Chapter VII: Preface: To the Translation of Ovid's Epistles.2 (2)

So, on Mæander's banks, when death is nigh,
The mournful swan sings her own elegy.
Not that I hope (for, oh, that hope were vain!)
By words your lost affection to regain;
But, having lost whate'er was worth my care,
Why should I fear to lose a dying prayer?
'Tis then resolved poor Dido must be left,
Of life, of honour, and of love bereft!
While you, with loosened sails, and vows, prepare
To seek a land that flies the searcher's care;
Nor can my rising towers your flight restrain,
Nor my new empire, offered you in vain.
Built walls you shun, unbuilt you seek; that land
Is yet to conquer, but you this command.
Suppose you landed where your wish designed,
Think what reception foreigners would find.
What people is so void of common sense,
To vote succession from a native prince?
Yet there new sceptres and new loves you seek,
New vows to plight, and plighted vows to break.
When will your towers the height of Carthage know?
Or when your eyes discern such crowds below?
If such a town and subjects you could see,
Still would you want a wife who loved like me.
For, oh, I burn, like fires with incense bright;
Not holy tapers flame with purer light.
Æneas is my thoughts' perpetual theme,
Their daily longing, and their nightly dream.
Yet he's ungrateful and obdurate still;
Fool that I am to place my heart so ill!
Myself I cannot to myself restore;
Still I complain, and still I love him more.
Have pity, Cupid, on my bleeding heart,
And pierce thy brother's with an equal dart.
I rave; nor canst thou Venus' offspring be,
Love's mother could not bear a son like thee.
From hardened oak, or from a rock's cold womb,
At least thou art from some fierce tigress come;
Or on rough seas, from their foundation torn,
Got by the winds, and in a tempest born:
Like that, which now thy trembling sailors fear;
Like that, whose rage should still detain thee here.
Behold how high the foamy billows ride!
The winds and waves are on the juster side.
To winter weather, and a stormy sea,
I'll owe what rather I would owe to thee.
Death thou deserv'st from heaven's avenging laws;
But I'm unwilling to become the cause.
To shun my love, if thou wilt seek thy fate,
'Tis a dear purchase, and a costly hate.
Stay but a little, till the tempest cease,
And the loud winds are lulled into a peace.
May all thy rage, like theirs, inconstant prove!
And so it will, if there be power in love.
Know'st thou not yet what dangers ships sustain?
So often wrecked, how darest thou tempt the main?
Which were it smooth, were every wave asleep,
Ten thousand forms of death are in the deep.
In that abyss the gods their vengeance store,
For broken vows of those who falsely swore;
There winged storms on sea-born Venus wait,
To vindicate the justice of her state.
Thus I to thee the means of safety show;
And, lost myself, would still preserve my foe.
False as thou art, I not thy death design;
O rather live, to be the cause of mine!
Should some avenging storm thy vessel tear,
(But heaven forbid my words should omen bear!)
Then in thy face thy perjured vows would fly,
And my wronged ghost be present to thy eye;
With threatening looks think thou behold'st me stare,
Gasping my mouth, and clotted all my hair.
Then, should forked lightning and red thunder fall,
What couldst thou say, but, I deserved them all?
Lest this should happen, make not haste away;
To shun the danger will be worth thy stay.
Have pity on thy son, if not on me;
My death alone is guilt enough for thee.
What has his youth, what have thy gods deserved,
To sink in seas, who were from fires preserved?
But neither gods nor parent didst thou bear;
Smooth stories all, to please a woman's ear,
False as the tale of thy romantic life.
Nor yet am I thy first-deluded wife;
Left to pursuing foes Creusa stayed,
By thee, base man, forsaken and betrayed.
This, when thou told'st me, struck my tender heart,[16]
That such requital followed such desert.
Nor doubt I but the gods, for crimes like these,
Seven winters kept thee wandering on the seas.
Thy starved companions, cast ashore, I fed,
Thyself admitted to my crown and bed.
To harbour strangers, succour the distrest,
Was kind enough; but, oh, too kind the rest!
Curst be the cave which first my ruin brought,
Where, from the storm, we common shelter sought!
A dreadful howling echoed round the place;
The mountain nymphs, thought I, my nuptials grace.
I thought so then, but now too late I know
The furies yelled my funerals from below.
O chastity and violated fame,
Exact your dues to my dead husband's name!
By death redeem my reputation lost,
And to his arms restore my guilty ghost!
Close by my palace, in a gloomy grove,
Is raised a chapel to my murdered love;
There, wreathed with boughs and wool, his statue stands,
The pious monument of artful hands.
Last night, methought, he called me from the dome,
And thrice, with hollow voice, cried, Dido, come!--
She comes; thy wife thy lawful summons hears,
But comes more slowly, clogged with conscious fears.
Forgive the wrong I offered to thy bed;
Strong were his charms, who my weak faith misled.
His goddess mother, and his aged sire
Borne on his back, did to my fall conspire.
Oh! such he was, and is, that, were he true,
Without a blush I might his love pursue;
But cruel stars my birth-day did attend,
And, as my fortune opened, it must end.
My plighted lord was at the altar slain,
Whose wealth was made my bloody brother's gain;
Friendless, and followed by the murderer's hate,
To foreign countries I removed my fate;
And here, a suppliant, from the natives' hands
I bought the ground on which my city stands,
With all the coast that stretches to the sea,
E'en to the friendly port that sheltered thee;
Then raised these walls, which mount into the air,
At once my neighbours' wonder, and their fear.
For now they arm; and round me leagues are made,
My scarce established empire to invade.
To man my new-built walls I must prepare,
An helpless woman, and unskilled in war.
Yet thousand rivals to my love pretend,
And for my person would my crown defend;
Whose jarring votes in one complaint agree,
That each unjustly is disdained for thee.
To proud Hyarbas give me up a prey,
For that must follow, if thou goest away;
Or to my husband's murderer leave my life,
That to the husband he may add the wife.
Go then, since no complaints can move thy mind;
Go, perjured man, but leave thy gods behind.
Touch not those gods, by whom thou art forsworn,
Who will in impious hands no more be borne;
Thy sacrilegious worship they disdain,
And rather would the Grecian fires sustain.
Perhaps my greatest shame is still to come,
And part of thee lies hid within my womb;
The babe unborn must perish by thy hate,
And perish, guiltless, in his mother's fate.
Some god, thou sayest, thy voyage does command;
Would the same god had barred thee from my land!
The same, I doubt not, thy departure steers,
Who kept thee out at sea so many years;
While thy long labours were a price so great,
As thou, to purchase Troy, would'st not repeat.
But Tyber now thou seek'st, to be at best,
When there arrived, a poor precarious guest.
Yet it deludes thy search; perhaps it will
To thy old age lie undiscovered still.
A ready crown and wealth in dower I bring,
And, without conquering, here thou art a king.
Here thou to Carthage may'st transfer thy Troy;
Here young Ascanius may his arms employ;
And, while we live secure in soft repose,
Bring many laurels home from conquered foes.
By Cupid's arrows, I adjure thee stay!
By all the gods, companions of thy way!
So may thy Trojans, who are yet alive,
Live still, and with no future fortune strive;
So may thy youthful son old age attain,
And thy dead father's bones in peace remain;
As thou hast pity on unhappy me,
Who knew no crime, but too much love of thee.
I am not born from fierce Achilles' line,
Nor did my parents against Troy combine.
To be thy wife if I unworthy prove,
By some inferior name admit my love.
To be secured of still possessing thee,
What would I do, and what would I not be!
Our Libyan coasts their certain seasons know,
When, free from tempests, passengers may go;
But now with northern blasts the billows roar,
And drive the floating sea-weed to the shore.
Leave to my care the time to sail away;
When safe, I will not suffer thee to stay.
Thy weary men would be with ease content;
Their sails are tattered, and their masts are spent.
If by no merit I thy mind can move,
What thou deniest my merit, give my love.
Stay, till I learn my loss to undergo,
And give me time to struggle with my woe:
If not, know this, I will not suffer long;
My life's too loathsome, and my love too strong.
Death holds my pen, and dictates what I say,
While cross my lap the Trojan sword I lay.
My tears flow down; the sharp edge cuts their flood,
And drinks my sorrows, that must drink my blood.
How well thy gift does with my fate agree!
My funeral pomp is cheaply made by thee.
To no new wounds my bosom I display;
The sword but enters where love made the way.
But thou, dear sister, and yet dearer friend,
Shalt my cold ashes to their urn attend.
Sichæus' wife let not the marble boast;
I lost that title, when my fame I lost.
This short inscription only let it bear;
"Unhappy Dido lies in quiet here.
"The cause of death, and sword by which she died,
"Æneas gave; the rest her arm supplied."

