is difficult to do if you are trying to import an Orthodox musicial tradition into English. While the various common chant traditions of the Russian Church have been conflated in the OCA and improperly labeled "Obikhod" (as if that was ever its own chant tradition), those wishing to hear authentic Georgian, Greek, or even some of the more detailed elements of the various Russian chants (e.g., "Greek," Znamenny, Kievan, etc.) have to make adjustments of the same text to make it fit. If you've ever listened to the CD's from the Hermitage of the Holy Cross, particularly their Paschal one, you'll notice they don't sweat switching translations to execute the various chant traditions of the Paschal troparion or to sing the Irmos of the Paschal Canon in "Greek" style and then Znamenny. To a large extent I am fine with it since the message of the texts isn't marred by the arrangement and stretchig the music to fit the words is unbecoming most of the time.
- Consistent translation is also difficult since there is no universally agreed text. The Russians, Serbians, and Ukranians all use a different recension of Slavonic; add in the Old Ritualists, the Carpatho Russians, and the Bulgarians, and you're talking about even bigger variances. Now, not all of these texts diverge in ways which are going to be readily picked-up in English. (The most salient example I can think of off the top of my head is the text of St. Ephraim's Prayer and the wording of "Virgin Theotokos Rejoice.") Why should they all be forced to conform 100% if their underlying text traditions are different? (I am askin this in all seriousness.) As for those goofs out there who want to say, "Well, we should just use the Greek!," that just begs the Old Ritualist argument that the Greek texts are not by any means "purer" than the Slavonic. So, then what? Do we commission some experts to construct a critical edition to translate off of? How about the Nestle-Aland Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom with a nice fat apparatus? Oh, we could keep grad students in business for decades...
- I maintain that I have never been confused and confounded by any liturgical translation yet, though I have cringed a few times. That's fine. If someone really threw me to the wall, I'd probably admit that I'll take a liturgical text with modern, You-Hoo language before I'll take the emotive intonations of so many these days. Whether it's bombastic silliness or trainwreck "melodic" deliveries, it's all distracting and and far grosser than any awkwardly worded Psalm or prayer. Apparently no one has figured out yet why the Russian Church has been so insistent on picking a note, staying with it, and altering only for the final verse to signal the completion of the Psalm and/or prayer.
"Holy THINGS are for the Holy" is a perfect fine translation, but it makes me cringe -- perhaps this is just one instance where English just doesn't have a good way to capture the Greek.
Indeed, "that which is holy for those who are holy" avoids calling the Mysteries "things," but seems a bit wordy translation of two Greek words.
So, were I in charge, I'd probably just keep the original Greek here, as is sometimes done -- e.g., "Theotokos" and "Kyrie eleison."
I would make a note regarding your recent interlocutors from the Orthodox Western Rite parishes:
They have received the Western English tradition in regard to the liturgical text. In being a "tradition", it is not a reconstruction, but rather a continuation of what the faithful have always experienced. The Coverdale Psalter, the Gregorian and English Collects, etc, and its language is used with great consistency. In the Western Rite context, the archaic English makes more "sense" than it does in the Eastern Rite, because, to some extent, it is almost native to the British ecclesiastical tradition. At least this has been my experience when present at WR services.
"How about the Nestle-Aland Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom with a nice fat apparatus? Oh, we could keep grad students in business for decades..."
Hysterical!
Gabe: I pretty much agree with everything you say about "consistent translation". If we were going to choose just one text to use, why not just elide the entire Western Rite, too? I haven't found anything too confusing - at least, the difficulties I have would be present in pretty much any translation, plus the difficulty of following a sung poetic text as opposed to hearing a speech or reading a book. And I completely agree about emo intonations. Psalm 50 can get pretty bad if you don't lock it up.
Death: I find Hapgood kind of charming, if only because it's in the public domain now and you can find some of it online (like the funeral service, which I read over every day for a while, following the advice given to Ivan the Terrible). Does anybody actually use Hapgood anymore?
Eric: I suppose that argument should be added to the "traditional liturgical language" point. Though, to my mind, the traditional language of Western liturgy is Latin, even for the English-speaking countries, but I'm a Jacobite at heart. Still, the Western Rite is a special enough case (it's what, like 200 people?) that they can be ignored in the context of the larger argument and left to do their own thing. Besides, they're not doing translations, are they? So it's a moot point. As an aside, does the Western Rite do the Dies irae in their funeral rite? I suppose the ones based on the Anglican rites wouldn't and shouldn't (unless I recall them incorrectly), which is a pity.
