Approbation
Original French
Je soussigné, qui me suis fait passer pour savant, et même pour homme d'esprit, ai lu ce manuscrit, que j'ai trouvé, malgré moi, curieux, amusant, moral, philosophique, digne de plaire à ceux mêmes qui haïssent les romans. Ainsi je l'ai décrié, et j'ai assuré monsieur le cadi-lesquier que c'est un ouvrage détestable.
Musean translation
Complete machine-assisted Musean translation made directly from Voltaire’s French in Beuchot’s 1829 edition: Approbation, dedicatory epistle and all twenty-one chapters, including The Dance and Blue Eyes. Voltaire’s notes are retained; later editors’ notes are omitted. Source-language review is recorded with the source witness.
I, the undersigned, who have passed myself off as a scholar and even as a man of wit, have read this manuscript and found it, against my will, curious, amusing, moral, philosophical, and fit to please even those who hate novels. I have therefore run it down, and assured the chief military judge that it is a detestable work.
Plain English translation
Complete machine-assisted Plain English translation made independently and directly from the French, in separate source-only translation tasks, not from the Musean edition or a published English translation. Same complete scope and author’s notes; later editors’ notes are omitted. Source-language review is recorded with the source witness.
I, the undersigned, who have passed myself off as a scholar and even as a man of wit, have read this manuscript. Against my will, I found it interesting, entertaining, moral, philosophical, and good enough to appeal even to people who hate novels. So I spoke out against it and assured the chief military judge that it was a dreadful book.
About this section
Approbation is part of Zadig, or Destiny by Voltaire. This page sets the French original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is chapter 1 of 23 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
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