English politics in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries maintained a
closer association with literature than is conceivable in the present age.
England has just witnessed a contest on fundamental issues between the two
Houses of Parliament. This recalls, by contrast rather than by similarity,
another conflict that divided the Lords from the Commons in and about the
year 1645. The question at issue then was the respective literary merits of
two metrical translations of the Psalms.
Francis Rous was a Provost of Eton, a member of the Westminster Assembly of
Divines, and representative of Truro in the Long Parliament. This "old
illiterate Jew," as Wood abusively termed him, had made a verse translation
of the Psalms, which the House of Commons cordially recommended. The House
of Lords, on the other hand, preferred Barton's translation, and many other
contemporaneous attempts were made to meet the growing demand for a good
metrical rendering--a demand which, by the way, has remained but
imperfectly filled to the present time. Would that some Jewish poet might
arise to give us the long-desired version for use, at all events, in our
private devotions! In April, 1648, Milton tried his hand at a rendering of
nine Psalms (lxxx.-lxxxviii.), and it is from this work that we can see how
Milton pronounced Hebrew. Strange to say, Milton's attempt, except in the
case of the eighty-fourth Psalm, has scanty poetical merit, and, as a
literal translation, it is not altogether successful. He prides himself on
the fact that his verses are such that "all, but what is in a different
character, are the very words of the Text, translated from the original."
The inserted words in italics are, nevertheless, almost as numerous as the
roman type that represents the original Hebrew. Such conventional mistakes
as Rous's _cherubims_ are, however, conspicuously absent from Milton's more
scholarly work. Milton writes _cherubs_.
Now, in the margin of Psalms lxxx., lxxxi., lxxxii., and lxxxiii., Milton
inserts a transliteration of some of the words of the original Hebrew text.
The first point that strikes one is the extraordinary accuracy of the
transliteration. One word appears as _Jimmotu_, thus showing that Milton
appreciated the force of the dagesh. Again, _Shiphtu-dal_, _bag-nadath-el_
show that Milton observed the presence of the Makkef. Actual mistakes are
very rare, and, as Dr. Davidson has suggested, they may be due to
misprints. This certainly accounts for _Tishphetu_ instead of _Tishpetu_
(lxxxii. 2), but when we find _Be Sether_ appearing as two words instead of
one, the capital _S_ is rather against this explanation, while _Shifta_ (in
the last verse of Psalm lxxxii.) looks like a misreading.
It is curious to see that Milton adopted the nasal intonation of the
_Ayin_. And he adopted it in the least defensible form. He invariably
writes _gn_ for the Hebrew _Ayin_. Now _ng_ is bad enough, but _gn_ seems a
worse barbarism. Milton read the vowels, as might have been expected from
one living after Reuchlin, who introduced the Italian pronunciation to
Christian students in Europe, in the "Portuguese" manner, even to the point
of making little, if any, distinction between the _Zere_ and the _Sheva_.
As to the consonants, he read _Tav_ as _th_, _Teth_ as _t_, _Qof_ as _k_,
and _Vav_ and _Beth_ equally as _v_. In this latter point he followed the
"German" usage. The letter _Cheth_ Milton read as _ch_, but _Kaf_ he read
as _c_, sounded hard probably, as so many English readers of Hebrew do at
the present day. I have even noted among Jewish boys an amusing affectation
of inability to pronounce the _Kaf_ in any other way. The somewhat
inaccurate but unavoidable _ts_ for _Zadde_ was already established in
Milton's time, while the letter _Yod_ appears regularly as _j_, which
Milton must have sounded as _y_. On the whole, it is quite clear that
Milton read his Hebrew with minute precision. To see how just this verdict
is, let anyone compare Milton's exactness with the erratic and slovenly
transliterations in Edmund Chidmead's English edition of Leon Modena's
_Riti Ebraici_, which was published only two years later than Milton's
paraphrase of the Psalms.
The result, then, of an examination of the twenty-six words thus
transliterated, is to deepen the conviction that the great Puritan poet,
who derived so much inspiration from the Old Testament, drew at least some
of it from the pure well of Hebrew undefiled.