Can "Metaphor" Be Translated?
M.B. Dagut
1. "Metaphor" and Translation Theory
A survey of the treatment (or rather
non-treatment) by modern translation
theorists and contrastive linguists of the
phenomenon known as "metaphor"
forcibly calls to mind Hjemslev's dictum:
"it is in the nature of language to be
overlooked" 1 For here is a phenomenon
which is both central to all forms of
language use (and particularly to creative
writing, whether in verse or prose), and
at the same time also one of the main
points in which interlingual incongruence
manifests itself ("there is no bilingual
dictionary of metaphors" 2 ). This being
so and translation being the active explo­
ration of, and struggle with, discrepancies
between languages, it could be expected
that "metaphor" would occupy a promi­
nent place in all attempts to establish the
theoretical bases of translation. Yet such a
reasonable expectation remains almost
wholly unfulfilled. This paradoxical
neglect of "metaphor" by translation
theorists can best be brought home by a
quick review of the space allocated to it in
some of the main modern works in the
literature.
Thus, to start with the two principal
English texts, in Nida's (6) comprehensive
264-page work, there is only a brief
discussion of "metaphor" (pp. 219-221),
and three passing references to "figurative
meaning" and "idioms"; while in the
188 pages of the later Nida and Taber
(7), there is no mention at all of "metaphor"
and only a three-page discussion of "figu­
rative meanings" and some brief remarks
on " i d i o m " . Turning to French, we find
that in the pioneering contrastive ana­
lysis of Vinay and Darbelnet (11), "meta­
phor" receives only 3 sections (out of 259);
and in Mounin's (5) important, and
now standard, book on the problems of
translation theory there is, astonishingly,
no mention of "metaphor" at all. In
German, Kloepfer (2) (to whom we shall
Babel 22:1 (1976), 21–33. DOI 10.1075/babel.22.1.05dag
ISSN 0521–9744 / E-ISSN 1569–9668 © Fédération Internationale des Traducteurs (FIT) Revue Babel
return) has only one page (out of 126) on
"metaphor" (and that in a study of
literary translation!); while Reiss (9), in
her recent investigation of the possibilities
and limits of translation criticism, devotes
a bare three pages (out of 115) to the sub­
ject. Nor is the situation any better in the
journals. For example, in all the issues of
Babel published since 1968, there is not
one single article on "metaphor" - not
one article in seven years on what no less
an authority than I.A. Richards has
described as "the omnipresent principle of
all its [language's] free action"! 3
The astounding proportions of this neglect
become even more glaring when con­
trasted with the close attention paid to
metaphor by rhetoricians and literary crit­
ics down the ages. Three modern examples
will suffice here. In Richards (10) "meta­
phor" claims no fewer than two chapters
out of six, In Nowottny (8) two out
eight, and in Leech (3) one out of twelve. 4
There is thus an almost grotesque dispro­
portion between the importance and
frequency of "metaphor" in language use
and the very minor role allotted to it in
translation theory. In a recent paper
calling for a review and revision of the aims
of contemporary linguistics, Schank and
Wilks list among the requirements of a
sound linguistic theory that it "must
account for metaphor in a non-ad hoc
way". 5 Similarly, it is high time for transla­
tion theory to make a start on a thorough
and systematic discussion of the transla­
tion implications of "metaphor".
1 Prolegomena to a Theory of Language, p. 5
2 W.Haas. "The Theory of Translation*. in The Theory
of Meaning, ed. Q.A.R.Parkinson, 1968. p. 107.
3 Richards (10). p. 92. Incidental references to meta­
phor' can. of course, be found, but not any
systematic treatment.
4 It is not without interest that this same scholar, in
his wholly linguistic Towards a Semantic Descrip­
tion of English, treats figurative meaning "as an
afterthought to. rather than a central theme of this
study ' (p. 89). Leech s attitude here would seem to
be representative of a widespread linguistic blind-
spot with regard to metaphor".
5 R.C. Schank and Y. Wilks. The Goals of Linguistic
Theory Revised . Lingua 34 (1974). pp. 320-1.
21
 2. What is "Metaphor"?
But, first, the term "metaphor" itself
must be redefined. To say this is not to
cast doubt on the validity of Aristotle's
classic definition — "metaphor is the ap­
plication to one thing of the name of an­
other t h i n g " 6 — or on his explanation of
"metaphor" as functioning by analogy.
These still remain today, as ever, the
starting-points of any further investigation
of the phenomenon. What does need to be
questioned and clarified, though, is the
actual range of lexical items and combi­
nations of items to which the term "meta-
phor"should properly be applied, in the
interests of that terminological exactitude
which is the necessary preliminary to the
understanding of complex issues. For a
further deplorable consequence of
translation theorist's neglect of "meta­
phor" is their semantic depletion of the
term itself, so that it tends to become
(if used at all) merely a synonym for
"figuative speech" or "figurative exten­
sions of meaning", instead of serving to
designate a specific and highly distinctive
category of semantic change (in the same
way as "metaphoric" is used as no more
than a synonym of "figurative"). 7 The term
itself thus becomes a superfluity; and
indeed, in both Nida's and Nida and
Taber's all-too-brief discussions, "figura­
tive meaning" is almost entirely equated
with what would more exactly be called
"idioms" or "the polysemic senses of
single words". 8 Similarly, Reiss makes
no attempt to distinguish between, in her
words, "eine bereits lexikalisierte oder ein
vom Autor geschaffene Metapher", and
her few examples of what she calls
"metaphor" are, in fact, all polysemic
usages or idioms.9 But idioms and
polysemes, however linguistically remark­
able and linguistically important, are
surely not what Aristotle had in mind
when he asserted "the greatest thing by
far is to have a command of metaphor",
and when he described metaphor as
"the mark of genius"; nor are they what
modern scholars are thinking of when they
dwell on the central role of metaphor
22
in creative writing, or call it the "constitu­
tive f o r m " of language. 10 The rehabilita­
tion of "metaphor" in translation theory
must thus, clearly, begin with the restora­
tion to the term of its proper (and vitally
significant) semantic content.
