ABSTRACT
Explanation deals with the central question of translation history: it asks why things happened. This chapter explains curves, networks, norms, regimes and the rest, but none of our findings will be properly historical until it can hypothesize why certain translations were carried out in certain ways. Different kinds of causes are being evoked here. In the case of the anomalous Byron translations there may be no great underlying causation at work at all. Translation primarily responds to changes in place, which is the category concerning both object transfers and subject transfers. Aristotle distinguished between four causes. According to the standard illustration, in the creation of a statue the marble is the 'material cause', the creation of a beautiful object is the 'final cause', the creation of an object with the defining characteristics of a statue is the 'formal cause', and the sculptor is the 'efficient cause'.
