I am now drawing towards a conclusion, and suspect your lordship is very glad of it. But permit me first to own what helps I have had in this undertaking. The late earl of Lauderdale sent me over his new translation of the Encis, which he had ended before I engaged in the same design; neither did I then intend it; but some proposals being afterwards made me by my bookseller, I desired his lordship's leave, that I might accept them, which he freely granted; and I have his letter yet to show for that permission. He resolved to have printed his work, which he might have done two years before I could publish mine; and had performed it, if death had not prevented him. But having his manuscript in my hands, I consulted it as often as I doubted of my author's sense for no man understood Virgil better than that learned nobleman. His friends, I hear, have yet another and more correct copy of that transla- is too ambitious an ornament to be his; and, tion by them: which had they pleased to have given the public, the judges must have been convinced that I have not flattered him. Besides this help, which was not inconsiderable, Mr. Congreve has done me the favour to review the neis, and compare my version with the original. I shall never be ashamed to own that this excellent young man has showed me many faults, which I have endeavoured to correct. It is true, he might have easily found more, and then my translation had been more perfect. in particular to men and ladies of the first quality, who have been better bred than to be too nicely knowing in the terms. In such cases, it is enough for a poet to write so plainly that he may be understood by his readers; to avoid impropriety, and not affect to be thought learned in all things. I have omitted the four preliminary lines of the first Æneid, because I think them inferior to any four others in the whole poem, and consequently believe they are not Virgil's. There is too great a gap betwixt the adjective vicina in the second line, and the substantive arva in the latter end of the third, which keeps his meaning in obscurity too long; and is contrary to the clearness of his style. Two other worthy friends of mine, who desire to have their names concealed, seeing me straitened in my time, took pity on me, and gave me the life of Virgil; the two prefaces to the Pastorals and the Georgics, and all the arguments in prose to the whole translation: which, perhaps, has caused a report that the two first poems are not mine. If it had been true that I had taken their verses for my own, I might have gloried in their aid; and, like Terence, have fathered the opinion that Scipio and Lælius joined with me. But the same style being continued through the whole, and the same laws of versification observed, are proofs sufficient that this is one man's work: and your lordship is too well acquainted with my manner to doubt that any part of it is another's. That your lordship may see I was in earnest when I promised to hasten to an end, I will not give the reasons why I writ not always in the proper terms of navigation, land-service, or in the cant of any profession. I will only say, that Virgil has avoided those proprieties, because he writ not to mariners, soldiers, astronomers, gardeners, peasants, &c. but to all in general, and Ut quamvis avido, Gratum opus agricolis, are all words unnecessary, and independent of what he said before. Horrentia Martis arma. Horrentia is is worse than any of the rest. Arma, virumque cano; Trojæ qui primus ab oris. Scarce a word without an r, and the vowels, for the greater part, sonorous. The prefacer began with Ille ego, which he was constrained to patch up in the fourth line with At nunc, to make the sense cohere. And if both those words are not notorious botches, I am much deceived, though the French translator thinks otherwise. For my own part, I am rather of the opinion, that they were added by Tucca and Varius, than retrenched. I know it may be answered by such as think Virgil the author of the four lines, that he asserts his title to the Æneis, in the beginning of this work, as he did to the two former, in the last lines of the fourth Georgic. I will not reply otherwise to this, than by desiring them to compare these four lines with the four others, which we know are his, because no poet but he alone could write them. If they cannot distinguish creeping from flying, let them lay down Virgil, and take up Ovid de Ponto in his stead. My poet to prove his claim. His own majestic mien I, who before, with shepherds in the groves, field master needed not the assistance of that preliminary | wonder if I often fall asleep. You took my Aurengzeb into your protection, with all his faults; and I hope here cannot be so many, because I translate an author who gives me such examples of correctness. What my jury may be, I know not; but it is good for a criminal to plead before a favourable judge; if I had said partial, would your lordship have forgiven me? Or will you give me leave to acquaint the world, that I have many Revolution? Though I never was reduced to beg times been obliged to your bounty since the A plenteous crop of rising corn to yield, a charity, nor ever had the impudence to ask one, Manur'd the glebe, and stock'd the fruitful plain, earl of Dorset, much less of any other; yet, either of your lordship or your noble kinsman the (A poem grateful to the greedy swain), &c. If there be not a tolerable line in all these