>>This seems to be somebody's diseased, poetic conception
>Rather harsh? Provided you read Dryden's rendering as a poem not a crib
>it has considerable merits
<snip>
[The phrase "People of the Sky"]
>is a calque on _caelicolae_. From whom else should Juno hear rumours
>from her fellow skydwellers? It is the gods who report that the Fates
>are so contriving (sic uoluere Parcas, accusative and infinitive.) What
>is 'diseased' about that? It is what translators do all the time, make
>explicit what is merely implicit in the original; of course, critics
>then object either that in doing so they have lost a subtlety, or that
>it isn't actually implicit after all, but is either objection in place
>here? If there is fault to find, it is rather that the line adds nothing
>but a rhyme; but it is virtually impossible to writea rhymed transaltion
>without admitting some such verses.
I'm delighted to read these words, and would add only that Dryden's
expansion here of one Latin word into an English couplet is done with great
skill, echoing similar passages in the poem where Virgil does use the word
"caelicolae"; in other words, the translator's poetic licence is guided by
deep familiarity with Virgil's poem and with his characteristic modes of
expression.
> A few years ago our listowner (I think) posted some interesting
>comments about the strength and weaknesses of Dryden's version;
>unfortunately I cannot find them now.
I wonder if you are thinking of these words cited from an article by Jasper
Griffin in the TLS (17 May 1991):
"A great English poet translated the greatest work of Latin literature.
Dryden knew Latin, he had an eminent command of English, his mind moved
naturally in tune with the rhetoric of the Latin poets; his version is
inimitable in its energy, brilliance, panache. It is, of course, now
separated from us by 300 years, and the ability to read it with pleasure is
perhaps hardly as widespread even as the ability to enjoy the original. It
is also very unlike the original in two obvious respects. Dryden's rhyming
couplets break up the varied rhythms of Virgil into a uniform movement; and
the hard cast of his mind, his deficiency in tenderness, deprives Virgil of
many of his most individual notes.
But still: there are moments, I think, when poetry into prose won't
go, and one example from Dryden can illustrate that."
(Griffin goes on to quote West's and Dryden's translations of Aeneid 6: 882-9.)
Simon Cauchi
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.lpf.org.nz/free/directory/cauchi.htm
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