and hath also cut off the bread and water from my mouth; and with thee I mourn without the light. But let us exercise a little more patience. 195 Remember how thou playedst the man at Vanity Fair, and wast neither afraid of the chain nor cage; nor yet of bloody Death: wherefore let us (at least to avoid the shame, that becomes 200 not a Christian to be found in) bear up with patience as well as we can.' Now night being come again, and the giant and his wife being in bed, she asked him concerning the pri205 soners, and if they had taken his counsel; to which he replied, "They are sturdy rogues; they choose rather to bear all hardship than to make away themselves.' Then said she, 210 Take them into the castle-yard tomorrow, and show them the bones and skulls of those that thou hast already dispatched, and make them believe, ere a week comes to an end, 215 thou also wilt tear them in pieces, as thou hast done their fellows before them.' So when the morning was come, the giant goes to them again, and 220 takes them into the castle-yard, and shows them as his wife had bidden him. "These,' said he, 'were pilgrims, as you are, once; and they trespassed in my grounds, as you have done; 225 and, when I thought fit, I tore them in pieces; and so within ten days I will do you. Go, get you down to your den again! And with that he beat them all the way thither.' They 230 lay therefore all day on Saturday in a lamentable case, as before. Now when night was come, and when Mrs. Diffidence and her husband, the giant, were got to bed, they be235 gan to renew their discourse of their prisoners; and, withal, the old giant wondered that he could neither by his blows nor counsel bring them to an end. And with that his wife replied, 'I fear,' said she, 'that they 240 live in hope that some will come to relieve them, or that they have picklocks about them, by the means of which they hope to escape.' And, 'sayest thou so, my dear?' said the 245 giant, I will therefore search them in the morning.' Well, on Saturday about midnight, they began to pray, and continued in prayer till almost break of day. 250 Now a little before it was day, good Christian, as one half amazed, brake out in this passionate speech, 'What a fool,' quoth he, 'am I thus to lie in a stinking dungeon, when 255 I may as well walk at liberty! I have a key in my bosom, called Promise, that will, I am persuaded, open any lock in Doubting Castle.' Then said Hopeful, "That's good news; 260 good brother, pluck it out of thy bosom and try.' Then Christian pulled it out of his bosom, and began to try at the dungeon door, whose bolt, as he turned 265 the key, gave back, and the door flew open with ease, and Christian and Hopeful both came out. Then he went to the outward door that leads into the castle-yard, and with 270 his key opened the door also. After he went to the iron gate, for that must be opened too; but that lock went damnable hard, yet the key did open it. Then they thrust open the 275 gate to make their escape with speed, but that gate, as it opened, made such a creaking, that it waked Giant Despair, who, hastily rising to pursue his prisoners, felt his limbs to fail; 280 for his fits took him again, so that he could by no means go after them. Then they went on, and came to the king's highway again, and so were safe, because they were out of his 285 jurisdiction. Now when they were gone over the stile, they began to contrive with JOHN DRYDEN (1631-1700) was born in the little village of Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire, and educated at Westminster School, London, and Trinity College, Cambridge. At his father's early death he succeeded to a small estate, which allowed him to follow his inclinations for a literary career. After some minor verse in praise of Cromwell (Heroic Stanzas 1659) and King Charles II (Astræa Redux 1660), he gave most of his time for many years to dramatic work, and wrote all in all 27 plays, which found so much favour with the King, that, in 1670, Dryden was made Poet Laureate and Historiographer Royal. At the Revolution (1688) he lost all his places and pensions, because, having turned Catholic shortly before, he refused to take the oath required by the new Protestant government. He died at London, where he had resided since ab. 1657, and was buried in Poets' Corner at Westminster. Dryden's dramatic work, though forgotten now-a-days, is interesting for the introduction of a new kind of tragedies 'heroic' plays in rhyme, in which he tried to amalgamate the old romantic drama of the Elizabethans with the pseudo-classical style of the French stage. But if he was not a born dramatist he certainly was a born satirist. His brilliant political satires in extremely polished language and verse, Absalom and Achitophel (1681) and The Medal (1682), directed against the Earl of Shaftesbury and his followers, and the personal satire of Mac Flecknoe (1682) against the poet Shadwell, have gained. him the name of one of the first satirists in Europe. In two didactic poems he displayed great argumentative power, but little consistency of character; for, after having proclaimed the merits of the Anglican doctrines in the Religio Laici, or a Layman's Faith (1682), he gave preference to the Church of Rome in a symbolical beast-poem, The Hind and the Panther (1687). His greatest lyrical performance is an ode on the power of music, entitled Alexander's Feast (1697). His free translations from the classics, esp. Virgil (1697), and his paraphrases from Chaucer and Boccaccio, published under the title of Fables (1700), contain some of his finest work. Several essays and prefaces exhibit him as an able critic of his art and a master of English prose. In fact, Dryden was one of the most influential to bring about that change from an elder cumbrous and involved prose to the plain lucidity, logical cogency, and easy harmony of style which marks the birth of modern English prose. CHARACTER OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM under the name of Zimri. [From Absalom and Achitophel (1681), 11. 