POLONIUS’ ADVICE TO INTERPRETERS
If thou dost deem thyself prepared to do
The work of an interpreter – for good or ill –
These precepts let me print upon thy mind.
They are not taught in schools or Institutes,
Nor written down in books nor due compiled.
They are the gleanings of the many years
That I have spent behind the darkling glass
That doth divide us from the world beyond:
Know thy place and give thine own ideas no tongue –
Nor any unproportion’d thought his sound.
Be thou respectful but by no means servile.
Be thou e’erpresent but be unobtrusive.
Do not take sides when working on moot questions.
If thou dost deem thyself prepared to do
The work of an interpreter – for good or ill –
These precepts let me print upon thy mind.
They are not taught in schools or Institutes,
Nor written down in books nor due compiled.
They are the gleanings of the many years
That I have spent behind the darkling glass
That doth divide us from the world beyond:
Know thy place and give thine own ideas no tongue –
Nor any unproportion’d thought his sound.
Be thou respectful but by no means servile.
Be thou e’erpresent but be unobtrusive.
Do not take sides when working on moot questions.
Give every speaker ear – speak not thy views.
Take groundlings’ censure: Thy profession’s risk.
Decent thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not expressed in noisy chains – they clang.
Neither a pack-rat nor a shedder be –
Keep all the papers ‘till the subject’s done
Then neatly dispossess thyself of them.
Do thou thy part, not poach nor shirk.
Stick to thy language not your colleague’s work.
Leave not thy booth to strut and roam
Where clients see you, seeming unemployed.
Smoke not if that your booth-mate doth disturb
But be prepared to aid with sorely needed word.
This above all and always bear in mind:
Sound thou convinced that what you speak is true;
Let not an uncompleted sentence live.
Your hearers rest on YOU.
Now with my blessing, Go!
(В.Я. Факов, with apologies to our Friend from Stratford-on-Avon)
Take groundlings’ censure: Thy profession’s risk.
Decent thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not expressed in noisy chains – they clang.
Neither a pack-rat nor a shedder be –
Keep all the papers ‘till the subject’s done
Then neatly dispossess thyself of them.
Do thou thy part, not poach nor shirk.
Stick to thy language not your colleague’s work.
Leave not thy booth to strut and roam
Where clients see you, seeming unemployed.
Smoke not if that your booth-mate doth disturb
But be prepared to aid with sorely needed word.
This above all and always bear in mind:
Sound thou convinced that what you speak is true;
Let not an uncompleted sentence live.
Your hearers rest on YOU.
Now with my blessing, Go!
(В.Я. Факов, with apologies to our Friend from Stratford-on-Avon)
