Elsewhere on the net someone was asking for a translation into Latin of a couple of sentences. I advised google translate, which Chris H. directed me to some time back.
Then I had a thought - what if it doesn't work? I went to the site and typed the two sentences in and a load of nonsense appeared. It seems that google has the Latin vocabulary, but not the grammar. So most of the words were there but making no sense.
Translation always worries me. Is it correct? Could it be expressed more accurately? Has something been left out? Has something been added? I remember at school one of our language teachers uttering an Italian proverb, Traduttore, traditore. It would be treacherous of me to translate that phrase, but it has hung round my neck like an albatross ever since (well, maybe I exaggerate for effect).
In my current poetry season I posted a translation of Egan O'Rahilly's sneer at Cromwell and his Irish fans, and harked back to an earlier posting of the same poem by John Montague. The original Irish, as found, had three veres, as did the Leerssen translation. But Montague's version has four verses. Is the fourth verse his own?
So the following poem is on the theme of translation. It is another of Marvell's, dedicated to a Hull medical man, Dr. Robert Witty. Same Witty had translated a medical treatise from the Latin of Dr. James Primrose. Primrose is a person of interest to me as I can count kin with him. Although he was born in France and died in Hull his family origins lay in the parish of Culross, in Scotland, where the Primrose family grew, rose fell, and eventually moved on. The great genealogical chart of more than a thousand related Primroses features Doctor James as well as less illustrious ancestors of mine, tenant farmers, seafarers, etc.
The good doctor's medical work was an attack on some of the cranky ideas of his fellow professionals, but it seems that he could compete with his peers in the field of crankiness.
So to the poem. Who was Celia? A very smart lady, we learn, but that cut no ice with our Andrew. A woman should know her place and not try competing with men. Or was he holding up contemporary prejudice for inspection?

TO HIS WORTHY FRIEND DOCTOR WITTIE UPON
HIS TRANSLATION OF THE POPULAR ERRORS
(Andrew Marvell)

Sit further, and make room for thine own fame,
Where just desert enrolles thy honour'd Name
The good Interpreter. Some in this task
Take of the Cypress vail, but leave a mask,
Changing the Latine, but do more obscure
That sence in English which was bright and pure.
So of Translators they are Authors grown,
For ill Translators make the Book their own.
Others do strive with words and forced phrase
To add such lustre, and so many rayes,
That but to make the Vessel shining, they
Much of the precious Metal rub away.
He is Translations thief that addeth more,
As much as he that taketh from the Store
Of the first Author. Here he maketh blots
That mends; and added beauties are but spots.
Caelia whose English doth more richly flow
Then Tagus, purer then dissolved snow,
And sweet as are her lips that speak it, she
Now learns the tongues of France and Italy;
But she is Caelia still: no other grace
But her own smiles commend that lovely face;
Her native beauty's not Italianated,
Nor her chast mind into the French translated:
Her thoughts are English, though her sparkling wit
With other Language doth them fitly fit.
Translators learn of her: but stay I slide
Down into Error with the Vulgar tide;
Women must not teach here: the Doctor doth
Stint them to Cawdles Almond-milk, and Broth.
Now I reform, and surely so will all
Whose happy Eyes on thy Translation fall,
I see the people hastning to thy Book,
Liking themselves the worse the more they look,
And so disliking, that they nothing see
Now worth the liking, but thy Book and thee.
And (if I Judgement have) I censure right;
For something guides my hand that I must write.
You have Translations statutes best fulfil'd.
That handling neither sully nor would guild.