MAY I be permitted to chat a little, by way of recreation,
at the end of a somewhat toilsome and perhaps fruitless
adventure?
If, because of the immense fame of the following
Tragedy, I wished to acquaint myself with it, and could
only do so by the help of a translator, I should require
him to be literal at every cost save that of absolute
violence to our language. The use of certain allowable
constructions which, happening to be out of daily favour,
are all the more appropriate to archaic workmanship, is
no violence: but I would be tolerant for once,--in the
case of so immensely famous an original,--of even a
clumsy attempt to furnish me with the very turn of each
phrase in as Greek a fashion as English will bear: while,
with respect to amplifications and embellishments,--anything rather than, with the good farmer, experience that
most signal of mortifications, "to gape for Aeschylus and
get Theognis." I should especially decline,--what may
appear to brighten up a passage,--the employment of a
new word for some old one--
πόνος, or
μέγας, or
τέλος,
with its congeners, recurring four times in three lines:
for though such substitution may be in itself perfectly
justifiable, yet this exercise of ingenuity ought to be
within the competence of the unaided English reader
if he likes to show himself ingenious. Learning Greek
teaches Greek, and nothing else: certainly not common
sense, if that have failed to precede the teaching. Further,--if I obtained a mere strict bald version of thing
by thing, or at least word pregnant with thing, I should
hardly look for an impossible transmission of the reputed
magniloquence and sonority of the Greek; and this with
the less regret, inasmuch as there is abundant musicality
elsewhere, but nowhere else than in his poem the ideas
of the poet. And lastly, when presented with these
ideas, I should expect the result to prove very hard
reading indeed if it were meant to resemble Aeschylus,
“
ξυμβαλεῖν οὐ ῥᾴδιος”
(Frogs 931), "not easy to understand," in the
opinion of his stoutest advocate among the ancients;
while, I suppose, even modern scholarship sympathizes
with that early declaration of the redoubtable Salmasius,
when, looking about for an example of the truly obscure
for the benefit of those who found obscurity in the sacred
books, he protested that this particular play leaves them
all behind in this respect, with their "Hebraisms, Syriasms,
Hellenisms, and the whole of such bag and baggage."
1
For, over and above the purposed ambiguity of the Chorus,
the text is sadly corrupt, probably interpolated, and certainly mutilated; and no unlearned person enjoys the
scholar's privilege of trying his fancy upon each obstacle
whenever he comes to a stoppage, and effectually clearing the way by suppressing what seems to lie in it.
All I can say for the present performance is, that I
have done as I would be done by, if need were. Should
anybody, without need, honour my translation by a comparison with the original, I beg him to observe that,
following no editor exclusively, I keep to the earlier
readings so long as sense can be made out of them, but
disregard, I hope, little of importance in recent criticism
so far as I have fallen in with it. Fortunately, the
poorest translation, provided only it be faithful,--though
it reproduce all the artistic confusion of tenses, moods,
and persons, with which the original teems,--will not
only suffice to display what an eloquent friend maintains
to be the all-in-all of poetry--"the action of the piece"--
but may help to illustrate his assurance that "the Greeks
are the highest models of expression, the unapproached
masters of the grand style: their expression is so excellent because it is so admirably kept in its right degree
of prominence, because it is so simple and so well subordinated, because it draws its force directly from the
pregnancy of the matter which it conveys . . . not a
word wasted, not a sentiment capriciously thrown in,
stroke on stroke!"
2 So may all happen!
Just a word more on the subject of my spelling--in a
transcript from the Greek and there exclusively--Greek
names and places precisely as does the Greek author. I
began this practice, with great innocency of intention,
some six-and-thirty years ago. Leigh Hunt, I remember,
was accustomed to speak of his gratitude, when ignorant
of Greek, to those writers (like Goldsmith) who had
obliged him by using English characters, so that he
might relish, for instance, the smooth quality of such a
phrase as "hapalunetai galené;" he said also that Shelley
was indignant at "Firenze" having displaced the Dantesque "Fiorenza," and would contemptuously English
the intruder "Firence." I supposed I was doing a simple
thing enough: but there has been till lately much astonishment
at os and us, ai and oi, representing the same
letters in Greek. Of a sudden, however, whether in
translation or out of it, everybody seems committing the
offence, although the adoption of u for v still presents
such difficulty that it is a wonder how we have hitherto
escaped "Eyripides." But there existed a sturdy Briton
who, Ben Jonson informs us, wrote "The Life of the
Emperor Anthony Pie" -- whom we now acquiesce in as
Antoninus Pius: for "with time and patience the mulberry
leaf becomes satin." Yet there is, on all sides, much
profession of respect for what Keats called "vowelled
Greek" -- "consonanted," one would expect; and, in a
criticism upon a late admirable translation of something
of my own, it was deplored that, in a certain verse corresponding in measure to the fourteenth of the sixth
Pythian Ode, "neither Professor Jebb in his Greek, nor
Mr. Browning in his English, could emulate that matchlessly musical “
γόνον ἰδὼν κάλλιστον ἀνδρῶν”
(Pyth. 4.123)." Now,
undoubtedly, "Seeing her son the fairest of men" has
more sense than sound to boast of: but then, would not
an Italian roll us out “
"Rimirando il figliuolo bellissimo
degli uomini!"” whereat Pindar, no less than Professor
Jebb and Mr. Browning, “
τριακτῆρος οἴχεται τυχών”
(Ag. 171).
It is recorded in the annals of Art
3 that there was
once upon a time, practising so far north as
Stockholm, a
painter and picture-cleaner -- sire of a less unhappy son
-- Old Muytens: and the annalist, Baron de Tessé, has
not concealed his profound dissatisfaction at Old Muytens'
conceit "to have himself had something to do with the
work of whatever master of eminence might pass through
his hands." Whence it was,--the Baron goes on to
deplore,--that much detriment was done to that excellent
piece "The Recognition of Achilles," by Rubens, through
the perversity of Old Muytens, "who must needs take on
him to beautify every nymph of the twenty by the bestowment of a widened eye and an enlarged mouth." I,
at least, have left eyes and mouths everywhere as I found
them, and this conservatism is all that claims praise for --
what is, after all, “
ἀκέλευστος ἄμισθος ἀοιδά”
(Ag. 979). No, neither
"uncommanded" nor "unrewarded": since it was commanded of me by my venerated friend Thomas Carlyle,
and rewarded will it indeed become if I am permitted to
dignify it by the prefatory insertion of his dear and noble
name.
R. B.
LONDON: October 1st, 1877.