543-568] Some of their chiefs were princes of the land; A man so various that he seemed to be 16 That every man with him was God or Devil. Beggared by fools, whom still he found too late, He laughed himself from Court; then sought relief 24 On Absalom and wise Achitophel; Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft, ON TRANSLATION. [From the Preface to Sylva, or the Second Part of Poetical Miscellanies (1685)] After all, a translator is to make his author appear as charming as possibly he can, provided he maintains his character, and makes him 5 not unlike himself. Translation is a kind of drawing after the life; where every one will acknowledge there is a double sort of likeness, a good one and a bad. 'Tis one thing to draw 10 the outlines true, the features like, the proportions exact, the colouring itself perhaps tolerable; and another thing to make all these graceful, by the posture, the shadowings, and 15 chiefly by the spirit which animates the whole. I cannot, without some indignation, look on an ill copy of an excellent original: much less can I behold with patience Virgil, Homer, 20 and some others, whose beauties I have been endeavouring all my life to and practise them without the help | cerning it; that is the maintaining 90 of a liberal education, long reading, and digesting of those few good authors we have amongst us; the 45 knowledge of men and manners, the freedom of habitudes and conversation with the best of company of both sexes; and, in short, without wearing off the rust which he con50 tracted while he was laying in a stock of learning. Thus difficult it is to understand the purity of English, and critically to discern not only good writers from bad, and a proper 55 style from a corrupt, but also to distinguish that which is pure in a good author, from that which is vicious and corrupt in him. And for want of all these requisites, or the greatest 60 part of them, most of our ingenious young men take up some cried-up English poet for their model, adore him, and imitate him, as they think, without knowing wherein he is defec65 tive, where he is boyish and trifling, wherein either his thoughts are improper to his subject, or his expressions unworthy of his thoughts, or the turn of both is unharmonious. 70 Thus it appears necessary that a man should be a nice critic in his mothertongue, before he attempts to translate in a foreign language. Neither is it sufficient that he be able to 75 judge of words and style, but he must be a master of them too: he must perfectly understand his author's tongue, and absolutely command his own; so that to be a thorough transso lator he must be a thorough poet. Neither is it enough to give his author's sense in good English, in poetical expressions, and in musical numbers; for though all these are 85 exceeding difficult to perform, yet there remains a harder task; and it is a secret of which few translators have sufficiently thought. I have already hinted a word or two con 80 And 110 the character of an author, which construe him. His verse is every140 where sounding the very thing in your ears whose sense it bears; yet the numbers are perpetually varied, to increase the delight of the reader, so that the same sounds are never re145 peated twice together. On the contrary, Ovid and Claudian, though they write in styles differing from each other, yet have each of them but one sort of music in their verses. 150 All the versification and little variety of Claudian is included within the compass of four or five lines, and then he begins again in the same tenor, perpetually closing his sense 155 at the end of a verse, and that verse commonly which they call golden, or two substantives and two adjectives, with a verb betwixt them to keep the peace. Ovid, with all his sweet160 ness, has as little variety of numbers and sound as he; he is always, as it were, upon the hand-gallop, and his verse runs upon carpet-ground. He avoids, like the other, all syn165 alephas, or cutting off one vowel when it comes before another in the following word; so that, minding only smoothness, he wants both variety and majesty. But to return to Virgil: 170 though he is smooth where smoothness in required, yet he is so far from affecting it, that he seems rather to disdain it: frequently makes use of synalephas, and concludes his sense He who excels all other poets in his own language, were it possible to do him right, must appear above them in our tongue, which, as my 185 Lord Roscommon justly observes, approaches nearest to the Roman in its majesty; nearest indeed, but with a vast interval betwixt them. There is an inimitable grace in Virgil's words, 190 and in them principally consists that beauty which gives so inexpressible a pleasure to him who best understands their force. This diction of his, I must once again say, is never to be 195 copied; and since it cannot, he will appear but lame in the best translation. The turns of his verse, his breakings, his propriety, his numbers, and his gravity, I have as far imi- 200 tated as the poverty of our language and the hastiness of my performance would allow. I may seem sometimes to have varied from his sense; but I think the greatest variation may 205 be fairly deduced from him; and where I leave his commentators, it may be I understand him better; at least I writ without consulting them in many places. ALEXANDER'S FEAST; OR, THE POWER OF MUSIC. 210 |