lators
shows little grasp of the new principles. When one considers, in
addition to their very inadequate expression of theory, the prevailing
characteristics of their practice, the balance turns unmistakably in
favor of a careless freedom in translation.

Some of the deficiencies in sixteenth-century theory are supplied by
Chapman, who applies himself with considerable zest to laying down the
principles which in his opinion should govern poetical translations.
Producing his versions of Homer in the last years of the sixteenth and
early years of the seventeenth century, he forms a link between the two
periods. In some respects he anticipates later critics. He attacks both
the overstrict and the overloose methods of translation:

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 forced gloss)
I laugh to see; and yet as much abhor
More license from the words than may express
Their full compression, and make clear the author.[362]

It is literalism, however, which bears the brunt of his attack. He is
always conscious, "how pedantical and absurd an affectation it is in the
interpretation of any author (much more of Homer) to turn him word for
word, when (according to Horace and other best lawgivers to translators)
it is the part of every knowing and judicial interpreter, not to follow
the number and order of words, but the material things themselves, and
sentences to weigh diligently, and to clothe and adorn them with words,
and such a style and form of oration, as are most apt for the language
in which they are converted."[363] Strangely enough, he thinks this
literalism the prevailing fault of translators. He hardly dares present
his work

To reading judgments, since so gen'rally,
Custom hath made ev'n th'ablest agents err
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.[364]

Chapman, however, believes that it is possible to overcome the
difficulties of translation. Although the "sense and elegancy" of Greek
and English are of "distinguished natures," he holds that it requires

Only a judgment to make both consent