Left under covert of the midnight shade, The infidious foe the naked town invade. 650 Suffice, to night, thefe orders to obey; A nobler charge fhall rouze the dawning day. 655 But foon as morning paints the fields of air, 660 665 670 Onλurepas, an epithet of fcandalous import, upon which Porphyry and the Greek Scholiaft have faid but too much. I know no man that has yet had the impudence to tranflate that remark, in regard of which it is politeness to imitate the Barbarians, and fay, Græcum eft, non legitur. For my part, I leave it as a motive to fome very curious perfons of both fexes to study the Greek language. As As the next dawn, the last they shall enjoy, Shall crush the Greeks, and end the woes of Troy. 675 680 Proud Troy they hated, and her guilty race. The troops exulting fate in order round, 685 And beaming fires illumin'd all the ground. When V. 679. Full becatombs, &c.] The fix lines that follow being a tranflation of four in the original, are added from the authority of Plato in Mr. Barnes his edition: That author cites them in his fecond Alcibiades. There is no doubt of their being genuine, but the queftion is only, whether they are rightly placed here? I fhall not pretend to decide upon a point which will doubtlefs be the fpeculation of future criticks. V. 687. As when the moon, &c.] This comparison is inferior to none in Homer. It is the most beautiful night-piece that can be found in poetry. He prefents you with a profpect of the heavens, the feas, and the earth: The ftars fhine, the air is ferene, the world enlighten'd, and the moon mounted in glory. Euftathius remarks that When not a breath disturbs the deep ferene, 690 695 The conscious swains, rejoicing in the fight, Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light. And lighten glimm'ring Xanthus with their rays: 700 The long reflections of the distant fires Gleam on the walls, and tremble on the fpires. Full that any does not fignify the moon at full, for then the light of the ftars is diminish'd or loft in the greater brightness of the moon. And others correct the word φαεινήν το φάει νῆν, for φάει νέην; but this criticism is forced, and I fee no neceffity why the moon may not be faid to be bright, tho it is not in the full. A Poet is not obliged to fpeak with the exactness of Philosophy, but with the liberty of Poetry. V. 703. A thousand piles. Homer in his catalogue of the Grecian fhips, tho' he does not recount exprefly the number of the Greeks, has given fome hints from whence the fum of their army may be collected. But in the fame book where he gives an account of the Trojan army, and relates the names of the leaders and nations of the auxiliaries, he fays nothing by which we may infer the number of the army of the befieged. To fupply therefore that omiffion, he has taken occafion by this piece of poetical arithmetick, to inform his reader, I Full fifty guards each flaming pile attend, Whofe umber'd arms, by fits, thick flashes fend. 705 reader, that the Trojan army amounted to 50,000. That the affiftant nations are to be included herein, appears from what Dolon fays in 1. 10. that the auxiliaries were encamped that night with the Trojans. This paffage gives me occafion to animadvert upon a mistake of a modern writer, and another of my own. The Abbè Terasson, in a late treatise against Homer, is under a grievous error, in saying that all the forces of Troy and the auxiliaries cannot be reasonably fuppofed from Homer to be above ten thousand men. He had intirely overlook'd this place, which fays there were a thousand fires, and fifty men at each of them. See my obfervations on the fecond book, where these fires by a flip of my memory are called funeral piles: I fhould be glad it were the greatest error I have committed in these notes. 糖 V. 707. The coursers o'er their heaps of corn.] I durft not take the fame liberty with M. Dacier, who has omitted this circumftance, and does not mention the horses at all. In the following line, the last of the book, Homer has given to the Morning the epithet fairfpheard or bright-tbron'd, kúpovov nw. I have already taken notice in the preface of the method of tranflating the epithets of Homer, and must add here, that it is often only the uncertainty the moderns lie under, of the true genuine fignification of an ancient word, which caufes the many various conftructions of it. So that it is probable the author's own words, at the time he used them, never meant half fo many things as we tranflate them into. Madam Dacier generally obferves one practice as to these throughout her verfion: She renders almost every fuch epithet in Greek by two or three in French, from a fear of lofing the leaft part of its fignificance. This perhaps may be excufable in profe; tho' at beft it makes the whole much more verbose and tedious, and is rather like writing a dictionary than rendring an author: But in verfe, every reader knows fuch a redoubling of epithets would not be tolerable. A Poet has therefore only to chufe that, which most agrees with the tenor and main intent of the particular paffage, or with the genius of poetry itfelf. It It is plain that too fcrupulous an adherence to many of thefe, gives the tranflation an exotic, pedantic, and whimfical air, which it is not to be imagined the original ever had. To call a hero the great artificer of flight, the fwift of foot, or the borse-tamer, thefe give us ideas of little peculiarities, when in the author's time they were epithets ufed only in general to fignify alacrity, agility and vigour. A common reader would imagine from these fervile verfions, that Diomed and Achilles were foot-racers, and Hector, a horse-courfer, rather than that any of them were heroes. A man fhall be called a faithful tranflator for rendring modas xvs in English, swift-footed; but laugh'd at if he fhould tranflate our English word dextrous into any other language, right-handed. The END of VOL. II. |