This paper presents Jean Paulhan's main essays on the practice of translation in relation to his theory of the commonplace. It then shows how his concept of the duplicity of the commonplace - its capacity to be both hackneyed and compelling - calls for a free approach to translation, and illustrates this approach with reference to two translations of T.S. Eliot's poem The Hollow Men, one contemporary with Paulhan's work and published under his editorship, the other more recent. Further examples are drawn from Geoffrey Hill's poem Ovid in the Third Reich and a modern magazine article.