Eloquence and translation perform a comparable function as forms of verbal mediation; as such they have encountered the same sort of hostile reactions as adulterations of the truth. After drawing parallels between the two, this essay highlights ways in which the translator, like the orator, adjusts his or her message to the cultural context in which it is likely to be received. In this perspective, the rhetoric of translation, with its twin strategies of domestication and foreignization, is analysed in different translations of the prose of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Fedor Dostoevsky.