The dilection of Greek poets has waned during the last pestilent
century, and this decline has, I think, kept pace with a decline in the
use of Latin cribs to Greek authors. The classics have more and more
become a baton exclusively for the cudgelling of schoolboys, and less
and less a diversion for the mature.
I do not imagine I am the sole creature who has been well taught his
Latin and very ill-taught his Greek (beginning at the age, say, of
twelve, when one is unready to discriminate matters of style, and when
the economy of the adjective cannot be wholly absorbing). A child may be
bulldozed into learning almost anything, but man accustomed to some
degree of freedom is loath to approach a masterpiece through five
hundred pages of grammar. Even a scholar like Porson may confer with
former translators.
We have drifted out of touch with the Latin authors as well, and we have
mislaid the fine English versions: Golding's _Metamorphoses_; Gavin
Douglas' _Æneids;_ Marlowe's _Eclogues_ from Ovid, in each of which
books a great poet has compensated, by his own skill, any loss in
transition; a new beauty has in each case been created. Greek in English
remains almost wholly unsuccessful, or rather, there are glorious
passages but no long or whole satisfaction. Chapman remains the best
English "Homer," marred though he may be by excess of added ornament,
and rather more marred by parentheses and inversions, to the point of
being hard to read in many places.
And if one turn to Chapman for almost any favorite passage one is almost
sure to be disappointed; on the other hand I think no one will excel him
in the plainer passages of narrative, as of Priam's going to Achilles in
the XXIVth Iliad. Yet he breaks down in Priam's prayer at just the point
where the language should be the simplest and austerest.
Pope is easier reading, and, out of fashion though he is, he has at
least the merit of translating Homer into _something_. The nadir of
Homeric translation is reached by the Leaf-Lang prose; Victorian faddism
having persuaded these gentlemen to a belief in King James fustian;
their alleged prose has neither the concision of verse nor the virtues
of direct motion. In their preface they grumble about Chapman's
"mannerisms," yet their version is full of "Now behold I" and "yea even
as" and "even as when," tushery possible only to an affected age bent on
propaganda. For, having, despite the exclusion of the _Dictionnaire
Philosophique_ from the island, finally found that the Bible couldn't be
retained either as history or as private Reuter from J'hvh's Hebrew
Press bureau, the Victorians tried to boom it, and even its wilfully
bowdlerized translations, as literature.
"So spake he, and roused Athene that already was set thereon.... Even
as the son of ... even in such guise...."
perhaps no worse than
"With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving"[1]
but bad enough anyway.
Of Homer two qualities remain untranslated: the magnificent
onomatopœia, as of the rush of the waves on the sea-beach and their
recession in:
_παρὰ θῖνα πολυΦλοίσβοιο θαλάσσης_
untranslated and untranslatable; and, secondly, the authentic cadence of
speech; the absolute conviction that the words used, let us say by
Achilles to the "dog-faced" chicken-hearted Agamemnon, are in the actual
swing of words spoken. This quality of actual speaking is _not_
untranslatable. Note how Pope fails to translate it:
There sat the seniors of the Trojan race
(Old Priam's chiefs, and most in Priam's grace):
The king, the first; Thymœtes at his side;
Lampus and Clytius, long in counsel try'd;
Panthus and Hicetaon, once the strong;
And next, the wisest of the reverend throng,
Antenor grave, and sage Ucalegon,
Lean'd on the walls, and bask'd before the sun.
Chiefs, who no more in bloody fights engage,
But wise through time, and narrative with age,
In summer days like grasshoppers rejoice,
A bloodless race, that send a feeble voice.
These, when the Spartan queen approach'd the tower,
In secret own'd resistless beauty's power:
They cried, No wonder, such celestial charms
For nine long years have set the world in arms!
What winning graces! What majestic mien!
She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen!
Yet hence, oh Heaven, convey that fatal face,
And from destruction save the Trojan race.
This is anything but the "surge and thunder," but it is, on the other
hand, a definite idiom, within the limits of the rhymed pentameter
couplet it is even musical in parts; there is imbecility in the
antithesis, and bathos in "she looks a queen," but there is fine
accomplishment in:
"Wise through time, and narrative with age,"
Mr. Pope's own invention, and excellent. What we definitely can _not_
hear is the voice of the old men speaking. The simile of the
grasshoppers is well rendered, but the old voices do not ring in the
ear.
