By every right I ought to choose you to edit and bring out Sir Richard
Burton's translation of Catullus, because you collaborated with him on this
work by a correspondence of many months before he died. If I have hesitated
so long as to its production, it was because his notes, which are mostly
like pencilled cobwebs, strewn all over his Latin edition, were headed,
"NEVER SHEW HALF-FINISHED WORK TO WOMEN OR FOOLS." The reason of this
remark was, that in all his writings, his first copy, his first thought,
was always the best and the most powerful. Like many a painter who will go
on improving and touching up his picture till he has destroyed the
likeness, and the startling realistic nature of his subject, so would Sir
Richard go on weakening his first copy by improvements, and then appeal to
me to say which was the best. I was almost invariably obliged, in
conscience, to induce him to stick to the first thought, which had grasped
the whole meaning like a flash. These notes were made in a most curious
way. He used to bring his Latin Catullus down to _table d'hôte_ with him,
and he used to come and sit by me, but the moment he got a person on the
other side, who did not interest him, he used to whisper to me, "Talk, that
I may do my Catullus," and between the courses he wrote what I now give
you. The public school-boy is taught that the Atys was unique in subject
and metre, that it was the greatest and most remarkable poem in Latin
literature, famous for the fiery vehemence of the Greek dithyramb, that it
was the only specimen in Latin of the Galliambic measure, so called,
because sung by the Gallæ--and I suspect that the school-boy now learns
that there are half a dozen others, which you can doubtless name. To _my_
mind the gems of the whole translation are the Epithalamium or Epos of the
marriage of Vinia and Manlius, and the Parcae in that of Peleus and Thetis.
Sir Richard laid great stress on the following in his notes, headed
"Compare with Catullus, the sweet and tender little Villanelle, by Mr.
Edmund Gosse," for the Viol and Flute--the XIX cent. with the I^{st.}
"Little mistress mine, good-bye!
I have been your sparrow true;
Dig my grave, for I must die.
Waste no tear, and heave no sigh;
Life should still be blithe for you,
Little mistress mine, good-bye!
In your garden let me lie
Underneath the pointed yew,
Dig my grave, for I must die.
We have loved the quiet sky
With its tender arch of blue;
Little mistress mine, good-bye!
That I still may feel you nigh,
In your virgin bosom, too,
Dig my grave, for I must die.
Let our garden friends that fly
Be the mourners, fit and few.
Little mistress mine, good-bye!
Dig my grave, for I must die."
Sir Richard seriously began his Catullus on Feb. 18th, 1890, at Hamman
R'irha, in North Africa. He had finished the first rough copy on March
31st, 1890, at Trieste. He made a second copy beginning May 23rd, 1890, at
Trieste, which was finished July 21st, 1890, at Zurich. He then writes a
margin. "Work incomplete, but as soon as I receive Mr. Smithers' prose, I
will fill in the words I now leave in stars, in order that we may not use
the same expressions, and I will then make a third, fair, and complete
copy." But, alas! then he was surprised by Death.
I am afraid that Sir Richard's readers may be disappointed to find that,
unlike Mr. Grant Allen, there is no excursus on the origin of Tree-worship,
and therefore that, perhaps, through ignorance, I have omitted something.
Sir Richard did write in the sixties and seventies on Tree-alphabets, the
Ogham Runes and El Mushajjar, the Arabic Tree-alphabet,--and had theories
and opinions as to its origin; but he did not, I know, connect them in any
way, however remote, with Catullus. I therefore venture to think you will
quite agree with me, that they have no business here, but should appear in
connection with my future work, "Labours and Wisdom of Sir Richard Burton."
All these three and a half years, I have hesitated what to do, but after
seeing other men's translations, his _incomplete_ work is, in my humble
estimation, too good to be consigned to oblivion, so that I will no longer
defer to send you a type-written copy, and to ask you to bring it through
the press, supplying the Latin text, and adding thereto your own prose,
which we never saw.
Yours truly,