[10] 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 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 subtile 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."
[11] Cowley is now so undeservedly forgotten, that it is not superfluous to insert his own excellent account of the free mode of translation, prefixed to his translations from Pindar. "If a man should undertake to translate Pindar, word for word, it would be thought that one madman had translated another; as may appear, when he that understands not the original, reads the verbal traduction of him into Latin prose, than which nothing seems more raving. And sure rhyme, without the addition of wit, and the spirit of poetry, (quod nequeo monstrare et sentio tantum,) would but make it ten times more distracted than it is in prose. We must consider, in Pindar, the great difference of time betwixt his age and ours, which changes, as in pictures, at least the colours of poetry; the no less difference betwixt the religions and customs of our countries, and a thousand particularities of places, persons, and manners, which do but confusedly appear to our eyes at so great a distance; and, lastly, (which were enough, alone, for my purpose,) we must consider, that our ears are strangers to the music of his numbers, which sometimes, (especially in songs and odes,) almost without any thing else, makes an excellent poet. For though the grammarians and critics have laboured to reduce his verses into regular feet and measures, (as they have also those of the Greek and Latin comedies,) yet, in effect, they are little better than prose to our ears: and I would gladly know what applause our best pieces of English poesy could expect from a Frenchman or Italian, if converted faithfully, and word for word, into French or Italian prose. And when we have considered all this, we must needs confess, that after all these losses sustained by Pindar, all we can add to him by our wit and invention, (not deserting still his subject,) is not like to make him a richer man than he was in his own country. This is, in some measure, to be applied to all translations; and the not observing of it is the cause, that all which ever I yet saw are so much inferior to their originals. The like happens, too, in pictures, from the same root of exact imitation; which being a vile and unworthy kind of servitude, is incapable of producing any thing good or noble. I have seen originals, both in painting and poesy, much more beautiful than their natural objects; but I never saw a copy better than the original: which indeed cannot be otherwise; for men resolving in no case to shoot beyond the mark, it is a thousand to one if they shoot not short of it. It does not at all trouble me, that the grammarians, perhaps, will not suffer this libertine way of rendering foreign authors to be called translation; for I am not so much enamoured of the name translator, as not to wish rather to be something better, though it wants yet a name. I speak not so much all this in defence of my manner of translating or imitating, (or what other title they please,) the two ensuing odes of Pindar; for that would not deserve half these words, as by this occasion to rectify the opinion of divers men upon this matter."
CANACE TO MACAREUS.
EPIST. XI.
THE ARGUMENT.
Macareus and Canace, son and daughter to Æolus, God of the Winds, loved each other incestuously: Canace was delivered of a son, and committed him to her nurse, to be secretly conveyed away. The infant crying out, by that means was discovered to Æolus, who, enraged at the wickedness of his children, commanded the babe to be exposed to wild beasts on the mountains; and withal, sent a sword to Canace, with this message, That her crimes would instruct her how to use it. With this sword she slew herself; but before she died, she writ the following letter to her brother Macareus, who had taken sanctuary in the temple of Apollo.
If streaming blood my fatal letter stain,
Imagine, ere you read, the writer slain;
One hand the sword, and one the pen employs,
And in my lap the ready paper lies.
Think in this posture thou behold'st me write;
In this my cruel father would delight.
O! were he present, that his eyes and hands
Might see, and urge the death which he commands!
Than all the raging winds more dreadful, he,
Unmoved, without a tear, my wounds would see.
Jove justly placed him on a stormy throne,
His people's temper is so like his own.
The north and south, and each contending blast,
Are underneath his wide dominion cast:
Those he can rule; but his tempestuous mind
Is, like his airy kingdom, unconfined.
Ah! what avail my kindred Gods above,
That in their number I can reckon Jove!
What help will all my heavenly friends afford,
When to my breast I lift the pointed sword?
That hour, which joined us, came before its time;
In death we had been one without a crime.
Why did thy flames beyond a brother's move?
Why loved I thee with more than sister's love?
For I loved too; and, knowing not my wound,
A secret pleasure in thy kisses found;
My cheeks no longer did their colour boast,
My food grew loathsome, and my strength I lost:
Still ere I spoke, a sigh would stop my tongue;
Short were my slumbers, and my nights were long.
I knew not from my love these griefs did grow,
Yet was, alas! the thing I did not know.
My wily nurse, by long experience, found,
And first discovered to my soul its wound.
'Tis love, said she; and then my downcast eyes,
And guilty dumbness, witnessed my surprise.
Forced at the last my shameful pain I tell;
And oh, what followed, we both know too well!
