[f1]
Life, Vol. I. p. 192.
[f2]
SOUTHEY requested a Frenchman ambitious of translating his Roderick,
to do so in prose, not because he preferred that method in general, but
because he believed that "_poetry of the higher order is as impossible
in French, as it is in Chinese!_"--Life, Vol. IV. p. 100.
[f3]
Life, Vol. III. p. 44.
[f4]
SOUTHEY--Preface to _A Vision of Judgment_.
[f5]
As for Klopstock's Odes, written mostly in classical metres, Zelter, the
Berlin musician, said significantly that, when reading them, _he felt as
if he were eating stones!_--See _Briefwechsel mit_ GOETHE.
[f6]
Τὸ μὲν γὰρ πρῶτον τετραμετρῳ εχρῶντο διὰ τὸ σατυρικὴν καὶ ὀρχηστκωτέραν
(ἐ)ιναι τὴν ποίησιν.
POET. 4.
[f7]
As in the conclusion of the Agamemnon, when the passion of the interested
parties has wrought itself up to a climax. So in the passionate dialogue
between Eteocles and Polynices, in Eurip. Phœnis. 591. The use of the
Trochees in these passages is thus precisely the same as that of the
Anapæsts in the finale of the PROMETHEUS. In the PERSIANS, they serve
to give an increased dignity to the person of Atossa, and the Shade of the
royal Darius.
[f8]
"Take our blank verse for all in all, in all its gradations from the
elaborate rhythm of Milton, down to its lowest structure in the early
dramatists, and I believe that there is no measure comparable to it,
either in our own or in any other language, for might and majesty,
flexibility and compass."--SOUTHEY, Preface to the _Vision of
Judgment_. What BULWER says to the contrary (Athens and the Athenians,
vol. II. p. 43), was crudely thought, or idly spoken, and unworthy of
so great a genius.
[f9]
Eumenides, § 16.
[f10]
See Aristides and the musical writers; also Dionysius. Consider, also,
what a solemnity Plutarch attributes to the ἐμβατηριος παιων of the
Spartans (Lycurg. 22), which, of course, was either Dactylic or Anapæstic
verse. Altogether, there can be no greater mistake than to imagine that
our Dactylic and Anapæstic verse are the æsthetical equivalents of the
ancient measures from which their names are borrowed. They are, in many
parts of my translation, rather the equivalent of Dochmiac verse; and
this, in obedience to the uniform practice of our highest poets, in
passages of high passion and excitement.
[f11]
MITCHELL (Aristoph. Ran. v. 1083) has remarked, with justice, that
Æschylus is particularly fond of this verse. I was prevented from using
it so often as might have been desirable in the choric odes, from having
made it the representative of the Anapæsts.
[f12]
On the Dochmiacs, Ionic a minori, and other rhythmical details, the
reader will find occasional observations in the Notes; and those who
are curious in those matters will find my views on some points more
fully stated in _Classical Museum_, No. III. p. 338; No. XIII. p. 319,
and No. XXII. p. 432. The Dochmiac verse was, in fact, equivalent to
a bar of 9/8 in modern music.--See _Apel's Metrik_.
[f13]
The corrupt state of the Æschylean text is no doubt to be attributed
mainly to the rhetorical taste which, in the ages of the decadence,
prevailed so long at Rome, Athens, Alexandria, and Byzantium, and which
naturally directed the attention of transcribers to the text of
Euripides, the great master of tongue-fence and the model-poet of the
schools.--See QUINCTIL. X. 1.