there are (to my knowledge) only two paffages which are cenfurable on that The one is the beginning of account. the ivth Pfalm: O Pater, O hominum Divumque ætcrna poteftas! which is the first line of the fpeech of Venus to Jupiter, in the 10th Æneid: and the other is the beginning of Pfalm lxxxii. where two entire lines, with the change of one fyllable, are borrowed from Horace : Regum timendorum in proprios greges, In the latter example, the poet probably judged that the change of Jovis into Jova removed all objection; and Ruddiman has attempted to vindicate the the Divum of the former paffage, by applying it to faints or angels: but allowing there were fufficient apology for both those words, the impropriety still remains; for the affociated ideas present themselves immediately to the mind, and we are justly offended with the literal adoption of an addrefs to Jupiter in a hymn to the Creator. If a tranflator is bound, in general, to adhere with fidelity to the manners of the age and country to which his original belongs, there are fome inftances in which he will find it neceffary to make a flight facrifice to the manners of his modern readers. The ancients, in the expreffion of refentment or contempt, made ufe of many epithets and appellations which found extremely K k fhocking fhocking to our more polished ears, be cause we never hear them employed but by the meanest and most degraded of the populace. By fimilar reasoning we must conclude, that thofe expreffions conveyed no fuch mean or fhocking ideas to the ancients, fince we find them used by the most dignified and exalted characters. In the 19th book of the Odyssey, Melantho, one of Penelope's maids, having vented her fpleen against Ulyffes, and treated him as a bold beggar who had intruded himself into the palace as a fpy, is thus fharply reproved by the Queen: Παντως θαρσαλέη κύον αδδεες, ὅτι μὲ ληθεις These opprobrious epithets, in a literal translation, would found extremely offenfive offenfive from the lips of the pippar περιφρων Πηνελόπεια, Whom the poet has painted as a model of female dignity and propriety. Such tranflation, therefore, as conveying a picture different from what the poet intended, would be in reality injurious to his sense. Of this fort of refinement Mr Hobbes had no idea; and therefore he gives the epithets in their genuine purity and fimplicity: Bold bitch, faid fhe, I know what deeds you've done, We cannot fail, however, to perceive, that Mr Pope has in fact been more faithful to the fenfe of his original, by accommodating the expreffions of the fpeaker to that character which a modern reader must conceive to belong to her: K k 2 Loqua Loquacious infolent, fhe cries, forbear! A tranflator will often meet with idiomatic phrafes in the original author, to which no correfponding idiom can be found in the language of the translation. As a literal tranflation of fuch phrafes cannot be tolerated, the only resource is, to exprefs the fenfe in plain and eafy language. Cicero, in one of his letters to Papirius Pætus, fays, "Veni igitur, fi "vires, et difce jam goreyoμeras quas quæ"ris; etfi fus Minervam," Ep. ad Fam. 9. 18. The idiomatic phrase fi vires, is capable of a perfect translation by a correfponding idiom; but that which oc curs in the latter part of the fentence, etfi fus Minervam, can neither be tranf lated by a corresponding idiom, nor yet literally. |