The Odyssey.
I think that of all recent books the two that have pleased me best and
longest are those delightful renderings into English prose of the Greek
of Homer and Theocritus, which we owe, the one to Messrs. Henry Butcher
and Andrew Lang and the other to Mr. Lang's unaided genius. To read this
_Odyssey_ of theirs is to have a breath of the clear, serene airs that
blew through the antique Hellas; to catch a glimpse of the large, new
morning light that bathes the seas and highlands of the young heroic
world. In a space of shining and fragrant clarity you have a vision of
marble columns and stately cities, of men august in single-heartedness
and strength and women comely and simple and superb as goddesses; and
with a music of leaves and winds and waters, of plunging ships and
clanging armours, of girls at song and kindly gods discoursing, the sunny-
eyed heroic age is revealed in all its nobleness, in all its majesty, its
candour, and its charm. The air is yet plangent with echoes of the
leaguer of Troy, and Odysseus the ready-at-need goes forth upon his
wanderings: into the cave of Polypheme, into the land of giants, into the
very regions of the dead: to hear among the olive trees the voice of
Circe, the sweet witch, singing her magic song as she fares to and fro
before her golden loom; to rest and pine in the islet of Calypso, the
kind sea-goddess; to meet with Nausicaa, loveliest of mortal maids; to
reach his Ithaca, and do battle with the Wooers, and age in peace and
honour by the side of the wise Penelope. The day is yet afar when, as he
sailed out to the sunset and the mysterious west,
Sol con un legno, e con quella compagna
Picciola, dalla qual non fue deserto,
the great wind rushed upon him from the new-discovered land, and so ended
his journeyings for ever; and all with him is energy and tact and valour
and resource, as becomes the captain of an indomitable human soul. His
society is like old d'Artagnan's: it invigorates, renews, inspires. I
had rather lack the friendship of the good Alonso Quijada himself than
the brave example of these two.
The Idylls.
With certain differences it is the same with our Theocritus. From him,
too, the mind is borne back to a 'happier age of gold,' when the world
was younger than now, and men were not so weary nor so jaded nor so
highly civilised as they choose to think themselves. Shepherds still
piped, and maidens still listened to their piping. The old gods had not
been discrowned and banished; and to fishers drawing their nets the
coasts yet kept a something of the trace of amorous Polypheme, the rocks
were peopled with memories of his plaint to Galatea. Inland, among the
dim and thymy woods, bee-haunted and populous with dreams of dryad and
oread, there were rumours of Pan; and dwellers under thatch--the goatherd
mending his sandals, the hind carving his new staff, the girls who busked
them for the vintaging--were conscious, as the wind went by among the
beeches and the pines, and brought with it the sounds of a lonely and
mysterious night, that hard by them in the starry darkness the divine
Huntress was abroad, and about the base of AEtna she and her forest maids
drove the chase with horn and hound. In the cities ladies sang the psalm
of Adonis brought back from 'the stream eternal of Acheron.' Under the
mystic moon love-lorn damsels did their magic rites, and knit up spells
of power to bring home the men they loved. Among the vines and under the
grey olives songs were singing of Daphnis all day long. There were
junketings and dancings and harvest-homes for ever toward; the youths
went by to the gymnasium, and the girls stood near to watch them as they
went; the cicalas sang, the air was fragrant with apples and musical with
the sound of flutes and running water; while the blue Sicilian sky
laughed over all, and the soft Sicilian sea encircled the land and its
lovers with a ring of sapphire and silver. To translate Theocritus,
wrote Sainte-Beuve, is as if one sought to carry away in one's hand a
patch of snow that has lain forgotten through the summer in a cranny of
the rocks of AEtna:--'On a fait trois pas a peine, que cette neige deja
est fondue. On est heureux s'il en reste assez du moins pour donner le
vif sentiment de la fraicheur.' But Mr. Lang has so rendered into
English the graces of the loveliest of Dorian singers that he has earned
the thanks of every lover of true literature. Every one should read his
book, for it will bring him face to face with a very prince among poets
and with a very summer among centuries. That Theocritus was a rare and
beautiful master there is even in this English transcript an abundance of
evidence. Melancholy apart, he was the Watteau of the old Greek world--an
exquisite artist, a rare poet, a true and kindly soul; and it is very
good to be with him. We have changed it all of course, and are as
fortunate as we can expect. But it is good to be with Theocritus, for he
lets you live awhile in the happy age and under the happy heaven that
were his. He gives you leave and opportunity to listen to the tuneful
strife of Lacon and Comatas; to witness the duel in song between Corydon
and Battus; to talk of Galatea pelting with apples the barking dog of her
love-lorn Polypheme; under the whispering elms, to lie drinking with
Eucritus and Lycidas by the altar of Demeter, 'while she stands smiling
by, with sheaves and poppies in her hand.'
Old Lamps and New.
It is relief unspeakable to turn from the dust and din and chatter of
modern life, with its growing trade in heroes and its poverty of men, its
innumerable regrets and ambitions and desires, to this immense
tranquillity, this candid and shining calm. They had no Irish Question
then, you can reflect, nor was theology invented. Men were not afraid of
life nor ashamed of death; and you could be heroic without a dread of
clever editors, and hospitable without fear of rogues, and dutiful for no
hope of illuminated scrolls. Odysseus disguised as Irus is still
Odysseus and august. How comes it that Mr. Gladstone in rags and singing
ballads would be only fit for a police-station? that Lord Salisbury
hawking cocoa-nuts would instantly suggest the purlieus of Petticoat
Lane? Is the fault in ourselves? Can it be that we have deteriorated so
much as that? Nerves, nerves, nerves! . . . These many centuries the
world has had neuralgia; and what has come of it is that Robert Elsmere
is an ideal, and the bleat of the sentimentalist might almost be mistaken
for the voice of living England.