In Latin two negatives make an affirmative; but it is otherwise in Greek, they only give force to the negation ... - Alexander Fraser Tytler

We may certainly, from the foregoing observations, conclude, that is impossible to do complete justice to any species of poetical compositin in a prose translation; in other words, that none but a poet can translate a poet.

The Greek language, from the frequency and familiarity of ellipsis, allows a conciseness of expression which is scarcely attainable in any other tongue, and perhaps least of all in the English. ...
The Latin language, too, though in an inferior degree to the Greek, admits of a brevity, which cannot be successfully imitated in the English.

Works which consist of fact and detail demand a more scrupulous fidelity than those of which the basis is sentiment.