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: