THE PASSION OF BYBLIS, Made English.
From Ovid. Me am. Lib. 9.
By Mr. Dennis.
LONDON, Printed for Rich. Parker at the Ʋnicorn under the Piazza of the Royal Exchange, 1692.
THE PREFACE.
THE Passion of Byblis seems to be, in the Original, not only one of Ovid's most masterly pieces, but a Passion in some places the most happily touch'd of any that I have seen amongst the Ancients or Moderns. The Sentiments are so tender and yet so delicate, the expressions so fit and withal so easie, with that facility which is proper to express Love, and peculiar to this Charming Poet; the turns of Passion are so surprizing and yet so natural, and there seems to be something in the very sound of the Verse so soft and so pathetick, that a man who reads the Original, must have no sense of these matters if he is not transported with it.
When I was desir'd to make it English, I read over the Original to some men of sense, to see whether they would be touch'd with the same passages with which I had been mov'd so much. And when I saw that I was not mistaken, I resolv'd to imitate them in our native tongue, with as much address as I could.
Not that I am of the opinion that I have done justice to the admirable Original; but then you must give me leave to do some to my self; and as I would not have [Page]my faults imputed to Ovid, so, since I have so many of my own to account for, I do not desire to stand charg'd with his, which as his Translator I was oblig'd to copy.
I will chiefly take Notice of two, the one general, and the other particular. The general one is the Inconsistency that appears in the Character of Byblis. For she, who in some Places of her Passion appears so reluctant, seems too abandon'd in others; which are two or three Passages of her Letter (for from the beginning of the Story to the Letter, every thing seems to me to be just enough) in which she says some things that are by no means consistent with that Modesty, which she ought to have, as a Lady, a Virgin, and a Woman of Honor. I know very well that a Woman of Honor, when once she is seiz'd by a great Passion, has more violent Desires than the most abandon'd Woman can have. For abandon'd Women are consequently weak, and it is a true Observation, that weak People, tho they are subject to Passions at every turn, yet are they never throughly agitated by them. But this is most certain, that a Woman of Honor can never break out into immodest Expressions, let her Passion be never so violent. For Immodesty in Expression must show her profligate to the very last Degree, and must be utterly inconsistent with any measure of Honor. Now Byblis, who shows in some places so much of Honor, by such sharp Remorse, and such furious Reluctancy, ought certainly to have contented her self with a bare Confession of her Passion; and not to have behav'd her self [Page]as if she thought her Brother so very young, that he was to be instructed how to proceed in the Cure of it.
It may be said perhaps that the Relation of the Dream, which precedes the Letter, is the most immodest thing in the Story. I will easily grant it, and that that Relation is in the original, the most alluring description that can be imagin'd, and almost equally transporting with what it describes. But it must then be consider'd that what Byblis says there, she only speaks to her self, which amounts to no more than if she but barely thought it. And there is nothing certainly in that Reflection on her Dream, but what is extreamly natural.
The second Fault in this Passion of Byblis, is in the passage that immediately follows the return of the Messenger. For that which ought to be the most moving, is the coldest part of the Story. I speak of the first thirteen Lines of the Latin (for all that follows seems to be sufficiently warm) where Byblis, who can scarce speak for the Violence of her Grief, is yet for speaking in Allegory; which is nothing but an imperfect kind of Similitude.
Now Simile in this place could not be moving, because it could not be natural; it being by no means the Language of great Grief. For to be in a capacity to make a good similitude, the Mind must have several qualifications, and two more particularly; which are utterly inconsistent with that Passion. First, The Soul must be susceptible of a great many Idea's, and the Imagination capacious of a great many Images. For the Fancy must run [Page]thro, and compare a great many Objects, before it can start a hint from them, which may carry with it that appearance of likeness which may afterward by the Judgment be improved to an exact resemblance (not but that I know very well, that the Soul on those occasions acts with that prodigious Celerity, that it is its self insensible of the degrees of its own motion.) Now it is the Nature of Grief to confine the Soul, and straiten the Imagination, and extreamly to lessen the number of their Objects. And indeed if the Passion is very violent, a man is incessantly thinking of the cause of it. For example, the unfortunate Lover has eternally before his Eyes, the Image of his Cruel Fair-one. He thinks Day and Night of her alone, he contemplates nothing but her, and if he complains of her, 'tis only after that simple unaffected way, by which Nature teaches man to discharge his Soul of sorrow. And it is for this very reason that the greater part of Mr. Cowley's amorous Verses are universally exploded by men of sence, at the same time that they confess, that several of his Miscellaneous Writings, his Pindaric Odes, and his Divine Hymn to Light, will justly deserve the Admiration of our latest Posterity. For in most of those amorous Verses, there appears thro the disguise of an affected Passion, a Gayety of Heart, a Wantonness of Wit, and a Soul that's at Liberty to roam about the Ʋniverse, and return home laden with rich, but far fetch'd Conceits. As merry in this respect as the Madrigals of our amorous Rakehells; who languish in Simile, whilst they thrive in Carkass; and who eating their Half-Crowns [Page]every day thrice, decay and dye by Metaphor. In short, no sort of imagery ever can be the Language of Grief. If a man complains in Simile, I either laugh or sleep. For this is plain, that if a man's Affliction will suffer him to divert his mind by one Simile, he may as well do it by twenty, and so on to the end of the Chapter. If such a man therefore is miserable, it is because he is resolved he will be so. Now a man must have an extraordinary stock of good Nature, who can pity a Blockhead, who is a Wretch by choice.
