It is perhaps unnecessary to add that, however flimsy the pretext upon
which the request for a copy was made, it never failed of its object if
it brought with it Field's endorsement. Among many pleasant utterances
on this subject Field has said that but for the writer the Horatian
verses would not have been given to the world--and this has been taken
to mean more than was intended, and much unearned praise has been
bestowed. But, in allusion to the original issue of the Odes, Field
added, "in this charming guise," which places quite another construction
upon the matter.
It may be that the enthusiasm displayed not only pleased Field, and
incited him and his brother Roswell to perform that which, otherwise,
might have been indefinitely deferred, but there is no question but that
they intended to publish the Horatian odes at some time or another.
Field was greatly delighted with the reception of this work, and I once
heard him say it would outlive all his other books. He came naturally by
his love of the classics. His father was a splendid scholar who obliged
his sons to correspond with him in Latin. Field's favorite ode was the
Bandusian Spring, the paraphrasing of which in the styles of the various
writers of different periods gave him genuine joy and is perhaps the
choice bit of the collection. The Echoes from the Sabine Farm was the
most ambitious work Field had attempted up to the time of its issue. He
was not at all sure that the public for whom he wrote, what following he
then felt was his own, would accept his efforts in this direction with
any sort of acclaim. Unquestionably, Field, at all times, believed in
himself and in his power ultimately to make a name, as every man must
who achieves success, but he was as far from believing that the public
would accept him as an interpreter of Horatian odes as was Edward
Fitzgerald with respect to Omar Khayyám. In short, he looked upon his
work in the original publication of Echoes from the Sabine Farm as a
labor of love--an effort from which some reputation might come, but
certainly no monetary remuneration. It was because he so regarded it
that he permitted the work to be first issued under the bolstering
influence of a patron. It was, so he thought, an excellent opportunity
to show his friends and acquaintances that his Pegasus was capable of
soaring to classic heights, and he little dreamed that the paraphrasing
of the Odes of Horace over which "Rose and I have been fooling" would be
required for a _popular_ edition. With the announcement of the Scribner
edition of The Sabine Echoes came also the intelligence of Field's
death.
I have found people who were somewhat puzzled as to the exact intentions
of the Fields with respect to these translations and paraphrases.
However, there can be no chance for mistake even to the veriest
embryonic reader of Horace, if he will but remember that, while some of
these transcriptions are indeed very faithful reproductions or
adaptations of the original, others again are to be accepted as the very
riot of burlesque verse-making.
The last stanza in the epilogue of this book reads:
Or if we part to meet no more
This side the misty Stygian river,
Be sure of this: On yonder shore
Sweet cheer awaiteth such as we--
A Sabine pagan's heaven, O friend--
And fellowship that knows no end.