Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO MY WORTHY FRIEND EDMUND PRESTWICK ON HIS TRANSLATION OF HIPPOLITUS, by CHARLES COTTON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO MY WORTHY FRIEND EDMUND PRESTWICK ON HIS TRANSLATION OF HIPPOLITUS, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Hard is thy fate (great wit) thus to advance
Last Line: For not a line of those thou writ'st can die.
Subject(s): Translating & Interpreting


HARD is thy fate (great Wit) thus to advance
Thy poem in this age of ignorance,
To send it forth in such a time as this,
Where none must judge, but such as judge amiss;
Coarse, sordid censurers, that think their eyes
Abus'd if fix'd, on aught but Mercuries,
Where honest judgements will not doubt to swear
Thy work deserves an amphitheatre.

Nor is this piece such as of late hath been
The tedious stuff of poetaster seen,
Wit to a nobler height, doth thine intend;
No common labour to no common end.
For by thy version we are taught anew,
T' interpret what we vainly thought we knew
But still mistook; so that in this we find
Thou canst do miracles and cure the blind.

The orac'lous mist from Seneca is fled,
Which with fresh laurel crowns his verdant head,
And the black curtain of his clouded sense
Is drawn by thy exact intelligence.
Hippolitus that erst was set upon
By all, mangled by misconstruction,
Dis-member'd by misprision, now by thee
And thy ingenious chirurgerie
Is re-united to his limbs, and grown
Stronger as thine, than when great Theseus' son.

Go on then Wit's example, and revive,
What none but such as thee, can keep alive;
Slack not the work for want of industry,
For not a line of those thou writ'st can die.





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