Translators From England

"How have I sat, where piped the pensive wind, To hear his harp by British Fairfax strung; Prevailing poet, whose undoubting mind Believed the magic wonders which he sung. Hence at each sound imagination glows; [Hence, at each picture, vivid life starts here!] Hence his warm lay with softest sweetness flows; Melting it flows, pure, num'rous, strong and clear; And fills th' impassion'd heart, and wins th' harmonious ear."

"Spenser and Fairfax both flourished in the reign of Queen Elizabeth: great masters in our language, and who saw much farther into the beauties of our numbers than those who immediately followed them. Milton was the poetical son of Spenser, and Mr. Waller of Fairfax, for we have our lineal descents and clans as well as other families. Spenser more than once insinuates that the soul of Chaucer was transfused into his body, and that he was begotten by him two hundred years after his decease. Milton has acknowledged to me that Spenser was his original, and many besides myself have heard our famous Waller own that he derived the harmony of his numbers from the Godfrey of Bulloigne, which was turned into English by Mr. Fairfax."

"The golden sun rose from the silver wave, And with his beams enamelled every green."

"Why like a tender girl dost thou complain! That strives to reach the mother's breast in vain; Mourns by her side, her knees embraces fast, Hangs on her robes, and interrupts her haste; Yet, when with fondness to her arms she's rais'd, Still mourns and weeps, and will not be appeas'd!"

"For malice will with joy the lie receive, Report, and what it wishes true, believe."

"A poet, blest beyond the poet's fate, Whom Heaven kept sacred from the Proud and Great: Foe to loud praise, and friend to learned ease, Content with science in the vale of peace. Calmly he looked on either life, and here Saw nothing to regret, or there to fear; From Nature's temperate feast rose satisfied, Thanked Heaven that he lived, and that he died."

"Beware of flattery! 'tis a flowery weed, Which oft offends the very idol-vice, Whose shrine it would perfume."

"Wedded love is founded on esteem."

"O blissful poverty! Nature, too partial! to thy lot assigns Health, freedom, innocence, and downy peace, Her real goods: and only mocks the great With empty pageantries!"

"Fear, guilt, despair, and moon-struck frenzy rush On voluntary death: the wise and brave, When the fierce storms of fortune round 'em roar, Combat the billows with redoubled force: Then, if they perish ere the port is gained, They sink with decent pride; and from the deep Honour retrieves them, bright as rising stars."

"A while she stood Transformed by grief to marble, and appeared Her own pale monument; but when she breathed The secret anguish of her wounded soul, So moving were the plaints! they would have soothed The stooping falcon to suspend his flight, And spare his morning prey."

"No man living better deserves the character of an honest and ingenious man; no one I would sooner depend upon for all the parts of a good writer and good friend—free from the vanities and weaknesses of both; whose honour and trust, I dare say, are as sacred as his writings are blameless in morality, and whose life and conduct are as correct as they."

"Although the mutual laughter may seem six of one and half-a-dozen of the other, it is not. The Christian is profoundly mad merely by the standards of the world. To the world the wicked seem wise, but are mad in the sight of God. The Christian is touched by the Infinite and will not only have the last laugh at the end of time: even now he laughs more insanely than the worldlings."

"Moria and stultitia are both rendered nowadays as 'folly', but both have far stronger senses than folly has now. They imply derangement of mind, madness, mania. Such are the defects attributed to Christians by the worldly-wise. And vice-versa."

"When reading the Renaissance authors who spread their religious ideas by laughter rather than by thumbscrew and stake, we find that they do not limit themselves to the few places in Scripture where laughter is presented as desirable and good. Both theology and their own sense of fun lead them to find laughter from one end of the Bible to the other."

"But hear, ye gods! and Heaven's great ruler, hear, With due regard, a king's and father's prayer! My dear, dear Pallas, if the fates ordain Safe to return, and bless these eyes again: With age, pain, sickness, this one blessing give; On this condition I'll endure to live. But oh! if fortune has decreed his doom, Now, now, by death, prevent my woes to come; Now, while my hopes and fears uncertain flow, Now, ere she lifts her hand to strike the blow; While in these feeble arms I strain the boy, My sole delight, my last surviving joy. Ere the sad news of his untimely doom Shall bow this head with sorrow to the tomb!"

"Ye subterranean gods! whose awful sway The gliding ghosts and silent shades obey: O Chaos, hear! and Phlegethon profound! Whose solemn empire stretches wide around! Give me, ye great tremendous powers! to tell Of scenes and wonders in the depths of Hell; Give me your mighty secrets to display From those black realms of darkness to the day."

"The shrill echoes ring amidst the skies."

"I proved unfaithful to my former spouse, And now I reap the fruits of broken vows!"

