Plutarch''s Lives: Translated From the Original Greek; With Notes Critical and Historical and a Life of Plutarch (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Plutarch''s Lives: Translated From the Original Greek; With Notes Critical and Historical and a Life of Plutarch<br><br>Where the text of Plutarch appeared to them erroneous they have spared no pains and neglected no means in their power to rectify it.<br><br>Sensible that the great art of a translator is to prevent the peculiarities of his Author''s language from stealing into his own they have been particularly attentive to this point and have generally endeavored to keep their English unmixed with Greek. At the same time it must be observed that there is frequently a great simi larity in the structure of the two languages; yet that resemblance in some instances makes it the more necessary to guard against it on the whole. This care is of the greater consequence because Plutarch''s Lives generally pass through the hands of young people who ought to read their own language in its native purity unmixed and untainted with the idioms of different tongues. For their sakes too as well as for the sake of readers of a different class we have omitted some passages in the text and have only signified the omission by asterisms. Some perhaps may censure us for taking too great a liberty with our Author in this circumstance: However we must beg leave in that instance to abide by our own opinion; and sure we are that we should have censured no translator for the same. Could everything of that kind have been omitted we should have been still less dissatisfied; but sometimes the chain of the narrative would not admit of it and the disagreeable parts were to be got over with as much decency as possible.<br><br>In the descriptions of battles camps and sieges it is more than probable that we may sometimes be mistaken in the military terms. We have endeavored however to be as accurate in this respect as possible and to acquaint ourselves with this kind of knowledge as well as our situations would permit; but we will not promise the reader that we have always succeeded. Where something seemed to have fallen out of the text or where the ellipsis was too violent for the forms of our language we have not scrupled to maintain the tenor of the narrative or the chain of reason by such little insertions as appeared to be necessary for the purpose. These short insertions were at first put between hooks; but as that deformed the page without answering any material purpose we soon rejected it.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases an imperfection in the original such as a blemish or missing page may be replicated in our edition. We do however repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.