ABSTRACT
Exprimere literally means 'to squeeze out' - a powerful image for the translation process as Cicero describes it, akin to giving birth. Figuratively, especially in connection with imitando , exprimere means to mould or form one thing in imitation of another. Cicero's phrase Sed etiam exprimerem quaedam verba imitando suggests the potter shaping clay into the likeness of a face, creating something new in imitation of something that already exists; or, since the likeness of which Cicero speaks is not of a face but of words (and since we derive our verb express from the participle form of exprimere) , it suggests the Romantic poet giving verbal expression to the whispering of the muse. Exprimere imitando gives us the translator as mediator, but not as neutral transfer-machine; rather as the artist who mediates between two forms of being, two modes of understanding, natural and plastic, material and verbal , matter and manner, SL and TL. The expressivist mediation of transla tion as exprimere imitando is specifically channelled through the translator's transforma tive relation to both forms of being, both modes of understanding. The translator is only able to mediate between them because s/he plays an active, creative role in exchanging one for the other.