FOOTNOTES:

[16] Dryden here misinterprets his author:

_Hæc mihi narrâras, nec me movere_----

The line would have run more justly thus:

This struck not, while thou told'st, my tender heart.

TRANSLATIONS

FROM

OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.

DEDICATION

PREFIXED TO THE TRANSLATIONS FROM OVID's METAMORPHOSES.

This Dedication contains abundance of literary and political controversy. The first heat of the Revolution had been long over, and the losers began to assume the privilege of talking, without fear that an established government would think their complaints worthy of much notice. Dryden, whom the evils of degradation and poverty pressed severely, was not of a temper to remain silent under them, as soon as he conceived it safe to utter his grievances. In losing his places of laureat and historiographer, there was not only dishonour, but great pecuniary loss; nor was it at all a soothing addition, that his old enemy Shadwell had obtained the one, and his equivocal friend Rymer the other, of his appointments. He sets out in extremely bad humour with the government, under which he had suffered this deprivation; with those who had risen by his fall; and with himself, for having cultivated the barren field of poetry, instead of aspiring to the honours of the gown. At length, after having ventured probably as far as he thought safe, certainly as far as to excite displeasure, in flourishes of declamation, which, though expressed against ministers in general, are obviously levelled against those of the day, he turns short, and falls with great vehemence upon the whole body of critics, ancient and modern, as the natural enemies of poets and poetry. Descending to those of his own day, he singles out Rymer, who, in a piece, called, "A short View of Tragedy," published in 1692, had depreciated the modern drama in his deep admiration of the ancients. The controversy concerning the comparative merits of the ancients and moderns was now raging in the literary world. Perault had written his "Parallel," and Sir William Temple his "Essay on Ancient and Modern Learning." Wotton's "Reflections" were published in 1694, and these led the way to Swift's "Battle of the Books," in which our author is treated with great severity.

