Read Valla, Hessus, that in Latin prose, And verse, convert him; read the Messines That into Tuscan turns him; and the gloss Grave Salel makes in French, as he translates; Which, for th’ aforesaid reasons, all must do; And see that my conversion much abates The license they take, and more shows him too, Whose right not all those great learn’d men have done, In some main parts, that were his commentors. But, as the illustration of the sun Should be attempted by the erring stars, They fail’d to search his deep and treasurous heart; The cause was, since they wanted the fit key Of Nature, in their downright strength of Art.[5] With Poesy to open Poesy: Which, in my poem of the mysteries Reveal’d in Homer, I will clearly prove; Till whose near birth, suspend your calumnies, And far-wide imputations of self-love. ’Tis further from me than the worst that reads, Professing me the worst of all that write; Yet what, in following one that bravely leads, The worst may show, let this proof hold the light. But grant it clear; yet hath detraction got My blind side in the form my verse puts on; Much like a dung-hill mastiff, that dares not Assault the man he barks at, but the stone He throws at him takes in his eager jaws, And spoils his teeth because they cannot spoil. The long verse hath by proof receiv’d applause Beyond each other number; and the foil, That squint-ey’d Envy takes, is censur’d plain; For this long poem asks this length of verse, Which I myself ingenuously maintain Too long our shorter authors to rehearse. And, for our tongue that still is so impair’d[6] By travelling linguists, I can prove it clear, That no tongue hath the Muse’s utt’rance heir’d For verse, and that sweet music to the ear Strook out of rhyme, so naturally as this; Our monosyllables so kindly fall, And meet oppos’d in rhyme as they did kiss; French and Italian most immetrical, Their many syllables in harsh collision Fall as they break their necks; their bastard rhymes Saluting as they justled in transition, And set our teeth on edge; nor tunes, nor times Kept in their falls; and, methinks, their long words Shew in short verse as in a narrow place Two opposites should meet with two-hand swords Unwieldily, without or use or grace. Thus having rid the rubs, and strow’d these flow’rs In our thrice-sacred Homer’s English way, What rests to make him yet more worthy yours? To cite more praise of him were mere delay To your glad searches for what those men found That gave his praise, past all, so high a place; Whose virtues were so many, and so crown’d By all consents divine, that, not to grace Or add increase to them, the world doth need Another Homer, but ev’n to rehearse And number them, they did so much exceed. Men thought him not a man; but that his verse Some mere celestial nature did adorn; And all may well conclude it could not be, That for the place where any man was born, So long and mortally could disagree