"I conceive it is a vulgar error in translating poets, to affect being fidus interpres... [for] poetry is of so subtile a spirit, that in the pouring out of one language into another, it will all evaporate; and if a new spirit be not added in the transfusion, there will remain nothing but a caput mortuum, there being certain graces and happinesses peculiar to every language, which give life and energy to the words... therefore if Virgil must needs speak English, it were fit he should speak not only as a man of this nation, but as man of this age."
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Original Language: English
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The Destruction of Troy (1656), Preface
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Denham
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John Denham
Sir John Denham (1614 or 1615 – 10 March 1669) was a Anglo-Irish poet and courtier. Son of the Chief Baron of Exchequer in Ireland, he was born in Dublin, and educated at Trinity College, Oxford and at Lincoln's Inn in London.
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