GREEK ANTHOLOGY.—No. III.

Bless thee, reader—Let us live and love, since brief is our time for either.Of course, I wish to please thee. I might make a huge boast of independence: but the boast would be as false as foolish. I might feign contempt of thee, and of the public: but it would be a wicked lie. So far as I am an author,thysmiles, andtheirfavor, are my life. I may read, think, act, to please myself; but it is clear thatI writeto please thee. This blows sky-high all scornful prefaces, such as some modern authors paste on the foreheads of their little bantlings, which they send forth to angle for favor in the muddy and shifting stream of popular applause. How mortified are these scribbling autocrats, when their verycartelsof defiance are unanswered, and unread! Yet, on the other hand, is there something of courtesy,—nay, of indulgence, due to him, who neither assumes, nor dictates, but offers, in the words, and with the spirit of humility, what he hopes may please, and possibly instruct. I steal not—Iborrow not. Scanty though be my cloak in breadth, and coarse in texture, yet I wove it in mine own loom, and with mine own hands. Whatever I give is mine, or rather,was—for it isthinenow. It is all I have—the widow’s mite—and, as such, receive it. I would not bring a “vain oblation” to the literary altar—that blood-stained shrine, on which so many a helpless victim is dissected by unfeeling butchers. I have not time to give thee much, (I fear me thou art not sorry,) nor can I ‘lick into shape’ what Idogive.

I have thought of essaying a few remarks on the principles of translation, and the practice of translators, that thou be not inordinately surprised, if on comparing my version with the original, thou dost not find in bothallthe same words, and in the same order—meeting, tooth to tooth. I do so to satisfy the scruples of the well-disposed, and not to blunt the arrows of small-beer wit, or to elude the aim of pop-gun ammunition. “Out! out! brief candle!” says the immortal Shakspeare. “Get out! get out! you short candle!” says the spruce Frenchman. The Frenchman wasliteral; but he had better have understood thespiritof his author, and given that, though it were with a periphrasis. The truth is, you cannot render any passage in a Greek or Latin poemreligiouslyinto English—preserving the precise form, attitude, expression and size—if you attempt the absurdity, you present to the eyes of your readers, not a living body, but a lifeless corpse. All, that can be done with works written among nations at so wide a remove from our own in age, character, customs, and religion, is to breathe the spirit and manner of the original into English as elegant, yet close and strong as possible. Their works are full of phrases and allusions, which, with us, are dry and barren, while to them they were instinct with poetry, and eloquent with meaning. To the heart of the Grecian the history of his country was sanctified, and made dear by a long line of traditionary glories. Familiar to them, though lost to us, were a thousand memories of mystic interest, and patriotic pride—tales of the gods and heroes, who had lived and moved in their land, amid the days of its splendor—histories woven from facts, but tinged in the multitudinous colorings of fancy—fables, that stretched far back through the haze of ages, from wonder to doubt, and from doubt to darkness. Here had Jupiter been cradled in the mountains—there gushed a fountain from the foot-print of Neptune’s charger—here, from the sown teeth of the slaughtered dragon, sprang to life and fell in battle a field of steel-clad warriors—and there had Orpheus charmed the stones to life, and made the forests dance in chorus to his lyre. These were so many chords of interest, which the poet had but to touch, and the souls of his readers responded with a thrill. Now all these springs of passion are sealed to us—for, in the first place, the history of another and a buried nation excites but a feeble sympathy, compared with that which ponders and glows above our own—and, secondly, we rarely feel deeply what we do not thoroughlybelieve, or fully comprehend. Deprived, then, of these advantages, unaided by fancy, and unadorned by language, a translation would be about astouchingas a table oftangents. And this is what has made English translations so insipid compared with English originals, and has induced in some the belief that even the master-pieces of antiquity are poor and pointless—the fondled god-children of pedantic book-worms. This deficiency the translator must labor to supply. It is to be supplied—not by stripping the original of itsnationality, and making it apply as well to New England as to Greece—but by preserving it bold, free, and spirited, as it is in its native language—by clothing it in words sufficiently glowing and graceful to arouse sympathy, yet exhibiting, through all, the body of the original, like a lamp flame, shining through its glassy vase—in short, by having it still Greek, but English-Greek.

This accords with the practice of all the best translators. No translator ever gave, or intended to give every word, or even shade of idea, that he found in the original. I appeal with confidence to any page in Dryden, or Cowley, in Addison, or Pope. They have, I acknowledge, generally carried theirliberalityto a fault—still, iftheydo not translate correctly, who does? Open at any page of Pope—say the last four lines of the Iliad. Read the simple original. “And after having heaped up the (sepulchral) mound, they went back. And then, happily assembled, they banqueted upon a very splendid banquet in the dwelling of Priam, Jove-nourished king. Thus did they attend to the burial of Hector, tamer-of-horses.”

