Recent Translations From the Classics

MR. GLADSTONE’S latest volume¹ is interesting not only because it furnishes fresh proof of his versatility and of the ease with which cultivated Englishmen wear their learning, but also because it illustrates so admirably the singular attraction that has been exercised by Horace over men of affairs, from the days of Mæcenas to our own. Horace and the Budget would seem to be a queer combination, yet many prime ministers have owned to a peculiar weakness for the ease - loving bard. And one connects them not merely with Horace, but with special Odes. Pitt and the “ Tyrrhena regum ” (iii. 29) are inseparable in the mind of any true Horatian. Sir Robert Peel hardly sorts so well with his favorite “ Donec gratus eram ” (iii. 9) ; but surely few Englishmen or Americans will hereafter be able to read the “ Cælo tonantem ” (iii. 5) without remembering that it was to Mr. Gladstone “ the great Ode of Regulus, the loftiest in the whole collection.” In giving to the world, then, a complete translation of the Odes, the ex-Premier has not departed from the traditions of the office he so honorably laid down; he has rather accentuated them.

The literary traditions that affect a writer and his subject are not, however, matters of prime importance to a reviewer. It is an interesting fact that a scholarly statesman has given us in his old age an elaborate translation in verse of a portion of the works of a great classical poet; but we are more nearly concerned with the question how far these latest renderings of an author who has been the despair of former translators may be regarded as adequate or needed.

Mr. Gladstone himself naturally glances at this question in his preface. He recognizes that the chief note of his versions is their compression, and that in this particular he must bear comparison with Professor Conington. Although he does not mention Sir Theodore Martin by name, it is evident that he justly regards the latter’s almost intolerable diffuseness as a quality that makes him rank rather as a fairly successful paraphraser than as a satisfying translator. The rivalry of Francis was not to be feared, because of the fact that each age has its own way of interpreting a classic, nor that of the late Lord Lytton, because, in the present state of English feeling with regard to the use of unrhymed measures in lyric poetry, his rhymeless versions can be looked at in the light of experiments only. Such, we imagine, were Mr. Gladstone’s thoughts when he deliberately coupled his own work with that of Conington, and concluded that the latter’s partial success did not preclude another venture along similar lines.

In this conclusion we think he has been justified. His diction is, on the whole, more evenly sustained than that of Conington, his verse movement is easier, his tendency to lapse into prose is not so pronounced. The versions of neither strike one as being the work of a born poet, but the statesman seems to have absorbed more afflatus from his lifelong study of poetry than did the Oxford professor. On the other hand, it must be said that Mr. Gladstone falls more frequently than Conington into the delusion that paraphrase can take the place of translation ; but he has avoided Conington’s error of attempting to use a particular English stanza for every rendering of a special Latin one. He has, for example, too much reverence for Horace and too much consideration for his own readers to give the Regulus Ode in commonplace octosyllabic quatrains. With all its deficiencies, his volume is, perhaps, the best attempt that any Englishman has made to translate the Odes as a whole; but it sets a much-diluted Horace before us, and leaves abundant room for other essays to achieve the impossible.

Singularly enough, Mr. Gladstone appears to be at his best in the lighter Odes, as for instance in the “ Ne sit ancillæ ” (ii. 4), which is admirably rendered. In the graver Odes he does not appear to advantage, not even in his favorite tribute to Regulus, in the translation of which he has been far surpassed by Mr. Goldwin Smith. One would hardly infer this fact from a general knowledge of Mr. Gladstone’s character. He ought, it would seem, to touch the panegyrist of Augustus rather than the counselor in love of Xanthias Phoceus. But perhaps our disappointment results from our conscious or unconscious requirement that the nobly sustained thought, diction, and rhythm of the original shall be fairly matched in the translation, — a requirement that can be satisfied only by a translator who is at the same time, like Shelley, an inspired poet. No writer, for example, whose main concern has been with prose is likely to command sufficient metrical felicity and variety to render Horace with eminent success. Mr. Gladstone has proved no exception to this rule. He has allowed himself to be seduced by the fatal facility of our octosyllabics no less than fifty-one times. Doubtless his laudable attempts at compression are partly responsible for this error, just as they are responsible for not a little of his tendency to paraphrase; but, excuse him as we may, the fact remains that in spite of many excellent lines, and even whole stanzas, in spite of the careful polish that has been given to every verse, there are scarcely six of the Odes that he can be said to have rendered, as wholes, in a conspicuously successful manner. It is only when he is considered as a translator of the Odes in their entirety, and when he is compared with his predecessors, that any praise that is worth the having can be given him. And yet, when all is said, the versatility and scholarship of the writer, and the modesty of the man who, great in himself, has nevertheless spent no inconsiderable portion of his closing years in preparing a worthy tribute to the greatness of another, triumph over his deficiencies as a poet, and one closes his volume with genuine respect.

