‘on his own terms’ will ‘achieve a more respectful appreciation of his literary ability and skill’, acknowledges that our ‘cultural and religious traditions would not allow us to write like this’ (1994, p. 134). An interpreted text In our day, copyright laws mean that authors need to quote accurately, attend to the original setting of the utterance and then draw conclusions. In the ancient world, texts were living traditions, regularly updated to apply to new situations. The task of the interpreter