Famous mistranslations - correct them?
Often enough works of literature, particularly old classics, receive renewed translations. Sometimes, the older translation might contain mistakes. And sometimes, the work being an old classic, the mistakes have become famous as part of the work of literature.
For example, English-speakers know that the plot of the first part of The Three Musketeers revolves around the diamond studs that Queen Anne d'Autriche has given to the Duke of Buckingham. Only, there were no diamond studs - those were diamond aglets. (See more on this here on Literature.SE.) Trouble is, 'studs' has already made it into multiple movies, comics, common knowledge.
How is a translator to treat such a situation? Does he correct the old mistake, or does he keep to what the public already "knows", since it's become so famous?
1 answer
Let's look at the example from the Three Musketeers that you give.
Readers today probably wouldn't know what an aglet is. And if they knew, they would probably think of shoe laces and not know how aglets were worn on historic dresses. The answer by Peter Shor to the linked question is a good example for this: after doing some research, he wrongly assumes that the aglets in the Three Musketeers were worn as a decorative knot on the shoulder. My second answer to that questions contains an illustration that shows how these aglets were really worn. Not something that a modern reader would ever think of without doing quite a bit of informed research.
So what would you achive if you "corrected" that mistranslation?
Readers today understand perfectly well what "diamond studs" are and how they might have been worn. Using "diamond studs" in a translation gives readers an object they understand and can dismiss, while "aglets" would constantly irritate them.
You certainly could provide a footnote, ideally with an illustration, but nothing would have been gained by that for the average reader who wants to read Dumas' novel as an adventure tale. Because whether or not the objects were actually studs or aglets is completely irrelevant to the story. So "diamond studs" does for readers today what ferrets (possibly) did for French readers in 1844: they provide a working MacGuffin.
To me, "correcting" the studs to aglets would make the Three Musketeers unnecessarily difficult to read for readers today.
Answers for other passages from other texts will be different.
For example many popular Bible translations, such as the King James versoin, have become familiar to readers but are often completely wrong and distort the meaning of the original text. For that reason scholars have rightfully sought to establish new translations to reflect advances in scholarship. Not correcting a mistaken Bible translation would be criminally negligent, as wars have been legitimized by the contents of that book.
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