_Opus novem dierum._
_Σὺν Θεᾳ._
[1] _Πέλειαι τρήρωνες. Columbæ timidæ._ What these doves were, and the
whole mind of this place, the great Macedon asking Chiron
Amphipolites, he answered: They were the Pleiades or seven Stars. One
of which (besides his proper imperfection of being _ἀμυδρὸς,_ i.e.
_adeo exilis, vel subobscurus, ut vix appareat_) is utterly obscured
or let by these rocks. Why then, or how, Jove still supplied the lost
one, that the number might be full, Athenæus falls to it, and helps
the other out, interpreting it to be affirmed of their perpetual
septenary number, though there appeared but six. But how lame and
loathsome these prosers show in their affected expositions of the
poetical mind, this and an hundred others, spent in mere presumptuous
guess at this inaccessible Poet, I hope will make plain enough to the
most envious of any thing done, besides their own set censures and
most arrogant over-weenings. In the 23 of the lliads (being _ψ_) at
the games celebrated at Patroclus’ funerals, they tied to the top of a
mast _πέλειαν τρήρωνα, timidam columbam,_ to shoot at for a game, so
that (by these great men’s abovesaid expositions) they shot at the
Pleiades.
[2] _Νηυ̑ς πα̑σι μέλουσα,_ etc. _Navis omnibus curæ: the ship that
held the care of all men, or of all things:_ which our critics will
needs restrain, _omnibus heroibus, Poetis omnibus, vel Historicis,_
when the care of all men’s preservation is affirmed to be the freight
of it; as if poets and historians comprehended all things, when I
scarce know any that makes them any part of their care. But this
likewise is garbage good enough for the monster. Nor will I tempt our
spiced consciences with expressing the divine mind it includes. Being
afraid to affirm any good of poor poesy, since no man gets any goods
by it. And notwithstanding many of our bird-eyed starters at
profanation are for nothing so afraid of it; as that lest their galled
consciences (scarce believing the most real truth, in approbation of
their lives) should be rubbed with the confirmation of it, even in
these contemned vanities (as their impieties please to call them)
which by much more learned and pious than themselves have ever been
called the raptures of divine inspiration, by which, _Homo supra
humanam naturam erigitur, et in Deum transit._—Plat.
[3] _Δεινὸν λελακυι̑α,_ etc. _Graviter vociferans;_ as all most
untruly translate it. As they do in the next verse these words
_σκύλακος νεογιλη̑ς catuli leonis,_ no lion being here dreamed of, nor
any vociferation. _Δεινὸν λελακυι̑α_ signifying _indignam,
dissimilem,_ or _horribilem vocem edens:_ but in what kind
_horribilem?_ Not for the gravity or greatness of her voice, but for
the unworthy or disproportionable small whuling of it; she being in
the vast frame of her body, as the very words _πέλωρ κακὸν_ signify,
_monstrum ingens;_ whose disproportion and deformity is too poetically
(and therein elegantly) ordered for fat and flat prosers to
comprehend. Nor could they make the Poet’s words serve their
comprehension; and therefore they add of their own, _λάσκω,_ from
whence _λελακυι̑α_ is derived, signifying _crepo,_ or _stridulê
clamo._ And _σκύλακος νεογιλη̑ς_ is to be expounded, _catuli nuper_ or
_recens nati,_ not _leonis._ But thus they botch and abuse the
incomparable expressor, because they knew not how otherwise to be
monstrous enough themselves to help out the monster. Imagining so huge
a great body must needs have a voice as huge; and then would not our
Homer have likened it to a lion’s whelp’s voice, but to the lion’s
own; and all had been much too little to make a voice answerable to
her hugeness. And therefore found our inimitable master a new way to
express her monstrous disproportion; performing it so, as there can be
_nihil suprâ._ And I would fain learn of my learned detractor, that
will needs have me only translate out of the Latin, what Latin
translation tells me this? Or what Grecian hath ever found this and a
hundred other such? Which may be some poor instance, or proof, of my
Grecian faculty, as far as old Homer goes in his two simple Poems, but
not a syllable further will my silly spirit presume.