ipts, the dearth of
copies, the absence of any translators to whom one can have recourse. So
I am not so much surprised that even in this most prolific age none of
the Italians has ventured to attempt the task of translating any tragedy
or comedy, whereas many have set their hand to Homer (among these even
Politian[38] failed to satisfy himself); one man[39] has essayed Hesiod,
and that without much success; another[40] has attempted Theocritus, but
with even far more unfortunate results: and finally Francesco Filelfo
has translated the first scene of the Hecuba in one of his funeral
orations.[41] (I first learned this after I had begun my version), but
in such a way that, great as he is, his work gave me courage enough to
proceed, overprecise as I am in other respects.

Then for me the lure of this poet's more than honeyed eloquence, which
even his enemies allow him, proved stronger than the deterrent of these
great examples and the many difficulties of the work, so that I have
been bold to attack a task never before attempted, in the hope that,
even if I failed, my honest readers would consider even this poor effort
of mine not altogether unpraiseworthy, and the more grudging would at
least be lenient to an inexperienced translator of a work so difficult:
in particular because I have deliberately added no light burden to my
other difficulties through my conscientiousness as a translator, in
attempting so far as possible to reproduce the shape and as it were
contours of the Greek verse, by striving to render line for line and
almost word for word, and everywhere seeking with the utmost fidelity to
convey to Latin ears the force and value of the sentence: whether it be
that I do not altogether approve of the freedom in translation which
Cicero allows others and practised himself (I would almost say to an
immoderate degree), or that as an inexperienced translator I preferred
to err on the side of seeming over-scrupulous rather than
over-free--hesitating on the sandy shore instead of wrecking my ship and
swimming in the midst of the billows; and I preferred to run the risk of
letting scholars complain of lack of brilliance and poetic beauty in my
work rather than of lack of fidelity to the original. Finally I did not
want to set myself up as a paraphraser, thus securing myself that
retreat which many use to cloak their ignorance, wrapping themselves
like the cuttle-fish in darkness of their own making to avoid detection.