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emphatic, constitutes a juxtaposition conducive to the grammatical and
structural balance within the line. The grammaticality and semanticity
of each lexical item collectively strike a conspicuous note of complete
helplessness and submissiveness in the face of death. This note is
further amplified by the even metrical distribution across the line.
This linguistic-stylistic analysis is a pre-requisite for the
interpretation and subsequent translation of the text.
In his translation of this line, Carlyle stretches the text over a
single stanza of four alternately rhyming lines. His choice of the
stanzaic form in preference to the couplet form has accessed the
translator of an ampler space which, if successfully manipulated, would
undoubtedly help him render the poetic substance and spirit of the
original in the target langauge. The translator begins by addressing
death as 'Tyrant of man: Imperial Fate:", thus bringing into focus
Halliday's interpersonal function of language and creating a dialogue
between man and his tyrant, ie. death. The choice of the word 'tyrant'
is not a happy one. It can be confused with man who himself can be a
tyrant. The capitalization of the initial letter does not justifiably
connote that man is doomed to die and that death inevitably overtakes
him. The translation would have been more successful had the
translator used the word 'Subduer' instead of 'Tyrant'. Though the
second line expresses man's submissiveness to his fate, but certainly
not as mightily as the original, the phrase "this uncertain state"
definitely weakens the ideational substance of the original text, for
it apparently implies, or at least maybe taken to denote, that man
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