a perpetual contest of genius; he must attend him in his highest flights, and soar, if he can, beyond him: and when he perceives, any time, a diminution of his powers, when he sees a drooping wing, he must raise him on his own pinions *. Homer has been judged by the best critics to fall at times beneath himself, and to offend, by introducing low images and puerile allusions. Yet how admirably is this defect veiled over, or altogether removed, by his translator Pope. In the beginning of the 8th book "the character which the sentiment requires." I have no fault to find with the precept, if so qualified. * A very ingenious critic, to whom I am indebted for a singularly able and candid review of this Essay in the European Magazine, for September and October 1798, has censured this opinion as allowing to translators a liberty of departing from that truth and fidelity of representation, which it is their first duty rigidly to observe. But in a subsequent part of the same criticism, it appears, that this difference of opinion is more a seeming than a real opposition of sentiment: and I am happy to find the opinion I have advanced on this head, sanctioned by so respectable an authority as that of M. Delille; whose translation of the Georgics of Virgil, though censurable (as I shall remark) in a few particulars, is, on the whole, a very fine performance. "Il faut etre quelquefois of the Iliad, Jupiter is introduced in great majesty, calling a council of the gods, and giving them a solemn charge to observe a strict neutrality between the Greeks and Trojans : Ἠὼς μὲν κροκόπεπλος ἐκίδιατο πᾶσαν ἐπ ̓ αίαν· Ζεὺς δὲ θεῶν ἀγορὴν ποιήσατο τερπικέραυνος, Ακροτάτη κορυφη πολυδειράδος Οὐλύμποιο· Αὐτὸς δέ σφ' αγόρευε, πεοὶ δ ̓ ἅμα πάνες ἄκεον. "AURORA with her saffron robe had spread returning light upon the world, "when Jove delighting-in-thunder sum "superieur à son original, précisément parce qu'on lui est "tres-infé-rieur." Delille Disc. Prelim. à la Trad. des Georgiques. Of the same opinion is the elegant author of the poem on Translation: Unless an author like a mistress warms, How shall we hide his faults, or taste his charms? How all his modest, latent beauties find; How trace each lovelier feature of the mind; And treat him with the dignity of love? FRANCKLIN "moned a council of the gods upon the 66 highest point of the many-headed Olym66 pus ; and while he thus harangued, all "the immortals listened with deep atten“tion.” This is a very solemn opening; but the expectation of the reader is miserably disappointed by the harangue itself, of which I shall give a literal translation. Κέκλυτέ μευ, πάνες τε θεοὶ, πᾶσαὶ τε θέαιναι, Ὄφ' ἔπω, τά με θυμὸς ἐνὶ σήθεσσι κελεύει· Μήτε τις ἦν θήλεια θεὸς τόγε, μήτε τις άρσην Πειράτω διακέρσαι ἐμὸν ἔπος· ἀλλ ̓ ἅμα πάνες Αἰνετ', ὄφρα τάχιςα τελευτήσω τάδε ἔργα. Ον δ' ἂν ἐγὼν ἀπάνευθε θεῶν ἐθέλοντα νοήσω Ἐλθόν, ἢ Τρώεσσιν ἀφηγέμεν, ἢ Δαναοῖσι, Πληγείς έ κατα κόσμον ἐλεύσεται Οὔλυμπόνδε деву ἑκὼν ρίψω ἐς Τάρταρον ἠερόεντα, H Τῆλε μαλλ', ἧχι βάθισον ὑπο χθονός ἐσι βέρεθρον, F Ζῆν ὕπατον μήτως, ἐδ' εἰ μάλα πολλὰ κάμοιτε· Αλλ' ὅτε δὴ καὶ ἐγὼ πρόφρων ἐπέλοιμι ἐξύσσαι Αὐτῇ κεν γαίη ἐρύσαιμ', αὐτῇ τε θαλάσσης Σειρην μέν κεν ἔπειτα περὶ ῥίον Οὐλύμποιο Δησαίμην· τὰ δέ κ' αὖτε μετήορα πάντα γένοιτο Τόσσον ἐγώ περί τ' εἰμὶ θεῶν, περὶ τ' εἰμὶ ἀνθρώπων "Hear me, all ye gods and goddesses, "whilst I declare to you the dictates of my inmost heart. Let neither male nor "female of the gods attempt to controvert. “what I shall say; but let all submissively assent, that I may speedily accomplish my undertakings: for whoever of you shall "be found withdrawing to give aid either 66 66 66 to the Trojans or Greeks, shall return to Olympus marked with dishonourable "wounds or else I will seize him, and “hurl him down to gloomy Tartarus, where "there is a deep dungeon under the earth, "with gates of iron, and a threshold of "brass, as far below hell, as the earth is be"low the heavens. Then he shall know "how much stronger I am than all the "other gods. But come now, Gods, and make 66 Sus 66 pend a golden chain from heaven, and hang all by one end of it, with your whole weight, gods and goddesses together: you “will never pull down from the heaven to “the earth, me, Jupiter, the supreme coun"sellor, though you should strain with your "utmost force. But when I choose to pull, "I will raise you all, with the earth and sea together, and fastening the chain to "the top of Olympus, will keep you all 66 66 suspended at it. So much am I superior "both to gods and men.” OR, as the same speech is rendered in a similar strain of tame fidelity, with the addition only of metrical rhythm, by Cowper: Gods! goddesses! inhabitants of heaven! He shall return to the Olympian height, Or I will hurl him deep into the gulphs |