CHAPTER IV
OF THE FREEDOM ALLOWED IN POETICAL TRANSLATION.—PROGRESS OF POETICAL TRANSLATION IN ENGLAND.—B. JONSON, HOLIDAY, SANDYS, FANSHAW, DRYDEN.—ROSCOMMON’S ESSAY ON TRANSLATED VERSE.—POPE’S HOMER.
In the preceding chapter, in treating of the liberty assumed by translators, of adding to, or retrenching from the ideas of the original, several examples have been given, where that liberty has been assumed with propriety both in prose composition and in poetry. In the latter, it is more peculiarly allowable. “I conceive it,” says Sir John Denham, “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 shall he never perform what he attempts; for it is not his business alone to translate language into language, but poesie into poesie; and poesie is of so subtle a spirit, that in pouring out of one language into another, it will all evaporate; and if a new spirit is not added in the transfusion, there will remain nothing but a caput mortuum” (Denham’s Preface to the second book of Virgil’s Æneid).
In poetical translation, the English writers of the 16th, and the greatest part of the 17th century, seem to have had no other care than (in Denham’s phrase) to translate language into language, and to have placed their whole merit in presenting a literal and servile transcript of their original.
Ben Jonson, in his translation of Horace’s Art of Poetry, has paid no attention to the judicious precept of the very poem he was translating:
Nec verbum verbo curabis reddere, fidus
Interpres.
Witness the following specimens, which will strongly illustrate Denham’s judicious observations.
Mortalia facta peribunt;
Nedum sermonum stet honos et gratia vivax.
Multa renascentur quæ jam cecidere, cadentque
Quæ nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus,
Quem penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi.
De Art. Poet.
All mortal deeds
Shall perish; so far off it is the state
Or grace of speech should hope a lasting date.
Much phrase that now is dead shall be reviv’d,
And much shall die that now is nobly liv’d,
If custom please, at whose disposing will
The power and rule of speaking resteth still.
B. Jonson.
Interdum tamen et vocem Comœdia tollit,
Iratusque Chremes tumido delitigat ore,
Et Tragicus plerumque dolet sermone pedestri.
Telephus et Peleus, cùm pauper et exul uterque,
Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba,
Si curat cor spectantis tetigisse querela.
De Art. Poet.
Yet sometime doth the Comedy excite,
Her voice, and angry Chremes chafes outright,
With swelling throat, and oft the tragic wight
Complains in humble phrase. Both Telephus
And Peleus, if they seek to heart-strike us,
That are spectators, with their misery,
When they are poor and banish’d must throw by
Their bombard-phrase, and foot-and-half-foot words.
B. Jonson.
So, in B. Jonson’s translations from the Odes and Epodes of Horace, besides the most servile adherence to the words, even the measure of the original is imitated.
Non me Lucrina juverint conchylia,
Magisve rhombus, aut scari,
Si quos Eois intonata fluctibus
Hyems ad hoc vertat mare:
Non Afra avis descendat in ventrem meum,
Non attagen Ionicus
Jucundior, quam lecta de pinguissimis
Oliva ramis arborum;
Aut herba lapathi prata amantis, et gravi
Malvæ salubres corpori.
Hor. Epod. 2.
Not Lucrine oysters I could then more prize,
Nor turbot, nor bright golden eyes;
If with east floods the winter troubled much
Into our seas send any such:
The Ionian god-wit, nor the ginny-hen
Could not go down my belly then
More sweet than olives that new-gathered be,
From fattest branches of the tree,
Or the herb sorrel that loves meadows still,
Or mallows loosing bodies ill.
B. Jonson.
Of the same character for rigid fidelity, is the translation of Juvenal by Holiday, a writer of great learning, and even of critical acuteness, as the excellent commentary on his author fully shews.
Omnibus in terris quæ sunt a Gadibus usque
Auroram et Gangem, pauci dignoscere possunt
Vera bona, atque illis multum diversa, remotâ
Erroris nebulâ. Quid enim ratione timemus,
Aut cupimus? quid tam dextro pede concipis, ut te
Conatûs non pœniteat, votique peracti.