But secondly, For the Mind to be capable of making Similitudes, it is necessary it should be serene (unless it be transported with that noble Euthusiasm, which delights, illuminates, and exalts the Soul, at the very same time it disturbs it.) For without Serenity a man can never have Penetration enough to discern the Nature of things, which Penetration is absolutely necessary for the making a just Similitude; And it is upon this very account that Aristotle says in his Rhetorick, that to be happy in making Similitudes, it is absolutely necessary to be a man of good Sence.
Some of my Friends, to whom I have recited in Conversation, the substance of what I have here repeated in Writing, have advised me to leave out this unseasonable Similitude, especially since I have made so bold with Ovid, as to insert here and there a Thought of my own. For it is my Lord Roscommon's opinion, that it is much safer to leave out than add. Tho no man pays more deference [Page]to his Judgment than I do, I cannot be of his mind in this. For tho I am not ignorant that a scurvy present, is but a more civil Affront; I cannot but believe it to be less injurious than a Robbery. And if any man should be caught, ipso facto, stripping another upon the Road, it would be but an impudent excuse in him, to alledge that the Cloaths but ill became their Owner. All that I could do here, was by giving this passage another turn, to make that appear in the Copy to be spoken in a short, but downright Fury, whose fault it was in the original to seem to be spoken with too much Considerateness, and too much Coolness of Temper.
The Author of the Satyrs upon the Jesuits, who has translated this Passion of Byblis, has not meddled with the Catastrophe. Now the Catastrophe was absolutely necessary, that the Story at ending might make a deeper impression: I have therefore contracted it in the last five Lines, but at the same time I have alter'd it. For to make it moving it was necessary to make it credible.
The Transformation of Byblis might do very well in the time of Augustus Caesar. For at that time those Transformations were a part of the Roman Religion, and the Poets may be said to be the Secular Priests, who transmitted its mysteries to the People. But those transubstantiating Doctrines, which were taught in those times by that Harmonious Clergy of the credulous Church of old Rome, would look as absurdly to us as the Chimerical Metamorphosis, which is pretended to be acted at the very time it is sung in our modern Roman Churches.
I must beg pardon for the Liberty which I have taken in the numbers, which is so great that it may well be entitled License. But then the Reader will have the greater Variety, and if those Numbers are not harmonious, it is not for want of care about them. I have particularly taken care to be exact in the Rimes, in which the former Translators of this passage have been very defective. I am not so miserably mistaken, as to think riming essential to our English Poetry. I am far better acquainted with Milton, than that comes too. Who without the assistance of Rime, is one of the most sublime of our English Poets. Nay, there is something so transcendently sublime in his first, second, and sixth Books, that were the Language as pure as the Images are vast and daring, I do not believe it could be equall'd, no, not in all antiquity. But tho I know that Riming is not absolutely necessary to our Versification, yet I am for having a man do throughly what he has once pretended to do. Writing in blank Verse looks like a contempt of Rime, and a generous disdain of a barbarous Custom; but Writing in such Rimes as a Boy may laugh at, at Crambo, looks at the best like a fruitless attempt, and an impotent Affectation.
My Lord Roscommon who writ in blank Verse with so much success, yet was nicely exact in Riming, whenever he pretended to rime. And in the very essay upon translated Verse in which he exclaims against Rime, I [Page]defy any man to show me half a dozen couplets which do not rime exactly.
In short, if riming is ever necessary in so strong and masculine a Language as ours, it must be on these tender occasions. For tho I have heard several maintain, that a thing may be expressed as nobly and vigorously in blank Verse, as in Rime; I never yet heard any one pretend that it might be expressed as softly. But granting it could, it is yet very certain, that a thing must be much more tender in perfect Rimes, than imperfect. For where the Reader expects a Rime, there jarring sounds must render that harsh, which agreeing sounds would render easie. But then it is necessary that the Rimes should be unconstrained, and no word us'd upon their account in the place where it is not proper.
