The translator hopes he need not apologise for his choice of this piece,
which was made almost in his childhood. But finding the version better
upon review than he expected from those years, he was easily prevailed
on to give it some correction, the rather because no part of this author
(at least that he knows of) has been tolerably turned into our
language.[1]--POPE.
It was in his childhood only that Pope could make choice of so
injudicious a writer as Statius to translate. It were to be wished that
no youth of genius were suffered ever to look into Statius, Lucan,
Claudian, or Seneca the tragedian,--authors who, by their forced
conceits, by their violent metaphors, by their swelling epithets, by
their want of a just decorum, have a strong tendency to dazzle, and to
mislead inexperienced minds, and tastes unformed, from the true relish
of possibility, propriety, simplicity, and nature. Statius had
undoubtedly invention, ability, and spirit; but his images are gigantic
and outrageous, and his sentiments tortured and hyperbolical. One cannot
forbear reflecting on the short duration of a true taste in poetry among
the Romans. From the time of Lucretius to that of Statius was no more
than about one hundred and forty-seven years; and if I might venture to
pronounce so rigorous a sentence, I would say, that the Romans can boast
of but eight poets who are unexceptionably excellent,--namely, Terence,
Lucretius, Catullus, Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, Propertius, Phaedrus.
These only can be called legitimate models of just thinking and writing.
Succeeding authors, as it happens in all countries, resolving to be
original and new, and to avoid the imputation of copying, become
distorted and unnatural. By endeavouring to open an unbeaten path, they
deserted simplicity and truth; weary of common and obvious beauties,
they must needs hunt for remote and artificial decorations.
It is plain that Pope was not blind to the faults of Statius, many of
which he points out with judgment and truth, in a letter to Mr.
Cromwell, written in 1708{9}. After this censure of Statius's manner, it
is but justice to add, that in the Thebais there are many strokes of a
strong imagination; and, indeed, the picture of Amphiaraus, swallowed up
suddenly by a chasm that opened in the ground, is truly
sublime.--WARTON.
Statius was a favourite writer with the poets of the middle ages. His
bloated magnificence of description, gigantic images, and pompous
diction suited their taste, and were somewhat of a piece with the
romances they so much admired. They neglected the gentler and genuine
graces of Virgil, which they could not relish. His pictures were too
correctly and chastely drawn to take their fancies; and truth of design,
elegance of expression, and the arts of composition, were not their
object.--T. WARTON.
In this translation there are some excellent passages, particularly
those pointed out by Dr. Warton--"O father Phoebus," v. 829, and the
exquisite lines descriptive of evening, "'Twas now the time," &c., 474;
but some of the most striking images are omitted, some added, and some
misunderstood. Let us however confess, that the versification is truly
wonderful, considering the age of the author. It would be endless to
point out more particularly occasional errors and inaccuracies, in a
composition which can be considered no otherwise than as an
extraordinary specimen of versification, before the writer's judgment
and taste were matured.--BOWLES.
According to the information which Pope gave to Spence, he commenced an
epic poem at thirteen, and wrote four books of about a thousand verses
each.[2] As his taste and judgment improved, he discovered the crudeness
of his early flights, and for a while he almost relinquished his
attempts at original composition, "My first taking to imitating," he
said, "was not out of vanity, but humility. I saw how defective my own
things were; and I endeavoured to mend my manner by copying good strokes
from others."[3] "In my rambles through the poets," he said again, "when
I met with a passage or story that pleased me more than ordinary, I used
to endeavour to imitate it, or translate it into English; and this gave
rise to my imitations published so long after."[4] In speaking of Pope's
youthful efforts, Spence uses the word "imitation" as synonymous with
"translation." "Some of his first exercises," he says, "were
_imitations_ of the stories that pleased him most in Ovid, or any other
poet that he was reading. I have one of these original exercises now by
me in his own hand. It is the story of Acis and Galatea, from Ovid; and
was _translated_ when he was but fourteen years old."[5] Pope appears to
have sometimes employed the term imitation with the same latitude, and
probably meant by it that he endeavoured to imitate, in the English turn
of expression, the distinctive beauties of the original Latin or Greek.
