Douglas's Aeneid

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The University Press, 1920 - 252 pages
 

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Page 88 - The third way is that of imitation, where the translator, if now he has not lost that name, assumes the liberty not only to vary from the words and sense, but to forsake them both, as he sees occasion : and taking only some general hints from the original, to run division on the ground-work, as he pleases.
Page 89 - The only true motive for putting poetry into a fresh language must be to endow a fresh nation, as far as possible, with one more possession of beauty.
Page 92 - Now he would slight the matter for the music, and now the music for the matter ; but no, — he must deal to each alike. Sometimes too a flaw in the work galls him, and he would fain remove it, doing for the poet that which his age denied him ; but no, — it is not in the bond.
Page 101 - And armed hosts, an unexpected force, Break from the bowels of the fatal horse. Within the gates, proud Sinon throws about The flames; and foes for entrance press without, With thousand others, whom I fear to name, More than from Argos or Mycenae came. To sev'ral posts their parties they divide; Some block the narrow streets, some scour the wide: The bold they kill, th' unwary they surprise; Who fights finds death, and death finds him who flies. The warders of the gate but scarce maintain Th' unequal...
Page 86 - Virgil called upon me in every line for some new word; and I paid so long, that I was almost bankrupt...
Page 158 - Scottish language is as different from English as Aragonese from Castilian. The King speaks, besides, the language of the savages who live in some parts of Scotland and on the islands.
Page 83 - He who sits down to Dryden's translation of Virgil, with the original text spread before him, will be at no loss to point out many passages that are faulty, many indifferently understood, many imperfectly translated, some in which dignity is lost, others in which bombast is substituted in its stead. But the unabated vigour and spirit of the version more than overbalances these and all its other deficiencies.
Page 85 - His words are not only chosen, but the places in which he ranks them for the sound. He who removes them from the station wherein their master set them spoils the harmony. What he says of the Sibyl's prophecies may be as properly applied to every word of his: they must be read in order as they lie; the least breath discomposes them and somewhat of their divinity is lost.
Page 80 - He is to exhibit his author's thoughts in such a dress of diction as the author would have given them, had his language been English : rugged magnificence is not to be softened : hyperbolical ostentation is not to be repressed, nor sententious affectation to have its points blunted. A translator is to be like his author : it is not his business to excel him.
Page 127 - To have a text corrupt in many places, and in many doubtful, is, among the authors that have written since the use of types, almost peculiar to Shakespeare. Most writers, by publishing their own works, prevent all various readings, and preclude all conjectural criticism.

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