Rymer had not only espoused the cause of the ancient tragedians in the general dispute, but, as Dryden complains, had treated him slightly; and our bard was not famous for patience under such offences. He therefore retorts in this Dedication, maliciously upbraids Rymer with the fate of his fallen tragedy "Edgar;" and artfully divides the comparison between the Grecian and British dramatists, from that which Perault had instituted between the ancient poets in general and those of modern France. Our author's good taste, as well as policy, led him to take a distinction so necessary for the maintenance of his cause. Having bestowed what he thought an adequate chastisement upon Rymer, he employs the small remainder of the preface in discussing a few miscellaneous points of criticism, chiefly relating to translation.

The tone of this Dedication excited, as Dryden himself informs us, the resentment of the court, who employed Rymer to attack our author's dramatic reputation; a task which he never accomplished.[17]

FOOTNOTES:

[17] See his letter to Tonson, in which he thus expresses himself: "About a fortnight ago, I had an intimation from a friend, by letter, that one of the secretaries, I suppose Trenchard, had informed the queen, that I had abused her government, (these were his words,) in my epistle to Lord Radcliffe; and that thereupon she had commanded her historiographer to fall upon my plays, which he assures me he is now doing. I doubt not his malice, from a former hint you gave me; and if he be employed, I am confident 'tis of his own seeking, who, you know, _has spoken slightly of me in his last critique, and that gave me occasion to snarl again_."

DEDICATION OF THE THIRD MISCELLANY, 1693,

CONTAINING

TRANSLATIONS FROM OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.

TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

LORD RADCLIFFE.[18]

MY LORD,

These Miscellany Poems are by many titles yours. The first they claim, from your acceptance of my promise to present them to you, before some of them were yet in being. The rest are derived from your own merit, the exactness of your judgment in poetry, and the candour of your nature; easy to forgive some trivial faults, when they come accompanied with countervailing beauties. But, after all, though these are your equitable claims to a dedication from other poets, yet I must acknowledge a bribe in the case, which is your particular liking of my verses. It is a vanity common to all writers, to overvalue their own productions; and it is better for me to own this failing in myself, than the world to do it for me. For what other reason have I spent my life in so unprofitable a study? why am I grown old, in seeking so barren a reward as fame? The same parts and application, which have made me a poet, might have raised me to any honours of the gown, which are often given to men of as little learning and less honesty than myself. No government has ever been, or ever can be, wherein timeservers and blockheads will not be uppermost. The persons are only changed, but the same jugglings in state, the same hypocrisy in religion, the same self-interest and mismanagement, will remain for ever. Blood and money will be lavished in all ages, only for the preferment of new faces, with old consciences. There is too often a jaundice in the eyes of great men; they see not those whom they raise in the same colours with other men. All whom they affect look golden to them, when the gilding is only in their own distempered sight. These considerations have given me a kind of contempt for those who have risen by unworthy ways. I am not ashamed to be little, when I see them so infamously great; neither do I know why the name of poet should be dishonourable to me, if I am truly one, as I hope I am; for I will never do any thing that shall dishonour it. The notions of morality are known to all men; none can pretend ignorance of those ideas which are inborn in mankind; and if I see one thing, and practise the contrary, I must be disingenuous not to acknowledge a clear truth, and base to act against the light of my own conscience. For the reputation of my honesty, no man can question it, who has any of his own; for that of my poetry, it shall either stand by its own merit, or fall for want of it. Ill writers are usually the sharpest censors; for they, as the best poet and the best patron said,

When in the full perfection of decay,
Turn vinegar, and come again in play.[19]

