Milton wants to write an epic that in some ways comes before, or prevents, the great epics of Homer and Virgil.

弥尔顿想写一首在某种程度上先于，荷马和维吉尔伟大史诗的史诗。

耶鲁公开课 - 弥尔顿课程节选

There had been a half century that had passed since any great modern epic or romance epic had even been produced.

在过去的半个世纪中,没有任何伟大的现代史诗或浪漫史诗出现。

耶鲁公开课 - 弥尔顿课程节选

It was the great national epic of the city of Babel or Babylon.

这是巴比伦或者Babel王国伟大的史诗。

耶鲁公开课 - 旧约导论课程节选

It's to admit that this is in fact a late epic and that it derives from a close, studious, student-like imitation of the great epics of Homer and Virgil.

也就等于承认它事实上是一部晚期的史诗作品,是源自于雷同的，学究气的，小学生般的,对荷马与维吉尔写的伟大史诗的模仿。

耶鲁公开课 - 弥尔顿课程节选

This is how Homer prepared himself to be the greatest and the first of all epic poets.

荷马就是这样来让自己成为最伟大的,并且是第一个史诗诗人。

耶鲁公开课 - 弥尔顿课程节选

Virgil would go on to be a great epic poet but not until after he had written these pastoral eclogues and then after that, after he had written the georgic poems, only then does he write finally the great epic poem The Aeneid.

他会成为一个伟大的史诗家,但这一直到他写出这些抒情诗之后,在那之后，在他完成了那些田园诗篇之后，直到那时他才最终完成了史诗。

耶鲁公开课 - 弥尔顿课程节选

I suggest that we can hear echoes of that same youthful competitiveness in Milton's first major poem in these opening lines, in the beginning of the great epic of Milton's maturity.

在失乐园的开头几句,在弥尔顿成熟后所写的这首伟大史诗的开头，我们还可以看到这同样的他年轻时的雄心。

耶鲁公开课 - 弥尔顿课程节选