"Smooth lies the road to Pluto's gloomy shade, And hell's black gates for ever stand displayed, But 'tis a long unconquerable pain, To climb to these ethereal realms again."

"A mighty tree, that bears a golden bough."

"But oh! may Earth her dreadful gulf display, And gaping snatch me from the golden day; May I be hurled, by Heaven's almighty fire, Transfixed with thunder, and involved in fire, Down to the shades of Hell, from realms of light, The deep, deep shades of everlasting night."

"Be this your nobler praise in times to come, These your imperial arts, ye sons of Rome! O'er distant realms to stretch your awful sway, To bid those nations tremble and obey; To crush the proud, the suppliant foe to rear, To give mankind a peace, or shake the world with war."

"Poor pitied youth! ... Bring fragrant flowers, the whitest lilies bring, With all the purple beauties of the spring; These gifts at least, these honours I'll bestow On the dear youth, to please his shade below."

"Thrice round her neck my eager arms I threw; Thrice from my empty arms the phantom flew, Swift as the wind, with momentary flight, Swift as a fleeting vision of the night."

"So from a brazen vase the trembling stream Reflects the lunar or the solar beam: Swift and elusive of the dazzled eyes, From wall to wall the dancing glory flies: Thence to the ceiling shoot the glancing rays, And o'er the roof the quivering splendor plays."

"Now on a towering arch of waves we rise, Heaved on the bounding billows, to the skies. Then, as the roaring surge retreating fell, We shoot down headlong to the depths of hell."

"The more closely one studies Nietzsche's work, the less inclined one is to look outside it for an elucidation of its meaning or an explanation of its origin."

"The defects of German philosophy are those of professionalism: a closed atmosphere, books instead of life, inability to communicate discoveries to the world at large, contempt for good style, inbreeding, lack of general culture, gruesome earnestness. The defects of the cultured philosophe are those of amateurism: too many interests, superficiality, the cultivation of good style as an end in itself, the sacrifice of truth to wit, lack of intellectual honesty, philosophizing but no philosophy, inconsistency. Nietzsche achieves a balance between these two types of mind and two styles of expression: he is profound but not obscure; he aims at good style but reconciles it with good thinking; he is serious but not earnest; he is a sensitive critic of the arts and of culture but not an aesthete; he is an aphorist and epigrammist, but his aphorisms and epigrams derive from a consistent philosophy; he is the wittiest of philosophers, but he rarely succumbs to the temptation to sacrifice truth to a witty phrase; he has many interests but never loses sight of his main interests. He achieves, especially in his later works, a conciseness and limpidity notoriously rare in German writing: no modern thinker of a like profundity has had at his command so flexible an instrument of expression."

"Infernal gods, who rule the shades below, Chaos and Phlegethon, the realms of woe; Grant what I've heard I may to light expose, Secrets which earth, and night, and hell inclose!"

"Arms! arms! my friends, with speed my arms supply, 'Tis our last hour, and summons us to die; My arms!—in vain you hold me,—let me go— Give, give me back this moment to the foe. 'Tis well—we will not tamely perish all, But die revenged, and triumph in our fall."

"Mr. Pitt, no doubt, had many advantages above Dryden in this arduous province; as he was later in the attempt, he had consequently the version of Dryden to improve upon. He saw the errors of that great poet, and avoided them; he discovered his beauties, and improved upon them; and as he was not impelled by necessity, he had leisure to revise, correct, and finish his excellent work."

"Be sure from nature never to depart; To copy nature is the task of art. The noblest poets own her sovereign sway, And ever follow where she leads the way."

"The success of his Vida animated him to a higher undertaking; ...he gave us a complete English Eneid. Pitt, engaging as a rival with Dryden, naturally observed his failures, and avoided them; and, as he wrote after Pope's Iliad, he had an example of an exact, equable, and splendid versification. With these advantages, seconded by great diligence, he might successfully labour particular passages, and escape many errors. If the two versions are compared, perhaps the result would be, that Dryden leads the reader forward by his general vigour and sprightliness, and Pitt often stops him to contemplate the excellence of a single couplet; that Dryden's faults are forgotten in the hurry of delight, and that Pitt's beauties are neglected in the languor of a cold and listless perusal; that Pitt pleases the criticks, and Dryden the people; that Pitt is quoted, and Dryden read."

"Nor would I scruple, with a due regard, To read sometimes a rude unpolished bard, Among whose labours I may find a line Which from unsightly rust I may refine, And, with a better grace, adopt it into mine."

