The Iliads of Homer. Homer

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       Himself was equall'd in Mæonides.

      Next hear the grave and learned Pliny use

       His censure of our sacred poet's muse.

       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 because

       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 enchas'd,

       He took the oils out, and his nearest friends

       Ask'd in what better guard it might be us'd?

       All giving their conceits to sev'ral ends,

       He answer'd: "His affections rather choos'd

       An use quite opposite to all their kinds,

       And Homer's books should with that guard be serv'd,

       That the most precious work of all men's minds

       In the most precious place might be preserv'd.

       The Fount of Wit was Homer, Learning's Sire,

       And gave antiquity her living fire."

      Volumes of like praise I could heap on this,

       Of men more ancient and more learn'd than these,

       But since true virtue enough lovely is

       With her own beauties, all the suffrages

       Of others I omit, and would more fain

       That Homer for himself should be belov'd,

       Who ev'ry sort of love-worth did contain.

       Which how I have in my conversion prov'd

       I must confess I hardly dare refer

       To reading judgments, since, so gen'rally,

       Custom hath made ev'n th' ablest agents err [1]

       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 compell.

       For, ev'n as diff'rent 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

       In their distinguish'd natures, and require

       Only a judgment to make both consent

       In sense and elocution; and aspire,

       As well to reach the spirit that was spent

       In his example, as with art to pierce

       His grammar, and etymology of words.

       But as great clerks can write no English verse, [2]

       Because, alas, great clerks! English affords,

       Say they, no height nor copy; a rude tongue,

       Since 'tis their native; but in Greek or Latin

       Their writs are rare, for thence true Poesy sprung;

       Though them (truth knows) they have but skill to chat in,

       Compar'd with that they might say in their own;

       Since thither th' other's full soul cannot make

       The ample transmigration to be shown

       In nature-loving Poesy; so the brake

       That those translators stick in, that affect

       Their word-for-word traductions (where they lose

       The free grace of their natural dialect,

       And shame their authors with a forcéd gloss)

       I laugh to see; and yet as much abhor [3]

       More license from the words than may express

       Their full compression, and make clear the author;

       From whose truth, if you think my feet digress,

       Because I use needful periphrases,

       Read Valla, Hessus, that in Latin prose,

       And verse, convert him; read the Messines

       That into Tuscan turns him; and the gloss

       Grave Salel makes in French, as he translates;

       Which, for th' aforesaid reasons, all must do;

       And see that my conversion much abates

       The license they take, and more shows him too,

       Whose right not all those great learn'd men have done,

       In some main parts, that were his commentors.

       But, as the illustration of the sun

       Should be attempted by the erring stars,

       They fail'd to search his deep and treasurous heart;

       The cause was, since they wanted the fit key

       Of Nature, in their downright strength of Art. [4]

       With Poesy to open Poesy:

       Which, in my poem of the mysteries

       Reveal'd in Homer, I will clearly prove;

       Till whose near birth, suspend your calumnies,

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