"In the scattered lessons I used to set myself," he said, "I translated
above a quarter of the Metamorphoses, and that part of Statius which was
afterwards printed with the corrections of Walsh."[6] The notion, in
which Bowles and others acquiesced, that the published translations are
a true index of Pope's skill at fourteen, will not bear investigation.
Of the Metamorphoses he brought out only two little fragments, which
appeared many years later, when they had undergone a thorough revision.
The rest of the manuscript would not have been sacrificed if the version
had been fit for the public eye without the toil of recasting it.
Spence, who possessed the Acis and Galatea, did not think it worth
printing as a specimen of Pope's boyish abilities, even when the
curiosity respecting his works was at its height. The suppression of all
his early pieces, which had not been submitted to a subsequent
renovation, is a plain proof of their inferiority. The first translation
which he gave to the world was the "Episode of Sarpedon, from the
twelfth and sixteenth books of Homer's Iliads." This, and his Pastorals,
appeared together, in May, 1709, in Tonson's Sixth Miscellany, and Pope
was then twenty-one.
The fragment from Homer included the speech of Sarpedon to Glaucus. "It
has," said the poet, "been rendered in English by Sir John Denham, after
whom the translator had not the vanity to attempt it for any other
reason, than that the episode must have been very imperfect without so
noble a part of it." Denham at that period had a much more brilliant
reputation than he afterwards retained, and though Pope adopted the
language of humility, he must have felt an inward pride in the
consciousness that he had distanced so famous a name. His great
superiority did not admit of a question, and he must have been well
aware that it was his interest to invite a comparison. The specimen was
shown in manuscript to Trumbull, who, in his admiration, urged Pope to
give a complete translation of the Iliad. The exhortations of Trumbull
did not bear fruit till 1713. "I cannot," Pope wrote to him in the
November of that year, "deny myself the pleasure of acquainting you how
great a proof I have given of my deference to your opinion and judgment,
which has at last moved me to undertake the translation of Homer. I can
honestly say Sir William Trumbull was not only the first that put this
into my thoughts, but the principal encourager I had in it, and though
now almost all the distinguished names of quality or learning in the
nation have subscribed to it, there is not one of which I am so proud as
of yours." When the first volume of the translation appeared in 1715,
Pope paid his acknowledgments in the Preface to the eminent men who had
specially patronised the work. Not only does he make no mention of
Trumbull, but he professes to have yielded to the counsel of a greater
authority, and says, "Mr. Addison was the first whose advice determined
me to undertake the task." Either the statement in the Preface, or the
statement in the letter must be inaccurate, though both Addison and
Trumbull may have recommended the scheme.
The "Episode of Sarpedon" is now incorporated in the complete
translation to which it led the way. It was not till three years after
he had published the fragment from Homer that Pope brought out his
translations from the Latin, of which the most ambitious is his version
of the first book of the Thebais. He told Spence that in his boyhood "he
liked extremely a translation of a part of Statius by some very bad
hand." This work bore the title of "An Essay upon Statius, or the five
first books of P. P. Statius his Thebais. Done into English verse by
T[homas] S[tephens], London, 1648." The verse into which Stephens did
his author was for the most part rugged and prosaic, but a few passages
are happily turned, and his successor did not disdain to borrow some
lines and phrases from him. The principal advantage, however, to Pope of
Stephens's attempt was that it enabled him to interpret the original;
for his classical education had been defective, and it is clear from his
own account, that he could not, without assistance, have construed the
Thebais correctly. At eight years of age he was taught his accidence by
a priest.[7] He afterwards went to a couple of small schools, where "he
lost what he had gained" from his first instructor.[8] "When I came," he
said, "from the last of them, all the acquisition I had made was to be
able to construe a little of Tully's Offices."[9] For a few months he
had another priest for his tutor, and was then left, between twelve and
thirteen, to his own resources.[10] The foundation was slight, and he
proceeded to raise upon it a hasty superstructure. "I did not," he said,
"follow the grammar, but rather hunted in the authors for a syntax of my
own; and then began translating any parts that pleased me, particularly
in the best Greek and Latin poets. I got the languages by hunting after
the stories in the several poets I read, rather than read the books to
get the language."[11] He, on another occasion, told Spence that he
thought himself the better in some respects for not having had a regular
education, since it caused him to read for the sense, whereas schoolboys
were taught to read for words.[12] The process was fatal to scholarship.
