Word-for-word vs sense-for-sense translation

 

I did not translate [them] as an interpreter, but as an orator, keeping the same ideas and forms, or as one might say, the "figures" of thought, but in language which conforms to our usage. And in so doing, I did not hold it necessary to render word for word, but I preserved the general style and force of the language.

Cicero, 46 BCE

 

Now I not only admit but freely announce that in translating from the Greek - except of course in the case of the Holy Scripture, where even the syntax contains a mystery - I render not word-for-word, but sense-for-sense.

St. Jerome 395 CE

 

You must ask the mother at home, the children in the Street, the ordinary man in the market and look at their mouths, how they speak, and translate that way; then they'll understand and see that you're speaking to them in German.

Martin Luther, XVI century