The essential feature of this specific
designation of "metaphor" was succinctly
stated by Gustav Stern: "it is evident...
that the genesis of metaphor lies entirely
with the speaker". 11 Every "metaphor"
in the proper, narrow sense, is an indi­
vidual flash of imaginative insight, whether
in the known creative writer or in the ano­
nymous creative speaker (as in humour
and slang), a sudden inspired "observation
or affinities/In objects where no brother­
hood exists/To passive minds", 1 2 which
transcends the existing semantic limits
of the language and thereby enlarges the
hearers' or readers' emotional and intel­
lectual awareness. Thus identified, every
metaphor (the inverted commas can now
be removed) is by definition "original" and
"live", so that "dead metaphor" becomes a
contradiction in terms and "original meta­
phor" a mere tautology. And, altogether,
metaphor can now be relieved of the mass
of qualifying (and confusing) adjectives —
"habitual", "moribund", "dormant",
"well-worn", "lexicalized", "original",
"new" and even " t r u e " 1 3 — which
6
(Poetics 1457b).
7 Nida (6) pp. 93-4.
8 In Nida (6). the brief examination of metaphor" (p.
219) is conducted in terms of " i d i o m " (Adam's ap­
ple is given as an example of "an obvious meta­
p h o r ) . And in Nida and Taber (7) (pp. 87-89), the
few figurative items analysed are mainly polysemic
words (chair, fox, flesh).
9 Reiss (9) gives the following examples of 'meta­
phor' (p. 62. n. 145); "D'abord la surprise la cloua
sur place"; "Quel bon vent vous amène"; "Bodidi-
oms was now an old hand at writing political artic­
les'"; "We are likely to have our hands full".
10 Richards (10), p. 90.
11 Meaning and Change of Meaning,p. 301
12 Wordsworth, The Prelude, II. 384—386.
13 These examples are culled mainly from the works
quoted in this article.
 have come to be so frequently and bewilder--
ingly attached to it in its depleted, genera­
lized usage. Linguistically speaking, this
means that metaphor is a matter of "perfor­
mance", as indeed any phenomenon
capable of producing a change in a
language system must be, and as such it is
unpredictable and irreducible to "rules".
Metaphors are not to be found in that
repository of semantic "competence", the
dictionary (except, perhaps, in illustrative
quotation), since every metaphor is an en­
tirely new and unique creation. The elusi-
veness of metaphor - the difficulty in
getting a linguistic grip on it, so to speak -
derives from its being at the frontier of
linguistic change and fluidity. So do the
problems of translating it.
A completely unambiguous definition of
metaphor requires that a clear distinction
be made between metaphor and certain
closely related, but different, forms of
semantic extension with which, as already
noted, metaphor is too often confused.
Metaphors, in fact, can be divided into
three categories, according to their subse­
quent history. First, there are those, presu­
mably the great majority (all numerical
judgments with regard to metaphor must
obviously be of a very general impres­
sionistic nature), which prove to be
ephemeral and disappear without a trace:
such are the forgotten metaphors of litera­
ture and journalism, and those of extem­
pore oral invention. Then there is another
very large group of metaphors which
remain as they began - unique semantic
creations.Such are, for example, theembal-
med metaphors of literature ("golden boys
and girls", "time's winged chariot"): even
if frequently quoted, such metaphors
usually retain their "apartness" from the
routine, institutionalized patterns of the
language; hence their enduring effective­
ness. But most important of all for the
development of language is the third and
much smaller (though still sufficiently
numerous) category of metaphors - those
that are taken up and used (as distinct from
quoted) by an ever-increasing number of
other speakers, so that they gradually lose
their uniqueness and peculiarity,
becoming part of the established semantic
stock of the language and being recorded
as such in the dictionary. Itisthisshiftfrom
"performance" to "competence", from
individual innovating creation to routine
collective repetition, that makes metaphor
perhaps the greatest life-giving force in
language. For it is largely through the indi­
vidual speakers' capacity for, and recep­
tivity to, metaphor that language is endow­
ed with the absolutely vital potential for
semantic expansion. 1 4
When this passage of metaphor from
"performance" into "competence" has
occured, two different situations are to be
distinguished, depending on whether the
metaphor is "simplex" (i.e. consists of a
single lexical item only) or "complex''
(i.e. consists more than one lexical item).
In the former case (simplex), the passage
from performance to competence results
in the creation of a "polyseme"; in the latter
(complex), the result is an "idiom".
Examples of polysemes would thus be:
a warm welcome, run a business, a
battery of cameras, emotional ties, sing
sweetly, etc., etc.; and of idiom: see red, a
wild goose chase, flog a dead horse,
put one's foot down, catch sb.'s eye,
etc., etc. (both of these being, of course,
open-ended series like all fully lexical
items). Polyseme and idiom are thus seen
to stand in a derivative relation to meta­
phor as effect to cause; but they differ
significantly from metaphor in their seman­
tic regularity as against its semantic ano­
maly. This has important implications for
translation.
The final possible stage in the transforma­
tion of a peculiarity of performance into a
regularity of competence occurs with the
creation of certain "formators ", such as
while, in view of, except, despite, notwith-
14 Cf. the succinct description of this potentiality by
Dwight Bolinger, in "The Atomization of Meaning",
Language 41 (1965), p. 567:"lt is characteristic of
natural languages that no word is ever limited to its
.enumerable senses, but carries with it the qualifica­
tion of 'something else'.
23
standing, etc. These too (as the few
examples here show) may be derived from
either simplex or complex metaphors.