Homer (iii. 156-160) reports their conversation:
_Οὐ νέμεσις, Τρὧας καὶ ἐϋκνήμιδας Αχαιοὺς_
_Τοιῇδ ἀμΦὶ γυναικὶ πολὺν χρόνον ἄλγεα πἀσχειν·_
_Αἰῶς ἀθανάτῃσι θεῇς εἰς ὦπα ἔοικεν._
_Ἀλλὰ καὶ ὣς, τοὶη περ εοῦς', ἐν νηυσὶ νεέσθω·_
_Μηδ' ἡμἰν τεκέεσσι τ' 'οπίσσω πῆμα λιποιτο._
Which is given in Sam. Clark's _ad verbum_ translation:
"Non _est_ indigne ferendum, Trojanos et bene-ocreatos Archivos
Tali de muliere longum tempus dolores pati:
Omnino immortalibus deabus ad vultum similis est.
Sed et sic, talis quamvis sit, in navibus redeat,
Neque nobis liberisque in posterum detrimentum relinquatur."
Mr. Pope has given six short lines for five long ones, but he has added
"fatal" to face (or perhaps only lifted it from _νέμεσις_), he has added
"winning graces," "majestic," "looks a queen." As for owning beauty's
resistless power secretly or in the open, the Greek is:
_Τοῖοι ἄρα Τρώων ἡγήτορες ἧντ' ἐπὶ πύργῳ._
_Οἵ δ' ὡς οὦν εἶδον Ἑλένην ἐπὶ πύργον ἰοῦσαν,_
_Ἠκα πρὸς ἀλλήλους ἔηεα πτερόεντ' ἀγόρευον·_
and Sam. Clark as follows:
"Tales utique Trojanorum proceres sedebant in turri.
Hi autem ut videruut Helenam ad turrim venientem,
Submisse inter se verbis alatis dixerunt;"
_Ἠκα_ is an adjective of sound, it is purely objective, even
_submisse_[2] is an addition; though _Ἠκα_ might, by a slight strain, be
taken to mean that the speech of the old men came little by little, a
phrase from each of the elders. Still it would be purely objective. It
does not even say they spoke humbly or with resignation.
Chapman is no closer than his successor. He is so _galant_ in fact, that
I thought I had found his description in Rochefort. The passage is
splendid, but splendidly unhomeric:
"All grave old men, and soldiers they had been, but for age
Now left the wars; yet counsellors they were exceedingly sage.
And as in well-grown woods, on trees, cold spiny grasshoppers
Sit chirping, and send voices out, that scarce can pierce our ears
For softness, and their weak faint sounds; so, talking on the tow'r,
These seniors of the people sat; who when they saw the pow'r
Of beauty, in the queen, ascend, ev'n those cold-spirited peers,
Those wise and almost wither'd men, found this heat in their years,
That they were forc'd (though whispering) to say: 'What man can blame
The Greeks and Trojans to endure, for so admir'd a dame,
So many mis'ries, and so long? In her sweet count'nance shine
Looks like the Goddesses. And yet (though never so divine)
Before we boast, unjustly still, of her enforced prise,
And justly suffer for her sake, with all our progenies,
Labor and ruin, let her go; the profit of our land
Must pass the beauty.' Thus, though these could bear so fit a hand
On their affections, yet, when all their gravest powers were us'd
They could not choose but welcome her, and rather they accus'd
The Gods than beauty; for thus spake the most-fam'd king of Troy:"
The last sentence representing mostly "fis _Ὤς ἄρ ἔφα_ in the line:
_Ὤς ἄρ ἔφαν' Πρίαμος δ'Ἑλένην έκαλέσσατο φωνῇ_
"Sic dixerunt: Priamus autem Helenam vocavit voce."
Chapman is nearer Swinburne's ballad with:
"But those three following men," etc.
than to his alleged original.
Rochefort is as follows (_Iliade_, Livre iii, M. de Rochefort, 1772):
"Hélène à ce discours sentit naître en son âme
Un doux ressouvenir de sa première flamme;
Le désir de revoir les lieux qu'elle a quittés
Jette un trouble inconnu dans ses sens agités.
Tremblante elle se lève et les yeux pleins de larmes,
D'un voile éblouissant elle couvre ses charmes;
De deux femmes suivie elle vole aux remparts.
La s'étaient assemblés ces illustres vieillards
Qui courbés sous le faix des travaux et de l'age
N'alloient plus au combat signaler leur courage,
Mais qui, près de leur Roi, par de sages avis,
Mieux qu'en leurs jeunes ans défendoient leur païs.
Dans leurs doux entretiens, leur voix toujours égale
Ressembloit aux accents que forme la cigale,
Lorsqu'aux longs jours d'été cachée en un buisson,
Elle vient dans les champs annoncer la moisson.
Une tendre surprise enflamma leurs visages;
Frappés de ses appas, ils se disoient entre eux:
'Qui pourroit s'étonner que tant de Rois fameux,
Depuis neuf ans entiers aient combattu pour elle?
Sur le trône des cieux Vénus n'est pas plus belle.
Mais quelque soit l'amour qu'inspirent ses attraits,
Puisse Illion enfin la perdre pour jamais,
Puisse-t-elle bientôt à son époux rendue,
Conjurer l'infortune en ces lieux attendue.'"
Hugues Salel (1545), praised by Ronsard, is more pleasing:
"Le Roi Priam, et auec luy bon nombre
De grandz Seigneurs estoient à l'ombre
Sur les Crenaulx, Tymoetes et Panthus,
Lampus, Clytus, excellentz en vertus,
Hictaon renomme en bataille,
Ucalegon iadis de fort taille,
Et Antenor aux armes nompareil
Mais pour alors ne seruantz qu'en conseil.
La, ces Vieillards assis de peur du Hasle
Causoyent ensemble ainsi que la Cignalle
Ou deux ou trois, entre les vertes fueilles,
En temps d'Esté gazouillant a merveilles;
Lesquelz voyans la diuine Gregeoise,
Disoient entre eux que si la grande noise
De ces deux camps duroit longe saision,
Certainement ce n'estoit sans raision:
Veu la Beaulté, et plus que humain outrage,
Qui reluysoit en son diuin visaige.
Ce neantmoins il vauldrait mieulx la rendre,
(Ce disoyent ilz) sans guères plus attendre.
Pour éviter le mal qui peult venir,
Qui la voudra encores retenir."
Salel is a most delightful approach to the Iliads; he is still absorbed
in the subject-matter, as Douglas and Golding were absorbed in their
subject-matter. Note how exact he is in the rendering of the old men's
mental attitude. Note also that he is right in his era. I mean simply
that Homer _is_ a little _rustre_, a little, or perhaps a good deal,
mediæval, he has not the dovetailing of Ovid. He has onomatopœia, as
of poetry sung out; he has authenticity of conversation as would be
demanded by an intelligent audience not yet laminated with æsthetics;
capable of recognizing reality. He has the repetitions of the _chanson
de geste_. Of all the French and English versions I think Salel alone
gives any hint of some of these characteristics. Too obviously he is not
onomatopœic, no. But he is charming, and readable, and "Briseis Fleur
des Demoiselles" has her reality.
Nicolo Valla is, for him who runs, closer:
"Consili virtus, summis de rebus habebant
Sermones, et multa inter se et magna loquentes,
Arboribus quales gracili stridere cicadæ
Sæpe solent cantu, postquam sub moenibus altis
Tyndarida aspiciunt, procerum tum quisque fremebat,
Mutuasque exorsi, Decuit tot funera Teucros
Argolicasque pati, longique in tempore bellum
Tantus in ore decor cui non mortalis in artus
Est honor et vultu divina efflagrat imago.
Diva licet facies, Danauum cum classe recedat
Longius excido ne nos aut nostra fatiget
Pignora sic illi tantis de rebus agebant."
This hexameter is rather heavily accented. It shows, perhaps, the source
of various "ornaments" in later English and French translations. It has
indubitable sonority even though monotonous.
It is the earliest Latin verse rendering I have yet come upon, and is
bound in with Raphael of Volterra's first two Iliads, and some further
renderings by Obsopeo.
_Odyssea_ (Liber primus) (1573).
"Dic mihi musa uirum captae post tempora Troiae
Qui mores hominum multorum uidit et urbes
Multa quoque et ponto passus dum naufragus errat
Ut sibi tum sociis uitam seruaret in alto
Non tamen hos cupens fato deprompsit acerbo
Ob scelus admissum extinctos ausumque malignum
Qui fame compulsu solis rapuere iuvencos
Stulti ex quo reditum ad patrias deus abstulit oras.
Horum itaque exitium memora mihi musa canenti."
_Odyssea_ (Lib. sec.) (1573).
"Cumprimum effulsit roseis aurora quadrigis
Continuo e stratis proies consurgit Ulyxis
Induit et uestes humerosque adcomodat ensem
Molia denin pedibus formosis uincula nectit
Parque deo egrediens thalamo praeconibus omnis
Concilio cognant extemplo mandat Achaeos
Ipse quoque ingentem properabat ad aedibus hastam
Corripiens: gemenique canes comitantor euntem
Quumque illi mirum Pallas veneranda decorem
Preberer populus venientem suspicit omnis
Inque throno patrio ueteres cessere sedenti."
The charm of Salel is continued in the following excerpts. They do not
cry out for comment. I leave Ogilby's English and the lines of Latin to
serve as contrast or cross-light.
_Iliade_ (Livre I). Hugues Salel (1545).[3]