Instead of “translation,” which is the title of this lecture, I want to use, if I can remember to stick to it, the word “version.” For “translation” has certain connotations which seem best avoided. It suggests faithfulness to the original, which does not seem to me to be at all necessary when words are there only for the sake of the music. Because music does not repeat what the words have already said, but broods on the feelings which they arouse; and to substitute one verbal expression for another need not alter the intensity of those feelings (which is all that music is concerned with) though it might if clumsily or casually done. We can think of cases, even without music, where one feeling can be substituted for another without diminution of force. The Song of Solomon is a decided love song, but it takes its place in the Bible because it is referred to divine love, I should say that mistranslation, if by accident, is an affront to the poet, if by design, is a concession to the audience. The difficulty in most intellectual things is to be purist enough without being too much of a purist.