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.