Evertêre domos totas optantibus ipsis
Dii faciles.
Juv. Sat. 10.
In all the world which between Cadiz lies
And eastern Ganges, few there are so wise
To know true good from feign’d, without all mist
Of Error. For by Reason’s rule what is’t
We fear or wish? What is’t we e’er begun
With foot so right, but we dislik’d it done?
Whole houses th’ easie gods have overthrown
At their fond prayers that did the houses own.
Holiday’s Juvenal.
There were, however, even in that age, some writers who manifested a better taste in poetical translation. May, in his translation of Lucan’s Pharsalia, and Sandys, in his Metamorphoses of Ovid, while they strictly adhered to the sense of their authors, and generally rendered line for line, have given to their versions both an ease of expression and a harmony of numbers, which approach them very near to original composition. The reason is, they have disdained to confine themselves to a literal interpretation, but have everywhere adapted their expression to the idiom of the language in which they wrote.
The following passage will give no unfavourable idea of the style and manner of May. In the ninth book of the Pharsalia, Cæsar, when in Asia, is led from curiosity to visit the plain of Troy:
Here fruitless trees, old oaks with putrefy’d
And sapless roots, the Trojan houses hide,
And temples of their Gods: all Troy’s o’erspread
With bushes thick, her ruines ruined.
He sees the bridall grove Anchises lodg’d;
Hesione’s rock; the cave where Paris judg’d;
Where nymph Oenone play’d; the place so fam’d
For Ganymedes’ rape; each stone is nam’d.
A little gliding stream, which Xanthus was,
Unknown he past, and in the lofty grass
Securely trode; a Phrygian straight forbid
Him tread on Hector’s dust! (with ruins hid,
The stone retain’d no sacred memory.)
Respect you not great Hector’s tomb, quoth he!
—O great and sacred work of poesy,
That free’st from fate, and giv’st eternity
To mortal wights! But, Cæsar, envy not
Their living names, if Roman Muses aught
May promise thee, while Homer’s honoured
By future times, shall thou, and I, be read:
No age shall us with darke oblivion staine,
But our Pharsalia ever shall remain.
May’s Lucan, b. 9.
Jam silvæ steriles, et putres robore trunci
Assaraci pressere domos, et templa deorum
Jam lassa radice tenent; ac tota teguntur
Pergama dumetis; etiam periere ruinæ.
Aspicit Hesiones scopulos, silvasque latentes
Anchisæ thalamos; quo judex sederit antro;
Unde puer raptus cœlo; quo vertice Nais
Luserit Oenone: nullum est sine nomine saxum.
Inscius in sicco serpentem pulvere rivum
Transierat, qui Xanthus erat; securus in alto
Gramine ponebat gressus: Phryx incola manes
Hectoreos calcare vetat: discussa jacebant
Saxa, nec ullius faciem servantia sacri:
Hectoreas, monstrator ait, non respicis aras?
O sacer, et magnus vatum labor; omnia fato
Eripis, et populis donas mortalibus ævum!
Invidia sacræ, Cæsar, ne tangere famæ:
Nam siquid Latiis fas est promittere Musis,
Quantum Smyrnei durabunt vatis honores,
Venturi me teque legent: Pharsalia nostra
Vivet, et a nullo tenebris damnabitur ævo.
Pharsal. l. 9.
Independently of the excellence of the above translation, in completely conveying the sense, the force, and spirit of the original, it possesses one beauty which the more modern English poets have entirely neglected, or rather purposely banished from their versification in rhyme; I mean the varied harmony of the measure, which arises from changing the place of the pauses. In the modern heroic rhyme, the pause is almost invariably found at the end of a couplet. In the older poetry, the sense is continued from one couplet to another, and closes in various parts of the line, according to the poet’s choice, and the completion of his meaning:
A little gliding stream, which Xanthus was,
Unknown he past—and in the lofty grass
Securely trode—a Phrygian straight forbid
Him tread on Hector’s dust—with ruins hid,
The stone retain’d no sacred memory.
He must be greatly deficient in a musical ear, who does not prefer the varied harmony of the above lines to the uniform return of sound, and chiming measure of the following:
Here all that does of Xanthus stream remain,
Creeps a small brook along the dusty plain.
While careless and securely on they pass,
The Phrygian guide forbids to press the grass;
This place, he said, for ever sacred keep,
For here the sacred bones of Hector sleep:
Then warns him to observe, where rudely cast,
Disjointed stones lay broken and defac’d.
Rowe’s Lucan.
Yet the Pharsalia by Rowe is, on the whole, one of the best of the modern translations of the classics. Though sometimes diffuse and paraphrastical, it is in general faithful to the sense of the original; the language is animated, the verse correct and melodious; and when we consider the extent of the work, it is not unjustly characterised by Dr. Johnson, as “one of the greatest productions of English poetry.”
Of similar character to the versification of May, though sometimes more harsh in its structure, is the poetry of Sandys:
There’s no Alcyone! none, none! she died
Together with her Ceÿx. Silent be
All sounds of comfort. These, these eyes did see
My shipwrack’t Lord. I knew him; and my hands
Thrust forth t’ have held him: but no mortal bands
Could force his stay. A ghost! yet manifest,
My husband’s ghost: which, Oh, but ill express’d
His forme and beautie, late divinely rare!
Now pale and naked, with yet dropping haire:
Here stood the miserable! in this place:
Here, here! (and sought his aërie steps to trace).
Sandys’ Ovid, b. 11.
Nulla est Alcyone, nulla est, ait: occidit una
Cum Ceyce suo; solantia tollite verba:
Naufragus interiit; vidi agnovique, manusque
Ad discedentem, cupiens retinere, tetendi.
Umbra fuit: sed et umbra tamen manifesta, virique
Vera mei: non ille quidem, si quæris, habebat
Assuetos vultus, nec quo prius ore nitebat.
Pallentem, nudumque, et adhuc humente capillo,
Infelix vidi: stetit hoc miserabilis ipso
Ecce loco: (et quærit vestigia siqua supersint).
Metam. l. 11.
In the above example, the solantia tollite verba is translated with peculiar felicity, “Silent be all sounds of comfort;” as are these words, Nec quo prius ore nitebat, “Which, oh! but ill express’d his forme and beautie.” “No mortal bands could force his stay,” has no strictly corresponding sentiment in the original. It is a happy amplification; which shews that Sandys knew what freedom was allowed to a poetical translator, and could avail himself of it.
From the time of Sandys, who published his translation of the Metamorphoses of Ovid in 1626, there does not appear to have been much improvement in the art of translating poetry till the age of Dryden:[17] for though Sir John Denham has thought proper to pay a high compliment to Fanshaw on his translation of the Pastor Fido, terming him the inventor of “a new and nobler way”[18] of translation, we find nothing in that performance which should intitle it to more praise than the Metamorphoses by Sandys, and the Pharsalia by May.[19]
But it was to Dryden that poetical translation owed a complete emancipation from her fetters; and exulting in her new liberty, the danger now was, that she should run into the extreme of licentiousness. The followers of Dryden saw nothing so much to be emulated in his translations as the ease of his poetry: Fidelity was but a secondary object, and translation for a while was considered as synonymous with paraphrase. A judicious spirit of criticism was now wanting to prescribe bounds to this increasing licence, and to determine to what precise degree a poetical translator might assume to himself the character of an original writer. In that design, Roscommon wrote his Essay on Translated Verse; in which, in general, he has shewn great critical judgement; but proceeding, as all reformers, with rigour, he has, amidst many excellent precepts on the subject, laid down one rule, which every true poet (and such only should attempt to translate a poet) must consider as a very prejudicial restraint. After judiciously recommending to the translator, first to possess himself of the sense and meaning of his author, and then to imitate his manner and style, he thus prescribes a general rule,
Your author always will the best advise;
Fall when he falls, and when he rises, rise.
