 | Electra of Sophocles |  |
To his learned Friend on his ingenious choice and translation of Sophocle's Electra, Representing Allegorically these Times.
What? 's aged Sophocles still infant? howComes it to passe he learns to speak but now?
His lines before were but half truth; his style
Against this age thy wit doth whet and file.
Me thinks this were a perfect Prophecie,
But that there wants still the Catastrophe:
Here guilt with guilt is parallel'd; the rime
Of vengeance too may be compleat in time.
Our Agamemnon's dead, Electra grieves,
The onely hope is that Orestes lives.
Others can onely books translate; but thou
Translat'st the Poeme, and the Poet too,
And mak'st him Prophet; as with double face,
He see's behind him by thy looking-glasse.
Poets themselves were ne're transform'd; but here
In one twy-forkt Parnassus doth appear.
These times were typifi'd by those; and he
I'le boldly adde, was but a type of thee.
W. G.
| Electra of Sophocles | |