Thus the corruption of a poet is the generation of a critic; I mean of a critic in the general acceptation of this age; for formerly they were quite another species of men. They were defenders of poets, and commentators on their works;--to illustrate obscure beauties; to place some passages in a better light; to redeem others from malicious interpretations; to help out an author's modesty, who is not ostentatious of his wit; and, in short, to shield him from the ill-nature of those fellows, who were then called Zoili and Momi, and now take upon themselves the venerable name of censors. But neither Zoilus, nor he who endeavoured to defame Virgil, were ever adopted into the name of critics by the ancients. What their reputation was then, we know; and their successors in this age deserve no better. Are our auxiliary forces turned our enemies? are they, who at best are but wits of the second order, and whose only credit amongst readers is what they obtained by being subservient to the fame of writers, are these become rebels, of slaves, and usurpers, of subjects? or, to speak in the most honourable terms of them, are they, from our seconds, become principals against us? Does the ivy undermine the oak, which supports its weakness? What labour would it cost them to put in a better line, than the worst of those which they expunge in a true poet? Petronius, the greatest wit perhaps of all the Romans, yet when his envy prevailed upon his judgment to fall on Lucan, he fell himself in his attempt; he performed worse in his "Essay of the Civil War" than the author of the "Pharsalia;" and, avoiding his errors, has made greater of his own. Julius Scaliger would needs turn down Homer, and abdicate him after the possession of three thousand years: has he succeeded in his attempt? he has indeed shown us some of those imperfections in him, which are incident to human kind; but who had not rather be that Homer than this Scaliger? You see the same hypercritic, when he endeavours to mend the beginning of Claudian, (a faulty poet, and living in a barbarous age,) yet how short he comes of him, and substitutes such verses of his own as deserve the ferula. What a censure has he made of Lucan, that "he rather seems to bark than sing?" Would any but a dog have made so snarling a comparison? one would have thought he had learned Latin as late as they tell us he did Greek. Yet he came off, with a _pace tuâ_,--by your good leave, Lucan; he called him not by those outrageous names, of fool, booby, and blockhead: he had somewhat more of good manners than his successors, as he had much more knowledge. We have two sorts of those gentlemen in our nation; some of them, proceeding with a seeming moderation and pretence of respect to the dramatic writers of the last age, only scorn and vilify the present poets, to set up their predecessors. But this is only in appearance; for their real design is nothing less than to do honour to any man, besides themselves. Horace took notice of such men in his age:

_Ingeniis non ille favet plauditque sepultis,
Nostra sed impugnat; nos nostraque lividus odit._

It is not with an ultimate intention to pay reverence to the names of Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Ben Jonson, that they commend their writings, but to throw dirt on the writers of this age: their declaration is one thing, and their practice is another. By a seeming veneration to our fathers, they would thrust out us, their lawful issue, and govern us themselves, under a specious pretence of reformation. If they could compass their intent, what would wit and learning get by such a change? If we are bad poets, they are worse; and when any of their woeful pieces come abroad, the difference is so great betwixt them and good writers, that there need no criticisms on our part to decide it. When they describe the writers of this age, they draw such monstrous figures of them, as resemble none of us; our pretended pictures are so unlike, that it is evident we never sat to them: they are all grotesque; the products of their wild imaginations, things out of nature; so far from being copied from us, that they resemble nothing that ever was, or ever can be. But there is another sort of insects, more venomous than the former; those who manifestly aim at the destruction of our poetical church and state; who allow nothing to their countrymen, either of this or of the former age. These attack the living by raking up the ashes of the dead; well knowing that if they can subvert their original title to the stage, we who claim under them must fall of course. Peace be to the venerable shades of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson! none of the living will presume to have any competition with them; as they were our predecessors, so they were our masters. We trail our plays under them; but as at the funerals of a Turkish emperor, our ensigns are furled or dragged upon the ground, in honour to the dead, so we may lawfully advance our own afterwards, to show that we succeed; if less in dignity, yet on the same foot and title, which we think too we can maintain against the insolence of our own janizaries. If I am the man, as I have reason to believe, who am seemingly courted, and secretly undermined; I think I shall be able to defend myself, when I am openly attacked; and to show, besides, that the Greek writers only gave us the rudiments of a stage which they never finished; that many of the tragedies in the former age amongst us were without comparison beyond those of Sophocles and Euripides. But at present, I have neither the leisure, nor the means, for such an undertaking. It is ill going to law for an estate, with him who is in possession of it, and enjoys the present profits, to feed his cause. But the _quantum mutatus_ may be remembered in due time. In the mean while, I leave the world to judge, who gave the provocation.

