English poetry -- History and criticism; Poetry -- Early works to 1800
[Sidenote: Cacozelia, or Fonde affectation.]
Ye haue another intollerable ill maner of speach, which by the Greekes
originall we may call _fonde affectation_ and is when we affect new words
and phrases other then the good speakers and writers in any language, or
then custome hath allowed, & is the common fault of young schollers not
halfe well studied before they come from the Vniuersitie or schooles, and
when they come to their friends, or happen to get some benefice or other
promotion in their countreys, will seeme to coigne fine wordes out of the
Latin, and to vse new fangled speaches, thereby to shew thenselues among
the ignorant the better learned.
[Sidenote: Soraismus, or The mingle mangle.]
Another of your intollerable vices is that which the Greekes call
_Soraismus_, & we may call the [_mingle mangle_] as when we make our
speach or writinges of sundry languages vsing some Italian word, or
French, or Spanish, or Dutch, or Scottish, not for the nonce or for any
purpose (which were in part excusable) but ignorantly and affectedly as
one that said vsing this French word _Roy_, to make ryme with another
verse, thus.
_O mightie Lord of loue, dame Venus onely ioy,
Whose Princely power exceedes ech other heauenly roy._
The verse is good but the terme peeuishly affected.
Another of reasonable good facilitie in translation finding certaine of
the hymnes of _Pyndarus_ and of _Anacreons odes_, and other _Lirickes_
among the Greekes very well translated by _Rounsard_ the French Poet, &
applied to the honour of a great Prince in France, comes our minion and
translates the same out of French into English, and applieth them to the
honour of a great noble man in England (wherein I commend his reuerent
minde and duetie) but doth so impudently robbe the French Poet both of his
prayse and also of his French termes, that I cannot so much pitie him as
be angry with him for his inurious dealing, our sayd maker not being
ashamed to vfe these French wordes _freddon, egar, superbous, filanding,
celest, calabrois, thebanois_ and a number of others, for English wordes,
which haue no maner of conformitie with our language either by custome or
deriuation which may make them tollerable. And in the end (which is worst
of all) makes his vaunt that neuer English finger but his hath toucht
_Pindars_ string which was neuerthelesse word by word as _Rounsard_ had
said before by like braggery. These be his verses.
_And of an ingenious inuention infanted with pleasant trauaile._
Whereas the French word is _enfante_ as much to say borne as a
child, in another verse he saith.
_I will freddon in thine honour._
For I will shake or quiuer my fingers, for so in French is _freddon_,
and in another verse.
_But if I will thus like pindar,
In many discourses egar._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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