The Works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 12. John Dryden
gracefulness of youth, which accompanies his writings, though the staidness and sobriety of age be wanting. In the most material part, which is the conduct, it is certain, that he seldom has miscarried: for if his Elegies be compared with those of Tibullus and Propertius, his contemporaries, it will be found, that those poets seldom designed before they writ; and though the language of Tibullus be more polished, and the learning of Propertius, especially in his fourth book, more set out to ostentation; yet their common practice was to look no further before them than the next line; whence it will inevitably follow, that they can drive to no certain point, but ramble from one subject to another, and conclude with somewhat, which is not of a piece with their beginning:
Purpureus latè qui splendeat, unus et alter
Assuitur pannus, —
as Horace says; though the verses are golden, they are but patched into the garment. But our poet has always the goal in his eye, which directs him in his race; some beautiful design, which he first establishes, and then contrives the means, which will naturally conduct him to his end. This will be evident to judicious readers in his Epistles, of which somewhat, at least in general, will be expected.
The title of them in our late editions is Epistolæ Heroidum, the Letters of the Heroines. But Heinsius has judged more truly, that the inscription of our author was barely, Epistles; which he concludes from his cited verses, where Ovid asserts this work as his own invention, and not borrowed from the Greeks, whom (as the masters of their learning) the Romans usually did imitate. But it appears not from their writings, that any of the Grecians ever touched upon this way, which our poet therefore justly has vindicated to himself. I quarrel not at the word Heroidum, because it is used by Ovid in his Art of Love:
Jupiter ad veteres supplex Heroidas ibat.
But, sure, he could not be guilty of such an oversight, to call his work by the name of Heroines, when there are divers men, or heroes, as, namely, Paris, Leander, and Acontius, joined in it. Except Sabinus, who writ some answers to Ovid's Letters,
(Quam celer è toto rediit meus orbe Sabinus,)
I remember not any of the Romans, who have treated on this subject, save only Propertius, and that but once, in his Epistle of Arethusa to Lycotas, which is written so near the style of Ovid, that it seems to be but an imitation; and therefore ought not to defraud our poet of the glory of his invention.
Concerning the Epistles, I shall content myself to observe these few particulars: first, that they are generally granted to be the most perfect pieces of Ovid, and that the style of them is tenderly passionate and courtly; two properties well agreeing with the persons, which were heroines, and lovers. Yet, where the characters were lower, as in Œnone and Hero, he has kept close to nature, in drawing his images after a country life, though perhaps he has romanized his Grecian dames too much, and made them speak, sometimes, as if they had been born in the city of Rome, and under the empire of Augustus. There seems to be no great variety in the particular subjects which he has chosen; most of the Epistles being written from ladies, who were forsaken by their lovers: which is the reason that many of the same thoughts come back upon us in divers letters: but of the general character of women, which is modesty, he has taken a most becoming care; for his amorous expressions go no further than virtue may allow, and therefore may be read, as he intended them, by matrons without a blush.
Thus much concerning the poet: it remains that I should say somewhat of poetical translations in general, and give my opinion, (with submission to better judgments,) which way of version seems to be the most proper.
All translation, I suppose, may be reduced to these three heads.
First, that of metaphrase, or turning an author word by word, and line by line, from one language into another. Thus, or near this manner, was Horace his Art of Poetry translated by Ben Jonson. The second way is that of paraphrase, or translation with latitude, where the author is kept in view by the translator, so as never to be lost, but his words are not so strictly followed as his sense; and that too is admitted to be amplified, but not altered. Such is Mr Waller's translation of Virgil's fourth Æneid. The third way is that of imitation, where the translator (if now he has not lost that name) assumes the liberty, not only to vary from the words and sense, but to forsake them both as he sees occasion; and, taking only some general hints from the original, to run divisions on the ground-work, as he pleases. Such is Mr Cowley's practice in turning two Odes of Pindar, and one of Horace, into English.
Concerning the first of these methods, our master Horace has given us this caution:
Nec verbum verbo curabis reddere, fidus
Interpres—
Nor word for word too faithfully translate;
as the Earl of Roscommon has excellently rendered it. Too faithfully is, indeed, pedantically: it is a faith like that which proceeds from superstition, blind and zealous. Take it in the expression of Sir John Denham to Sir Richard Fanshaw, on his version of the Pastor Fido:
That servile path thou nobly dost decline,
Of tracing word by word, and line by line:
A new and nobler way thou dost pursue,
To make translations and translators too:
They but preserve the ashes, thou the flame,
True to his sense, but truer to his fame.
It is almost impossible to translate verbally, and well, at the same time; for the Latin (a most severe and compendious language) often expresses that in one word, which either the barbarity, or the narrowness, of modern tongues cannot supply in more. It is frequent, also, that the conceit is couched in some expression, which will be lost in English:
Atque iidem venti vela fidemque ferent.
What poet of our nation is so happy as to express this thought literally in English, and to strike wit, or almost sense, out of it?
In short, the verbal copier is encumbered with so many difficulties at once, that he can never disentangle himself from all. He is to consider, at the same time, the thought of his author, and his words, and to find out the counterpart to each in another language; and, besides this, he is to confine himself to the compass of numbers, and the slavery of rhyme. It is much like dancing on ropes with fettered legs: a man may shun a fall by using caution; but the gracefulness of motion is not to be expected: and when we have said the best of it, it is but a foolish task; for no sober man would put himself into a danger for the applause of escaping without breaking his neck. We see Ben Jonson could not avoid obscurity in his literal translation of Horace, attempted in the same compass of lines: nay, Horace himself could scarce have done it to a Greek poet:
Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio:
either perspicuity or gracefulness will frequently be wanting. Horace has indeed avoided both these rocks in his translation of the three first lines of Homer's Odyssey, which he has contracted into two:
Dic mihi, musa virum, captæ post tempora Trojæ,
Que mores hominum multorum vidit, et urbes.
Muse speak the man, who, since the siege of Troy,
So many towns, such change of manners saw.
But then the sufferings of Ulysses, which are a considerable part of that sentence, are omitted:
Ὃς μάλα πολλὰ πλὰγχθη.
The consideration of these difficulties, in a servile, literal translation, not long since made two of our famous wits, Sir John Denham,10 and Mr Cowley, to contrive another way of turning authors into our tongue, called, by the latter of them, imitation. As they were friends, I suppose they communicated their thoughts on this subject to each other; and therefore their reasons for it are little different, though the practice of one is much more moderate. I take imitation of an author, in their sense, to be an endeavour of a later poet
Sir John Denham gives his opinion on this subject in the preface to "The Destruction of Troy;" which he does not venture to call a translation, but "an Essay on the second book of Virgil's Æneis." – "I conceive it is a vulgar error, in translating poets, to affect being