What's this, ye Gods! what can it be? Bold Honour stands up in the gate, And fhall this phantom me oppose? Noify nothing! ftalking fhade! By what witchcraft wert thou made? But I fhall find out counter-charms, Thy airy devilship to remove, From this circle here of love. Sure I fhall rid myself of thee, Unlike to every other fprite, Thou attempt'ft not men t'affright, So much as of original fin, Such charms thy beauty wears as might Defires in dying confefs'd faints excite : Thou with strange adultery, Doft in each breaft a brothel keep; And fome enjoy thee when they fleep. Who to fuch multitudes did give The root and caufe of fin, but only Eve. Though in thy breaft fo quick a pity be, That a fly's death 's a wound to thee; Though favage and rock-hearted those Appear, that weep not ev'n Romance's woes; Yet ne'er before was tyrant known, Whofe rage was of fo large extent; The ills thou doft are whole thine own; Thou 'rt principal and inftrument: In all the deaths that come from you, You do the treble office do Of judge, of torturer, and of weapon too. Thou lovely inftrument of angry Fate, Which God did for our faults create! Which, fweet as health, yet like a plague doft kill! Thou kind, well-natur'd tyranny Which no man can, or would, escape! She. W DIALOGUE. HAT have we done? what cruel paffion mov'd thee, Thus to ruin her that lov'd thee? Me thou'ft robb'd; but what art thou Shame fucceeds the fhort-liv'd pleasure; So foon is fpent, and gone, this thy ill-gotten treasure! He. We have dene no harm; nor was it theft in me, But nobleft charity in thee. What though the flower itself do wafte, The effence from it drawn does long and fweeter laft. He. Never, my dear, was honour yet undone By Love, but Indifcretion. Unlcfs it let-in air, for ever fhines and burns. She. Thou firft, perhaps, who didit the fault commit, Wilt make thy wicked boaft of it; He. Whoe'er his fecret joys has open laid, Tis you the conqueror are, 'tis you me too. She. Though public punishment we escape, the fin That worm which now the core does wafte, When long 't has gnaw'd within, will break the fkin at laft. BATHING IN THE RIVER. HE fifh around her crowded, as they do And all with as much ease might taken be, For ne'er did light so clear She. Curfe on thine arts! methinks I hate thee Though every night the fun himself fet there. now; And yet I'm fure I love thee too! I'm angry; but my wrath will prove Thou haft this day undone me quite; Yet wilt undo me more should'ft thou not come at night. VERSES UPON A LOST WAGER. S foon hereafter will I wagers lay A tongue fo bleft by nature and by art, Though what you faid had not been true, And Fate will change rather than you should ¡ye. 'Tis true, if human Reason were the guide, She faid, fhe faid herself it would be fo; Never fo justly, fure, before, Error the name of blindness bore; 'There's no man that has eyes would bet for me. If Truth itself (as other angels do When they defcend to human view) In a material form would deign to fhine, "Twould imitate or borrow thine: So dazzling bright, yet so tranfparent clear, Which could thy shape naked like Truth espy! Yet this loft wager cofts me nothing more Which he were bound howe'er to pay? Thy wondrous beauty and thy wit Why to mute fish should'st thou thyself discover, As fome from men their buried gold commit Maids bury; and, for aught we know, I laugh'd the wanton play to view ; And fill old lovers yield the place to new. Then tell her what your pride doth cost, Th' ambition of thy love, Metals grow within the mine, Lufcious grapes upon the vine; Still the needle marks the pole; Parts are equal to the whole: And not one ftar in heaven offers to take thy 'Tis a truth as clear, that Love part. If e'er I clear my heart from this defire, If e'er it home to its breast retire, A lover burnt like me for ever dreads the fire. We're by thofe ferpents bit, but we're devour'd by these. Alas! what comfort is 't that I am grown Quickens all, below, above. Man is born to live and die, Does the cedar love the mountain? Is the valiant hero bold? Who has not only fack'd, but quite burnt down, Breathes the rofe-bud fcented air? the town. Roll it down, it never ftops Down the mountain flows the ftream, Stop the meteor in its flight, Salamanders live in fire, Should you this deny, you 'll prove As the wencher loves a lafs, When young maidens courtship fhun, EPIGRAM, ON THE POWER OF LOVE. N. B. This is delivered down by tradition as a production of Cowley; and was spoken at the Westminster-School election, on the following fubject: "Nullis amor eft medicabilis berbis."—OVID. OL Daphne fees, and feeing her admires, Had any remedy for Love been known, PINDARIC ODES, WRITTEN IN IMITATION OF THE STYLE AND MANNER OF THE ODES OF PINDAR. "Pindarici fontis qui non expalluit hauftus."