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Thomas Bridges (Brydges), author of Homer's Travestie, refers to his poetry as a "Burlesque Translation"! (It is well to remember that the author of this two volume work is essentially unknown and in fact is sometimes stated to be Francis Grose. (equally unknown.) In this great parody with numerous rhymes that cry out for song, Bridges gives life to a Homer that begs comparison with the original.
Parody is alive and well as a subspecies of satire that may include a serious attempt to twist an author's work to put it in another light, but when this, as an intellectual exercise is completed, it is often found to be dry and tasteless. What's needed is a strong touch of burlesque to make it enjoyable. Put the past author's work in a new environment; season it with a bit of profanity, add vulgar expressions, word play, personality attacks and political jingoism, then the stew is fit for serving It becomes a travesty of the work of the dead poet (or author) and both the base work and the parody enter the spectrum of writings a reader can come to appreciate. By refreshing the reader's acquaintance with history and dressing the Emperor in his new clothes the sight is either for the voyeurist amongst us or perhaps its time to cover your eyes.
An often quoted bit from his preface to the Iliad:
"Good people, would you know the reason
I write at this unlucky season,
When all the nation is so poor
That few can keep above one whore,
Except the Lawyers - (whose large fees
Maintain as many as they please) -"...
The preface (which Brydges called, "Something by way of Preface", continues:
And Pope, with taste and judgement great,
Has deign'd this author to translate ?
The reason's this: -- He may not please
The jocund tribe so well as these;
For all capacities can't climb
To comprehend the true sublime.
Another reason I can tell,
Tho? silence might do full as well;
But being charg'd ? discharge I must,
For bladder, if too full, will burst.
The writers of the merry class,
E?er since the time of Hudibras,
In this strange blunder all agree,
To murder short-legg'd poetry.
Words, tho' design'd to make ye smile,
Why many''nt they run as smooth as oil?
No poet-taster can convince
A man of any kind of sense,
That verse can be the greater treasure,
Because it wants both weight and measure;
Or can persuade, that false rough meter,
Than true and smooth, by far is sweeter,
This is the wherefore; and the why,
Have patience, you'll see by-and-by.
And he continues in Book I.
Come, Mrs Muse, but, if a maid,
Then come Miss Muse, and lend me aid!
Ten thousand jingling veses bring,
That I Achilles' wrath may sing,...
And so, Thomas Brydges continues through the two volumes with humor, sarcasm, vulgarity, good rhyme, and just bold fun.
In the current economic environment with trial lawyers carrying away wheelbarrow loads of cash from settlements and others can't even find jobs pushing wheelbarrows, Homer's Travestie has a new relevance.
If you would make a speech, or write one,
Or get some artist to indite one,
Don't think, because 'tis understood
By men of sense 'tis therefore good;
But let your words so well be plann'd,
That blockheads can't misunderstand.
(From the facing page to the Seventh Book of Homer?s Iliad. After Marcus Fabius Quintillianus, Roman rhetorician, ca 40 A. D.)
The poetry flows and the word pictures are as crisp today as they were when penned in the 1700's. Your appreciation of Homer will never be the same after reading Thomas Brydges work. The gods and mere man (and women) interact in true burlesque. The pity is that we know so little of Thomas Brydges.
A Burlesque Translation of Homer, Thomas Brydges, (In two volumes, The fouth edition improved), London, G.G. and J. Robinson, Paternofter-Row, 1792.
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