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On A Mistake In His Translation Of Homer.
By William Cowper
Cowper had sinn’d with some excuse,
If, bound in rhyming tethers,
He had committed this abuse
Of changing ewes for wethers;[1]
But, male for female is a trope,
Or rather bold misnomer,
That would have startled even Pope,
When he translated Homer.
Extra Info:
[1] I have heard about my wether mutton from various quarters. It was a blunder hardly pardonable in a man who has lived amid fields and meadows grazed by sheep almost these thirty years. I have accordingly satirized myself in two stanzas which I composed last night, while I lay awake, tormented with pain, and well dosed with laudanum. If you find them not very brilliant, therefore, you will know how to account for it.—Letter to Joseph Hill, Esq., dated April 15, 1792.
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