their ages, and teach them while they live; are not in these absolutely divine infusions allowed either voice or relish for, Qui poeticas ad fores accedit, &c. (says the divine philosopher) he that knocks at the gates of the Muses, sine Musarum furore, is neither to be admitted entry, nor a touch at their thresholds; his opinion of entry, ridiculous, and his presumption impious. Nor must Poets themselves (might I a little insist on these contempts, not tempting too far your Lordship's Ulyssean patience) presume to these doors, without the truly genuine and peculiar induction. There being in Poesy a twofold rapture (or alienation of soul, as the above-said teacher terms it) one insania, a disease of the mind, and a mere madness, by which the infected is thrust beneath all the degrees of humanity: et ex homine, brutum quodammodò redditur: (for which poor Poesy, in this diseased and impostorous age, is so barbarously vilified); the other is, divinus furor, by which the sound and divinely healthful, suprà hominis naturam erigitur, et in Deum transit. One a perfection directly infused from God; the other an infection obliquely and degenerately proceeding from man. Of the divine fury, my Lord, your Homer hath ever been both first and last instance; being pronounced absolutely, τον σοφώτατον, καὶ τὸν θειότατον ποιητήν, "The most wise and most divine poet." Against whom whosoever shall open his profane mouth may worthily receive answer with this of his divine defender (Empedocles, Heraclitus, Protagoras, Epicharmus, &c., being of Homer's part) Tís oův, &c.; who against such an army, and the general Homer, dares attempt the assault, but he must be reputed ridiculous? And yet against this host, and this invincible commander, shall we have every besogne and fool a leader. The common herd, I assure myself, ready to receive it on their horns. Their infected leaders, Such men as sideling ride the ambling Muse, Whose saddle is as frequent as the stews. Whose raptures are in every pageant seen, In every wassail-rhyme and dancinggreen; When he that writes by any beam of truth Must dive as deep as he, past shallow youth. Truth dwells in gulfs, whose deeps hide shades so rich, That Night sits muffled there in clouds of pitch, More dark than Nature made her; and requires, To clear her tough mists, heaven's great fire of fires, To whom the Sun itself is but a beam. For sick souls then (but rapt in foolish dream) To wrestle with these heaven - strong mysteries, What madness is it! when their light serves eyes That are not worldy in their least aspect, But truly pure, and aim at heaven direct. Yet these none like but what the brazen head Blatters abroad, no sooner born but dead. Holding, then, in eternal contempt, my Lord, those short-lived bubbles, eternize your virtue and judgment with the Grecian monarch; esteeming not as the least of your new-year's presents, Homer, three thousand years dead, now revived, Even from that dull death that in life he lived; When none conceited him, none understood That so much life in so much death as blood Conveys about it, could mix. But when Death Drunk up the bloody mist that human breath Pour'd round about him (poverty and spite Thickening the hapless vapour) then Truth's light Glimmer'd about his poem; the pinch'd soul (Amidst the mysteries it did enrol) Brake powerfully abroad. And as we see The sun all hid in clouds, at length got free, Through some forced covert, over all the ways, Near and beneath him, shoots his vented rays Far off, and sticks them in some little glade; All woods, fields, rivers, left besides in shade: So your Apollo, from that world of light Closed in his Poem's body, shot to sight Some few forced beams, which near him, were not seen (As in his life or country), Fate and spleen Clouding their radiance; which when Death had clear'd, To far-off regions his free beams appear'd ; In which all stood and wonder'd ; striving which His birth and rapture should in right enrich. Twelve labours of your Thespian Hercules I now present your Lordship; do but please To lend life means till th' other twelve receive Equal achievement; and let Death then reave My life now lost in our patrician loves, That knock heads with the herd; in whom there moves One blood, one soul, both drown'd in one set height Of stupid envy and mere popular spite. Whose loves with no good did my least vein fill ; And from their hates I fear as little ill. Their bounties nourish not, when most they feed, But, where there is no merit or no need, Rain into rivers still, and are such showers As bubbles spring, and overflow the flowers. Their worse parts and worst men their best suborns, Like winter cows whose milk runs to their horns. And as litigious clients' books of law Earn all their deep explorings; satiate in death, ANOTHER. THE great Mæonides doth only write, ANOTHER. Whose splendour only Muses' bosoms SEVEN kingdoms strove in which should breathe. ANOTHER. HEAVEN'S fires shall first fall darken'd from his sphere, Grave Night the light weed of the Day shall wear, Fresh streams shall chase the sea, tough ploughs shall tear Her fishy bottoms, men in long date dead Shall rise and live, before Oblivion shed Those still-green leaves that crown great Homer's head. swell the womb That bore great Homer, whom Fame freed from tomb; Argos, Chios, Pylos, Smyrna, Colophone, The learn'd Athenian, and Ulyssean throne. ANOTHER. ART thou of Chios? No. Of Salamine? As little. Was the Smyrnean country thine? Nor so. Which then? Was Cuma's? Colophone? Nor one, nor other. Art thou, then, of none That Fame proclaims thee? None. Thy reason call. If I confess of one, I anger all. To the Reader.* LEST with foul hands you touch these holy Glad Scipio, viewing well this prince of rites, ghosts, Said: "O, if Fates would give this poet leave To sing the acts done by the Roman hosts, How much beyond would future times receive The same facts made by any other 243 Next hear the grave and learned Pliny use PLIN. NAT. HIST., lib. 7, cap. 29. Turned into verse, that no prose may come near Homer. WHOM shall we choose the glory of all wits, Held through so many sorts of discipline And such variety of works and spirits, But Grecian Homer? like whom none did shine For form of work and matter. And be cause Our proud doom of him may stand justified By noblest judgments, and receive applause In spite of envy and illiterate pride; Great Macedon, amongst his matchless spoils Took from rich Persia, on his fortunes cast, A casket finding, full of precious oils, Form'd all of gold, with wealthy stones enchased, He took the oils out, and his nearest friends Of others I omit, and would more fain That Homer for himself should be beloved, Who every sort of love-worth did contain. Which how I have in my conversion proved I must confess I hardly dare refer To reading judgments, since, so generally, *Custom hath made even th' ablest agents err In these translations; all so much apply Their pains and cunnings word for word to render Their patient authors, when they may as well Make fish with fowl, camels with whales, engender, Or their tongues' speech in other mouths compel. For, even as different a production Ask Greek and English, since as they in sounds And letters shun one form and unison; So have their sense and elegancy bounds As well to reach the spirit that was spent Ask'd in what better guard it might be †But as great clerks can write no English used? verse, Because, alas, great clerks! English affords, Say they, no height nor copy; a rude tongue, Since 'tis their native; but in Greek or Their writs are rare, for thence true Poesy Though them (truth knows) they have but skill to chat in, Compared with that they might say in their own; Since thither th' other's full soul cannot The ample transmigration to be shown And shame their authors with a forcèd * "Of Translation, and the natural difference of Dialects necessarily to be observed in it.” + "Ironicè.' |