Vulgar words in Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series (Page 1)
This book at a glance
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~ ~ ~ Sentence 712 ~ ~ ~
but were there one whose fires True genius kindles and fair fame inspires; Blest with each talent and each art to please, And born to write, converse, and live with ease; Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne: View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, And hate for arts that caused himself to rise; Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault and hesitate dislike; Alike reserved to praise or to commend, A timorous foe and a suspicious friend; Dreading ev'n fools, by flatterers besieged, And so obliging that he ne'er obliged; Like Cato, give his little senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause: While wits and templars every sentence raise, And wonder with a foolish face of praise; Who would not laugh if such a man there be?
~ ~ ~ Sentence 861 ~ ~ ~
But he cannot quite stand Homer's downright comparison of Ajax to an ass, and speaks of him in gingerly fashion as-- The slow beast with heavy strength endued.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 862 ~ ~ ~
Pope himself thinks the passage "inimitably just and beautiful;" but on the whole, he says, "a translator owes so much to the taste of the age in which he lives as not to make too great a compliment to the former [age]; and this induced me to omit the mention of the word _ass_ in the translation."
~ ~ ~ Sentence 864 ~ ~ ~
"Ass" is the vilest word imaginable in English or Latin, but of dignity enough in Greek and Hebrew to be employed "on the most magnificent occasions."
~ ~ ~ Sentence 984 ~ ~ ~
He is forced to leave his jovial friends and his worrying publishers "for Homer (damn him!)
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,422 ~ ~ ~
let the secret pass, That secret to each fool--that he's an ass!
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,497 ~ ~ ~
Through his mouthpiece, Savage, he described the scene on the day of publication; how a crowd of authors besieged the shop and threatened him with violence; how the booksellers and hawkers struggled with small success for copies; how the dunces formed clubs to devise measures of retaliation; how one wrote to ministers to denounce Pope as a traitor, and another brought an image in clay to execute him in effigy; and how successive editions, genuine and spurious, followed each other, distinguished by an owl or an ass on the frontispiece, and provoking infinite controversy amongst rival vendors.