As readers of translation we (and I include myself here) are too often like parents who alternately over-indulge and abuse our children. We are usually far too complacent, yet at times given to irrational rages. We forgive many big transgressions while harshly punishing trivial infractions of arbitrary rules. We are over-attentive, over-bearing, yet distracted by comparisons to the original. Either we forget we are reading a translation, or we can't stop thinking we are reading only a translation. We rely too much or too little on our own aesthetic compass; we are over- or underinvested in translation theory. The search for a happy medium leads only to incoherence. There is no possible "balance."