Great is the change in passing from Statius to Ovid; from force to
facility of style; from thoughts and images which are too much studied
and unnatural to such as are obvious, careless, and familiar. Ovid seems
to have had the merit of inventing this beautiful species of writing
epistles under feigned names. It is a high improvement on the Greek
elegy, to which its dramatic form renders it much superior. The judgment
of the writer must chiefly appear by opening the complaint of the person
introduced, just at such a period of time, as will give occasion for the
most tender sentiments, and the most sudden, and violent turns of
passion to be displayed. Ovid may perhaps be blamed for a sameness of
subjects in these epistles of his heroines; and his epistles are
likewise too long, which circumstance has forced him into a repetition
and languor in the sentiments. On the whole the epistle before us is
translated by Pope with faithfulness and with elegance, and much excels
any Dryden translated in the volume he published, several of which were
done by some "of the mob of gentlemen that wrote with ease,"--that is,
Sir C. Scrope, Caryll, Pooly, Wright, Tate, Buckingham, Cooper, and
other careless rhymers. Lord Somers translated Dido to AEneas, and
Ariadne to Theseus. Though I regret the hours our poet spent in
translating Ovid and Statius, yet it has given us an opportunity of
admiring his good sense and judgment, in not suffering his taste and
style, in his succeeding works, to be infected with the faults of these
two writers.--WARTON.
Warton says, "The judgment of the writer must chiefly appear by opening
the complaint of the person introduced at such a period of time as will
give occasion for the most tender sentiments." How beautifully is this
displayed in Pope's Epistle to Abelard, a poem that has another most
interesting circumstance, which Ovid appears, as well as our Drayton, to
have neglected,--I mean the introduction of appropriate and descriptive
imagery, which relieves and recreates the fancy by the pictures, and by
the landscapes which accompany the characters. Ovid, in this Epistle,
seems not insensible to the effect of the introduction of such scenes;
and the Leucadian rock, the _antra nemusque_, the aquatic lotus, the
sacred pellucid fountain, and particularly the genius of the place, the
Naiad, addressing the despairing Sappho (which circumstance Pope has
beautifully imitated and improved in Eloisa), are in the genuine spirit
of poetical taste. Dr. Warton observes that this translation is superior
to any of Dryden's. If, indeed, we compare Pope's translations with
those of any other writer, their superiority must be strikingly
apparent. There is a finish in them, a correctness, a natural flow, and
a tone of originality, added to a wonderful propriety and beauty of
expression and language. If he ever fails, it is where he generalises
too much. This is particularly objectionable, where in the original
there is any marked, distinct, and beautiful picture. So, ver. 253, Pope
only says,
Cupid for thee shall spread the swelling sail;
whereas in Ovid, Cupid appears before us in the very act of guiding the
vessel, seated as the pilot, and with his _tender_ hand (_tenera manu_)
contracting, or letting flow the sail. I need not point out another
beauty in the original,--the repetition of the word _Ipse_.--BOWLES.
Richardson has appended this note to the Epistle of Sappho to Phaon in
his copy of the quarto of 1717: "Corrected by the first copy, written
out elegantly (as all his MSS.) to show friends, with their remarks in
the margin; the present reading for the most part the effect of them."
The remarks in the margin are mere exclamations, such as "pulchre,"
"bene," "optime," "recte," "bella paraphrasis," "longe praestas Scrope
meo judicio," "minus placet," &c. They are doubtless from the pen of
Cromwell, since it appeals from Pope's letter to him on June 10, 1709,
that he had jotted down the same phrases on the margin of the
translation of Statius. Bowles having quoted the observation of Warton,
"that he had seen compositions of youths of sixteen years old far beyond
the Pastorals in point of genius and imagination," adds, "I fear not to
assert that he never could have seen any compositions of boys of that
age so perfect in versification, so copious, yet so nice in expression,
so correct, so spirited, and so finished," as the translation of the
Epistle of Sappho to Phaon. The remark was made by Bowles in the belief
that the version was the production of the poet's fourteenth year. Pope
himself records on his manuscript that it was "written first 1707." He
was then nineteen, and when the Epistle was published in 1712, in
Tonson's Ovid, he was twenty-four.
"Ovid," says Dryden, "often writ too pointedly for his subject, and made
his persons speak more eloquently than the violence of their passions
would admit." Passion is sometimes highly eloquent; feeling strongly it
expresses itself forcibly, and Dryden meant that the characters in Ovid,
by their numerous strokes of studied brilliancy, seemed to be carried
away less by their emotions than by the ambition to shine. These
glittering artifices were formerly called wit, and Dryden complains that
Ovid "is frequently witty out of season," but they are not wit in our
present sense of the word. Occasionally they are the far-fetched or
affected prettinesses which are properly called conceits; and more
commonly they consist in terse antithesis, and a sparkle of words
produced by the balanced repetition of a phrase. They are often as
appropriate as they are showy, and if they are among the blemishes they
are conspicuous among the beauties of Ovid. His writings are marked by
opposite qualities. He is sometimes too artificial in his expression of
the passions, and sometimes he is natural, glowing, and pathetic. He
abounds in pointed sentences, and is not less distinguished for the
easy, spontaneous flow of his language. He is at once prolix and
concise, indulging in a single vein of thought till the monotony becomes
tedious, and yet enunciating his ideas with sententious brevity. The
condensation of the Latin in many places cannot be preserved in the
diffuser idioms of our English tongue, but, if we overlook a few weak
couplets, Pope has translated the Epistle of Sappho to Phaon with rare
felicity, and notwithstanding the inevitable loss of some happy turns of
expression, he has managed to retain both the passion and the poetry.
Effusions of sentiment were better adapted to his genius than the heroic
narrative of the Thebais; and his limpid measure, which neither
resembled the numerous and robuster verse of Statius, nor was suited to
an epic theme, accorded with the sweetness and uniformity of Ovid's
verse, and with the outpourings of grief and tenderness which are the
staple of these epistolary strains. There is no ground for the regret of
Warton that Pope should have spent a little time in translating portions
of Ovid and Statius. It would be as reasonable to lament that he stooped
to the preliminary discipline which made him a poet. He has related that
he did not take to translation till he found himself unequal to original
composition, and, like all who excel in any department, he learnt, by
copying his predecessors, to rival them.