“All Troy then moves to Priam’s court again,A solemn, silent, melancholy train.Assembled there, from pious toil they rest,And sadly shared the last sepulchral feast.Such honors Ilion to her hero paid,And peaceful slept the mighty Hector’s shade.”

“All Troy then moves to Priam’s court again,

A solemn, silent, melancholy train.

Assembled there, from pious toil they rest,

And sadly shared the last sepulchral feast.

Such honors Ilion to her hero paid,

And peaceful slept the mighty Hector’s shade.”

Too wide, I grant—yet it is Pope, the king of translators.

Addison, dear reader, was not a bad translator. Yet take his rendering of that grand Horatian—the third of the third book. “Not the heat of the citizens, commanding crooked things, not the countenance of an urgent tyrant, shakes in his solid mind the man just and firm to his purpose.”

“Theman, resolved, and steady to his trust,Inflexible to all and obstinatelyjust,May the ruderabble’sinsolence despise,Their senseless clamors, and tumultuous cries:Thetyrant’sfierceness he beguiles,And the stern brow, and the harsh voice defies,And with superior greatness smiles.”

“Theman, resolved, and steady to his trust,

Inflexible to all and obstinatelyjust,

May the ruderabble’sinsolence despise,

Their senseless clamors, and tumultuous cries:

Thetyrant’sfierceness he beguiles,

And the stern brow, and the harsh voice defies,

And with superior greatness smiles.”

He has rendered literally but four words, and them I have italicised. Is it, therefore, a bad translation? No. It is good—though, with all due deference to thy shade, Oh! Joseph, I must think it alittlediffuse—still, it is good, because it expresses the spirit and manner of the original in fine, forcible English. I give thee a literal translation—not that one better and as close might not be made—but to exemplify the difference between transfusing thespiritand thewordsof an author from one language into another.

The upright man,whoto his purpose clings,No rabble’s heat, commanding crooked things,Nor urgent tyrant’s countenance can shakeIn his firm mind——

The upright man,whoto his purpose clings,

No rabble’s heat, commanding crooked things,

Nor urgent tyrant’s countenance can shake

In his firm mind——

Almost perfectly literal, and—sweet reader—how spirited! I mightmultiplymy remarks, were I not loth todividethine attention.

I give thee two or three things—such as an aching head and sleepy eyes made them.

By Lucillius, to Nicylla.Those, who affirm that thou dost dyeThe ringlets of thy jetty hair,Can easily be proved to lie—Thoubought’stthem black as now they are.By the same, to a Miser.Thou hast, indeed, the rich man’s pelf,But dost possess the beggar’s soul,Oh, thou, who starvest for thyself,And for thine heirs in wealth dost roll.By the same. Envy.When Flaccus on the gallows swung,And chanced to see a brother-thiefUpon a loftier gibbet hung,He grinned, and died in envious grief.A quodam, mihi ignoto.A man, that once before has married,And longs again thenoose to splice,Is one, that has at sea miscarried,And wishes to be shipwrecked twice.

By Lucillius, to Nicylla.

Those, who affirm that thou dost dyeThe ringlets of thy jetty hair,Can easily be proved to lie—Thoubought’stthem black as now they are.

Those, who affirm that thou dost dye

The ringlets of thy jetty hair,

Can easily be proved to lie—

Thoubought’stthem black as now they are.

By the same, to a Miser.

Thou hast, indeed, the rich man’s pelf,But dost possess the beggar’s soul,Oh, thou, who starvest for thyself,And for thine heirs in wealth dost roll.

Thou hast, indeed, the rich man’s pelf,

But dost possess the beggar’s soul,

Oh, thou, who starvest for thyself,

And for thine heirs in wealth dost roll.

By the same. Envy.

When Flaccus on the gallows swung,And chanced to see a brother-thiefUpon a loftier gibbet hung,He grinned, and died in envious grief.

When Flaccus on the gallows swung,

And chanced to see a brother-thief

Upon a loftier gibbet hung,

He grinned, and died in envious grief.

A quodam, mihi ignoto.

A man, that once before has married,And longs again thenoose to splice,Is one, that has at sea miscarried,And wishes to be shipwrecked twice.

A man, that once before has married,

And longs again thenoose to splice,

Is one, that has at sea miscarried,

And wishes to be shipwrecked twice.

Be this acaveatto all amorous widowers.

Hermeneutes.

Back to Index Next