Page images
PDF
EPUB

of this essay, by opening a new way of translating this author to those whom youth, leisure, and better fortune, make fitter for such undertakings.

I conceive it is a vulgar error in translating poets, to affect being fidus interpres; let that care be with them who deal in matters of fact, or matters of faith; but whosoever aims at it in poetry, as he attempts what is not required, so he shall never perform what he attempts: for it is not his business alone to translate language into language, but poesy into poesy; and poesy is of so subtle a spirit, that in the pouring out of one language into another, it will all evaporate; and if a new spirit be not added in the transfusion, there will remain nothing but a caput mortuum, there being certain graces and happinesses peculiar to every language, which give life and energy to the words; and whosoever offers at verbal translation shall have the misfortune of that young traveller who lost his own language abroad, and brought home no other instead of it: for the grace of the Latin will be lost by being turned into English words, and the grace of the English by being turned into the Latin phrase. And as speech is the apparel of our thoughts, so are there certain garbs and modes of speaking which vary with the times; the fashion of our clothes being not more subject to alteration than that of our speech: and this I think Tacitus meant by that which he calls sermonem temporis istius auribus accommodatum; the delight of change being as due to the curiosity of the ear as of the eye; and, therefore, if Virgil must needs speak English, it were fit he should speak not only as a

man of this nation, but as a man of this

age; and if this disguise I have put upon him (I wish I could give it a better name) sit not naturally and easily on so grave a person, yet it may become him better than that fool's coat wherein the French and Italians have of late represented him; at least, I hope it will not make him appear deformed, by making any part enormously bigger or less than the life; (I having made it my principal care to follow him, as he made it his to follow nature, in all his proportions) neither have I any where offered such violence to his sense as to make it seem mine and not his. Where my expressions are not so full as his, either our language or my art was defective; (but I rather suspect myself): but where mine are fuller than his, they are but the impressions which the often reading of him hath left upon my thoughts; so that if they are not his own conceptions, they are at least the results of them; and if (being conscious of making him speak worse than he did almost in every line) I err in endeavouring sometimes to make him speak better, I hope it will be judged an error on the right hand, and such an one as may deserve pardon, if not imitation.

THE

DESTRUCTION OF TROY.

AN

ESSAY ON THE SECOND BOOK OF VIRGIL'S ENEIS.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR, 1636.

Argument.

The first book speaks of Æneas' voyage by sea, and how, being cast by tempest upon the coast of Carthage, he was received by Queen Dido, who, after the feast, desires him to make the relation of the destruction of Troy; which is the Argument of this book.

WHILE all with silence and attention wait,
Thus speaks Æneas from the bed of state :

[ocr errors]

Madam, when you command us to review
Our fate, you make our old wounds bleed anew,
And all those sorrows to my sense restore
Whereof none saw so much, none suffer'd more.
Not the most cruel of our conquering foes

So unconcern'dly can relate our woes
As not to lend a tear; then how can I
Repress the horror of my thoughts, which fly
The sad remembrance? Now the' expiring night
And the declining stars to rest invite!

Yet since 'tis your command, what you so well
Are pleased to hear, I cannot grieve to tell.

By Fate repell'd, and with repulses tired,
The Greeks, so many lives and years expired,
A fabric like a moving mountain frame,
Pretending vows for their return: this Fame
Divulges: then within the beast's vast womb
The choice and flower of all their troops entomb.
In view the isle of Tenedos, once high

In fame and wealth, while Troy remain'd, doth lie; (Now but an unsecure and open bay)

Thither, by stealth, the Greeks their fleet convey.
We gave them gone, and to Mycena sail'd,
And Troy revived, her mourning face unveil'd;
All through the' unguarded gates with joy resort
To see the slighted camp, the vacant port.
Here lay Ulysses, there Achilles; here

The battles join'd; the Grecian fleet rode there;
But the vast pile the' amazed vulgar views,
Till they their reason in their wonder lose.
And first Thymotes moves (urged by the power
Of fate or fraud) to place it in the tower;
But Capys and the graver sort thought fit
The Greeks' suspected present to commit
To seas or flames, at least to search and bore
The sides, and what that space contains to' explore.
The uncertain multitude, with both engaged,
Divided stands, till from the tower, enraged
Laocoon ran, whom all the crowd attends,
Crying, "What desperate frenzy's this, (oh, friends!)
To think them gone? Judge rather their retreat
But a design; their gift's but a deceit :

For our destruction 'twas contrived no doubt,
Or from within by fraud, or from without
By force. Yet know ye not Ulysses' shifts?
Their swords less danger carry than their gifts."

(This said) against the horse's side his spear
He throws, which trembles with inclosed fear,
Whilst from the hollows of his womb proceed
Groans not his own; and had not Fate decreed
Our ruin, we had fill'd with Grecian blood
The place; then Troy and Priam's throne had stood.
Meanwhile a fetter'd prisoner to the king,
With joyful shouts, the Dardan shepherds bring,
Who to betray us did himself betray,
At once the taker, and at once the prey;
Firmly prepared, of one event secured,
Or of his death or his design assured;
The Trojan youth about the captive flock,
To wonder, or to pity, or to mock.

Now hear the Grecian fraud, and from this one
Conjecture all the rest ;-

Disarm'd, disorder'd, casting round his eyes,
On all the troops that guarded him, he cries,
"What land, what sea, for me what fate attends?
Caught by my foes, condemned by my friends,
Incensed Troy a wretched captive seeks
To sacrifice; a fugitive, the Greeks."
To pity this complaint our former rage
Converts; we now inquire his parentage;
What of their counsels or affairs he knew?
Then fearless he replies, " Great King! to you
All truth I shall relate; nor first can I
Myself to be of Grecian birth deny ;

And though my outward state misfortune hath
Depress'd thus low, it cannot reach my faith.
You may by chance have heard the famous name
Of Palamede, who from old Belus came,
Whom, but for voting peace, the Greeks pursue,
Accused unjustly, then unjustly slew,

« PreviousContinue »