"When half denying, more than half content,
Embraces warmed me to a full consent,
Then with tumultuous joys my heart did beat,
And guilt, that made them anxious, made them great."[12]
But now my swelling womb heaved up my breast,
And rising weight my sinking limbs opprest.
What herbs, what plants, did not my nurse produce,
To make abortion by their powerful juice!
What medicines tried we not, to thee unknown!
Our first crime common; this was mine alone.
But the strong child, secure in his dark cell,
With nature's vigour did our arts repel,
And now the pale faced empress of the night
Nine times had filled her orb with borrowed light;
Not knowing 'twas my labour, I complain
Of sudden shootings, and of grinding pain;
My throes came thicker, and my cries increased,
Which with her hand the conscious nurse suppressed.
To that unhappy fortune was I come,
Pain urged my clamours, but fear kept me dumb.
With inward struggling I restrained my cries,
And drunk the tears that trickled from my eyes.
Death was in sight, Lucina gave no aid,
And even my dying had my guilt betrayed.
Thou cam'st, and in thy countenance sat despair;
Rent were thy garments all, and torn thy hair;
Yet feigning comfort, which thou couldst not give,
Prest in thy arms, and whispering me to live;
For both our sakes, saidst thou, preserve thy life;
Live, my dear sister, and my dearer wife.
Raised by that name, with my last pangs I strove;
Such power have words, when spoke by those we love.
The babe, as if he heard what thou hadst sworn,
With hasty joy sprung forward to be born.
What helps it to have weathered out one storm!
Fear of our father does another form.
High in his hall, rocked in a chair of state,
The king with his tempestuous council sate;
Through this large room our only passage lay,
By which we could the new-born babe convey.
Swathed in her lap, the bold nurse bore him out,
With olive branches covered round about;
And, muttering prayers, as holy rites she meant,
Through the divided crowd unquestioned went.
Just at the door the unhappy infant cried;
The grandsire heard him, and the theft he spied.
Swift as a whirlwind to the nurse he flies,
And deafs his stormy subjects with his cries.
With one fierce puff he blows the leaves away;
Exposed the self-discovered infant lay.
The noise reached me, and my presaging mind
Too soon its own approaching woes divined.
Not ships at sea with winds are shaken more,
Nor seas themselves, when angry tempests roar,
Than I, when my loud father's voice I hear;
The bed beneath me trembled with my fear.
He rushed upon me, and divulged my stain;
Scarce from my murder could his hands refrain.
I only answered him with silent tears;
They flowed; my tongue was frozen up with fears.
His little grandchild he commands away,
To mountain wolves and every bird of prey.
The babe cried out, as if he understood,
And begged his pardon with what voice he could.
By what expressions can my grief be shown?
Yet you may guess my anguish by your own,
To see my bowels, and, what yet was worse,
Your bowels too, condemned to such a curse!
Out went the king; my voice its freedom found,
My breasts I beat, my blubbered cheeks I wound.
And now appeared the messenger of death;
Sad were his looks, and scarce he drew his breath,
To say, "Your father sends you"—(with that word
His trembling hands presented me a sword;)
"Your father sends you this; and lets you know,
That your own crimes the use of it will show."
Too well I know the sense those words impart;
His present shall be treasured in my heart.
Are these the nuptial gifts a bride receives?
And this the fatal dower a father gives?
Thou God of marriage, shun thy own disgrace,
And take thy torch from this detested place!
Instead of that, let furies light their brands,
And fire my pile with their infernal hands!
With happier fortune may my sisters wed,
Warned by the dire example of the dead.
For thee, poor babe, what crime could they pretend?
How could thy infant innocence offend?
A guilt there was; but, oh, that guilt was mine!
Thou suffer'st for a sin that was not thine.
Thy mother's grief and crime! but just enjoyed,
Shewn to my sight, and born to be destroyed!
Unhappy offspring of my teeming womb!
Dragged headlong from thy cradle to thy tomb!
Thy unoffending life I could not save,
Nor weeping could I follow to thy grave;
Nor on thy tomb could offer my shorn hair,
Nor shew the grief which tender mothers bear.
Yet long thou shalt not from my arms be lost;
For soon I will overtake thy infant ghost.
But thou, my love, and now my love's despair,
Perform his funerals with paternal care;
His scattered limbs with my dead body burn,
And once more join us in the pious urn.
If on my wounded breast thou droppest a tear,
Think for whose sake my breast that wound did bear;
And faithfully my last desires fulfil,
As I perform my cruel father's will.
FOOTNOTES: