_SIR,_
I am now going to obey your Commands; but you must let me do it in my
own way, that is, write as much, or as little at a time as I may have
an Inclination to, and just as things offer themselves. After this
manner you may receive in a few Letters, all that I have said to you
about poetical Translations, and the resemblance there is between
_Virgil's_ and _Milton's_ Versification, and some other Matters of the
same nature.
To begin with the Business of Translation.
Whoever sits down to translate a Poet, ought in the first place to
consider his Author's peculiar _Stile_; for without this, tho' the
Translation may be very good in all other respects, it will hardly
deserve the Name of a Translation.
The two great Men amongst the Antients differ from each other as much
in this particular as in the Subjects they treat of. The Stile of
_Homer_, who sings the Anger or Rage of _Achilles_, is _rapid_. The
Stile of _Virgil_, who celebrates the Piety of _Æneas_, is
_majestick_. But it may be proper to explain in what this Difference
consists.
The Stile is _rapid_, when several Relatives, each at the head of a
separate Sentence, are governed by one Antecedent, or several Verbs by
one Nominative Case, to the close of the Period.
Thus in _Homer_:
"Goddess, sing the pernicious Anger of _Achilles_, which brought
infinite Woes to the _Grecians_, and sent many valiant Souls of
Heroes to Hell, and gave their Bodies to the Dogs, and to the Fowls
of the Air."
Here you see it is the Anger of _Achilles_, that does all that is
mentioned in three or four Lines. Now if the Translator does not
nicely observe _Homer's_ Stile in this Passage, all the Fire of
_Homer_ will be lost. For Example: "O Heavenly Goddess, sing the Wrath
of the Son of _Peleus_, the fatal Source of all the Woes of the
_Grecians_, that Wrath which sent the Souls of many Heroes to
_Pluto's_ gloomy Empire, while their Bodies lay upon the Shore, and
were torn by devouring Dogs, and hungry Vultures."
Here you see the Spirit of _Homer_ evaporates; and in what immediately
follows, if the Stile of _Homer_ is not nicely attended to, if any
great matter is added or left out, _Homer_ will be fought for in vain
in the Translation. He always hurries on as fast as possible, as
_Horace_ justly observes, _semper ad eventum festinat_; and that is
the reason why he introduces his first Speech without any Connection,
by a sudden Transition; and why he so often brings in his [Greek: ton
d' apameibomenos]: He has not patience to stay to work his Speeches
artfully into the Subject.
Here you see what is a _rapid_ Stile. I will now shew you what is
quite the contrary, that is, a _majestic one_. To instance in
_Virgil_: "Arms and the Man I sing; the first who from the Shores of
_Troy_ (the Fugitive of Heav'n) came to _Italy_ and the _Lavinian_
Coast." Here you perceive the Subject-matter is retarded by the
_Inversion of the Phrase_, and by that _Parenthesis_, the _Fugitive of
Heaven_ all which occasions _Delay_; and _Delay_ (as a learned Writer
upon a Passage of this nature in _Tasso_ observes) is the Property of
Majesty: For which Reason when _Virgil_ represents _Dido_ in her
greatest Pomp, it is,
--_Reginam_ cunctantem _ad limina primi_
_Poenorum expectant_.--
For the same Reason he introduces the most solemn and most important
Speech in the _Æneid_, with three Monosyllables, which causes great
Delay in the Speaker, and gives great Majesty to the Speech.
--_O Qui Res_ Hominumq; Deumq;--
These three Syllables occasion three short Pauses. _O--Qui--Res_--How
slow and how stately is this Passage!
But it happens that I can set the Beginning of the _Æneid_ in a clear
Light for my purpose, by two Translations of that Passage, both by the
same Hand; one of which is exactly in the manner of _Virgil_, the
other in the manner of _Homer_: The two Translations are made by the
Reverend Mr. _Pitt_. He published the first among some Miscellany
Poems several Years since, the latter in his four Books of the _Æneid_
about two Years ago.