This, my lord, is, I confess, a long digression, from miscellany poems to modern tragedies; but I have the ordinary excuse of an injured man, who will be telling his tale unseasonably to his betters; though, at the same time, I am certain you are so good a friend, as to take a concern in all things which belong to one who so truly honours you. And besides, being yourself a critic of the genuine sort, who have read the best authors in their own languages, who perfectly distinguish of their several merits, and, in general, prefer them to the moderns, yet, I know, you judge for the English tragedies, against the Greek and Latin, as well as against the French, Italian, and Spanish, of these latter ages. Indeed, there is a vast difference betwixt arguing like Perault, in behalf of the French poets, against Homer and Virgil, and betwixt giving the English poets their undoubted due, of excelling Æschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles. For if we, or our greater fathers, have not yet brought the drama to an absolute perfection, yet at least we have carried it much farther than those ancient Greeks; who, beginning from a chorus, could never totally exclude it, as we have done; who find it an unprofitable incumbrance, without any necessity of entertaining it amongst us, and without the possibility of establishing it here, unless it were supported by a public charge. Neither can we accept of those lay-bishops, as some call them, who, under pretence of reforming the stage, would intrude themselves upon us, as our superiors; being indeed incompetent judges of what is manners, what religion, and, least of all, what is poetry and good sense. I can tell them, in behalf of all my fellows, that when they come to exercise a jurisdiction over us, they shall have the stage to themselves, as they have the laurel. As little can I grant, that the French dramatic writers excel the English. Our authors as far surpass them in genius, as our soldiers excel theirs in courage. It is true, in conduct they surpass us either way; yet that proceeds not so much from their greater knowledge, as from the difference of tastes in the two nations. They content themselves with a thin design, without episodes, and managed by few persons; our audience will not be pleased, but with variety of accidents, an underplot, and many actors. They follow the ancients too servilely in the mechanic rules, and we assume too much licence to ourselves, in keeping them only in view, at too great a distance. But if our audience had their tastes, our poets could more easily comply with them, than the French writers could come up to the sublimity of our thoughts, or to the difficult variety of our designs. However it be, I dare establish it for a rule of practice on the stage, that we are bound to please those whom we pretend to entertain; and that at any price, religion and good manners only excepted; and I care not much, if I give this handle to our bad illiterate poetasters, for the defence of their _Scriptions_, as they call them. There is a sort of merit in delighting the spectators, which is a name more proper for them, than that of auditors; or else Horace is in the wrong, when he commends Lucilius for it. But these common places I mean to treat at greater leisure; in the mean time submitting that little I have said to your lordship's approbation, or your censure, and chusing rather to entertain you this way, as you are a judge of writing, than to oppress your modesty with other commendations; which, though they are your due, yet would not be equally received in this satirical and censorious age. That which cannot, without injury, be denied to you, is the easiness of your conversation, far from affectation or pride; not denying even to enemies their just praises. And this, if I would dwell on any theme of this nature, is no vulgar commendation to your lordship. Without flattery, my lord, you have it in your nature, to be a patron and encourager of good poets; but your fortune has not yet put into your hands the opportunity of expressing it. What you will be hereafter, may be more than guessed, by what you are at present. You maintain the character of a nobleman, without that haughtiness which generally attends too many of the nobility; and when you converse with gentlemen, you forget not that you have been of their order. You are married to the daughter of a king; who, amongst her other high perfections, has derived from him a charming behaviour, a winning goodness, and a majestic person. The Muses and the Graces are the ornaments of your family; while the Muse sings, the Grace accompanies her voice: Even the servants of the Muses have sometimes had the happiness to hear her, and to receive their inspirations from her.[20]

I will not give myself the liberty of going farther; for it is so sweet to wander in a pleasing way, that I should never arrive at my journey's end. To keep myself from being belated in my letter, and tiring your attention, I must return to the place where I was setting out. I humbly dedicate to your lordship my own labours in this Miscellany; at the same time, not arrogating to myself the privilege, of inscribing to you the works of others who are joined with me in this undertaking, over which I can pretend no right. Your lady and you have done me the favour to hear me read my translations of Ovid; and you both seemed not to be displeased with them. Whether it be the partiality of an old man to his youngest child, I know not; but they appear to me the best of all my endeavours in this kind. Perhaps this poet is more easy to be translated than some others whom I have lately attempted; perhaps, too, he was more according to my genius. He is certainly more palatable to the reader, than any of the Roman wits; though some of them are more lofty, some more instructive, and others more correct. He had learning enough to make him equal to the best; but, as his verse came easily, he wanted the toil of application to amend it. He is often luxuriant both in his fancy and expressions, and, as it has lately been observed, not always natural. If wit be pleasantry, he has it to excess; but if it be propriety, Lucretius, Horace, and, above all, Virgil, are his superiors. I have said so much of him already in my preface to his "Heroical Epistles," that there remains little to be added in this place: For my own part, I have endeavoured to copy his character, what I could, in this translation; even, perhaps, farther than I should have done,--to his very faults. Mr Chapman, in his "Translation of Homer," professes to have done it somewhat paraphrastically, and that on set purpose; his opinion being, that a good poet is to be translated in that manner. I remember not the reason which he gives for it; but I suppose it is for fear of omitting any of his excellencies. Sure I am, that if it be a fault, it is much more pardonable than that of those, who run into the other extreme of a literal and close translation, where the poet is confined so straitly to his author's words, that he wants elbow-room to express his elegancies. He leaves him obscure; he leaves him prose, where he found him verse; and no better than thus has Ovid been served by the so-much-admired Sandys. This is at least the idea which I have remaining of his translation; for I never read him since I was a boy. They who take him upon content, from the praises which their fathers gave him, may inform their judgment by reading him again, and see (if they understand the original) what is become of Ovid's poetry in his version; whether it be not all, or the greatest part of it, evaporated. But this proceeded from the wrong judgment of the age in which he lived. They neither knew good verse, nor loved it; they were scholars, it is true, but they were pedants; and, for a just reward of their pedantic pains, all their translations want to be translated into English.

