The translation should read as though it were an original poem, and it should produce on the modern reader as far as possible the same effect as the original produced on Virgil's contemporaries.

And here we reach the real difficulty, for the scholar who can alone judge what that effect may have been, is too intimate with the original to see clearly the merits of a translation, and the man who can only read the translation can form no opinion.

However, it seems clear that a prose translation can never really satisfy us, because it must always be wanting in the musical quality of continuous verse.

And our critical experience bears this out, since even Professor Mackail with all his literary skill and insight has failed to make his version of the _Aeneid_ more than a very valuable aid to the student of the original.

The meaning of the poet is fully expressed, but his music has been lost.