Page:Essay on the Principles of Translation - Tytler (1791, 1st ed).djvu/89

Of these four lines, there are scarcely more than four words which are warranted by the original. "Some block the narrow streets." Even this is a faulty translation of obsidere alii telis angusta viarum; but it fails on the score of mutilation, not redundancy. The rest of the ideas which compose these four lines, are the original property of the translator; and the antithetical witticism in the concluding line, is far beneath the chaste simplicity of Virgil.

Mr Pope's translation of the following passage of the Iliad, is censurable on the same account:

Λαοὶ μεν φθινυθουσι περι πτολιν, αιπυ τε τειχος,
Iliad, 6. 327.Μαρναμενοι,

 

For thee great Ilion's guardian heroes fall,
Till heaps of dead alone defend the wall.

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