If I flatter not myself, or if my friends have not flattered me, I have given my author's sense for the most part truly; for, to mistake sometimes is incident to all men; and not to follow the Dutch commentators always, may be forgiven to a man, who thinks them, in the general, heavy gross-witted fellows, fit only to gloss on their own dull poets. But I leave a farther satire on their wit, till I have a better opportunity to show how much I love and honour them. I have likewise attempted to restore Ovid to his native sweetness, easiness, and smoothness; and to give my poetry a kind of cadence, and, as we call it, a run of verse, as like the original, as the English can come up to the Latin. As he seldom uses any synalephas, so I have endeavoured to avoid them as often as I could. I have likewise given him his own turns, both on the words and on the thought; which I cannot say are inimitable, because I have copied them, and so may others, if they use the same diligence; but certainly they are wonderfully graceful in this poet. Since I have named the synalepha, which is the cutting off one vowel immediately before another, I will give an example of it from Chapman's "Homer," which lies before me, for the benefit of those who understand not the _Latin prosodia_. It is in the first line of the argument to the first Iliad:

Apollo's priest to th' Argive fleet doth bring, &c.

There, we see, he makes it not, _the Argive_, but _th' Argive_, to shun the shock of the two vowels, immediately following each other; but, in his second argument, in the same page, he gives a bad example of the quite contrary kind:

Alpha the prayer of Chryses sings:
The army's plague, the strife of kings.

In these words, _the army's,--the_ ending with a vowel, and _armies_ beginning with another vowel, without cutting off the first, which by it had been _th' armies_, there remains a most horrible ill-sounding gap betwixt those words. I cannot say that I have every where observed the rule of the synalepha in my translation; but wheresoever I have not, it is a fault in sound. The French and the Italians have made it an inviolable precept in their versification; therein following the severe example of the Latin poets. Our countrymen have not yet reformed their poetry so far, but content themselves with following the licentious practice of the Greeks; who, though they sometimes use synalephas, yet make no difficulty, very often, to sound one vowel upon another; as Homer does, in the very first line of Alpha:

Μήνιν ἄειδε, Θεὰ, Πηληιάδεω Ἀχιλῆος

It is true, indeed, that, in the second line, in these words, μυρὶ Ἀχαιοῖς, and ἀλγὲ οὒθηκε, the synalepha, in revenge, is twice observed. But it becomes us, for the sake of euphony, rather _Musas colere severiores_, with the Romans, than to give into the looseness of the Grecians.

I have tired myself, and have been summoned by the press to send away this Dedication, otherwise I had exposed some other faults, which are daily committed by our English poets; which, with care and observation, might be amended. For, after all, our language is both copious, significant, and majestical, and might be reduced into a more harmonious sound. But, for want of public encouragement, in this iron age, we are so far from making any progress in the improvement of our tongue, that in few years we shall speak and write as barbarously as our neighbours.

Notwithstanding my haste, I cannot forbear to tell your lordship, that there are two fragments of Homer translated in this Miscellany; one by Mr Congreve, (whom I cannot mention without the honour which is due to his excellent parts, and that entire affection which I bear him,) and the other by myself. Both the subjects are pathetical; and I am sure my friend has added to the tenderness which he found in the original, and, without flattery, surpassed his author. Yet I must needs say this in reference to Homer, that he is much more capable of exciting the manly passions than those of grief and pity. To cause admiration is, indeed, the proper and adequate design of an epic poem; and in that he has excelled even Virgil. Yet, without presuming to arraign our master, I may venture to affirm, that he is somewhat too talkative, and more than somewhat too digressive. This is so manifest, that it cannot be denied in that little parcel which I have translated, perhaps too literally: there Andromache, in the midst of her concernment and fright for Hector, runs off her bias, to tell him a story of her pedigree, and of the lamentable death of her father, her mother, and her seven brothers. The devil was in Hector if he knew not all this matter, as well as she who told it him; for she had been his bedfellow for many years together: and if he knew it, then it must be confessed, that Homer, in this long digression, has rather given us his own character, than that of the fair lady whom he paints. His dear friends, the commentators, who never fail him at a pinch, will needs excuse him, by making the present sorrow of Andromache to occasion the remembrance of all the past; but others think, that she had enough to do with that grief which now oppressed her, without running for assistance to her family. Virgil, I am confident, would have omitted such a work of supererogation. But Virgil had the gift of expressing much in little, and sometimes in silence; for, though he yielded much to Homer in invention, he more excelled him in his admirable judgment. He drew the passion of Dido for Æneas, in the most lively and most natural colours that are imaginable. Homer was ambitious enough of moving pity, for he has attempted twice on the same subject of Hector's death; first, when Priam and Hecuba beheld his corpse, which was dragged after the chariot of Achilles; and then in the lamentation which was made over him, when his body was redeemed by Priam; and the same persons again bewail his death, with a chorus of others to help the cry. But if this last excite compassion in you, as I doubt not but it will, you are more obliged to the translator than the poet; for Homer, as I observed before, can move rage better than he can pity. He stirs up the irascible appetite, as our philosophers call it; he provokes to murder, and the destruction of God's images; he forms and equips those ungodly man-killers, whom we poets, when we flatter them, call heroes; a race of men who can never enjoy quiet in themselves, until they have taken it from all the world. This is Homer's commendation; and, such as it is, the lovers of peace, or at least of more moderate heroism, will never envy him. But let Homer and Virgil contend for the prize of honour betwixt themselves; I am satisfied they will never have a third concurrent. I wish Mr Congreve had the leisure to translate him, and the world the good nature and justice to encourage him in that noble design, of which he is more capable than any man I know. The Earl of Mulgrave and Mr Waller, two of the best judges of our age, have assured me, that they could never read over the translation of Chapman, without incredible pleasure and extreme transport. This admiration of theirs must needs proceed from the author himself; for the translator has thrown him down as low as harsh numbers, improper English, and a monstrous length of verse could carry him. What then would he appear in the harmonious version of one of the best writers, living in a much better age than was the last? I mean for versification, and the art of numbers; for in the drama we have not arrived to the pitch of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. But here, my lord, I am forced to break off abruptly, without endeavouring at a compliment in the close. This Miscellany is, without dispute, one of the best of the kind which has hitherto been extant in our tongue; at least, as Sir Samuel Tuke has said before me, a modest man may praise what is not his own. My fellows have no need of any protection; but I humbly recommend my part of it, as much as it deserves, to your patronage and acceptance, and all the rest to your forgiveness. I am,