Far from adopting the former part of this maxim, I conceive it to be the duty of a poetical translator, never to suffer his original to fall. He must maintain with him a perpetual contest of genius; he must attend him in his highest flights, and soar, if he can, beyond him: and when he perceives, at any time, a diminution of his powers, when he sees a drooping wing, he must raise him on his own pinions.[20] Homer has been judged by the best critics to fall at times beneath himself, and to offend, by introducing low images and puerile allusions. Yet how admirably is this defect veiled over, or altogether removed, by his translator Pope. In the beginning of the eighth book of the Iliad, Jupiter is introduced in great majesty, calling a council of the gods, and giving them a solemn charge to observe a strict neutrality between the Greeks and Trojans:
Ἠὼς μεν κροκόπεπλος ἐκιδνατο πᾶσαν ἐπ’ αίαν·
Ζευς δε θεῶν ἀγορην ποιησατο τερπικέραυνος,
Ἀκροτάτη κορυφη πολυδειραδος Οὐλυμποιο·
Αὐτὸς δέ σφ’ ἀγόρευε, θεοὶ δ’ ἅμα πάντες ἄκουον·
“Aurora with her saffron robe had spread returning light upon the world, when Jove delighting-in-thunder summoned a council of the gods upon the highest point of the many-headed Olympus; and while he thus harangued, all the immortals listened with deep attention.” This is a very solemn opening; but the expectation of the reader is miserably disappointed by the harangue itself, of which I shall give a literal translation.
Κέκλυτέ μευ, πάντες τε θεοὶ, πᾶσαὶ τε θέαιναι,
Ὄφρ’ εἴπω, τά με θυμὸς ἐνὶ στήθεσσι κελεύει·
Μήτε τις οὖν θήλεια θεὸς τόγε, μήτε τις ἄρσην
Πειράτω διακέρσαι ἐμὸν ἔπος· ἀλλ’ ἅμα πάντες
Αἰνεῖτ’, ὄφρα τάχιστα τελευτήσω τάδε ἔργα.
Ον δ’ ἂν ἐγὼν ἀπάνευθε θεῶν ἐθέλοντα νοήσω
Ἐλθόντ, ἢ Τρώεσσιν ἀρηγέμεν, ἢ Δαναοῖσι,
Πληγεὶς οὐ κατα κόσμον ἐλευσεται Οὔλυμπόνδε·
Η μιν ἑλὼν ῥίψω ἐς Τάρταρον ἠερόεντα,
Τῆλε μάλ’, ἦχι βάθιστον ὑπο χθονός ἐστι βέρεθρον,
Ἔνθα σιδήρειαί τε πύλαι καὶ χάλκεος οὐδὸς,
Τόσσον ἔνερθ’ Ἀΐδεω, ὅσον οὐρανός ἐστ’ ἀπὸ γαίης·
Γνώσετ’ ἔπειθ’, ὅσον εἰμὶ θεῶν κάρτιστος ἁπάντων.
Εἴ δ’ ἄγε, πειρήσασθε θεοὶ, ἵνα εἴδετε πάντες,
Σειρην χρυσείην ἐξ οὐρανόθεν κρεμάσαντες·
Πάντες δ’ ἐξάπτεσθε θεοὶ, πᾶσαί τε θέαιναι·
Ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἂν ἐρύσαιτ’ ἐξ οὐρανόθεν πεδίονδε
Ζῆν’ ὕπατον μήστωρ’ οὐδ’ εἰ μάλα πολλὰ κάμοιτε.
Ἀλλ’ ὅτε δὴ καὶ ἐγὼ πρόφρων ἐθέλοιμι ἐρύσσαι,
Αὐτῆ κεν γάιῃ ἐρύσαιμ’, αὐτῆ τε θαλάσσῃ·
Σειρην μέν κεν ἔπειτα περὶ ῥίον Οὐλύμποιο
Δησαίμην· τὰ δέ κ’ αὖτε μετήορα πάντα γένοιτο·
Τόσσον ἐγώ περί τ’ εἰμὶ θεῶν, περί τ’ εἴμ’ ἀνθρώπων.
