An Essay on Virgil's Æneid/Chapter 2
NOTES
ON THE
FIRST BOOK
OF
VIRGIL’s Æneid
NOTES
ON THE
First Æneid.
HE few following Notes are partly my own, and partly drawn from the Commentators of Virgil, and especially from the ingenious Dr. Trapp; who has given us an Abstract of their Annotations, with a great many excellent Observations of his own. I have us’d their Comments as they came in my Way, without any particular Citations; and have flung together these Remarks, only for the Benefit of the English Reader who knows little of the original Language, and some meer English Criticks, who know nothing of their own.
Verse 4. Lavinian Coast.] So call’d from Lavinia, the Daughter of King Latinus, and Wife of Æneas. One of the Commentators, indeed, derives the Name from Lavinus, the Brother of Latinus; but is at a Loss to prove there was ever such a Person.
Verse 36. Her injur’d Form, &c.] The Reader may please to observe, that this irreconcileable Hatred of Juno to the Trojans, was owing altogether to the Neglect of her Beauty, in all the Instances here mentioned; Paris had prefer’d Venus, and Jupiter Electra to Her: She had, indeed, more than a personal Quarrel with Ganymede, because he was advanc’d to be Cupbearer to Jupiter, in the Room of Hebe her only Daughter.
Verse 53. And why could Pallas, &c.] Ajax the Less, as Homer calls him, the Son of Oileus, and Leader of the Locrians, in his Return from Troy, was overtaken by a violent Tempest, and himself Thunderstruck by Pallas, in Revenge for having ravish’d Cassandra, the Daughter of Priam, in her Temple. Homer gives us a different Account, in the Fourth Book of the Odyssey, and says, that he was drown’d by Neptune for his execrable Blasphemies, and Defiance of the Gods, in a Storm.
Verse. 114. Rush to the Seas, &c.] Virgil is so happy in the Variety of his Periods, and the Superiority of his Language, to all others but the Greek, that it is impossible for a Translation, in English, and in Rhyme, to do him Justice in this Particular. As it does not look graceful to run the Sense too frequently out of one Couplet into another, and as Rhyme will not admit of such a Variety of Periods as blank Verse, some Care has been taken in this Translation to endeavour at something equivalent, either by closing the Sense with a Triplet, (which is sometimes practis'd by Mr. Pope, and too frequently by Mr. Dryden) or by making Use of the Alexandrian Line, which is a Liberty I have seldom taken, unless it appears Necessary, or at least proper (as in this Place) to express the Length, the Vastness, the Rapidity, or Slowness of an Image, according to the establish'd Rule of making the Sound an Eccho to the Sense.
Verse 124. Congeal'd with Fear, &c.] There is not a Passage in Virgil that has been more severely canvast by the Critics than this, where the Hero of the Poem is represented in such a Fright. Monsieur St. Evremont in particular, is very ridiculously Merry upon it, and after having laught at his Want of Courage, and Excess of Piety, concludes that he was fitter to make the the Founder of an Order than an Empire. But by that Critic's Leave, Æneas weeps on a much juster Occasion than Achilles in Homer; his Tears are the Tears of a King and a Hero; he does not weep for himself, but his Subjects; nor grieve for the Approach of Death, but the Manner of it; for thro’ the whole Speech, he passionately wishes he had dy’d warm in the Field of Battle. Besides, such a Fright appears very Justifiable in him, or any Hero of those Ages, when it was a received Opinion, that drowning was an accursed Death, and that those who were depriv’d of the Rites of Sepulture, were condemn’d to wander an hundred Years on the Banks of the River Styx, before they were transported to the Elysian Fields; as we read in the sixth Æneid.
Hæc Omnis, quam cernis, inops inhumataque Turba est;
Portitor ille, Charon; hi, quos vehit unda, sepulti.
Nec ripas datur horrendas, nec rauca fluenta
Transportare prius, quam sedibus Ossa quiêrunt;
Centum errant annos, volitantque hæc litora circum;
Tum demum admissi stagna exoptata revisunt.
Verse 147. On hidden Rocks, &c.] This Passage has been charg’d with Contradiction, because the Rocks are said to be hidden, and yet to appear with a huge Ridge above the Water. Ruaeus says, that the Islands themselves might appear above the Surface with a great Prominence, and the Rocks which were about the Islands may lye under the Water. Dr. Trapp's Words are these. They (i. e. the Rocks) were conceal'd below, tho' they had a Dorsum immane, a large prominent Ridge on the Surface. For my Part, I see no Difficulty or Contradiction in the Passage, For why may we not suppose, that they appear'd above the Water in a Calm, and were hidden under the Waves (as in the present Case) in a Storm.
Verse 298. For Lycus' Fate, &c.] Nothing but extream Haste in Writing could have made Mr. Dryden translate this Passage so meanly.
Mourns th' uncertain State
Of Gyas, Lycus, and of Amycus,
The Day, but not their Sorrows ended thus.
Dryden.
