D’expier son forfait, on le lui fit bien voir.
Selon que vous serez puissant ou misérable,
Les jugements de cour vous rendront blanc ou noir.
5. No compositions will be found more difficult to be translated, than those descriptions, in which a series of minute distinctions are marked by characteristic terms, each peculiarly appropriated to the thing to be designed, but many of them so nearly synonymous, or so approaching to each other, as to be clearly understood only by those who possess the most critical knowledge of the language of the original, and a very competent skill in the subject treated of. I have always regarded Strada’s Contest of the Musician and Nightingale, as a composition which almost bids defiance to the art of a translator. The reader will easily perceive the extreme difficulty of giving the full, distinct, and appropriate meaning of those expressions marked in Italics.
Jam Sol a medio pronus deflexerat orbe,
Mitius e radiis vibrans crinalibus ignem:
Cum fidicen propter Tiberina fluenta, sonanti
Lenibat plectro curas, æstumque levabat,
Ilice defensus nigra, scenaque virenti.
Audiit hunc hospes sylvæ philomela propinquæ,