“Hear me, all ye gods and goddesses, whilst I declare to you the dictates of my inmost heart. Let neither male nor female of the gods attempt to controvert what I shall say; but let all submissively assent, that I may speedily accomplish my undertakings: for whoever of you shall be found withdrawing to give aid either to the Trojans or Greeks, shall return to Olympus marked with dishonourable wounds; or else I will seize him and hurl him down to gloomy Tartarus, where there is a deep dungeon under the earth, with gates of iron, and a threshold of brass, as far below hell, as the earth is below the heavens. Then he will know how much stronger I am than all the other gods. But come now, and make trial, that ye may all be convinced. Suspend a golden chain from heaven, and hang all by one end of it, with your whole weight, gods and goddesses together: you will never pull down from the heaven to the earth, Jupiter, the supreme counsellor, though you should strain with your utmost force. But when I chuse to pull, I will raise you all, with the earth and sea together, and fastening the chain to the top of Olympus, will keep you all suspended at it. So much am I superior both to gods and men.”
It must be owned, that this speech is far beneath the dignity of the Thunderer; that the braggart vaunting in the beginning of it is nauseous; and that a mean and ludicrous picture is presented, by the whole group of gods and goddesses pulling at one end of a chain, and Jupiter at the other. To veil these defects in a translation was difficult;[21] but to give any degree of dignity to this speech required certainly most uncommon powers. Yet I am much mistaken, if Mr. Pope has not done so. I shall take the passage from the beginning:
Aurora now, fair daughter of the dawn,
Sprinkled with rosy light the dewy lawn,
When Jove conven’d the senate of the skies,
Where high Olympus’ cloudy tops arise.
The fire of Gods his awful silence broke,
The heavens attentive, trembled as he spoke.
Celestial states, immortal gods! give ear;
Hear our decree, and reverence what ye hear;
The fix’d decree, which not all heaven can move;
Thou, fate! fulfil it; and, ye powers! approve!
What God but enters yon forbidden field,
Who yields assistance, or but wills to yield,
Back to the skies with shame he shall be driven,
Gash’d with dishonest wounds, the scorn of Heaven;
Or far, oh far, from steep Olympus thrown,
Low in the dark Tartarean gulph shall groan;
With burning chains fix’d to the brazen floors,
And lock’d by hell’s inexorable doors;
As deep beneath th’ infernal centre hurl’d,
As from that centre to th’ ethereal world.
Let him who tempts me dread those dire abodes;
And know th’ Almighty is the God of gods.
League all your forces then, ye powr’s above,
Join all, and try th’ omnipotence of Jove:
Let down our golden everlasting chain,
Whose strong embrace holds Heav’n, and Earth, and Main:
Strive all, of mortal and immortal birth,
To drag, by this, the Thunderer down to earth:
Ye strive in vain! If I but stretch this hand,
I heave the gods, the ocean, and the land;
I fix the chain to great Olympus’ height,
And the vast world hangs trembling in my sight!
For such I reign, unbounded and above;
And such are men and gods, compar’d to Jove![22]
It would be endless to point out all the instances in which Mr. Pope has improved both upon the thought and expression of his original. We find frequently in Homer, amidst the most striking beauties, some circumstances introduced which diminish the merit of the thought or of the description. In such instances, the good taste of the translator invariably covers the defect of the original, and often converts it into an additional beauty. Thus, in the simile in the beginning of the third book, there is one circumstance which offends against good taste.
Ευτ’ ορεος κορυφῆσι Νοτος κατεχευεν ὀμιχλην,
Ποιμεσιν ουτὶ φιλην, κλεπτη δε τε νυκτος αμεινω,
Τὸσσον τις τ’ επιλευσσει, ὅσον τ’ επι λααν ἵησιν·
Ὡς ἂρα των ὓπο ποσσι κονισσαλος ωρνυτ’ αελλης
Ερχομενων· μαλα δ’ ώκα διεπρησσον πεδίοιο.
“As when the south wind pours a thick cloud upon the tops of the mountains, whose shade is unpleasant to the shepherds, but more commodious to the thief than the night itself, and when the gloom is so intense, that one cannot see farther than he can throw a stone: So rose the dust under the feet of the Greeks marching silently to battle.”
With what superior taste has the translator heightened this simile, and exchanged the offending circumstance for a beauty. The fault is in the third line; τοσσον τις τ’ επιλευσσει, &c., which is a mean idea, compared with that which Mr. Pope has substituted in its stead:
Thus from his shaggy wings when Eurus sheds
A night of vapours round the mountain-heads,
Swift-gliding mists the dusky fields invade,
To thieves more grateful than the midnight shade;
While scarce the swains their feeding flocks survey,
Lost and confus’d amidst the thicken’d day:
So wrapt in gath’ring dust the Grecian train,
A moving cloud, swept on and hid the plain.
In the ninth book of the Iliad, where Phœnix reminds Achilles of the care he had taken of him while an infant, one circumstance extremely mean, and even disgusting, is found in the original.
οτε δη σ’ επ εμοισιν εγα γουνασσι καθισας,
Οψου τ’ ασαιμι προταμων, και οινον επισχων.
Πολλακι μοι κατεδευσας επι στηθεσσι χιτωνα,
Οινου αποβλυζων εν νηπιεη αλεγεινῆ.
“When I placed you before my knees, I filled you full with meat, and gave you wine, which you often vomited upon my bosom, and stained my clothes, in your troublesome infancy.” The English reader certainly feels an obligation to the translator for sinking altogether this nauseous image, which, instead of heightening the picture, greatly debases it:
Thy infant breast a like affection show’d,
Still in my arms, an ever pleasing load;
Or at my knee, by Phœnix would’st thou stand,
No food was grateful but from Phœnix hand:
I pass my watchings o’er thy helpless years,
The tender labours, the compliant cares.[23]
Pope.
But even the highest beauties of the original receive additional lustre from this admirable translator.
A striking example of this kind has been remarked by Mr. Melmoth.[24] It is the translation of that picture in the end of the eighth book of the Iliad, which Eustathius esteemed the finest night-piece that could be found in poetry:
Ὡς δ’ ὁτ εν ουρανῶ αστρα φαεινην αμφι σεληνην,
Φαίνετ’ ἀριπρεπέα, ὅτε τ’ ἔπλετο νήνεμος αἰθὴρ,
Ἔκ τ’ ἔφανον πᾶσαι σκοπιαί, καὶ πρώονες ἄκροι,
Καὶ νάπαι· οὐρανόθεν δ’ ἄρ’ ὑπεῤῥάγη ἄσπετος αἰθὴρ,
Πάντα δέ τ’ εἴδεται ἄστρα· γέγηθε δέ τε φρένα ποιμήν·
“As when the resplendent moon appears in the serene canopy of the heavens, surrounded with beautiful stars, when every breath of air is hush’d, when the high watch-towers, the hills, and woods, are distinctly seen; when the sky appears to open to the sight in all its boundless extent; and when the shepherd’s heart is delighted within him.” How nobly is this picture raised and improved by Mr. Pope!
As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,
O’er heav’n’s clear azure spreads her sacred light:
When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
And not a cloud o’ercasts the solemn scene;
Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
And stars unnumber’d gild the glowing pole:
O’er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,
And tip with silver every mountain’s head:
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies:
The conscious swains rejoicing in the sight,
Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light.[25]
These passages from Pope’s Homer afford examples of a translator’s improvement of his original, by a happy amplification and embellishment of his imagery, or by the judicious correction of defects; but to fix the precise degree to which this amplification, this embellishment, and this liberty of correction, may extend, requires a great exertion of judgement. It may be useful to remark some instances of the want of this judgement.
It is always a fault when the translator adds to the sentiment of the original author, what does not strictly accord with his characteristic mode of thinking, or expressing himself.
