The Lusiads, Tr. Into Engl. Verse by J.J. Aubertin (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PKEFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. It had always been my intention, under any circumstances, to prepare and publish, after a certain interval, a Second Edition of this translation; because in a First Edition of such a work, even though treated with the greatest care, I could not presume to have accomplished what was the object of my ambition in publishing at all?namely, to present to English Literature as faithful and poetical an interpretation of the old Portuguese Epic, The Lusiads, as it was in my power to produce. The generous manner, however, in which my volumes have been received, both by the critical world and the public, has already led to the exhaustion of the First Edition; and thus therefore I now feel myself invited to fulfil my first intention. In revising my First Edition, however, I have found nothing to alter in its general tone and feeling. I have found it impossible to identify myself more with my Master than I have already succeeded in doing; and, indeed, in this respect, a tribute so general?1 might almost say unanimous?has been accorded me not only in England, but, what is of very great importance, both in Portugal and Brazil, that I feel any attempt to alter would injure rather than improve my first work. But in various matters of detail I have been reminded of and have also remarked certain defects; a consequence, indeed, very natural, from the fact that the translation and the publication, in two languages, of the poem were conducted by myself, without any personalassistance, and with little or no aid to be obtained by consulting any then existing translation. Some of these defects I have gradually picked out for myself, and some of them I owe to my critics, whom I have now to thank for their suggestions. The one great advantage that I have enjoyed in pre...