My _Lord_,
Your Lordship's most obedient servant,
JOHN DRYDEN.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] Lord Radcliffe was the eldest son of Francis, Earl of Derwentwater, by Catherine, daughter of Sir William Fenwick. He married Mary Tudor, a natural daughter of Charles II., by Mary Davies, an actress, who had the fortune to attract his majesty's attention, by singing in D'Avenant's "Rivals," the famous mad song,

My lodging is on the cold ground.

Lord Radcliffe succeeded to his father in 1696-7, and died 29th April, 1705.

[19] These lines are quoted from Lord Dorset's address "to Mr Edward Howard, on his incomparable, incomprehensible poem, called, The British Princes:"

Wit, like tierce claret, when it 'gins to pall,
Neglected lies, and's of no use at all;
But, in its full perfection of decay,
Turns vinegar, and comes again in play.

[20] The poet apparently speaks of Lady Radcliffe, who probably inherited those vocal powers, with which her mother, Moll Davies, charmed Charles II. The Grace might be her daughter.

THE

FIRST BOOK

OF

OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.

Of bodies changed to various forms I sing:--
Ye gods, from whence these miracles did spring,
Inspire my numbers with celestial heat,
Till I my long laborious work complete;
And add perpetual tenor to my rhymes,
Deduced from nature's birth to Cæsar's times.
Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball,
And heaven's high canopy, that covers all,
One was the face of nature, if a face;
Rather a rude and indigested mass;
A lifeless lump, unfashioned, and unframed,
Of jarring seeds, and justly chaos named.
No sun was lighted up the world to view;
No moon did yet her blunted horns renew;
Nor yet was earth suspended in the sky,
Nor, poised, did on her own foundations lie;
Nor seas about the shores their arms had thrown;
But earth, and air, and water, were in one.
Thus air was void of light, and earth unstable,
And water's dark abyss unnavigable.
No certain form on any was imprest;
All were confused, and each disturbed the rest:
For hot and cold were in one body fixed;
And soft with hard, and light with heavy, mixed.
But God or Nature, while they thus contend,
To these intestine discords put an end.
Then earth from air, and seas from earth, were driven,
And grosser air sunk from ætherial heaven.
Thus disembroiled, they take their proper place; }
The next of kin contiguously embrace; }
And foes are sundered by a larger space. }
The force of fire ascended first on high,
And took its dwelling in the vaulted sky.
Then air succeeds, in lightness next to fire,
Whose atoms from unactive earth retire.
Earth sinks beneath, and draws a numerous throng,
Of ponderous, thick, unwieldy seeds along.
About her coasts unruly waters roar,
And, rising on a ridge, insult the shore.
Thus when the God, whatever God was he,
Had formed the whole, and made the parts agree,
That no unequal portions might be found,
He moulded earth into a spacious round;
Then, with a breath, he gave the winds to blow,
And bade the congregated waters flow:
He adds the running springs, and standing lakes,
And bounding banks for winding rivers makes.
Some part in earth are swallowed up, the most
In ample oceans, disembogued, are lost:
He shades the woods, the values he restrains
With rocky mountains, and extends the plains.
And as five zones the ætherial regions bind,
Five, correspondent, are to earth assigned;
The sun, with rays directly darting down,
Fires all beneath, and fries the middle zone:
The two beneath the distant poles complain
Of endless winter, and perpetual rain.
Betwixt the extremes, two happier climates hold
The temper that partakes of hot and cold.
The fields of liquid air, inclosing all,
Surround the compass of this earthly ball:
The lighter parts lie next the fires above;
The grosser near the watery surface move:
Thick clouds are spread, and storms engender there, }
And thunder's voice, which wretched mortals fear, }
And winds that on their wings cold winter bear. }
Nor were those blustering brethren left at large,
On seas and shores their fury to discharge:
Bound as they are, and circumscribed in place,
They rend the world, resistless, where they pass,
And mighty marks of mischief leave behind;
Such is the rage of their tempestuous kind.
First, Eurus to the rising morn is sent,
(The regions of the balmy continent,)
And eastern realms, where early Persians run,
To greet the blest appearance of the sun.
Westward the wanton Zephyr wings his flight,
Pleased with the remnants of departing light;
Fierce Boreas with his offspring issues forth,
To invade the frozen waggon of the North;
While frowning Auster seeks the southern sphere,
And rots, with endless rain, the unwholesome year.
High o'er the clouds, and empty realms of wind,
The God a clearer space for heaven designed;
Where fields of light and liquid æther flow,
Purged from the ponderous dregs of earth below.
Scarce had the Power distinguished these, when straight
The stars, no longer overlaid with weight,
Exert their heads from underneath the mass, }
And upward shoot, and kindle as they pass, }
And with diffusive light adorn the heavenly place. }
Then, every void of nature to supply,
With forms of gods he fills the vacant sky:
New herds of beasts he sends, the plains to share; }
New colonies of birds, to people air; }
And to their oozy beds the finny fish repair. }
A creature of a more exalted kind
Was wanting yet, and then was Man designed;
Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast,
For empire formed, and fit to rule the rest:
Whether with particles of heavenly fire
The God of nature did his soul inspire;
Or earth, but new divided from the sky,
And pliant still, retained the etherial energy;
Which wise Prometheus tempered into paste,
And, mixed with living streams, the godlike image cast.
Thus, while the mute creation downward bend
Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend,
Man looks aloft, and, with erected eyes,
Beholds his own hereditary skies.--
From such rude principles our form began,
And earth was metamorphosed into man.