Pone sub curru nimium propinqui
Solis, in terrâ domibus negatâ;
Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo,
Dulce loquentem.
Hor. Od. 22, l. 1.
Thus translated by Roscommon:
The burning zone, the frozen isles,
Shall hear me sing of Celia’s smiles;
All cold, but in her breast, I will despise,
And dare all heat, but that in Celia’s eyes.
The witty ideas in the two last lines are foreign to the original; and the addition of these is quite unjustifiable, as they belong to a quaint species of wit, of which the writings of Horace afford no example.
Equally faulty, therefore, is Cowley’s translation of a passage in the Ode to Pyrrha:
Qui semper vacuam, semper amabilem
Sperat, nescius auræ fallacis.
He sees thee gentle, fair, and gay,
And trusts the faithless April of thy May.
As is the same author’s version of that passage, which is characterised by its beautiful simplicity.
somnus agrestium
Lenis virorum non humiles domos
Fastidit, umbrosamque ripam,
Non zephyris agitata Tempe.
Hor. 3, 1.
Sleep is a god, too proud to wait on palaces,
And yet so humble too, as not to scorn
The meanest country cottages;
This poppy grows among the corn.
The Halcyon Sleep will never build his nest
In any stormy breast:
’Tis not enough that he does find
Clouds and darkness in their mind;
Darkness but half his work will do,
’Tis not enough; he must find quiet too.
Here is a profusion of wit, and poetic imagery; but the whole is quite opposite to the character of the original.
Congreve is guilty of a similar impropriety in translating
Vides, ut alta stet nive candidum
Soracte: nec jam sustineant onus
Sylvæ laborantes.
Hor. i. 9.
Bless me, ’tis cold! how chill the air!
How naked does the world appear!
Behold the mountain tops around,
As if with fur of ermine crown’d:
And lo! how by degrees,
The universal mantle hides the trees,
In hoary flakes which downward fly,
As if it were the autumn of the sky,
Whose fall of leaf would theirs supply:
Trembling the groves sustain the weight, and bow,
Like aged limbs which feebly go,
Beneath a venerable head of snow.
No author of real genius is more censurable on this score than Dryden.
Obsidere alii telis angusta viarum
Oppositi: stat ferri acies mucrone corusco
Stricta parata neci.
Æneis, ii. 322.
Thus translated by Dryden:
To several posts their parties they divide,
Some block the narrow streets, some scour the wide:
The bold they kill, th’ unwary they surprise;
Who fights finds death, and death finds him who flies.
Of these four lines, there are scarcely more than four words which are warranted by the original. “Some block the narrow streets.” Even this is a faulty translation of Obsidere alii telis angusta viarum; but it fails on the score of mutilation, not redundancy. The rest of the ideas which compose these four lines, are the original property of the translator; and the antithetical witticism in the concluding line, is far beneath the chaste simplicity of Virgil.
The same author, Virgil, in describing a pestilential disorder among the cattle, gives the following beautiful picture, which, as an ingenious writer justly remarks,[26] has every excellence that can belong to descriptive poetry:
Ecce autem duro fumans sub vomere taurus
Concidit, et mixtum spumis vomit ore cruorem,
Extremosque ciet gemitus. It tristis arator,
Mœrentem abjungens fraterna morte juvencum,
Atque opere in medio defixa relinquit aratra.
Which Mr. Dryden thus translates:
The steer who to the yoke was bred to bow,
(Studious of tillage and the crooked plow),
Falls down and dies; and dying, spews a flood
Of foamy madness, mixed with clotted blood.
The clown, who cursing Providence repines,
His mournful fellow from the team disjoins;
With many a groan forsakes his fruitless care,
And in the unfinished furrow leaves the share.
“I would appeal to the reader,” says Dr. Beattie, “whether, by debasing the charming simplicity of It tristis arator with his blasphemous paraphrase, Dryden has not destroyed the beauty of the passage.” He has undoubtedly, even although the translation had been otherwise faultless. But it is very far from being so. Duro fumans sub vomere, is not translated at all, and another idea is put in its place. Extremosque ciet gemitus, a most striking part of the description, is likewise entirely omitted. “Spews a flood” is vulgar and nauseous; and “a flood of foamy madness” is nonsense. In short, the whole passage in the translation is a mass of error and impropriety.
