00044--How does Dryden Compare himself with a builder?

            Dryden begins his "Preface to the Fables” by comparing himself with a man who intends to construct a building.  The builder begins his work on the basis of precise calculations.  But as his work progresses, he finds that his calculations are insufficient to meet his requirements.  The builder has to change his mind and will have to add this or that convenience, which he had not thought of at the beginning.  This is what happened to Dryden when he began to translate the fables.  Though it began a humble way with the translation of Homer's First Book of "Iliad" it became necessary to widen the field and take up more translations.  He went on to the translation of the Twelfth Book of Ovoid's "Metamorphoses" because it contains among other things, the causes, the beginning, and ending of the Trojan war.  This led him to the translation of the former part of the fifteenth Book.  Then there were the "Hunting of the Board", "Gnyras and Myrrha" , "Baucis and Philemon" and translated them.  When Dryden translated Ovid, he found that there was much in common between Ovid and Chaucer.  So he took up the translation of some tales by Chaucer.  Chaucer took many of his tales from Boccaccio and so he undertook the translation of some of his tales.  Like this, Dryden had to widen the scope of the translation of "The Fables".