Formator Formator
3. Translating Metaphor
This redefinition of metaphor and its
differentiation from two other related, but
distinct, forms of "transferred meaning"
first of all clears up the prevailing termino­
logical confusion (in which "metaphor",
"polyseme" and "idiom" function as ill-
defined and partly interchangeable
terms). 1 5 But besides separating out
various kinds of transferred meaning, it
also shows them to be arranged on a
graded scale, ranging from metaphor to
"formator", with polyseme and idiom (as
here defined) occupying intermediate (and
fluctuating) positions between these two
poles. Moreover, the relationship existing
between the various parts of the system of
transferred meaning, as depicted in the
above diagram, points towards significant
differences in the translation problems
posed by its various parts. Here the first dis­
tinction to be made is clearly between
metaphor, on the one hand, and the other
three forms, on the other. In the case of
polysemes, idioms or formators, where
translation is taking place between two
different systems of language compe­
tence, success in the finding of adequate
SLTL* equivalence, despite presumable in­
terlingual incongruences here as else­
where, depends essentially on the bilin­
gual competence of the translator. That is
to say, this is an area of translation that can
be fully "mapped" by translation theory,
through a contrastive analysis based on
the understanding of transferred meaning
as described above. Thus, it is to beexpect-
*source language — target language (The editor)
24
The semantic process and semantic rela­
tions described above can now be graphi­
cally represented as follows:
Performance
Competence
ed that the further removed a transferred
form is from its source-metaphor the more
readily will its translation "equivalent"
be found, as is indeed most obviously
the case with the formators.
With metaphor, on the other hand, the situ­
ation is very different. Since a metaphor in
SL is, by definition, a new piece of
performance, a semantic novelty, it can
clearly have no existing "equivalence"
in TL: what is unique can have no counter­
part. Here the translator's bilingual compe­
tence - "le sens", as Malblanc put it, "de ce
qui est dans la langue et de ce qui
n'en est past" 1 6 - is of help to him only in
the negative sense of telling him that any
"equivalence" in this case cannot be
" f o u n d " , but will have to be "created".
The crucial question that arises is thus
whether a metaphor can, strictly speaking,
be translated as such, or whether it can
only be "reproduced" in some way. Or, to
put the question in Richards' terminology:
can both "vehicle" and "tenor" be transla­
ted, or only the "tenor"? This is the
question which will be considered in the
rest of this article, with the limitation
that poetry will be ignored and attention
confined to the metaphors of imaginative
prose writing. True, metaphor is of the
essence of poetry and one - perhaps the
main - source of the enormous difficulty,
even impossibility, of poetic translation.
15 This confusion is by no means confined to writers
on translation theory: it is to be found equally in the
publications of those (still few) modern linguists
who have stressed the importance of 'transferred
meaning ' in linguistic theory.
16 A. Mal blanc, Stylistique comparée du français et de
l'allemand Paris, 1961, p. 43.
But the problems of rendering poetic meta­
phor are so inextricably bound up with
those arising from other essential features
of poetry, such as rhythm, rhyme, and
assonance, that they can hardly be exami­
ned in isolation. For this purpose, the meta­
phors of creative prose offer more
manageable material for the start of a
linguistic investigation. Moreover, the too-
common identification of metaphor with
poetry tends to obscure the omnipresence
(stressed by Richards) of this semantic
phenomenon in all creative use of
language, and hence its importance in
translation of all kinds. This point may
perhaps be illustrated by a few extracts
from a piece of prose journalism, from a
recent issue of "Time" magazine: "The
Conservative party has a bullyboy too, only
she's a lady. She is Margaret Thatcher, 49,
who this week shucks off her gloves and
barrels into battle against none other than
her own party leader, Edward Heath....
Like the strand of pearls, twin sets and per­
manents that mark her image, Mrs. That­
cher seems to fit nicely within those
unruffled reaches of English society where
neither curl nor pearl is ever out of
place.... On a blazingly controversial
economy binge, she raised the price of
school lunches and killed off the free-milk
program...." 1 7
It is the translation problem presented by
lexical usages of the kind underlined in the
above passage, and their more literary
counterparts, that will now be discussed.
4. Previous Views
The whole treatment of metaphor in the lite­
rature of translation theory is as we have
seen, grossly inadequate. Nevertheless, in
the all too meagre discussion of the
subject, we can discern, through the termi­
nological confusion, two diametrically
opposed views on the problem of transla­
ting metaphor: at one extreme it is held that
there is no solution (i.e. metaphor is
untranslatable); and at the other, that there
is no problem (i.e. metaphor can be quite
"simply" translated word for word).
The first of these views finds explicit (if
qualified) formulation in Nida's remark:
"Metaphors, however, must often be trans­
lated as nonmetaphors", 1 8 and in Vinay
and Darbelnet's reference to cases in
which "la langue d'arrivée ne permet pas
de traduire la métaphore littéralement"; 19
it is also implied in the frequently mention­
ed "untranslatability" of poetry. The
second view is propounded in some detail
by Kloepfer, followed by Reiss. The
passage from Kloepfer (almost the whole
of his comment on the subject of meta­
phor) is so striking in its sweeping dismis­
sal of the problem and in its argumentation
that it deserves to be quoted in full. Com­
menting on a translation into German of a
section of what he describes as a "prose
poem" by Rimbaud ("Metropolitain"),
Kloepfer has the following to say about
metaphor: Küchler [the translator] vermag
aile Metaphern zu erhalten; ihre vielge-
rühmte ,,Kühnheit" ist für die Übersetzung
kein Problem - im Gegenteil, je kühner und
freier erfunden, je einmaliger eine Meta-
pher ist, desto leichter Iäßt sie sich in ande­
ren Sprachen wiederholen; denn es gibt
nicht nur eine ,,Harmonie der Bildfelder
zwischen den einzelnen abendländischen
Sprachen", nicht nur konkrete Bildfelder,
die Allgemeinbesitz der Menschheit sind,
sondern all dem zugrunde liegend be-
stimmte ,,Strukturen der Phantasie", nach
denen in Bildungen der originären An-
schaungskraft — vor- oder übersprachlich
— ,,die welterschließende Kraft des Men-
schen" wirkt. Das Metaphorische einer Aus-
sage ist demnach ein Problem der Sprache
schlechthin (als "language"), nicht aber
der Übersetzung (die zwischen den
"langues" wirkt).20
This remarkably downright assertion that
"metaphor, is no problem for translation"
(of what other linguistic phenomenon
could so dogmatic a statement be made?)