But since I have mention'd Mr Oldham's performance, in this Translation, I think fit to add further, that I have been told by some, that a great many will never forgive me the attempting it after him. I desire them to consider, that the same Mr. Oldham undertook Horace's Art of Poetry after my Lord Roscommon. Now my Lord Roscommon was Politeness it self. Never man thought more clearly, more truly, more justly than he did; never man express'd himself more fitly and more becomingly. In every thing that he writ, his Language was as perfect as his Conceptions were often sublime. On every thing that came from him, he has stamp'd the character not only of an exalted [Page]Wit, but of a man of a high Condition, and of a courtly Mind.
If I should affirm that Mr. Oldham had by no means all the good Qualities which are conspicuous in my Lord Roscommon, who is there that must not assent to it? If then I am guilty of presumption in attempting what Mr. Oldham undertook before me, I hope I may be excused by his own example. But if some People yet can resolve to be angry, I must beg them to consider for what. Is it because I have a desire to please them? That methinks is unnatural. Tho I should own, I have an Ambition to give them more Delight than the fore-mentioned Gentleman has done before me, I cannot see any thing in such a Confession which can reasonably disoblige them. Such an knowledgment ought rather to gain me their Favor, or at least to conquer their Prejudice, especially since 'tis the interest of every Reader to be as candid as the Case will let him be. 'Tis true, a man of sence can never be satisfi'd with a silly thing. But a peevish, unreasonable Caviller, will never be satisfied with any thing. Little considering that by a false delicacy he makes himself pass those moments scurvily, which another perhaps has done his part to make him pass agreeably.
Besides, if I should succeed here, ev'n beyond my wish, I should be very far upon that score, from arrogating Preheminence over any man. The following Translation is a trifle, and can never be conclusive of any such thing. To succeed in [Page]it required neither Force nor Genius, but only a Tenderness of Soul (which Mr. Oldham's masculine temper disdain'd) and an extraordinary propensity to that humane frailty, Compassion; and a certain Felicity which usually accompanies the dictates of the softer Passions. To conclude, I leave it to any one to consider whether a Satyrist, as Mr. Oldham was, at the very time that, inspir'd by a generous rage, he had assum'd a resolution of exposing the Follies, and lashing the Vices of the Age, could be fitly dispos'd to excite Compassion; by setting before our eyes an unfortunate Lady, whose Love was at once her Folly and her Crime.
THE Passion of Byblis.
Annotations
The Latin is, Tu me vellem generosior esses.
Mr. Oldham renders, it thus. ‘Would thou wert noble, I more meanly born’ He makes her give this reason for her Wish, vid. ‘Then guiltless I'd despair'd, and suffer'd Scorn.’
Whereas the reason that I make her give is just opposite to it, vid. Then I might guiltless have enjoyed my Caunus. Ovid expresses no reason, but implies one; for there is something Pindarical in the sense of the passage, and the Connexion is left to be made by the Reader, as we shall find anon. In the mean while let us see, whither Mr. Oldham's reason or mine is that of Ovid. To discover which let us consider, which is most agreeable to good sense, and the nature of her Passion, and most suitable to the Design of the Poet. It does not seem to me to be consistent with good sense, to make Byblis, who so vehemently desir'd to enjoy her Brother, and who at the same time saw the impossibility of it, and felt the Plague of Despair, wish that she had been of a more obscure Descent, rather than of her Brother's illustrious Stock; only that with the same vehement desire she might have the same Despair. Nor does this seem to be consistent with the Nature of Love. For they who are throughly seiz'd with that Passion, place all their Felicity in the beloved Object, and even in Despair most ardently desire Possession. And such can no more wish to be in a Condition of Life, that might render them incapable of enjoying what they love, than any man or woman can truly wish to be miserable. It [Page 23]had been therefore more consonant to good sense, and the Nature of her Passion, to make her speak thus. Had my Birth been more lowly, and I had been tormented with the same desire, tho there had been then an improbability of satisfying it, yet considering what a Leveller Love is, there had not been then, as there is now, an absolute impossibility of innocently enjoying my Caunus. To discover if this be not Ovid's sense, I think fit with this passage to cite what immediately precedes and follows.
That is to say, Could we but dissolve the bonds of Nature, how well we might be joyn'd in stricter! I wish that having every thing else in common, we had at least a different Lineage; would I had been inferior to Caunus, rather than thus have been equal to him. But alas! this is but a vain wish, and therefore another must be the happy she who must possess all that I languish for. I believe this will be allow'd to be a just explication of Ovid 's sense. For the last verse by the word igitur must necessarily be an inference, from something expressed or implied in the last but one. Now that which is implied can be nothing but this. If you had been of a different Parentage, tho you had been more nobly descended, yet there had then been a possibility (such is the force of Love) of my being blest in innocently possessing you; which possibility now is destroyed by Relation. Therefore another, &c. Besides, if we do but consider, that every thing that precedes and follows Byblis's wish, that her Brother had been more nobly descended, appears plainly to be spoke out of a furious desire of enjoying him; we. need make no doubt but that very wish too proceeds from the same desire.