How vastly different is the Conduct of Mr. Pope, in his Translation of the Catalogue of the Ships, where, for some hundred Lines together, he is engag'd in a Heap of proper Names; yet that great Master, by his exquisite Skill in Sounds and Numbers, has set them to Music, and deriv'd from them the finest Harmony the World. But we ought to pass by these, and a great many other low and vulgar Expressions in Mr. Dryden, if we consider that his Necessities oblig'd him to translate all the Works of Virgil in three Years.
Verse 424. Or swift Harpalyce, &c.] The Translation follows Huetius, who reads Eurum instead of Hebrum; I have endeavour’d to image the Rapidity of Harpalyce in the Run of the Verse. Nor is this too Extravagant for Virgil, who in the seventh Æneid, paints the Swiftness of Camilla in as bold a Manner, in those charming Lines which fly along with the Virgin they describe.
Illa vel intactæ segetis per summa volaret
Culmina, nec teneras cursu læsisset aristas;
Vel Mare per medium fluctu suspensa tumenti
Ferret iter, celeres neque tingeret æquore Plantas.
Verse 504. The good Æneas am I call’d, &c.] To defend this Passage which may disgust a squeamish modern Critic, I shall transcribe the Words of a very ingenious Author, whom I am proud to call my Friend, and to quote upon any Occasion.[1] ‘Custom and Prejudice have now render’d it unpolite, and even shocking, for a Man, almost in any Case, to commend himself: But it was not thus anciently. It is certain, that it was not thus in the Times of those Heroes whom Homer describes; and Homer therefore acts with Propriety, in making Ulysses say that Nestor and himself were the wisest of all the Grecians. Now, is the Translator, in this Case, to follow his Author or not? Is he to preserve the Manners of the Ancients, in the Characters of his Heroes, or is he to modernize them, and to make Ulysses and Achilles appear the most accomplish’d, finest Gentlemen in the World’?What this learned Gentleman says in Defence of Homer’s Heroes, is applicable to Æneas who was their Cotemporary. And Virgil, with the utmost Propriety, makes his Hero commend himself with that Freedom and Openness of Behaviour, that was in Use among the Ancients; when Men spoke to express their Thoughts, as they now do to conceal them.
Verse 539. And her majestic Port confest the God.] The Translation in this Place ventures to call Venus a God. Virgil calls her so in the next Book. And in this very Verse he takes as great a Liberty, by leaving two Vowels opening upon one another. The Word Θεὸς in the Greek is us’d promiscuously in either Gender. (Not to mention Euripides, Demosthenes, Lucan, and Statius) Minerva is call’d a God by Homer in the fifth Iliad, and by Mr. Pope, as good an Authority, in the Translation.
Verse 636.Scamander's fatal Flood.] The River Scamander, or Xanthus, is here call’d fatal, because if the Horses of Rhaesus King of Thrace, who came to the Assistance of Priam, had drank of that River, it was decreed by the Fates, that Troy should not be taken. Diomed slew Rhaesus and his Guards, and drove away the Horses the same Night they arriv’d in the Trojan Camp.
I shall close these few Remarks with a Word or two concerning this Translation. I have endeavour’d, thro’ the Whole, to practise my Lord Roscommon’s Rule,
Your Author always will the best advise;
Fall as he falls, and as he rises, rise.
but with what Success, is with all Deference submitted to the Reader; I have us’d a few of Mr. Dryden’s Rhimes and Expressions, where he adheres closely to the Sense of Virgil, or I must have wander’d from the Original myself; but I have not been so free with him, in this Particular, as he is with my Lord Lauderdale. Had I borrow’d more from him, this Translation, perhaps, had been so much the better. Far be it from me, therefore, to think I am able to do Virgil justice, or to improve on Mr. Dryden’s Translation; the utmost Merit I pretend to, is to have avoided those low and vulgar Expressions, and technical Terms, and Deviations from the Original, which he is guilty of too frequently; if I may be allow’d to deliver my Opinion of Mr. Dryden’s Performance, after so great a Judge as Mr. Pope, it ſhould be in the Words of Sir John Denham.
Great are its Faults, but glorious is its Flame.
After all, I had never presum’d to make any Attempt on Virgil, after so great a Man as Mr. Dryden; but I undertook this small Performance at the Request of some very learned and ingenious Friends, and particularly of a worthy Gentleman, who has done Virgil great Justice in his Translation of the two first Books of the Georgicks, who was pleas’d to write to me on this Occasion, in Terms that I cannot repeat without Vanity. To him, therefore, I desire to dedicate this my first Attempt on the Æneid, who is so well acquainted, by Experience, with the Difficulties, as well as the Beauties, of Virgil. And if I gain no Reputation by this Performance, yet I shall think myself sufficiently honour’d with the Friendship and Acquaintance, of so learned and polite a Gentleman as Mr. Benson.
FINIS.
- ↑ See the Essay on Mr. Pope’s Odyssey, Part 1. Page 50.