six, bered me: so inherent it is in your family not to when I least expected it, you have both rememthe prefacer gave me no occasion to write better. forget an old servant. It looks rather like ingratiThis is a just apology in this place. But I have done great wrong to Virgil in the whole transla-obliged, I have appeared so seldom to return my tude on my part, that where I have been so often tion: want of time, the inferiority of our language, the inconvenience of rhyme and all the other excuses I have made, may alleviate my fault, but cannot justify the boldness of my undertaking. What avails it me to acknowledge freely, that I have not been able to do him right in any line! For even my own confession makes against me; and it will always be returned upon me, Why then did you attempt it? to which no other answer can be made, than that I have done him less injury than any of his former libellers. sured. thanks, and where I was also so sure of being well received. Somewhat of laziness was in the case, and somewhat too of modesty, but nothing of disrespect or unthankfulness. I will not say that your lordship has encouraged me to this presump. in public, I may expose your judgment to be cention, lest, if my labours meet with no success think them worth an answer; and if your lordAs for my own enemies, I shall never ship has any, they will not dare to arraign you produce somewhat better of their own, than your for want of knowledge in this art, till they can Essay on Poetry. It was on this consideration that I have drawn out my preface to so great a up the pencil with disdain; being satisfied before-length. Had I not addressed to a poet and a critic hand that I could make some small resemblance of the first magnitude, I had myself been taxed of him, though I must be content with a worse likeness. A sixth Pastoral, a Pharmaceutria, a single Orpheus, and some other features, have been exactly taken; but those holiday authors write for pleasure, and only showed us what they could have done, if they would have taken pains to perform the whole. What they called his picture, had been drawn at length so many times by the daubers of almost all nations, and still so unlike him, that I snatched Be pleased, my lord, to accept, with your wonted goodness, this unworthy present which I make you. I have taken off one trouble from you, of defending it, by acknowledging its imper fections: and, though some part of them are covered in the verse (as Ericthonius rode always in a chariot to hide his lameness), such of them as cannot be concealed you will please to connive at, though, in the strictness of your judgment, you cannot pardon. If Homer was allowed to nod sometimes, in so long a work, it will be no for want of judgment, and shamed my patron for of your country, the encouragement of good your lordship's most humble, most obliged, THE FIRST BOOK OP THE ÆNEIS. THE ARGUMENT. The grace bestow'd on ravish'd Ganymed, Such time, such toil, requir'd the Roman name, THE Trojans, after a seven years' voyage, set sail for Italy; but are overtaken by the dreadful storm, which Eolus raises at Juno's request. The tempest sinks one, and scatters the rest. Neptune dr ves off the winds, and calms the sea. Eneas, with his own ship, and six more, arrives safe at an African port. Venus complains to Jupiter of her son's misfortunes. Jupiter comforts her, and sends Mercury to procure him a kind reception among the Carthaginians. Eneas," going out to discover the country, meets his mother in the shape of an huntress, who conveys him in a cloud to Carthage: where he sees his friends whom he thought lost, and receives a kind entertainment from the queen. Dido, by a device of Venus, begins to have a passion for him, and after some discourse with him, desires the history of his adventures since the siege of Troy, which is the subject of the two following books. ARMS and the man I sing, who, forc'd by fate, O, Muse! the causes and the crimes relate, Against the Tyber's mouth, but far away, An ancient town was seated on the sea: A Tyrian colony; the people made Stout for the war, and studious of their trade. Carthage the name, belov'd by Juno more Than her own Argos, or the Samian shore. Here stood her chariot, here, if Heaven were kind, The seat of awful empire she design'd. Yet she had heard an ancient rumour fly (Long cited by the people of the sky) That times to come should see the Trojan race Her Carthage ruin, and her towers deface; Nor, thus confin'd, the yoke of sovereign sway Should on the necks of all the nations lay. She ponder'd this, and fear'd it was in fate; Nor could forget the war she wag'd of late, For conquering Greece against the Trojan state. Besides, long causes working in her mind, And secret seeds of envy, lay behind. Deep graven in her heart, the doom remain'd Of partial Paris, and her form disdain'd Now scarce the Trojan fleet with sails and oars Had left behind the fair Sicilian shores; Entering with cheerful shouts the watery reign, And ploughing frothy furrows in the main; When, labouring still with endless discontent, The queen of Heaven did thus her fury vent. "Then am I vanquish'd, must I yield," said she, And must the Trojans reign in Italy? So fate will have it, and Jove adds his force; Nor can my power divert their happy course. Could angry Pallas, with revengeful spleen, The Grecian navy burn, and drown the men? She, for the fault of one offending foe, The bolts of Jove himself