CHAPTER X. It is less difficult to attain the Ease of Original Composition in Poetical, than in Prose Translation.-Lyric Poetry admits of the greatest Liberty of Translation.-Examples distinguishing Paraphrase from Translation, from Dryden, Lowth, Fontenelle, Prior, Anguillara, Hughes. Ir may perhaps appear paradoxical to assert, that it is less difficult to give to a poetical translation all the ease of original composition, than to give the same degree of ease to a prose translation. Yet the truth of this assertion will be readily admitted, if assent is given to that observation, which I before endeavoured to illustrate, viz. That a superior degree of liberty is allowed to a poetical translator in amplifying, retrenching from, and embellishing his original, than to a prose translator. For without some portion of this liberty, there can be no ease of composition; and where the greatest liberty. is allowable, there that ease will be most apparent, as it is less difficult to attain to it *. For the same reason, among the different species of poetical composition, the lyric is "It is almost impossible," says Dryden, in reference to his own poetical translations, "to translate verbally, and "at the same time to translate well. The verbal copier is " encumbered with so many difficulties cr at once, that he can He is to consider, at never disentangle himself from all. "the same time, the thought of the author, and his words, "and to find out the counterpart to each in another lan guage; and besides this, he is to confine himself to the compass of numbers and the slavery of rhyme. It is * like dancing on ropes with fettered legs: A man can shun "a fall by using caution, but the gracefulness of motion is "not to be expected: and when we have said the best of it, "it is but a foolish task: for no sober man would put him"self into a danger, for the applause of escaping without "breaking his neck." that which allows of the greatest liberty in translation; as a freedom both of thought and expression is agreeable to its character. Yet even in this, which is the freest of all species of translation, we must guard against licentiousness; and perhaps the more so, that we are apt to persuade ourselves that the less caution is necessary. The difficulty indeed is, where so much freedom is allowed, to define what is to be accounted licentiousness in poetical translation. A moderate liberty of amplifying and retrenching the ideas of the original, has been granted to the translator of prose; but is it allowable, even to the translator of a lyric poem, to add new images and new thoughts to those of the original, or to enforce the sentiments by illustrations which are not in the original? As the limits between free translation and paraphrases are more easily perceived than they can be well defined, instead of giving a general answer to this question, I think it safer to give my opinion upon particular examples. DR Lowth has adapted to the present times, and addressed to his own countrymen, a very noble imitation of the 6th ode of the 3d book of Horace: Delicta majorum immeritus lues, &c. The greatest part of this composition is of the nature of parody; but in the version of the following stanza there is perhaps but a slight excess of that liberty which may be allowed to the translator of a lyric poet: Motus doceri gaudet Ionicos Matura virgo, et fingitur artubus De tenero meditatur ungui, The ripening maid is vers'd in every dangerous art, In wanton mask to lead the way, To move the pliant limbs, to roll the luring eye; In empty noise and vain expence ; To celebrate with flaunting air The midnight revels of the fair: Studious of every praise, but virtue, truth, and sense. HERE the translator has indeed superadded no new images or illustrations; but he has, in two parts of the stanza, given a moral application which is not in the original: "That ill adorns the form, while it cor66 rupts the heart;" and "Studious of every praise, but virtue, truth, and sense.' These moral lines are unquestionably a very high improvement of the original; but they seem to me to exceed the liberty allowed in a professed translation of a poem. 66 In that fine translation by Dryden, of the 29th ode of the 3d book of Horace, which upon the whole is paraphrastical, the version of the two following stanzas has no more licence than what is justifiable : Fortuna savo læta negotio, et Nunc mihi, nunc alii benigna. Laudo manentem: si celeres quatit Virtute me involvo, probamque Pauperiem sine dote quæro. |