ander's death, in consequence of a wound received in fighting against the Malli, and the effect which that report had upon the Grecian army, says, Καὶ τὰ μεν πρῶτα οιμωγὴ ἦν τῆς σραλιᾶς ξυμ πάσης, ἄλλες ἄλλῳ παραδιδόνος τὴν φήμην παν σάμενοι δε τῆς ὀιμωγης, ἄθυμοι τε καὶ ἄποροι ἦσαν, ὅσις μὲν ἐξηγέμενος ἔσται τῆς τραβιᾶς, (πολλοις γὰρ δὴ ἐν ἴσω τὰ τῆς ἀξιώσεως ἐδόκει πρὸς τε ἀΰλε ̓Αλεξάνδρε καὶ πρὸς Μακεδόνων καθεςηκεναι)· "At first there was a general voice of la❝mentation through the whole army; each man conveying the disastrous intelligence to his neighbour: but when that lamenta❝tion abated, all became anxious and doubt"ful who should be the proper person to "take the chief command: (for there were ❝ several officers who, in the judgment both "of the Macedonians and of Alexander "himself, seemed to be equally deserving "of that important charge)." Such is the literal sense of the passage: let us now observe how it is rendered by Facius. ~ Ac primùm quidem ejulatus ac fremitus totis castris fuit, regis sui fortunam deplorantium: Tantum imperatorem ac ducem, in tanto atatis flore, tantisque rebus gestis, in ipso rerum cardine, quum is totum orbem terrarum imperio suo subjecturus videretur, sibi immatura morte ereptum. Invidisse Deos felicitati ejus, qui invictum per tot gentes regem, atque omnibus terris formidabilem, et Deo quam mortali similiorem, è vita sustulissent. Deinde ad se conversi, sortem suam deplorare ac lamentari, animi simul et consilii inopes, quisnam tanti exercitus dux, posthac futurus esset, inter se mæsti requirebant. Plerique rem Alexandri et Macedonum in æquo ponebant. In this piece of splendid declamation, which must have been allowed the praise of eloquence, if it had appeared in the speech of an orator, the translator is guilty of three egregious faults: He has mutilated in one part his author's sense; for "Αλλου ἄλλῳ παραδιδόνος Thμn is not translated at all: he has, in the last clause of the sentence, mistaken the author's meaning, in the words, wonλoïs yàg dù iv low tñç áž¡wσews, &c.; and he has, through the whole, introduced a variety of additional ideas, and reflections political and moral, re garding the fortunes and fate of Alexander, of which there is not a trace in the original; thus interpolating, disfiguring and disguising his author, and utterly departing from his style and manner, so as scarcely to leave a resemblance between the copy and its prototype, CHAP. IV. Of the freedom allowed in Poetical Transla tion-Progress of Poetical Translation in England,-B, Johnson, Holiday, Sandys, Fanshaw, Dryden. Roscommon's Essay on Translated Verse,-Pope's Homer. In the preceding chapter, in treating of the liberty assumed by translators, of adding to, or retrenching from the ideas of the origi nal, several examples have been given, where that liberty has been assumed with propriety both in prose composition and in poetry. In the latter, it is more peculiarly allowable. "I "conceive it," says Sir John Denham, “a vul→ 66 gar error in translating poets, to affect be ing fidus interpres. Let that care be with "them who deal in matters of fact or mat |