17 "Time". Feb. 10th 1975. p.10
18 Nida (6), p. 220.
19 Vinay and Darbelnet (11). p. 199.
20 Kloepfer (2). p. 116. The references in the quotation
are to H. Weinrich...Münze und Wort . in Romani-
ca. Festschrift für G. Rohlfs. 1958.p.519. and to F.
Vonessen. ..Der Mythos vom Weltschleier . in
Antaios 4 (1963). p. 24.
25
is quoted with approval by Reiss, 21 who in
another place explicitly advocates the
method of ,,eine vom Autor selbst ge-
schaffene Metapher wortwörtlich zu über-
setzen." 22
Which of these two opposed views is right?
Or does the truth lie somewhere in
between?
5. Metaphor —► Same Metaphor?
It is natural to try to answer these questions
by a close examination of the Kloepfer-
Reiss view, since this is the one that
appears to challenge the whole "equiva­
lence" theory of translation, by proposing
the paradox that, where such equivalence
does not exist (because of the very nature
of metaphor), it can be created by the
translator, and quite simply at that. Thus,
Reiss, after stating that metaphor demands
,,eine vom Übersetzer ebenfalls für die
Zielsprache neu zu schaffende Metapher",
immediately adds: ,,Diese Forderung ist
nicht so schwer zu erfüllen, wie es auf den
ersten Blick den Anschein hat", and then
quotes Kloepfer to prove her point.23
And Kloepfer, as we have seen, bases the
case with which metaphor can supposedly
be translated on "fields of imagery (Bild-
felder)" and "structures of imagination"
said to be shared by all human beings.
Hence the apparent paradox of translation
being easiest where there is, a priori,
no equivalence would turn out not to be a
paradox at all, since all possible meta­
phorical structures would be given in
advance, as it were, by the structure of
human cognition; and the problem of
metaphor would thus become (as Kloepfer
explicitly maintains) identical with the
problem of language in general (and not of
any one language in particular) - namely,
how does metaphor come about and what
are the universal rules governing its
function? That is to say, the argument
assumes the form of claiming that meta­
phor is "easy" to translate because it is a
language "universal".
But such an argument - even before put to
the test of actual translation - is surely
vacuous, since, in the sense of deriving
26
from commonly shared cognitive structu­
res, all identifiable linguistic phenomena
are "universal". Hence, on this ground
alone, it is not at all clear why translation of
metaphor should be any easier than
translation of anything else in SL. More­
over, if interlingual metaphorical congruen­
ce is the result of universally shared
,,konkrete Bildfelder". why should some
metaphors, by Kloepfer's own admission,
be easier to translate than others: ,,je
kühner und freier erfunden, je einmaliger
eine Metapher ist, desto leichter läßt sie
sich in anderen Sprachen wiederholen"?
On his own premisses, he would seem to
have no grounds for making such a dis­
tinction; and the way in which he chooses
to make it is most paradoxical: that the
further removed an utterance is from
language "competence" the easier it
becomes to translate. As if the unique were,
by the very virtue of being unique, immedi­
ately translatable, and only the common­
place gave the translator pause. The claim,
implied by Kloepfer and made explicitly by
Reiss, that metaphor is simple to translate
because it can be adequately rendered
word by word in TL, is thus so counter­
intuitive that it needs to be put to a more
thorough empirical test than either of these
scholars has given it.
Kloepfer distinguishes, not entirely consis­
tently, between (quoting Weinrich24)
,,eine Harmonie der Bildfelder zwischen
den einzelnen abendländischen Sprachen"
and ,,konkrete Bildfelder, die Allgemein-
besitz der Menschheit sind." This dis­
tinction in itself suggests a somewhat
particularist, as opposed to Kloepfer's own
universalist, approach to metaphor, by hint­
ing at the culture-bound nature of the
phenomenon. However that may be, and
remaining for the moment within the
supposedly culturally homogeneous
"Western languages", it is clear that the
journalistic metaphors underlined in the
passage quoted above from "Time"
magazine do not lend themselves to easy,
word-for-word translation even into
21 Reiss (9), pp. 62—3.
22 Ibid. pp. 43—4 (my emphasis).
23 Reiss (9), p. 62. 24 See n. 20.
 French or German without resultant
semantic anomalies (i.e. peculiar as op­
posed to effective writing). Is that solely be­
cause they are not sufficiently "bold",
"freely invented", or "unparallelled"? How
indeed is the "boldness" or "inventiveness'
of a metaphor to be measured? By the
supposed "remoteness" of vehicle and
tenor from each other in our normal
experience? But, since our language is a
constitutive factor of this experience,
such "remoteness" is notoriously indefi­
nable: once areas of experience have been
broughttogetherin language their associa-
tion comes to seem "natural". Hence the
remarkable incongruencies, on the meta­
phorically derived idiomatic and polysemic
levels, even between languages (like those
of Whorf's SAE*) with a commonly shared
cultural framework. For the truth is that the
resemblances underlying metaphor, like
everything else in language, are not just
given (in some absolute, "objective" sense)
in experience, but are largely "created" by
the observing and classifying mind of the
speaker, and are therefore as infinite as
they are unpredictable. Thus, to take only a
few simple, everyday examples, what
"necessary" likeness is there between a
crocodile and a double file of English
schoolchildren (rather than, say, a snake,
bus, train, tail etc.)? Or between the same
reptile and insincerity (as in crocodile
tears)? Or between eat crow and an Ameri­
can's "accepting what he has fought
against (rather than drink mud or smell
rotten eggs etc.)? 2 5 And what, to English
ears, could be more inappropriate than the
Frenchman's term of endearment, mon
petit chou? Of course, certain recurrent
general patterns of resemblance are no
doubt to be expected on account of the
perceptual and cognitive features that are
shared by all human minds. But our
whole experience with language should
lead us to expect very numerous discre­
pancies of detail, rather than the "harmony"
that Kloepfer postulates.