THE GOLDEN AGE.

The Golden Age was first; when man, yet new, }
No rule but uncorrupted reason knew; }
And, with a native bent, did good pursue. }
Unforced by punishment, unawed by fear,
His words were simple, and his soul sincere.
Needless was written law, where none opprest;
The law of man was written in his breast.
No suppliant crowds before the judge appeared; }
No court erected yet, nor cause was heard; }
But all was safe, for conscience was their guard. }
The mountain trees in distant prospect please,
Ere yet the pine descended to the seas;
Ere sails were spread, new oceans to explore; }
And happy mortals, unconcerned for more, }
Confined their wishes to their native shore. }
No walls were yet, nor fence, nor moat, nor mound;
Nor drum was heard, nor trumpet's angry sound;
Nor swords were forged; but, void of care and crime,
The soft creation slept away their time.
The teeming earth, yet guiltless of the plough,
And unprovoked, did fruitful stores allow:
Content with food, which nature freely bred,
On wildings and on strawberries they fed;
Cornels and bramble-berries gave the rest,
And falling acorns furnished out a feast.
The flowers, unsown, in fields and meadows reigned;
And western winds immortal spring maintained.
In following years the bearded corn ensued
From earth unasked, nor was that earth renewed.
From veins of vallies milk and nectar broke,
And honey sweating through the pores of oak.

THE SILVER AGE.

But when good Saturn, banished from above,
Was driven to hell, the world was under Jove.
Succeeding times a silver age behold,
Excelling brass, but more excelled by gold.
Then Summer, Autumn, Winter did appear,
And Spring was but a season of the year.
The sun his annual course obliquely made,
Good days contracted, and enlarged the bad.
Then air with sultry heats began to glow,
The wings of winds were clogged with ice and snow;
And shivering mortals, into houses driven,
Sought shelter from the inclemency of heaven.
Those houses, then, were caves, or homely sheds,
With twining oziers fenced, and moss their beds.
Then ploughs for seed the fruitful furrows broke,
And oxen laboured first beneath the yoke.

THE BRAZEN AGE.

To this next came in course the Brazen Age:
A warlike offspring prompt to bloody rage,
Not impious yet,----

THE IRON AGE.

----Hard steel succeeded then;
And stubborn as the metal were the men.
Truth, modesty, and shame, the world forsook;
Fraud, avarice, and force, their places, took.
Then sails were spread to every wind that blew;
Raw were the sailors, and the depths were new:
Trees, rudely hollowed, did the waves sustain,
Ere ships in triumph ploughed the watery plain.
Then land-marks limited to each his right;
For all before was common as the light.
Nor was the ground alone required to bear
Her annual income to the crooked share;
But greedy mortals, rummaging her store,
Digged from her entrails first the precious ore;
Which next to hell the prudent gods had laid,
And that alluring ill to sight displayed.
Thus cursed steel, and more accursed gold,
Gave mischief birth, and made that mischief bold;
And double death did wretched man invade,
By steel assaulted, and by gold betrayed.
Now (brandished weapons glittering in their hands)
Mankind is broken loose from moral bands:
No rights of hospitality remain,
The guest, by him who harboured him, is slain;
The son-in-law pursues the father's life;
The wife her husband murders, he the wife;
The step-dame poison for the son prepares;
The son inquires into his father's years.
Faith flies, and Piety in exile mourns;
And Justice, here oppressed, to heaven returns.

THE GIANT'S WAR.