從「公共事務（chose publique）」到「共和國（Republique）」：梅葛的翻譯（1540-1558）

From‘Chose Publique’To‘Republique’: The Translations of Meigret (1540-1558)

路易·梅葛（Louis Meigret，約1500 年~約1560 年）被認為是他那個時代最重要的語法學家之一，也是眾多古典政治著作的翻譯者。在西塞羅《論義務》的早期法語譯本中，他的 Les devoirs de bien vivre (1547) 開始大量地將“res publica”翻譯為“la Republique [sic]”（主要意指「共和國」，但不限於），相對於他的兩位先驅 Anjourant Bourré （約 1470 年）和 David Miffant（1509 年）毫無例外地直譯為“la chose publique”（「公共事務」的最廣義理解）。 在了解了上述三個人如何翻譯 “res publica” 之後，我們追蹤「公共事務」或「共和國」的出現情況，在梅葛耗時近20年修改、更正和擴展的波利比烏斯《歷史》譯本（1542、1545、1558）。值得一提的是，這份有機演化的文本，作為語料庫，允許我們綜合語意分析與統計數據這兩方面考量，交叉比對另外兩個近似或具競爭關係的術語——“le regime [sic]”及“la police”（都有體制之意）——的分佈狀況。政治科學術語在古典語言蘊含的複雜度，提供絕佳的機會來觀察譯者如何在法文中予以分殊、分配。梅葛兼具語法學家暨政治經典譯者的雙重身分（兩個領域皆與規範的探究或建構密切相關），是考察「文人共和國」在現代早期成形的有趣線索。本文呈顯這位人文主義者如何轉譯古典，並且可望貢獻於十六世紀中葉政治詞彙的歷史研究。

Considered as one of the most important grammarians of his time, Louis Meigret (ca. 1500 - ca. 1560) was also a translator of numerous political works from Antiquity. His Les devoirs de bien vivre (1547) begins to vastly translate res publica as “la Republique” among early French translations of the De Officiis, where his two predecessors, Anjourant Bourré (ca. 1470) and David Miffant (1509), use the literal translation “la chose publique” throughout. Having looked at how the above three individuals translate res publica, we then investigate the occurrences of “chose publique” or “Republique” in the organically evolved corpus in which Meigret continues to revise, correct and expand his translation of Polybius’ The Histories (1542, 1545, 1558). Moreover, this corpus makes it possible to cross several thematic-quantitative surveys on two neighboring or competing terms, “le regime” and “la police”, which complicate and verify our observations. The terminological complexity of the source text is heuristic, as it provides an opportunity to clarify how the translator distributes and distinguishes these words in the target language. Maigret's double status, as a grammarian and a translator of political classics (both fields are closely concerned with the resarch or construction of norm), is an interesting clue to examine the formation of the Republic of Letters in the early modern period. This article aims to discover how the humanist transforms the classics, and hopefully provides meaningful insights to the historical study of political vocabulary in the mid-sixteenth century.