I too can hunt a Poetaster down


Photograph

Gift of John B. Stetson, Jr., 1925 – Port 5252.353*

Mend, STRANGFORD! mend thy morals and thy taste;
Be warm, but pure, be amorous, but chaste:
Cease to deceive; thy pilfer’d harp restore,
Nor teach the Lusian Bard to copy MOORE.

Luís de Camões (1524?-1580). Poems, from the Portuguese (London, 1803).

Shortly after taking a diplomatic post in Lisbon, Percy Smythe, 6th Viscount Strangford (1780-1855), published this translation of poetry by Camões, the national poet of Portugal. Byron thought the translation owed more to the poetry of Thomas Moore than to the Portuguese original.