But there
are more great wits besides Chaucer, whose fault is their excess of
conceits, and those ill sorted. An author is not to write all he can,
but only all he ought. Having observed this redundancy in Chaucer (as
it is an easy matter for a man of ordinary parts to find a fault in
one of greater), I have not tied myself to a literal translation; but
have often omitted what I judged unnecessary, or not of dignity enough
to appear in the company of better thoughts. I have presumed farther,
in some places, and added somewhat of my own where I thought my author
was deficient, and had not given his thoughts their true lustre, for
want of words in the beginning of our language. And to this I was the
more emboldened, because (if I may be permitted to say it of myself)
I found I had a soul congenial to his, and that I had been conversant
in the same studies. Another poet, in another age, may take the same
liberty with my writings; if at least they live long enough to deserve
correction. It was also necessary sometimes to restore the sense of
Chaucer, which was lost or mangled in the errors of the press: let
this example suffice at present; in the story of Palamon and Arcite,
where the temple of Diana is described, you find these verses, in all
the editions of our author:
There saw I Dane turned into a tree,
I mean not the goddess Diane,
But Venus daughter, which that hight Dane:
Which, after a little consideration, I knew was to be reformed into
this sense, that Daphne, the daughter of Peneus, was turned into a
tree.
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