Never mind about my previous comment about "wouldn't and shouldn't", as I have been informed that the Dies irae was quite popular in England. Dr. Johnson, at least, was quite fond of it, and he, more than any other man, can stand in for the entire English tradition (I mean, really, who has a better claim?). So, the question stands: does the Western Rite use the Dies irae in its funerals?
The Antiochains use a recension of Hapgood to this day. No sure whether I prefer the original or the recension, as I have never heard the oringinal in acutal use. But they are very close.
Also, the Antiochain "Five-Pounder" (the Antiochian Orthodox version of the Book of Common Prayer and the Book of Occasional Services combined) was heavily influenced by Hapgood's translation.
In short, most Antiochain parishes that use English, use Elizabeth/BCP English. ROCOR parishes that use English -- admittedly few, also use a different 'Elizabethanesque' translation. Personally, I find both much better than GOARCH or OCA translations. [Interestingly, both the Antiochians and ROCOR have also shown the most interest in WR ORthodoxy.]
The Dies Irae is in the Epsicopal Hymnal 1940. I have seen it used for All Souls and Requiems and know several trad Anglicans that are specifying it in their Wills!
I would suspect that many English WR Orthodox employ it.
Can I get a Witness?
I have no idea about the dies irae. I have only seen one WR funeral, that of my own grandmother, so I was not paying to much attention to rubrics at that point.
Interesting discussion to have. I'm very curious about the weight of pious inertia. The if it isn't broke don't fix it approach with an added reverence/respect for what has been done. Hapgood certainly holds some of that weight at least in the AOCANA. (I'm curious how much this parallels Old Church Slavonic v. Russian, but not familiar enough with either linguistically to posit anything.)
Certainly if breaks and inconsistencies create a distraction or disturbance to prayer they need to be dealt with, but the Thous and such have never seemed to present that for me (but then again I barely notice them because I grew up Episcopal and was very used to Rite I and rite II with a smattering of 1928 BCP.)
curious to see your further comments.
Erik,
I think that you have hit on a good point -- generational differences. Not so long ago, most every English-Speaking Christian was steeped in trad English of the King James or Douay-Rheims.
Then, ICEL (International Commission on English in the Liturgy) common-usage English "infiltrated" virtually all Christians denominations in North America, so that we now have a few generations that are comfortable ICEL and, perhaps even uncomfortable with trad English.
* * * * *
To mind, the strongest, but not the only, argument in favor of traditional liturgical English is that we should offer our best and brightest upon the altar, whether the precious metals of the chalice and ciborium, or even our words of praise and prayer. Hence, the English of the Golden Age of English Literature, "high English," if you will, that of Shakespeare, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Authorized Version of the Bible should be used in public worship. To my mind, using common-place English is similar to using "praise bands" -- valid perhaps for evangelical or missionary outreach, but not for general liturgical use. Just one man's opinion.
The Antiochians are not 100% reliant on Hapgood anymore, especially since so many more materials have appeared to supplement her work. I have seen a couple of parishes rely heavily on the HTM Menaion, Horologion, Psalter, etc. Considering the fact they've metered a great deal of their translations to Byzantine Chant, it has obvious appeal over Hapgood's work. However, all of the reputable translations I have ever come across all express a certain amount of debt to Hapgood.
Of course, people still sit there and whine that the HTM translations and their metering aren't "perfect." Wow. Really? I suspect that if they ventured to Mt. Athos and heard the Slavonic services metered to Byzantine Hymns used at St. Panteleimon they could say the same thing. The kicker is that HTM has and continues to revise their work, as does Holy Trinity Monastery and St. John of Kronstadt Press. To me, that doesn't smell like pious adherence to any translation tradition--especially one which its purveyors have never ceased admitting will be flawed, despite striving for perfection.
Maybe the greater point which is missed is that amidst all of the whining over translations, people miss the fact that only those who have promoted Thee/Thou can one even find a full set of service books and continued dedication to making them as accurate, accessible, and harmonious as possible. Of course, they are providing them for parishes and jurisdictions which actually embrace serving more than the a 45-minute Liturgy on Sunday. Funny that the people who cry the loudest come from liturgically emaciated parishes and/or jurisdictions.
To answer a couple questions, my parish (ROCOR) uses Hapgood for a few things, and one of the times I visited a nearby Western Rite parish was All Souls Day, and we sang the Dies Irae, to the Gregorian melody, in English.
The first person informal singular should not be allowed to die because it impoverishes our language. If the conservative usages of churches helps conserve that, they should continue to, but the rest of society too should begin to use it, because "you" is confusing. When I say you to people I am tired of having to make clear I mean in a plural or singular sense (which I have to do so bloody often). Thee is a word who's value is not yet lost, there is no reason to accelerate the death of something which ought to be revived.
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