I am sensible that many of my whole verses are as imperfect as those
halves, for want of time to digest them better. But give me leave
to make the excuse of Boccace, who, when he was upbraided that some
of his novels had not the spirit of the rest, returned this answer:
that Charlemagne, who made the Paladins, was never able to raise an
army of them. The leaders may be heroes, but the multitude must
consist of common men.
I am also bound to tell your lordship, in my own defence, that from
the beginning of the first Georgic to the end of the last AEneid, I
found the difficulty of translation growing on me in every
succeeding book. For Virgil, above all poets, had a stock which I
may call almost inexhaustible, of figurative, elegant, and sounding
words. I, who inherit but a small portion of his genius, and write
in a language so much inferior to the Latin, have found it very
painful to vary phrases when the same sense returns upon me. Even
he himself, whether out of necessity or choice, has often expressed
the same thing in the same words, and often repeated two or three
whole verses which he had used before.
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