Letters Concerning Poetical Translations

Letters Concerning Poetical
Translations, by

William Benson This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no
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Title: Letters Concerning Poetical Translations And Virgil's and
Milton's Arts of Verse, &c.
Author: William Benson
Release Date: January 18, 2006 [EBook #17548]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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CONCERNING POETICAL ***

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LETTERS

CONCERNING
Poetical Translations, &c.
(Price One Shilling.)

LETTERS
CONCERNING
Poetical Translations,
AND
VIRGIL'S and MILTON'S
ARTS of VERSE, &c.

LONDON: Printed for J. ROBERTS, near the Oxford-Arms in
Warwick-Lane. MDCCXXXIX.

LETTER I.
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