Whom shall we choose the glory of all wits, Held through so many sorts of discipline And such variety of works and spirits, But Grecian Homer, like whom none did shine For form of work and matter? And because Our proud doom of him may stand justified By noblest judgments, and receive applause In spite of envy and illiterate pride, Great Macedon, amongst his matchless spoils Took from rich Persia, on his fortunes cast, A casket finding, full of precious oils, Form’d all of gold, with wealthy stones enchas’d, He took the oils out, and his nearest friends Ask’d in what better guard it might be us’d? All giving their conceits to sev’ral ends, He answer’d: “His affections rather choos’d An use quite opposite to all their kinds, And Homer’s books should with that guard be serv’d, That the most precious work of all men’s minds In the most precious place might be preserv’d. The Fount of Wit was Homer, Learning’s Sire, And gave antiquity her living fire.” Volumes of like praise I could heap on this, Of men more ancient and more learn’d than these, But since true virtue enough lovely is With her own beauties, all the suffrages Of others I omit, and would more fain That Homer for himself should be belov’d, Who ev’ry sort of love-worth did contain. Which how I have in my conversion prov’d I must confess I hardly dare refer To reading judgments, since, so gen’rally, Custom hath made ev’n th’ ablest agents err[2] In these translations; all so much apply Their pains and cunnings word for word to render Their patient authors, when they may as well Make fish with fowl, camels with whales, engender, Or their tongues’ speech in other mouths compell. For, ev’n as diff’rent a production Ask Greek and English, since as they in sounds And letters shun one form and unison; So have their sense and elegancy bounds In their distinguish’d natures, and require Only a judgment to make both consent In sense and elocution; and aspire, As well to reach the spirit that was spent In his example, as with art to pierce His grammar, and etymology of words. But as great clerks can write no English verse,[3] Because, alas, great clerks! English affords, Say they, no height nor copy; a rude tongue, Since ’tis their native; but in Greek or Latin Their writs are rare, for thence true Poesy sprung; Though them (truth knows) they have but skill to chat in, Compar’d with that they might say in their own; Since thither th’ other’s full soul cannot make The ample transmigration to be shown In nature-loving Poesy; so the brake That those translators stick in, that affect Their word-for-word traductions (where they lose The free grace of their natural dialect, And shame their authors with a forcéd gloss) I laugh to see; and yet as much abhor[4]] More license from the words than may express Their full compression, and make clear the author; From whose truth, if you think my feet digress, Because I use needful periphrases,