presum'd to throw: With whilwinds from beneath she toss'd the ship, And bare expos'd the bosom of the deep: Then, as an eagle gripes the trembling game, The wretch yet hissing with her father's flame, She strongly seiz'd, and, with a burning wound, Transfix'd and naked, on a rock she bound. But I, who walk in awful state above, The majesty of Haven, the sister-wife of Jove, For length of years my fruitless force employ Against the thin remains of ruin'd Troy. What nations now to Juno's power will pray, Or offerings on my slighted altars lay?" Thus rag'd the goddess, and, with fury fraught, The restless regions of the storms she sought; Where, in a spacious cave of living stone, The tyrant Eolus from his airy throne, With power imperial curbs the struggling winds, | And sounding tempests in dark prisons binds, This way, and that, th' impatient captives tend, And, pressing for release, the mountains rend: High in his hall, th' undaunted monarch stands, And shakes his sceptre, and their rage commands: Which did he not, their unresisted sway Would sweep the world before them in their way: Earth, air, and seas, through empty space would roll, And Heaven would fly before the driving soul! Impos'd a king, with arbitrary sway, "O Eolus! for to thee the king of Heaven Twice seven, the charming daughters of the main, To this the god-" "Tis yours, O queen! to will Then bulg'd at once, and in the deep was lost! Meantime imperial Neptune heard the sound Of raging billows breaking on the ground: Displeas'd, and fearing for his watery reign, He rear'd his awful head above the main: Serene in majesty, then roll'd his eyes Around this space of earth, and sers, and skies. He saw the Trojan fleet dispers'd, distress'd, By stormy winds and wintery heaven oppress'd. Full well the god his sister's envy knew, And what her aims and what her arts pursue : He summon'd Eurus and the western blast, And first an angry glance on both he cast: Then thus rebuk'd: "Audacious winds! from This bold attempt, this rebel insolence? [whence Is it for you to ravage seas and land, Unauthoriz'd by my supreme command? To raise such mountains on the troubled main? Whom I-But first 'tis fit the billows to restrain, And then you shall be taught obedience to my Hence, to your lord my royal mandate bear, [reign. The realms of ocean and the fields of air Are mine, not his by fatal lot to me The liquid empire fell, and trident of the sea. His power to hollow caverns is confin'd, There let him reign, the jailor of the wind: With hoarse commands his breathing subjects call, And boast and bluster in his empty hall!" He spoke; and while he spoke, he smooth'd the sea, Dispell'd the darkness, and restor❜d the day: Cymothoë, Triton, and the seagreen train Of beauteous nymphs, and daughters of the main, Clear from the rocks the vessels with their hands; The god himself with ready trident stands, And opes the deep, and spreads the moving sands; Then heaves them off the shoals: where'er he guides His finny coursers, and in triumph rides, The waves unruffle, and the sea subsides. As when in tumults rise th' ignoble crowd, Mad are their motions, and their tongues are loud; And stones and brands in rattling vollies fly, And all the rustic arms that fury can supply; If then some grave and pious man appear, They hush their noise, and lend a listening ear; He soothes with sober words their angry mood, And quenches their innate desire of blood: So when the father of the flood appears, And o'er the seas his sovereign trident rears, Their fury fails: he skims the liquid plains, High on his chariot, and with loosen'd reins Majestic moves along, and awful peace maintains. The weary Trojans ply their shatter'd oars To nearest land, and make the Libyan shores. Within a long recess there lies a bay, An island shades it from the rolling sea, And forms a port secure for ships to ride, Broke by the jutting land on either side: In double streams the briny waters glide. Betwixt two rows of rocks, a sylvan scene Appears above, and groves for ever green: A grot is form'd beneath, with mossy seats, To rest the Nereids, and exclude the heats. Down through the crannies of the living walls The crystal streams descend in murmuring falls. No hawsers need to bind the vessels here, Nor bearded anchors, for no storms they fear. Seven ships within this happy harbour meet, The thin remainders of the scatter'd fleet. The Trojans, worn with toils, and spent with woes, Leap on the welcome land, and seek their wish'd repose. First, good Achates, with repeated strokes No vessels there in view: but, on the plain, war. The jars of generous wine (Acestes' gift, When Venus saw, she with a lively look, On various seas, by various tempests tost, [coast. Of Romans, rising from the Trojan line, And there in quiet rules, and crown'd with fame; First gave a holy kiss; then thus replies: 66 Daughter, dismiss thy fears: to thy desire The fates of thine are fix'd, and stand entire. Thou shalt behold thy wish'd Lavinian walls, And, ripe for Heaven, when fate Æneas calls, Then shalt thou bear him up, sublime, to me; No councils have revers'd my firm decree. And, lest new fears disturb thy happy state, These words he spoke; but spoke not from his Know, I have search'd the mystic rolls of fate : heart: His outward smiles conceal'd his inward smart. The quarry share, their plenteous dinner haste: Their hunger thus appeas'd, their care attends Thy son (nor is th' appointed season far)- |