I have aimed to be literal here, the better to explain Dacier's Remarks. There are considerable Faults in this Translation, says Monsieur Dacier, he has forgotten the Epithet πολυτροπον, which marks Ulysses's Character; he neglects the Circumstance that makes us most concern'd for him, ὅς μαλα πλάγχθη, who wandered a long Time, he says in a loose Way, after the Taking of Troy; whereas, it is in Homer after having ruined Troy. Now, if Horace, who had studied and admired Homer so much, as to make him a Pattern for all future Writers of Heroick Poems, could mistake three Times in translating two Lines, what a Discouragement must it have been to those who knew how he had succeeded in attempting it? 'Tis true, no Poet will ever undertake a Translation with more Advantage than the last Translator of Homer had; for besides Eight or Ten Versions in Latin, Italian, French, &c. there are Three or Four in English; a Prose Translation by Madam Dacier, and a Cart-load of Comments in all Languages. I am satisfy'd so good a Versifyer as the Translator of the Ilias might with those Helps, have made a very good Translation, without understanding any more Greek than my self; and nothing in the World could have been more easy, than out of one Commentator to have corrected another, and to have alter'd and amended the Reading in the Name of any of the Criticks, from Eustathius down to Dacier. I do not boast of being Master of Greek enough to read Homer with so much Pleasure in the Original as I could do in a good Version, and it is much to be question'd, whether every one that can read him in the Original do understand what they read: Several Ladies and Gentlemen have subscribed for Chaucer of the Christ-Church Edition, but I doubt very much whether they understand him or not, and whether a great many, who can read Greek, do really know what they read. One of the greatest Masters of the Greek Tongue, in our Time, has often question'd whether there were Twenty Men in England who understood the Strength, Beauty, and Elegance of that Language, tho' there are a Thousand that pretend to it. He represented it as a Study for a Man's Life, and I am confirm'd in this Judgement by what Menage tells us of himself, and others upon this Subject. 'Tis well known Menage wrote several Things in Greek, particularly some Odes in Imitation of Anacreon, which are not thought inferiour to the Teian Poet's; J'ay toujours fait beaucoup de cas de ceux qui savent le grec, &c. He always highly valued those that understood Greek. He does not mean to construe and parse it as Boys do at School, which is the most of what we find in those who pretend to be Masters of it. Without this Language, continues he, a Man can't be said to be more than half Learned: Monsieur Cotelier, Monsieur de Treville, and Monsieur Bigot, are the only Men in France, who can read the Greek Fathers in the Original. I suppose the Fathers are not so difficult as Homer with respect to the Tongue at least; for the Language of Poetry is peculiar to it, a made Language compounded and metaphorical. If it be so, the Translation of the Ilias, from the Greek of Homer, must shew the Translator to be a greater Master of the Greek Language than all the Learned Men in France except Three, and all the Learned Men in England except about Twenty. For my own Part, I confess, I make bold with all Kinds of Versions to help me out in Originals, and am not asham'd to do as Menage did; I own I do not understand Pindar enough, says he, to take Pleasure in him. I have heard Pindar quoted a Hundred Times by Persons who were very far from being so modest as Menage, and fully satisfy'd themselves that they understood him as well as the Græcians, to whom he read his Odes, tho' I suspected the contrary. Menage, again; I never read a Greek Author without having before read the Translation.
I do not insinuate any thing to depreciate the Translator of Homer's excellent Performance, which, as I have observ'd, has the Merit of the most pure and harmonious Diction and Versification; but to hint a little of the Confusion of our Taste, and the Irregularity of our Judgement, which like Things for Beauties which they have not, and not for those which they have. Thus the Version of Homer is lik'd as a Translation of the best Epick Poem that ever was written, and not for the Softness and Sweetness of the Elegy, which are every where to be met with, as where the God Apollo appears in the Shape of Agenor:
Flies from the furious Chief in this Disguise,
The furious Chief still follows as he flies.
This is what the French call Jeu des Mots, playing upon Words, and what Dryden's Virgil is full of, tho' he knew as well as any Body that it was a Fault: The Turn of Thoughts, and Words, says he, is the chief Talent of the French; but the Epick Poem is too stately to receive such little Ornaments, which would have been in Perfection in a Version of Ovid, and very little agrees with Waller in his Epistle to my Lord Roscommon;
Well sounding Verses are the Charm we use,
Heroick Thoughts, and Virtue to infuse:
Things of deep Sense, we may in Prose unfold,
But they move more, in lofty Numbers told:
By the loud Trumpet, which our Courage aids,
We learn that Sound, as well as Sense, perswades.
In these Things our Taste is strangely confin'd: provided the Verses run smoothly, and the Language is soft and harmonious, we think it is fine: Let the Subject be a Boreas, or a Zephyr: Nay, I do not question but the Couplet I quoted out of the English Homer is reckon'd one of the finest of the Version by Ladies, and Gentleman who judge like Ladies, and who are the Nine in Ten of all Readers of Poetry. I confess, I am much more pleas'd with the following Verses, as rough and rumbling as they are, because they participate of the Roughness of the Thing which is imag'd to us,
Jumping high o'er the Shrubs of the rough Ground,
Rattle the clattering Cars, and the shockt Axles bound.
When such assimilating the Sound to the Sense is not affected 'tis very agreeable; but when there is any Force or Affectation in it, 'tis puerile and distasteful.
The following Description of the Poetical Fire, which several Poets were enflam'd with, seems to be somewhat deficient, and to want farther Explanation; especially where the Translator tells us, Milton's Fire is like a Furnace, but Shakespear's like a Fire from Heaven: Virgil's like a Kenning-Glass, and Lucan's and Statius's like Lightning. The Kenning-Glass should have given me no Manner of Disturbance: But why is Milton's Celestial Fire compar'd to that which destroy'd the Three Children; the Fire of a Furnace is boisterous and voracious, consuming whatever is within its Reach. Milton's Fire, like that of the Sun, warms and enlivens; and if ever any was fetch'd from Heaven, 'twas that, which shines with so much radiant Brightness throughout his whole Poem. I was the more shockt with this Misrepresentation of Milton's Fire, for that there's something burlesque in the very Expression, a Furnace, and one can't help being jealous that this Passage of Hudibras might give the Hint for it.