Mr. Goldwin Smith is another versatile and scholarly Englishman who solaces the evening of his days by endeavoring to interpret to his native and adopted countrymen the classical favorites of his youth.² He is not as bold and enamored of hard work as Mr. Gladstone, however; for it is a much easier task to translate three volumes of selections, following one’s preferences and moods, and passing by what does not appeal to one, than to attempt to give a conscientious account of every line and stanza of a fairly prolific author. Mr. Smith has a further advantage over Mr. Gladstone in that he is not bound by any theory of poetical translation that might not be accepted by a poetical paraphraser. He believes that “ it is hardly possible that any but a free translation can be the semblance of an equivalent for the poetry of the original. A literal translation, as a rule, can only be a fetter dance.” With such a theory of translation, Mr. Gladstone could probably have completed his Horace in about a fourth of the time actually consumed.

Whatever one may think of Mr. Smith’s theory, which has allowed him to consider the ottava rima as a fair equivalent for the hexameters of Lucretius, one must be thankful that he has so consistently acted up to his main principle, that a translation of a poem should aim above all at being poetical. It is long since we have read a volume of verse translations that has given us as much pleasure as Bay Leaves. Freedom has not, in Mr. Smith’s case, become license, nor has our familiarity with him as a prose writer prevented us from at times believing that we have been reading the work of a real poet. Especially good are the versions of three or four of the best known Odes of Catullus, and that of the “ Cælo tonantem “ of Horace, of which mention has been made.

In his Specimens of. Greek Tragedy ³ Mr. Smith does not please us so much. It is true that the selections have been well made, and that the labor of translation has been conscientiously performed. Unfortunately, however, blank verse is necessarily the prevailing measure, and blank verse furnishes a test that few poetical translators and few original poets can stand. The cloven hoof of the prosaist, if we may be pardoned the metaphor, begins to show here, plainly, if not alarmingly. Mr. Smith’s blank verse is correct, but undistinguished. We read it without great difficulty, but we are not disposed to resent an interruption that compels us to lay the volumes down. Now, the great dramas of Greece cannot be adequately rendered, in whole or in part, in mediocre blank verse, and one has but to contrast Mr. Smith’s selections from the Agamemnon with the corresponding passages of Fitzgerald’s noble version to feel that there are as many different grades in the hierarchy of poetical translators as there are in that of the poets themselves. Yet it is pleasant to believe that Mr. Smith’s labors have not been in vain, for his volumes must prove serviceable and gratifying to many people who are debarred from enjoying the original dramas, and have not time to read complete translations ; and it is more than a pleasure, it is a duty, to thank him for his charming selections from a body of poets who, if inferior to Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, are nevertheless well worthy of our study and our love.

We have indicated above the class of readers to whom, in our opinion, Mr. Goldwin Smith’s more elaborate work is likely to prove valuable and attractive. This leads us to ask whether the general public makes as much use as it might of translations such as those under review, and whether the educational world is fully alive to their importance. There is always, of course, a small circle of cultivated folk to take an interest in such works, but the interest is of a rather artificial kind. Nothing like complete success is expected of the translator, and his readers are simply mildly curious to learn how he will deal with a problem before which so many have succumbed. Such persons, too, knowing the original well, often read merely to pick flaws and to show their own erudition. The public at large, meanwhile, is profoundly oblivious of the fact that a new translation of a classical or foreign poet has appeared, even if it is dimly conscious of the existence of the original poet. If Mr. Gladstone’s volume meets with a different reception, it will be owing to the unique personality of the translator, and not to any widespread interest taken in his work per se.

Now, although it is generally useless, or worse than useless, to rail at the public for its neglect of the classics, even the classics of our own language, like Spenser and Milton, it may not be improper to ask whether this state of things cannot be changed for the better. Surely, if men like Shelley, Longfellow, Fitzgerald, Bayard Taylor, Goldwin Smith, and Mr. Gladstone think it worth their while to serve their countrymen as translators, it is worth the while of every critic and teacher, of every man who can influence the reading public, to lose no opportunity of extolling the dignity of the translator’s function, and of inculcating the value of these easy and pleasant methods of access to the great spirits of other lands and ages. Of course this has been done in part, and there has been of late a noticeable increase in the appearance and use of translations, chiefly in prose. But it is questionable whether the dignity of the translator’s function is yet fully appreciated, and the mass of readers can surely stand more instruction as to the importance of adequate translations.

But we are inclined to think that the educational world has been little behind the unlettered public in its disregard of the value of scholarly translations. In how many school or college classes in this country, now engaged in reading Horace, is Mr. Gladstone’s volume likely to be critically discussed ? One would fancy that the average student laboring over the “ Ne sit ancillæ ” would derive more pleasure and profit from having Mr. Gladstone’s version of the Ode read him than from being asked to explain the special nature of the dative “ pudori.” Mr. Gladstone appeals to the imaginations of most of us, old or young ; dative cases do not; yet how a student can derive much lasting benefit from poetical studies in which his imagination is not continually stimulated passes our comprehension. But will many of the teachers who may think it the correct thing to purchase Mr. Gladstone’s volume forbear to have a single dative passed by, that they may find time to read and comment on their new acquisition ? From a long and painful experience of the methods of teaching the classics in this country we trow not. Perhaps these methods are responsible in part for the fact that it is not the work of a retired American statesman that we are recommending to our teachers.

Again, we wonder how many instructors will endeavor to supplant the wretched prose version of Horace, from which it is plain that their students are cribbing, by advising the judicious use of Mr, Gladstone’s volume ? Translations, especially of the classical poets, are often necessities to conscientious students, whatever teachers may say to the contrary ; but they are generally necessary merely to give a hint as to the sense of a difficult passage. Good students (and we need speak of such only) are often repelled by bald prose versions, and they have a natural hesitation at using helps not sanctioned by their instructors. To such students the open recommendation of a work like that of Mr. Gladstone would come as a godsend. The mere handling of a book associated with so great a name would act as an inspiration which they are not likely to derive from the prose version most frequently in use, even though that “ well of English ” defiled is connected with the author of The Song of David, with Dr. Johnson’s prayerful friend, Kit Smart.

There is, however, another class of teachers who might be expected to make greater use of poetical translations. Teachers of rhetoric and prosody might, in our opinion, find them highly serviceable in their work. There would seem to be no better way, for example, of emphasizing the value of a poetic epithet than by pointing out how its omission by a translator has marred his version. Indeed, the whole topic of poetic diction might be admirably illustrated by a skillful comparison of original and translation, and so of other topics. The obvious difficulty arising from the fact that some students are sure to be more or less ignorant of the language of the original could at least be minimized by the teacher’s writing out a literal translation of the passage undergoing analysis.

The use of poetical translations by classes studying prosody is equally important. A discussion of the reasons why the translator chose a particular measure to render his original will bring out the subtle nature of the connection between form and content better, it would seem, than the discussion of any original poem, because we can have no knowledge of the archetypal model the poet proposed to himself, whereas we do have a knowledge of the model the translator followed. Then, again, in the actual practice of verge-making, what better method can be pursued than to furnish the student with the original poem, a literal translation and a metrical translation, and bid him endeavor either to frame a new version or to improve upon the one given him ?

But we have wandered somewhat far afield from Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Goldwin Smith, who, although they must have been constantly reminded of their own boyhood during the progress of their labors, doubtless had slight idea that it would ever be proposed to call them in to aid in the education of youth, or, in other words, to enlist them in the rapidly swelling army of textbook writers.