Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus
A 'cute French publisher lately remarked to me that, as a rule, versions in verse are as enjoyable to the writer as they are unenjoyed by the reader, who vehemently doubts their truth and trustworthiness. These pages hold in View one object sole and simple, namely, to prove that a translation, metrical and literal, may be true and may be trustworthy.
As I told the public (camoens: Life and Lusiads ii. 185 it has ever been my ambition to reverse the late Mr. Matthew Arnold's peremptory dictum: - In a verse translation no original work is any longer recognisable. And here I may be allowed to borrow from my Supplemental Arabian Nights (vol. Vi., Appendix pp. 411-412, a book known to few and never to be reprinted) my vision of the ideal translation which should not be relegated to the Limbus of Intentions.
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