The simple expression, Jam Procyon furit, in Horace, 3, 29, is thus translated by the same author:
The Syrian star
Barks from afar,
And with his sultry breath infects the sky.
This barking of a star is a bad specimen of the music of the spheres. Dryden, from the fervour of his imagination, and the rapidity with which he composed, is frequently guilty of similar impropriety in his metaphorical language. Thus, in his version of Du Fresnoy, de Arte Graphica, he translates
Indolis ut vigor inde potens obstrictus hebescat,
“Neither would I extinguish the fire of a vein which is lively and abundant.”
The following passage in the second Georgic, as translated by Delille, is an example of vitious taste.
Ac dum prima novis adolescit frondibus ætas,
Parcendum teneris: et dum se lætus ad auras
Palmes agit, laxis per purum immissus habenis,
Ipsa acies nondum falce tentanda;—
Quand ses premiers bourgeons s’empresseront d’eclore,
Que l’acier rigoureux n’y touche point encore;
Même lorsque dans l’air, qu’il commence à braver,
Le rejetton moins frêle ose enfin s’elever;
Pardonne à son audace en faveur de son age:—
The expression of the original is bold and figurative, lætus ad auras,—laxis per purum immissus habenis; but there is nothing that offends the chastest taste. The concluding line of the translation is disgustingly finical,
Pardonne à son audace en faveur de son age.
Mr. Pope’s translation of the following passage of the Iliad, is censurable on a similar account:
Λαοὶ μεν φθινυθουσι περι πτολιν, αιπυ τε τεῖχος,
Μαρναμενοι·
Iliad, 6, 327.
For thee great Ilion’s guardian heroes fall,
Till heaps of dead alone defend the wall.
Of this conceit, of dead men defending the walls of Troy, Mr. Pope has the sole merit. The original, with grave simplicity, declares, that the people fell, fighting before the town, and around the walls.[27]
In the translation of the two following lines from Ovid’s Epistle of Sappho to Phaon, the same author has added a witticism, which is less reprehensible, because it accords with the usual manner of the poet whom he translates: yet it cannot be termed an improvement of the original:
“Scribimus, et lachrymis oculi rorantur abortis,
Aspice, quam sit in hoc multa litura loco.”
See while I write, my words are lost in tears,
The less my sense, the more my love appears.
Pope.
But if authors, even of taste and genius, are found at times to have made an injudicious use of that liberty which is allowed in the translation of poetry, we must expect to see it miserably abused indeed, where those talents are evidently wanting. The following specimen of a Latin version of the Paradise Lost is an example of everything that is vitious and offensive in poetical translation.
Primævi cano furta patris, furtumque secutæ
Tristia fata necis, labes ubi prima notavit
Quotquot Adamæo genitos de sanguine vidit
Phœbus ad Hesperias ab Eoo cardine metas;
Quos procul auricomis Paradisi depulit hortis,
Dira cupido atavûm, raptique injuria pomi:
Terrigena donec meliorque et major Adamus,
Amissis meliora bonis, majora reduxit.
Quosque dedit morti lignum inviolabile, mortis
Unicus ille alio rapuit de limine ligno.
Terrenusque licet pereat Paradisus, at ejus
Munere laxa patet Paradisi porta superni:
Hæc œstro stimulata novo mens pandere gestit.
Quis mihi monstret iter? Quis carbasa nostra profundo
Dirigat in dubio?
Gul. Hogæi Paradisus Amissus, l. 1.
How completely is Milton disguised in this translation! His Majesty exchanged for meanness, and his simplicity for bombast![28]
The preceding observations, though they principally regard the first general rule of translation, viz. that which enjoins a complete transfusion of the ideas and sentiments of the original work, have likewise a near connection with the second general rule, which I shall now proceed to consider.