Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/9



is a work of some hardihood to attempt the translation into English prose of an author who is at once a unique master of style, a splendid versifier, the greatest satirist, and one of the greatest moralists, of the world. Yet it is a task that has appealed to scholars of every age, and has a special fascination for one who is called upon by the conditions of this series to produce a version which shall be at once literal and idiomatic.

In the case of a great writer like Juvenal, who writes for all time, each generation seems to demand a translation of its own, in accordance with the changes in its own point of view and the shifting usages of language; and each translator desires to bring out in his own way the special meaning which the author has conveyed to him.

I have consulted all the better-known translations, especially those of Mr. S. G. Owen, Mr. J. D. Lewis, and Messrs. Strong and Leeper; and there are many good idiomatic renderings of short phrases to be found