Dryden's Latin, French,
and Greek quotations in Essay of Dramatic Poesy: translations by Earl
Miner
Epigraph Fungar vice = I shall play the role of a whetstone which, though
itself incapable of cutting, yet sharpens steel (Horace Ars Poetica)
Dedication to Buckhurst
Pars Indocili = Let those superior to the herd go forth; let the
soft and hopeless remain inactive on their ill-fated couches (Horace Epode
16)
Le jeune homme = The young man is in a bad humor, not having
worshipped at the Temple of Love; he must go in, and the wise man finds it, if
not his true home, at least a refuge on the journey (text unknown)
Sine studio = without anger or partiality
Essay by paragraph# in Lynch
3 Quem in concione = Sylla, whom we have seen in private meeting--when from the crowd a
bad poet handed him an epigram on him written in halting verse--at once ordered
the versifier to be paid on the condition that he write no more (Cicero)
3 un mauvais buffon = a wretched jester
3 Pauper videri
= Cinna wants to seem poor, and poor he is (Martial Epigram 8)
4 qui Bavium
= Let him who does not love detest Bavius love your poems, Maevius (Virgil
Eclogue 3)
4 Nam quos =
We despise those who praise what we despise (text unknown)
4 Pace vestra
= Permit me to say that you rhetoricians have ruined eloquence (Petronius
Satyricon)
5 Indignor quidquam = I am angry to hear something criticized not for being bad writing or
for lack of appeal, but for being new . . . if poems improve like wine I should
like to know what is the best poetic vintage (Horace Epistle 2)
27 Audita visis
= We are apt to praise what we hear rather than what we see; we regard the
present with envy and the past with admiration, believing ourselves overcome by
the one while we learn from the other (Historia Romana)
40 Sed proavi
= Our ancestors even praised the versification and bite of Plautus, being too
patient with them, not to say stupid (Horace Art of Poetry)
41 Multa renascentur = Many terms will be reborn that died and others now respectable will
go, if usage so decides, it being the arbitrement, law, and rule of speech
(ibid)
42 Mixtaque ridenti =Pour out the beams mingled with the smiling acanthus . . . the woods
and waters wonder at the gleam / of shields painted ships that stem the stream
(Virgil Eclogue 4)
43 Si verbo =
if I may be so bold to call it the louvre of the sky (Ovid Metamorphoses)
45 Si sic omnia
= If only he had always spoken thus (Juvenal Satire 10)
47 Omne genus
= Tragedy excels in gravity all other kinds of writing
48 Anima mea =
My soul, my life, life and soul
49 Sum pius =
I am Aneas the just, known to fame throughout the world (Virgil Aneid 1)
49 Si foret =
If he had been deferred to fate by this our age (Horace Satire 10)
49 Quos libitina
= Those whom the funeral goddess has consecrated (Horace Epistle 2)
53 Atque ursum
= They will call for a bearfight or boxing in the middle of a play (ibid)
55 Ex noto = I
shall create my poems from familiar matter (Horace Art of Poetry)
55 Atque ita =
Homer creates, so combining false with true that there is no discrepancy
between begiining and middle, or middle and end (ibid)
56 Quodcunque
= It is so incredible that i had whatever of this kind you show me (ibid)
the Greek right after this =
the truth the likeness of truth
65 Segnius irritant = What finds entrance through the ears stirs the mind less deeply than
what is presented to the eyes . . . what is to take place behind scenes should
not be brought on stage . . . Medea
should not carve up her boys, Procne turn into a bird or Cadmus a snake (Horace
Art of Poetry)
72 Sed ut primo
= But as we aspire at first to surpass those we consider the greatest, so when
we have failed at that, our efforts weaken with our hope; setting aside that in
which we can't excel, we seek something we can do better (Paterculus History
of Rome)
87 Quontam lent=
As cypresses are given to rising above the bending willows (Virgil Eclogue
1)
93 Creditur ex medio = Many think that because comedy takes its material from daily life it
requires little effort; actually, its burden is heavier, because so much less
is allowed for deviation (Horace Epistle 2)
97 ubi plura =
When many beauties shine in a poem, I shall not take offense with a few
blemishes (Horace Art of Poetry)
99 Etiam favente
= You are defeted, Liberius, in spite of my favor (Macrobius Saturnalia 2)
99 Arcades omnes
= young Arcadians both alike inspired to sing and answer as the song required (Virgil
Eclogue 7)
100 Nescivit =
He doesn't know when to leave well enough alone (Seneca)
107 Tentanda via
= New ways I must attempt to raise my name aloft (Virgil Goergic 3)
108 Est ubi plebs
= It is when the multitude think they are right that they are wrong (Horace
Epistle 2)
110 Indignatur
= The banquet of Thyestes scorns to be told in language of daily life suitable
to comedy (Horace Art of Poetry)
111 Essutire =
Tragedy scorns to chatter in trifling verses (Horace Art of Poetry)
115 quidibet audendi = daring anything (Horace Art of Poetry)
115 Musas colere
= to cultivate the severer muses (Martial Epigram 110