* Standard Average European (The editor)
6. Hebrew —► English Metaphor
Kloepfer's theory about the translation of
metaphor thus appears to be based on two
large, but unsubstantiated and mutually
inconsistent claims - one about a certain
metaphorical "harmony" between
Western languages, and the other about
universally shared "concrete fields of
imagery". It is illustrated by a passage from
Rimbaud, which, in its startling juxtaposi­
tions of sense data is surrealistic rather
than metaphorical. Hence, even if the few
metaphors that it contains were all transla­
ted word for word in the German version
printed by Kloepfer (which they are not 2 6),
his case would not yet be proved, because
of the most unusual surrealistic nature of
the source text. Here I propose to submit
the K-R* view on the translation of meta­
phor to a further empirical text, by examin­
ing some examples of "cross-cultural"
translations of metaphors made from a
non-Western language, modern Hebrew,
into English. The passages quoted are
from a modern Hebrew novel 2 7 two mod­
ern Hebrew short stories 2 8 first a "word-
for-word" rendering, and then the version
in the actual published translation:
(1)
A year of wild expectations. Bound [like
Isaac for the sacrifice] by my love and to
make it known.
A year of wild anticipation. Bound by my
love and helplessly unable to make it
known.
25 Cf. Uriel Weinreich. 'Problems in the Analysis of
Idioms ". in Substance and Structure of Language,
ed. Jaan Puhvel, 1969, p. 76.
26 E.g.: le ciel vineux→der weinrote Himmel; Damas
damnant de langeur→Damast, der einen rasend
machen konnte vor Sehnsucht; les éclats de neige
→ in der schneeigen Pracht.
27 Ha-haycal ha-mët (h.m.) by Aharon Megged, Am
Oved, Tel Aviv, 1 9 6 5 = "The Living on the Dead",
trans. Misna Louvish, Jonathan Cape, London,
1970.
28 (1) Shelöshah yamTm ve-yeled(S.y.),\n Mul ha-ya
c
arot by A.B.Yehoshoua, Hakibbutz Hameuchad,Tel
Aviv, 1968 = "Three Days and a Child", trans. Miri­
am Arad, Doubleday & Co. Inc.: New York 1970.
hlatunatah shel Galiah (h.g.), in Mot ha-zakěn by
A.B. Yehoshoua, Hakibbutz Hameuchad, Tel Aviv,
1962 = "Galia's Wedding", trans. Yehuda Hanegbi,
Israel Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 1968.
* Kloepfer-Reiss (The editor)
27
 (2)
... and I exchanged surprising letters with
her, until I came to her at Sdot Or, the place
of her last rolling [or metamorphosis].
... and we exchanged a few curious letters.
Finally, I came to her at Sdot Or, the last
place to which she had wandered.
(3)
And if I now write down what follows;
it is not under the illusion that it will one
day serve as a document in my defence,
but so that truth may pierce justice. Yes, /
want to see it [justice] beaten at her feet,
with her sword fixed in its back.
And if I now set down this account, it is not
in the illusion that it might serve as a brief
for my defence one day, but so that Truth
may conquer Justice. [No translation].
(4)
'Rot is eating the foundations of the house,
Living on the dead! The whole country! No
wonder that corruption is spreading from
the root to the crown of the tree!"
"Rot setting in at the foundations. Living on
the dead! The whole country! No wonder
that there was corruption everywhere, from
top to bottom!

(5) (6) (7)

Ah, to be an idiot youth gathering smiles
under her table, a dry twig under the heel
of her shoe, only not a male nurse [or
brother of mercy] for her to rest her sick
head on my shoulder!
... better be a servant gathering crumbs
under her table, a dry twig under her heel,
anything rather than a male nurse to
soothe her sickness!
We drank coffee and gnawed toast as hard
as stone. Then we groped to find common
acquaintances, in order to gnaw them too.
We drank coffee and nibbled biscuits hard
as rock. Then we put out feelers to discover
common acquaintances and nibbled at
them too.
The holidays began to die, and the Jerusal-
mites, roasted and saltsoaked, began to re­
turn to their city.
The holidays were drawing to a close.
Jerusalmites, sun and salt-baked were be­
ginning to return to their city.

(8) (9) (10)

At night, searchlights were placed on the
tops of the water-towers, and the scythes
of light began to send great arcs floating
into the distance, reaping the darkness
above the turrets of the cypresses.
At night, searchlights were installed on the
tops of the water-towers and great scythes
of light stretched out into the distance,
reaping the darkness over the pinnacles of
the cypresses.
I would see their self-restraint, the spring
taut between them, growing stronger the
more it was stretched, in preparation for the
moment when it would be released.
I watched their self-control, the taut spring
that joined them, gathering strength the
more it was stretched, in preparation for the
moment when it would be released.
The battle of the notes was waged yester­
day in the court for three hours. In the first
phase, the exchange of shots went on
above my head - between the tow lawyers
in the second phase - / myself stood in the
centre of the cross-fire.
The battle of the notes raged for three hours
yesterday in court. In the first stage, the
shots were exchanged above my head be­
tween the two lawyers; in the second, /
myself was in the centre of the crossfire.