-HOR. I. EP. III. 3. I PRE FAC E. F a man fhould undertake to tranflate Pindar word for word, it would be thoug that one mad-man had tranflated another; as may appear, when he that underftand not the original, reads the verbal traduction of him into Latin profe, than which nothin seems more raving. And fure, rhyme, without the addition of wit, and the spirit poetry (quod nequco monftrare & fentio tantum") would but make it ten times mo diftracted than it is in profe. We must confider in Pindar the great difference of tim betwixt his age and ours, which changes, as in pictures, at least the colours of poetry the no lefs difference betwixt the religions and cuftoms of our countries; and a tho fand particularities of places, perfons, and manners, which do but confufedly appear! our eyes at fo great a distance. And lastly (which were enough alone for my purpof we must confider that our ears are ftrangers to the mufic of his numbers, which fom times (efpecially in fongs and odes) almoft without any thing elfe, makes an excelle poet; for though the grammarians and critics have laboured to reduce his verfes in regular feet and measures (as they have also those of the Greek and Latin comedie yet in effect they are little better than profe to our ears. And I would gladly kno what applause our beft pieces of English pocfy could expect from a Frenchman Italian, if converted faithfully, and word for word, into French or Italian profe. Ar when we have confidered all this, we must needs confefs, that after all thefe loffes fu tained by Pindar, all we can add to him by our wit or invention (not deferting still b fubject) is not like to make him a richer man than he was in his own country. Th is in fome measure to be applied to all tranflations; and the not obferving of it, is th cause that all which ever I yet faw, are fo much inferior to their originals. The li happens too in pictures, from the fame root of exact imitation; which, being a vi and unworthy kind of fervitude, is incapable of producing any thing good or nobl I have feen originals, both in painting and poefy, much more beautiful than their n tural objects; but I never faw a copy better than the original: which indeed cannot otherwife; for, men refolving in no cafe to fhoot beyond the mark, it is a thousand one if they fhoot not fhort of it. It does not at all trouble me that the grammaria perhaps will not fuffer this libertine way of rendering foreign authors to be calle Tranflation; for I am not fo much enamoured of the name Tranflator, rather to be fomething better, though it want yet a name. I fpeak not fo much all th in defence of my manner of tranflating, or imitating (or what other title they pleaf the two enfuing Odes of Pindar; for that would not deferve half thefe words; as this occafion to rectify the opinion of divers men upon this matter. The Pfalms as not to wi 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 moft exalted pieces of poefy,) are a great example of what I have faid; all the tranflators of which (even Mr. Sandys himself; for in defpite of popular error, 1 will be bold not to except him) for this very reason, that they have not fought to fupply the loft excellencies of another language with new ones in their own, are fo far from doing honour, or at least justice, to that divine poet, that methinks they revile him worse than Shimei. And Buchanan himfelf (though much the best of them all, and indeed a great perfon) comes in my opinion no lefs fhort of David, than his country does of Judea. Upon this ground I have, in thefe two Odes of Pindar, taken, left out, and added, what I please; nor make it fo much my aim to let the reader know precifely 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 nobleft and higheft kind of writing in verfe; and which might, perhaps, be put into the lift of Pancirolus, among the loft inventions of antiquity. This effay is but to try how it will look in an English habit: for which experiment, I have chofen one of his Olympic, and another of his Nemean Odes; which are as followeth. THE SECOND OLYMPIC ODE OF They Agrigentum built, the beauteous eye PINDAR. Written in praife of Theron, prince of Agrigen. tum (a famous city in Sicily, built by his auceftors) who, in the feventy-feventh Olympic, won the chariot-prize. He is commended from the nobility of his race (whofe ftory is often toucht on); from his great riches (an ordinary common-place in Pindar); from his hofpitality, munificence, and other virtues. The Ode (according to the conftant cuftom of the Poet) confifts more in digreffions, than in the main fubject: and the Reader muft not be choqued to hear him fpeak fo often of his own Mufe; for that is a liberty which this kind of poetry can hardly live without. UEEN of all harmonious things, Q words, Itrings! What God, what Hero, wilt thou fing? Begin, begin thy noble choice, And let the hills around reflect the image of thy voice. Of fair-fac'd Sicily; With pride and joy efpy. Then cheerful notes their painted years did fing, Their genuine virtues did more sweet and clear, To which, great fon of Rhea! fay Sitt'ft to behold thy facred fhow; Lofty as that, and smooth as this. For the paft fufferings of this noble race And with Oblivion's filent ftroke deface Of foregone ills the very trace. In no illuftrious line Do thefe happy changes fhine More brightly, Theron! than in thine. Of the blue-ey'd Nereides, Her cruel midwife, Thunder, bless; Nor trembles at the bright embraces of the Deity. |