Ignorant, in a great degree, of the rules and idioms of the Latin
tongue, it was impossible he should translate with ease or accuracy. But
his peculiar training doubtless favoured the early development of his
poetic powers. He devoted his boyish years, when the mind was most
pliable, to the cultivation of his art, and this incessant practice of
versification from childhood was the cause of his precocious
excellence.
Pope's admiration for Statius continued throughout his later boyhood,
and he preferred him to "all the Latin poets, by much, next to
Virgil."[13] He soon began to turn the Thebais into English, and he
affirms that his version of the first book was made in 1703. In a note
to his letter to Cromwell of Jan. 22, 1709, he placed it earlier still,
and declares that it was "done when the author was but fourteen years
old." These statements convey an erroneous impression. It appears from
the correspondence with Cromwell that more than one-third of the
translation was not in existence by January, 1709, when Pope was in his
twenty-first year. The piece was not published till 1712, when it came
out in Lintot's Miscellany, and the poet at that period was twenty-four.
The portions which were not recently translated, were newly corrected,
and the whole represents the powers of the man who completed the task,
and not of the boy who commenced it.
The translation of the first book of the Thebais must be more highly
estimated as a specimen of versification than as an adequate
representation of the original. The harmony and phraseology of
particular passages are delicious, and verse and language throughout are
polished in a high degree. There is one pervading exception to Pope's
metrical skill. He has recourse incessantly to an unnatural order of
words, and especially he produces his rhymes by placing the verb after
the noun it ought to precede. Of this license Dryden says, "We were
whipped at Westminster if we used it twice together. I should judge him
to have little command of English whom the necessity of a rhyme should
force upon this rock, though sometimes it cannot easily be avoided."
Pope availed himself of the false construction with a freedom which
seriously deforms and enfeebles much of his poetry. He fell into the
error before he had discrimination to perceive the blemish, and when his
judgment was more mature habit had reconciled him to the distortion.
Warton has not exaggerated the defects of Statius, but he has underrated
his merits. The descriptions in the Thebais are vivid, and abound in
picturesque circumstances, and natural traits of character. Pope's
translation is more vague. His narrative is less perspicuous, less
dramatic, less spirited, and less life-like than the original. "There
are numberless particulars blameworthy in our author," Pope wrote to
Cromwell, "which I have tried to soften in the version."[14] He was not
successful in this attempt. Where he departs from his text he seldom
tempers an extravagance, and has more often rejected a beauty, or
smoothed it down into insipidity. His juvenile taste was for polished
generalities, and he shunned circumstantial nature. He had still less
relish for primitive simplicity, and he thought that some of the
incidents in the Thebais were too humble to be endured.
"When Statius," he says, "comes to the scene of his poem, and the prize
in dispute between the brothers, he gives us a very mean opinion of
it,--_pugna est de paupere regno_--very different from the conduct of
his master, Virgil, who at the entrance of his poem informs the reader
of the greatness of his subject."[15] Pope was led astray by the
equivocal meaning of a word. There is no connection between the
greatness of a kingdom, and the greatness of a theme for poetic
purposes. The poverty of Scotland did not detract from the tragic
grandeur of Macbeth. When the fugitive princes in the Thebais quarrel in
the vestibule, where they have taken shelter from the storm, and fight
with their fists, Pope confused the narrative by omitting the whole
account as inconsistent with epic dignity, and sacrificed the
characteristics of the original to assimilate the manners to modern
usages. If his criticisms had been well founded he should yet have kept
to his text. "The sense of an author," says Dryden, "is, generally
speaking, to be sacred and inviolable. If the fancy of Ovid be
luxuriant, it is his character to be so; and, if I retrench it, he is no
longer Ovid. It will be replied that he receives advantage by this
lopping of his superfluous branches; but I rejoin that a translator has
no such right. When a painter copies from the life, I suppose he has no
privilege to alter features and lineaments, under pretence that his
picture will look better; perhaps the face which he has drawn would be
more exact if the eyes or nose were altered; but it is his business to
make it resemble the original." Pope has rendered a few passages with
equal beauty and truth, but on the whole the antique colouring, the
dramatic traits, and picturesque details are very imperfectly preserved.