The first conclusion that can obviously be
drawn from a comparison of columns II
and III is that the translators here have not
found the rendering of the metaphors as
easy and straightforward as they should be
on the K-R view. On the contrary, the rarity
of ,,wortwortlich" renderings, and the
numerous divergences between the SL
metaphor and its TL translation, are clear
indications of the translators' struggles to
solve problems. It is also noticeable that
any weaknesses or peculiarities in the
translations are to be found precisely in the
metaphors, rather than in the non-meta­
phorical material. This again would seem
contradict the assumptions of K-R.
Closerexamination of our examples shows
the K-R approach to be a serious over­
simplification of a complex situation. It is
only to be expected, a priori, that the com­
plexities of translating such a dynamic,
creative, and still largely mysterious
central component of language as
metaphor cannot be captured in a single
simplistic generalization. Indeed, there is
some recognition of this in Kloepfers
own implicit reference to a metaphorical
grading ("...je kühner und freier erfunden.
je einmaliger eine Metapher ist..."). While
our actual examples do show that some
metaphors are more easily translatable
than others, this is not at all in accordance
with Kloepfer's criteria. What emerges is a
picture of metaphor as governed by a
subtle interaction of cultural experience
and semantic associations; so that what
determines the translatability of a SL
metaphor is not its "boldness" or "origi­
nality", but rather the extent to which the
cultural experience and semantic
associations on which it draws are shared
by speakers of the particular TL.
This may be illustrated, to begin with, by:
the sharp contrast, in this respect, between
the two extremes of the list of examples:
(1) and (2) as against (9) and (10).
Despite the complexity (in terms of lexical
items) of the metaphors in (9) and (10) as
against the simplexity of those in (1) and
(2), it is the former that are relatively
"easy" to translate "word for word" and
the latter that are difficult. The reason for
this is that, whereas in (9) and (10) the
metaphors draw on cultural experiences
(modern warfare and modern mechanism)
fully shared by speakers of both Heb. and

28
Eng., in (1) and (2) the metaphors have
cultural and associative roots that are
specifically Hebraic, without any parallel in
Eng. Thus, in (1) the "binding" referred
to in the Heb. verb necekad is the historical
of Isaac preparatory to his being sacrificed
by his father Abraham, at Gods command -
an act which in Heb. culture has become
symbolic of any readiness to suffer and
even give one's life for Jewish ideals.
Hence, a "word for word" Eng. translation
of necekad in (1) not only fails to convey
the meaning of the Heb. metaphor, but
actually distorts that meaning, both desig-
nationally and dynamically, replacing
"suffering for an ideal" by mere "lack of
choice" (cf. bound by my promise), and
substituting a frequent Eng. polyseme for a
richly associative Heb. metaphor.
A similar cultural-associative difficulty
arises in the translation of the metaphor in
(2). Here, the metaphorical Heb. item
gilgul combines, in a peculiarly Hebraic
way, the notion of "rolling (from place to
place)" and a semantic association with
the doctrine of gilgul neshamöt (the
transmigration of souls). And this is a
combination which, for both cultural and
associative reasons, cannot be satisfac­
torily rendered into Eng. word for word - or
in any other way, for that matter. The flat,
non-metaphorical translation here in
column III may perhaps be regarded as the
translator's confession of his inability to
solve the problem with which he was faced.
Certainly, the "ease" of translation postu­
lated by K-R is strikingly non-apparent, as
in (1). Nor is the universality of ,,kon­
krete Bildfelder" postulated by Kloepfer
much in evidence.
In (3) too there is clear metaphorical asym­
metry between Heb. and Eng., but here
the cause is to be found primarily in diffe­
rent semantic associations rather than in
different cultural experiences. In the
metaphor fiqöv ha-emet et ha-tsedeq
the Heb. reader hears an echo of the Heb.
idiom yTqöv ha-din et ha-har, ("let
justice pierce the mountain", i.e. "justice
just be done at any cost", "fiat justitia.
ruat caelum"). The verb ,,pierce" thus pre­
pares the way for the continuation of the
metaphor, with its images of a sword-fight.
The absence of any parallel idiom in Eng.
obviously rules out the possibility of such
associatively constructed metaphorforthe
translator, and results in his replacement
of the specific pierce by the general
conquer. But now he is left without any
natural continuation of the metaphor
parallel to the Heb., and he therefore seems
to have thought it best not even to
attempt a translation of the second
sentence. Whatever his reason for this
presumably deliberate omission (a
complex metaphor is not readily just over­
looked), it obviously cannot have been that
the metaphor was too "easy" to be worth
bothering about.
In (4) and (5) we find a combination of
both "shared" and "non-shared"
metaphors between the two languages.
Thus, the first metaphor in (4) and the first
two metaphors in (5) all admit of the type of
word-for-word translation postulated by
K-R, for reason of shared cultural experi­
ences and semantic associations. Rot eats
(away) foundations in Eng. as in Heb.; and
house = "organized social structure" is
part of a common Judaeo-Christian tradi­
tion (cf. the parable of a house built on
sand). The translator's shift from the more
vivid metaphor to the well-worn, dulled
idiom (rot setting in) is therefore both
unnecessary and unfortunate (though inte­
resting as an indication, perhaps, of a trans­
lator's tendency to avoid metaphor→
same metaphor renderings). Similarly, in
(5) the two Heb. metaphors describing the
abject plight of the unrequited adorer
achieve their effect by "playing off against
each other" two complex frames of
reference 2 9 (phenomena of country life
and human relations) which, both cultu­
rally and linguistically, are readily transfer­
able into Eng. But it is interesting to note
that, here again, the translator has
displayed an aversion to metaphor, pre­
ferring the cliché-idiom (gathering crumbs)
to the much more vivid, and equally
translatable, metaphor, which in Eng.
29 See the remarks on the essence of metaphor in R.E.
Sparshott,'"As' or the Limits of Metaphor", New
Literary History, Vol. VI No. 1 (1974). p. 83.
29
gains much of its power from its diver­
gence from, and clash with, the cliche.
As a result, not only is the dynamic
force of the Heb. lost, but there is now an
uncomfortably sudden shift from the
metaphorical frame of reference in gather­
ing crumbs to that in a dry twig ....
Here, then, is a case where the K-R hypo­
theses would seem to apply with full
force.
In the third metaphor in (5), however, the
"word-for-word" type of translation is
blocked by the special semantic associa­
tions of ah-rahaman, which have no parallel
in Eng. This Heb. expression is the
masculine form of the much commoner
ahot rahmaniyyah (lit. merciful sister), the
modern Heb. designator for nurse
(usually abbreviated to ahot). The literal
translation male nurse, while thus designa-
tionally correct, is totally lacking in the
metaphorical force achieved in the Heb. by
the semantic tension existing (in this
context) between the compound designa­
tion of ah rahaman and the separate
designations of each of its lexical compo­
nents. What the would-be lover is
expressing here is his wish to suffer any
abject humiliation, rather than have to pro­
vide the object of his passion with
brotherly "comfort" and "solace" for her
thwarted longing for another man. All this
compactly expressed in the double frame
of reference ("nurse" - "brother of mercy"),
of ah rahaman (lit. = merciful brother)
but one of these frames of reference
is completely lost in the translation
male nurse which, by this loss of a seman­
tic dimension, becomes flat and awkward
(no indication of "compassion", and an in­
trusive insistence on "male"). It is indeed
hard to see how the "double focus" of a
metaphor rooted in certain lexical
specifics of a given SL, like this one, could
be satisfactorily rendered into any TL
lacking these particular specifics. Here
then is a type of metaphor that seems to lie
beyond the limits of full translatability.30
What is quite certain is that, in cases of
this kind, the translation of metaphor is
very far from being the simple process
that K-R would have us believe it to be.
30
The importance of semantic associations
in the creation and translatability of
metaphor is further illustrated in (6) and (7).
At first glance there would appear to be no
difficulty about a word-for-word rendering
of the metaphors in (6): the Eng. equiva­
lents of gishesh (grope) and kirsëm (gnaw)
appear to have the same semantic associ­
ations as the Heb. verbs. But closer exami­
nation reveals subtle, though important,
differences. Whereas the implication of
gishesh is predominantly positive,
suggesting that the search will end in new
knowledge, that of grope is predominantly
negative, stressing the obscurities and
obstacles besetting the search. For
example, of the two parallel expressions
anu megasheshlm limtsö pitrön and
we are groping to find a solution, the
former seems to imply the positive testing
of various hypotheses, while the latter
describes a negative state of mental
"darkness" in which the investigator does
not really know which way to turn.31
Hence the word-for-word rendering we
groped to find common acquaintances
would not be the equivalent of the Heb.
metaphor in (6); and this presumably
explains the translator's preference for an
English idiom with more positive connota­
tions, but of course, qua idiom, without the
dynamic force of the metaphor.
With the second metaphor in (6) the
semantic associations of the Heb. and Eng.
words are more in harmony. Thus, both
kirsëm and gnaw are alike used of the gra­
dually destructive, torturing effects on the
mind of care, anxiety and the like (e.g.
deagah mekharsemet ba-lěv=anxiety
gnawing (at) the heart). But this is an
30 A less jarring translation would be, e.g.:... anything
rather than a compassionate brother nursing her
sick head on my shoulder. But this too fails to cap­
ture the simultaneous "double focus" of alp ratpa-
man, this time by stressing the discrete compo­
nents of the metaphorical expression as against its
compressed total meaning.
31 Gishesh can carry this negative implication too, but
in that case it is contextually "marked", e.g. ànu
megasheshîm baafëlah ( = we're groping in the
dark).
overlap, not an identity. For kirsëm, unlike
gnaw, is also associated with the wearing
away of a hard substance or firm position
(cf. Eng. erode). Hence the effectiveness
of its metaphorical use in (6), where
lekharsëm ötom vividly suggests the
destructive effect of malicious gossip on
the acquaintances' characters and reputa­
tions. This is not conveyed by to gnaw
(at) them, since the verb gnaw in Eng.
lacks this particular semantic association.
Once again, therefore, it is very difficult, if
not impossible, for the translator to repro­
duce the "double focus'' of a Heb. term
(here made explicit by the earlier literal use
of kirsëm). The translator's substitution
of nibbled (though in itself a possible
translation of kirsëm) only distorts the
translation still further, since the semantic
extensions of nibble ('try a little of",
"show some inclination to accept') are
quite different from those of kirsëm.
So again with gosës in (7). Here too the
semantic associations of the Heb. and Eng.
verbs overlap, but are not fully congruent:
the polysemic extension of Eng. die tends
to be confined to "light" and "sound"
(the dying day, the sound died away),
whereas that of the Heb. gasas is not sub­
ject to such a restriction. Here too, then, an
effective Heb. metaphor becomes some­
what awkward when translated "literally"
into English, and has therefore been avoi­
ded by the translator (once again, meta-
phor→idiom!) Yet the overlap of semantic
associations is such that the holidays
were dying is a metaphor that could be
immediately understood by the English
reader. 32
In the second part of (7), difficulty is caused
by an only partial overlap of cultural
experience, combined with identity of
semantic associations. The association of
roast with sunburn, and salt with sea­
bathing is as common in Eng. as in Heb.
culture, as are the activities of sun- and
sea-bathing. But the Heb. metaphor here
obtains much of its force and accepta­
bility from the important position occupied
in Heb. gastronomic culture by roasted and
salted peanuts, which the discription
qelüyim u-sefügë meialp naturally calls to
mind,but which are too marginal in Eng.cul­
ture to provide any equivalent echo. Hence
the awkwardness of the "literal" render­
ing roasted and salt-soaked, and the
translator's preference of the more usual
sun-baked (though salt-baked must surely
perplex the English reader: what kind
of baking is done by or with salt?)