"I received a letter from you with satisfaction, having long been desirous of any occasion of testifying my regard for you, and particularly of acknowledging the pleasure your Version of Vida's Poetick had afforded me. I had it not indeed from your bookseller, but read it with eagerness, and think it both a correct and a spirited translation. I am pleased to have been (as you tell me) the occasion of your undertaking that work: that is some sort of merit; and, if I have any in me, it really consists in an earnest desire to promote and produce, as far as I can, that of others. [...] I am obliged to you, Sir, for expressing a much higher opinion of me than I know I deserve: the freedom with which you write is yet what obliges and pleases me more; and it is with sincerity that I say, I would rather be thought by every ingenious man in the world, his servant, than his rival."

"To all, proportioned terms he must dispense, And make the sound a picture of the sense."

"In fine, if my partiality to Mr. Pitt does not mislead me, I should think he has executed his work [The Æneid of Virgil] with great spirit, that he has a fine flow of harmonious versification, and has rendered his author's sense with faithfulness and perspicuity."

"Nietzsche's views have always seemed so strikingly different from the background of opinion against which he grew up that they have often been thought to owe their origin to a violent reaction against his upbringing. His entire philosophy even has been seen as no more than a calculated antithesis to the tradition in which he was raised."

"As when sedition fires the ignoble crowd, And the wild rabble storms and thirsts for blood; Of stones and brands a mingled tempest flies, With all the sudden arms that rage supplies: If some grave sire appears, amid the strife, In morals strict, and innocence of life, All stand attentive, while the sage controuls Their wrath, and calms the tempest of their souls."

"Ah, mighty Queen! you urge me to disclose, And feel, once more, unutterable woes."

"“Into thirty centuries born,” Edwin Muir began his most celebrated poem, “At home in them all but the very last.” Much is said about escapism in narrative and fiction. But perhaps the greatest escapism of all is to take refuge in the domesticity of the past, the home that history and literature become, avoiding the one moment of time in which we are not at home, yet have to live: the present."

"All Dickens is packed with orphans or people in uncertain relation to family groups, or clubs. It’s impossible to read anything he wrote without feeling that the question of belonging was a major issue for him. He had to write about these matters. If we read Lovecraft’s science-fiction horror stories, weird and unpleasant as they may be, they are all obsessively about fear of otherness—women’s, people of other races’, aliens’. All the over-heated horror of the books arises from this gut fear. He can’t leave it alone. Whether or not we like the books and quite regardless of any verisimilitude, it’s clear that the author is writing directly from his personal concerns. The stuff wasn’t just constructed for a literary prize. A certain form of repetition, particularly the endless reformulation, in dozens of different guises, of the same core conflict is probably the hallmark of authenticity."

"Virginia Woolf thought one of the pleasures of reading contemporary novels was that they forced you to exercise your judgment. There was no received opinion about a book. You had to decide for yourself whether it was good."

"Anyone who clings to religion is clinging, not to an arbitrary framework of man's devising, but to the only framework that can serve as a starting-point for the realization of an inward freedom that is independent of terrestrial contingencies."

"Science offers no alternative framework. The best it can offer is wealth in a wide sense of the term, that is to say, the satisfaction of a wide variety of desires. It cannot conceive of any means of achieving that escape from desires we call "contentment" otherwise than through the satisfaction of those desires; it has not yet learnt that there is no limit to the multiplication of desires, nor that, since different people's desires are often mutually incompatible, an indefinite multiplication of desires increases conflict as well as discontent."

"The idea has grown up that the scientific approach can alone properly be said to be intellectual, whereas the approach of religion cannot, and that therefore the tendency of religion is to impede intellectuality. This is not to be wondered at in people for whom the word "intellectuality" implies no more than conformity to the scientific approach; but if the goal of intellectuality is not a better understanding of the origin, nature and end of man and of the universe, what is it? It is just such an understanding that religion claims to offer, and in so far as that claim is justified, religion, very far from impeding intellectuality, is an essential part of it."

"People, even poor people, were in general more contented before the 1914-18 war than they are now, although not nearly so well provided with comforts and luxuries. Incidentally they were also more often people of strong individuality, "characters" or "personalities" as we might say; not of course always either virtuous or agreeable, but qualitatively distinctive, not mere drops in an ocean of mediocrity. And they were more content with their lot than we are. What then is the true criterion of contentment? Can it be anything but the acceptance of one's lot, whatever it may be? Or in other words, knowing one's place and fulfilling faithfully whatever function may be associated with it, with a pride in the quality of the product as the principal incentive rather than any tangible reward; knowing, perhaps, that not to want is better than to have; and above all being intelligent enough not to place one's best hopes in nothing but the satisfactions which a short sojourn in this world can bring. All these things are criteria of contentment, and at the same time they are universal ethical constituents of every religion and tradition."

"If the confusion, fear and discontent of our times seem to be reaching towards an extreme, despite a technological development bringing a wealth and a luxury unparalleled in history, why is an exactly coincident decay of religion scarcely ever suggested as a causal factor?"

"The gods implore To crush the proud and elevate the poor."