Why to mute fish should thou thyself discover, To ghosts, that have no use of it; Maids bury: and, for aught we know, That do as swiftly waste : And still old lovers yield the place to new. The good your bounties do; When rigorous Winter binds you up with frost. As in the ocean thou No privilege dost know Above th' impurest streams that thither flow. Tell her, kind Flood! when this has made her sad, Thyself yet still behind: But she, fond maid, shuts and seals up the spring. LOVE GIVEN OVER. It is enough; enough of time and pain Think that already lost which thou must never gain. Three of thy lustiest and thy freshest years, (Toss'd in storms of hopes and fears) Like helpless ships that be Set on fire i' th' midst o' the sea, Alas! what comfort is 't that I am growin the town. THE FORCE OF LOVE. THROW an apple up an hill, Down the mountain flows the stream, Stop the meteor in its flight, To impede the course of Love. Salamanders live in fire, Eagles to the skies aspire, Metals grow within the mine, Man is born to live and die, Does the cedar love the mountain? Have all been burnt in love, and all been drown'd | Does the shepherd love his crook ? in tears. Th' ambition of thy love, Or the willow court the brook? Thus by nature all things move, Like a running stream, to Love. Is the valiant hero bold? Does the miser doat on gold? And not one star in Heaven offers to take thy part. Seek the birds in spring to pair? If e'er I clear my heart of this desire, If e'er it home to its breast retire, A lover burnt like me for ever dreads the fire. The pox, the plague, and every small disease Breathes the rose-bud scented air As the wencher loves a lass, We're by those serpents bit; but we're devour'd When young maidens courtship shun, by these. When the Moon out-shines the Sun, Ir a man should undertake to translate Pindar ✓ word for word, it would be thought, that one madman had translated another; as may appear, when he that understands not the original, reads the verbal traduction of him into Latin prose, than which nothing seems more raving. And sure, rhyme, without the addition of wit, and the spirit of poetry, (quod nequeo monstrare & sentio tantum) would but make it ten times more distracted than it is in prose. We must consider in Pindar the great difference of time betwixt his age and ours, which changes, as in pictures, at least the colours of poetry; the no less difference betwixt the religions and customs of our countries; and a thousand particularities of places, persons, and manners, which do but confusedly appear to our eyes at so great a distance. And lastly (which were enough alone for my purpose) we must consider, that our ears are strangers to the music of his numbers, which, sometimes (especially in songs and odes) And I almost without any thing else, makes an excellent poet; for though the grammarians and critics have laboured to reduce his verses into regular feet and measures (as they have also those of the Greek and Latin comedies) yet in effect they are little better than prose to our ears. would gladly know what applause our best pieces of English poesy could expect from a Frenchman or Italian, if converted faithfully, and word for word, into French or Italian prose. And when we have considered all this, we must needs confess, that, after all these losses sustained by Pindar, all we can add to him by our wit or invention (not deserting still his subject) is not like to make him a richer man than he was in his own country. This is in some measure to be applied to all translations; and the not observing of it, is the cause that all which ever I yet saw are so much inferior to their originals. The like happens too in pictures, from the same root of exact imitation; which, being a vile and un own Muse; for that is a liberty which this kind of poetry can hardly live without. QUEEN of all harmonious things, Dancing words, and speaking strings! Begin, begin thy noble choice, Jove and Pisa claim thy song. Alcides offer'd-up to Jove; Alcides too thy strings may move: [prove! But, oh! what man to join with these can worthy Theron to no man gives place, Ev'n his own swift forefathers has outgone, worthy kind of servitude, is incapable of producing any thing good or noble. I have seen originals, both in painting and poesy, much more beautiful than their natural objects; but I never saw a copy better than the original: which indeed cannot be otherwise; for men resolving in no case to shoot beyond the mark, it is a thousand to one if they shoot not short of it. It does not at all trouble me, that the grammariars, perhaps, will not suffer this libertine way of rendering foreign authors to be called translation; for I am not so much enamoured of the name translator, as not to wish rather to be something better, though it want yet a name. I speak not so much all this, in defence of my manner of translating, or imitating, (or what other title they please) the two ensuing Odes of Pindar; for that would not deserve half these words; as by this occasion to rectify the opinion of divers men upon this matter. The Psalms of David (which I believe to have been in their original, to the Hebrews of his time, though not to our Hebrews of Buxtorfius's making, the inost exalted pieces of poesy) are a great example of They through rough ways, o'er many stops they what I have said; all the translators of which, (even Mr. Sandys himself; for in despite of popular errour, I will be bold not to except him) for this very reason, that they have not sought to supply the lost excellencies of another language with new ones in their own, are so far from doing honour, or at least justice, to that divine poet, that methinks they revile him