This is not the thought of Ovid. Mr. Sands has touch'd upon it, but very faintly. Mr. Oldham has kept wide of it. But because no thought that can ever be substituted, can make amends for that of the original, I think my self obliged to do Ovid that Justice as to insert it here. The Latin is thus then.
That is to say, Either I will expel this incestuous Love from my Breast, or dye in the attempt, and be laid out on the mournful Herse. One would have thought that there had been an end of her and her Passion, when by an admirable and surprizing return of it, she immediately adds, positae (que) det oscula Frater. Let my Brother embrace me as Flie sensless there. So that here she seems to make provision for her Passion, against a time when it can be no more, to anticipate the satisfaction of her Brother's embracing her in the moment in which she cannot be sensible of it, and, by imagination in the same sentence, to extend her love beyond that death by which she propounds to end it. This is indeed livelily to paint the extream disorder of a violent and irregular Passion. But what Hand must give us a copy of so divine an original? Who must not despair of imitating successfully the wonderful celerity of this incomparable turn?
Mr. Oldham has render'd it thus. [Page 25]
So that he makes Byblis start several difficulties enough to frighten her Brother, if he were inclin'd to complyance, and then exhorts him to go on in spight of them. Whereas the design of Ovid, is to make her answer such Objections as may probably be made by Caunus. The things that can chiefly be objected in such a case are two, viz. The Rigor of Parents, and Apprehension of Infamy. Now neither of these have reason to frighten us. For says she, Dulcia fraterno sub nomine furta tegemus. That is, we shall conceal our incestuous Love under the disguise of fraternal Affection, and tho we appear never so fond to our Parents, and the rest of the World, they will be rather apt to extol our Piety, than to arraign our Incest. But this Verse, Dulcia, &c. which Byblis speaks as a reason for what preceded it, looks in Mr. Oldham like the Introduction of a new Proposition.
The Latin is.
Mr. Oldham has rendered it thus.
Where he pushes Ovid's thought a little too far, and indeed beyond the bounds of good sense. 'Tis true, I have met with some Gentlemen, who admire this passage very much, as something forsooth [Page 26]very soft, But like will to like, says the Proverb. For indeed those Gentlemen may be said to be soft with a vengeance, I would fain ask them one question. For what should this poor Ghost come a begging? For the Charity of the Flesh? That would be very pleasant. And yet the Charity of the Flesh is certainly the business in question.
The Latin is.
Which Mr. Oldham renders thus.
I wonder that a man of Mr. Oldham's Sense and Learning should mistake leviter voluisse for slightly asking. By which mistake he has run himself upon two absurdities. For first he puts a sentiment into the mouth of Byblis, that is altogether base, and unworthy of a Woman of Honor, as if she were afraid of not being thought impudent enough, or of not being thought in good earnest. Secondly, he makes her bring that as an argument for persisting in her design, which is directly conclusive of the contrary. For what she says, in Prose, and in plain English, is this. If I should now conquer this Passion, and grow once more the vertuous Byblis, I am afraid the World, who may come to know what a civil Request I made to my Brother, and afterwards took the very first Denial, I am afraid this ill-natur'd World will believe that I was but in jest. Truly a very pleasant and very reasonable Fear. But what does she call slightly asking? The sending such a Letter as hers? For my part I know but one way she had to put the business more home to him. This cannot be the sense of Ovid. For tho. Ovid is not the justest man in the World in his thinking, (for justness is not his Talent) yet he seldom thinks so preposterously, nor could Mr. Oldham have done it, if he had not writ this in a hurry. By leviter voluisse then is meant not [Page 27]slightly to have asked, but lightly to have inclin'd my Will; and then the meaning has not only something very sensible in it, but very extraordinary and very noble. For thus Byblis is made to assert her Honor, by her very persisting in a most execrable crime, for now the sense runs thus. If I should now upon this first Repulse give over, then men will reasonably conclude, that since it was in my power so soon to desist, it was in my power not to have given way to this Passion at first; and that she who could so easily stop its progress, might much more easily have prevented its very beginning; and consequently the advances which I have made to my Brother, will be imputed rather to my natural inclination to such horrible Wickedness, or some strange and base infirmity in me, than the force of a Passion inflicted by an offended God. But if after having shown so much Remorse, and so much Reluctancy, I still persist, notwithstanding that Remorse, notwithstanding that Reluctancy, nay notwithstanding Despair; why then my Brother and all the World must acknowledge that Byblis is not to blame; but that since she does what doing she disapproves, and sollicits a Vice, the very thought of which strikes her with Horror, it is demonstrably evident that her Passion is supernatural; and is not actuated by her own Will, but some more sublime, some eternal principle which Mortals in vain resist.