Finally, in (8) the commonly shared basic
cultural experience of reaping crops by
hand, and the commonly shared imple­
ment with which this was (and in some
cases still is) done, make it "easy" to trans­
late the essentials of the complex meta­
phor. There is some difficulty, however,
with one of the details. This is the seeming
clash between the "earthy" metaphor of
"reaping" and the "watery" metaphor
which intrudes in meshîtîm (=lit. causing
to float). But, then, the supposed "rea­
ping" is in fact taking place in the air; and
the application of water terms to move­
ment through air (float on air, sail through
the air, launch a missile etc.) is as common
in Eng. as in Heb. Hence there seems to be
no good reason for the translator to have
reduced the Heb. metaphor by the
complete omission of qeshatöt (=arcs)
and by the improbable combination
scythes of light stretched out, where the
association of stretching with scythes
strains the reader's credulity too far for
effectiveness. (Far more appropriate would
be the usual verbal polyseme for the
movement of searchlight beams: swept out.
But this would, of course, still "deaden"
the author's figurative creations by
translating metaphor→*polyseme).
The semantic associations of Heb. and
Eng. are sufficiently close here for the
translator to permit himself the admittedly
mixed metaphor: the scythes of light
began to launch their great arcs into the
32 The Heb. metaphor is probably facilitated by the
existence of a separate Heb. verb gasas ( = " b e in
the process of dying") as distinct from mut ( =
"die"). Whereas in Eng. both these meanings are
contained in the one verb die.
31
distance. For if the mixing of metaphors
here is felt to be a fault, then it is a fault that
originates in the Heb., and the translator is
performing his task faithfully by reprodu­
cing it.
Conclusion
In the foregoing analysis of a number of
translations of mod. Heb. prose metaphors
into Eng., an attempt has been made to
show the inadequacy of any single
generalization about the translatability of
metaphor. Such a generalization must fail
to do justice to the great complexity
of the factors determining the ontology of
metaphors - why certain metaphors are
created and others not; why a metaphor
that is strikingly effective in one language
becomes peculiar or even unintelligible if
transferred unchanged into another (cf.
male nurse in (5), bound in (1)); in short,
why languages are anisomorphic meta­
phorically, just as they are phonologically
and syntactically. A tentative hypothesis
put forward on the basis of the small
preliminary sample of evidence presented
here is that the framework of "possible"'
metaphors for any given language is
determined by a combination of the
accumulated cultural experience of the
members of that language-community and
the "institutionalized" semantic associ­
ations of the items in their lexicon (either
separately or in combinations), the latter
being themselves the outcome of the
collective effort to classify cultural expe­
rience by verbalization. The importance of
the "cultural context" of metaphor has
indeed been noted by students of the
phenomenon,33 but no real attempt has
been made to fill in the details of this vague
concept. What is needed, for this purpose,
is first a clear differentiation of metaphor
from other types of semantic extension
(polyseme, idiom), such as has been
suggested in the first part of this paper, and
then close studies (of the kind illustrated in
the second part) of S L → T L renderings
of metaphors between as great a variety of
languages as possible. Even from the small
32
sample of parallel texts presented here, it
should be abundantly clear that it is
translation theory that holds the key to a
deeper understanding of metaphor: there
is no surer way of identifying and analysing
the specific cultural and linguistic compo­
nents of a given metaphor in any given
language than by interlingual comparison
and contrast. Which makes the neglect of
metaphor by translation theory, noted at
the beginning of this paper, all the more
deplorable.
Kloepfer and Reiss sought to dismiss the
whole "problem" of translating metaphor
as illusory by postulating universally
shared "fields of imagery"' and "structures
of imagination'' which make it possible
for any SL metaphor to be translated
"word for word"' into any TL. Our analysis
has shown that, whatever the purely
theoretical validity of such vast postulates,
they are, like other language universals, of
little help in explaining the actually
encountered interlingual anisomorphisms
of language usage. What emerges from our
analysis here is that there is no simplistic
general rule for translation of metaphor,
but that the translatability of any given SL
metaphor depends on (1) the particular
cultural experiences and semantic asso­
ciations exploited by it, and (2) the extent to
which these can, or cannot, be reproduced
non-anomalously in TL, depending on the
degree of "overlap" in each particular case.
We have seen that where there is a high
degree of overlap (as in (8) (9) (10)
(4a) (5a)) the translation is relatively
straightforward; whereas, when there is no
or very little, overlap (as in (1), (2), (3). (4b).
(5b). (6). (7)), the translation of the
metaphor, qua metaphor, presents various
degrees of difficulty, up to virtual impossi-
33 E.g. Black (1 ), pp. 39—40; Nida (6), p. 219 ("The me­
taphors in a language are often closely related to
the actual experience of the people ); Nida &
Taber (7), p. 88 (".. figurative expressions ... are al­
most always specific to a particular culture and
language"); McCloskey (4), pp. 232—3 ("That
people will understand a metaphor is guaranteed if
the metaphor is utilizing cultural, as opposed to pri­
vate 'pictures'").
bility (e.g. (2). (3). (5b)). Hence, the answer
to the q u e s t i o n of the translatability of
m e t a p h o r s seems to lie somewhere
b e t w e e n the t w o extremes mentioned
a b o v e on p.27 (no p r o b l e m , or no
s o l u t i o n ) : the translatability of metaphor
f l u c t u a t e s a c c o r d i n g to the complex of c u l ­
tural a n d linguistic factors involved in each
p a r t i c u l a r case. This is why metaphor
c o n s t i t u t e s such a searching test of a
t r a n s l a t o r s powers. It is one of the most
s t r i k i n g e x e m p l i f i c a t i o n s of the t r u t h of
Nida's assertion: " T h e person w h o is
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33