worse than Shimei. And Buchanan himself (though much the best of them all, and indeed a great person) comes in my opinion no less short of David, than his country does of Judea. Upon this ground I have, in these two Odes of Pindar, taken, left out, and added, what I please; nor make it so much my aim to let the reader know precisely what he spoke, as what was his way and manner of speaking; which has not been yet (that I know of) introduced into English, though it be the noblest and highest kind of writing in verse; and which might, perhaps, be put into the list of Pancirolus, among the lost inventions of antiquity. This essay is but to try how it will look (Since things once past, and fled out of thine in an English habit: for which experiment I have chosen one of his Olympic, and another of his Nemæan Odes; which are as followeth. THE SECOND OLYMPIC ODE OF Written in praise of Theron, prince of Agrigentum, (a famous city in Sicily, built by his ancestors) who, in the seventy-seventh Olympic, won the chariot-prize. He is commended from the nobility of his race, (whose story is often toucht on) from his great riches, (an ordinary common-place in Pindar) from his hospitality, munificence, and other virtues. The Ode (according to the constant custoin of the poet) consists more in digressions, than in the main subject: and the reader must not be choqued to hear him speak so often of his past, Till on the fatal bank at last Thev Agrigentum built, the beauteous eye Which does itself i' th' river by Then chearful notes their painted years did sing, wing; Their genuine virtues did more sweet and clear, The firm word, which forbids things to decay! For the past sufferings of this noble race hand, Hearken no more to thy command) Let present joys fill up their place, And with Oblivion's silent stroke deface Of foregone ills the very trace. Do these happy changes shine So, in the crystal palaces Nor trembles at the bright embraces of the Deity Or will ensure our vessel in this faithless sea? Of gods that cannot lie, for they foretell but Here all the heroes, and their poets, live; their own will. Erynnis saw 't, and made in her own seed The innocent parricide to bleed; She slew his wrathful sons with mutual blows: But better things did then succeed, And brave Thersander, in amends for what was past, arose. Brave Thersander was by none, In war, or warlike sports, out-done. Thou, Theron, his great virtues dost revive; He in my verse and thee again does live. Loud Olympus, happy thee, By not being all thine own; [lame. This without that is blind, that without this is Nor is fair Virtue's picture seen aright But in Fortune's golden light. Riches alone are of uncertain date, And on short man long cannot wait; The virtuous make of them the best, And put them out to Fame for interest; With a frail good they wisely buy The solid purchase of eternity: They, whilst life's air they breathe, consider well, and know Th'account they must hereafter give below; In deep unlovely vaults, By the just decres of Jove, The heavy necessary effects of voluntary faults. Ne'er winks in clouds, or sleeps in night, cloy: There neither earth nor sea they plough, For food, that whilst it nourishes does decay, Fill all their little dross was purg'd at last, The furnace had no more to do. Then in rich Saturn's peaceful state Were they for sacred treasures plac'd, The Muse-discover'd world of Islands Fortunate. oft-footed winds with tuneful voices there Dance through the perfum'd air. Wise Rhadamanthus did the sentence give, ble make. To Theron, Muse! bring back thy wandering song, Whon those bright troops expect impatiently; How, noble archer! do thy wanton arrows fly About her humble food does hovering fly; love; Whilst Nature, like the sacred bird of Jove, Now bears loud thunder; and anon with silent joy The beauteous Phrygian boy Defeats the strong, o'ertakes the flying prey,. And sometimes basks in th' open flames of day And sometimes too he shrowds His soaring wings among the clouds. Leave, wanton Muse! thy roving flight; To thy loud string the well-fletcht arrow put; And, lest the name of verse should give. Malicious men pretext to misbelieve, (A sacred oath no poets dare No more than gods do that of Styx prophane) A better man, or greater-soul'd, was born; No man near him should be poor! heart. But in this thankless world the givers Tis now the cheap and frugal fa-hion, Wrongs and outrages to do, Lest men should think we owe. Appear'd not half so bright, Such monsters, Theron! has thy virtue found: Through earth, and air, and seas, and up to th But all the malice they profess, Thy secure honour cannot wound; For thy vast bounties are so numberless, That them or to conceal, or else to tell, Is equally impossible! THE FIRST NEMEAN ODE OF Chromius, the son of Agesidamus, a young BEAUTEOUS Ortygia! the first breathing-place Of bright Latona, where she bred Th' original new Moon! heavenly vault. "To thee, O Proserpine! this isle I give," Said Jove, and, as he said, "And thou, O isle!" said he, "for ever thrive, As Heaven with stars, so let The country thick with towns be set, Wise in peace, and bold in wars! Of thousand glorious towns the nation, stellation! Go to great Syracuse, my Muse, and wait And When thy lyre's voice shall but begin; mass; They mov'd the vital lump in every part, And a vast bounty, apt and fit For the great dower which Fortune made to it, Who saw'st her tender forehead ere the horns To lose th' occasion Fortune does afford were grown! Who, like a gentle scion newly started out, From Syracusa's side dost sprout! When they young Chromius' chariot drew, Young Chromius, too, with Jove began; 'Tis them alone the Muse too does approve, |