‘Translations (like wives) are seldom faithful if they are in the least attractive.’ In an age of translations (I say nothing of unfaithful wives), Roy Campbell's mot is a salutary reminder that attractiveness in a version may conceal gross infidelity to the content and meaning of the original; and that even if by some miracle a translator should succeed in reconciling the demands of readability and accuracy, his work is necessarily ‘at best an echo’ of the ancient text, or—to use Platonic language—a copy reproducing its model only imperfectly.