NEW VOLUMES IN THE "LOEB LIBRARY."•
TnESE volumes afford an excellent opportunity of contrasting ancient and modern methods of translation. William Melmoth's version of Pliny's letters I and Acllington's Golden Ass 2 are among the most famous translations in our language, and both are admirable examples of the ancient style. Both were written at times when literature was more important than scholarship, and in both the authors consciously and deliberately aimed at finding an equivalent for their original, without attempting any exact reproduction. As Professor Mackail has recently pointed out, no translator can do more than produce an equivalent embodying just so much of the original as the difference between his own literary convention and that of the author will allow; and Adlington and Melmoth, since they wrote works which were intended to be read for themselves and not to act as guides to the student, had no temptation to go beyond the limits of the definition. Unfortunately, from the literary point of view at least, the rules of the " Loeb Library " do not allow of such translations being printed in their original form, and the editors have had not only to revise actual inaccuracies, but to some extent to substitute translation for equivalent. Of the two works, Melmoth's version has suffered more in the revision. As Mr, Hutchinson points out, Melmoth, who lived in the golden age of English letter-writing (the first edition of his Pliny was published in 1746) and was himself the author of a vastly admired series of imaginary letters, was in many respects an ideal writer to translate Pliny. Ho was, however, not only less accurate but also less of an artist than Adlington, and his work, though always clear and smooth, is often a very diluted equivalent of its modeL Thus for the Latin : " Quantum ibi humani- tatis, venustatis, quam dulcia ilia, quam antique, quam arguta, quam recta," ho gives us " What elegance, what beauties shine in this • (1) Pliny: Letters. Translation by William 31elnioth. Revised by W. Id. L. Butelitnson.---(2) Apuleius: The Golden 461. Translation by W. Adlington. ItevLsed by S. Gar,lee..----(3) l'indar. By Sir J. E. Sandys.—(4) Hesiod : The Homeric /tyrant sad I/america. By U. G. Evelyn White. " Loeb Classical Library." London ; Allem lielnenaann. lox, net per vol.1
collection I How sweetly the numbers flow and how exactly are they wrought up in the true spirit of the ancients ! What a vein of wit runs through every line, and how conformable is the whole to the rules of just criticism I " Adlington is often equally far from his original, but what ho gives us in substitution is always more substantial. In the first place, he had a very true sense of his author's essential characteristics. In his short preface ho speaks of Apulcius as writing " in such a frank and flourishing style, as ho seemed to have the muses always with him to feed and maintain his pen" ; and he set himself straightway to be frank and to flourish as much as differences of tongue and temperament would permit him. That ho should equal the astonish- ing yet delightful preciosities and extravagances of Apulcius was hardly to be expected. Sir Thomas Urquhart might perhaps have achieved it, but Adlington was not an Urquhart. None the less, ho had some of Urquhart's virtues. Like Urquhart, he was so imbued with the spirit of his author that, though he occasionally missed some choice " flourish " of the Latin, he often flourishes most frankly where Apuleius is com• paratively simple. Thus " voces informes audiens " becomes " accord- ing to the advertisement of the incorporeal voices." Sometimes, too, the translator, while literally following his original, contrives to insert a conceit which is fully in the spirit, though not actually in the text, of his author. Thus for Apuleius's rather commonplace " aorta pelag,i simile maerendo " Adlington gives us " she was In a tossing mind, like the waves of the sea." By such means as these, though his work is unequal and not always worthy of the original, Adlington manages to give us a wonderfully good equivalent for The Golden Ass, that motley of naughtiness, miracle, and adventure with its one pearl of price—the " loves of Cupid and Psycho." Much of the charm of the volume in its present form is clue to the skill of Mr. Gasolee's revision. A keen sense of style and scholarship was needed to bring Adlington within the scope of the Loeb series, and Mr. Gasoloo has been strikingly successful.
In tho two new translations we have to deal with quite a different class of work. Both of these are primarily translations, and both are good works of their kind. Of the two, Sir J. Sandys's volume3 is, so far as translation goes, the loss successful. But then Pinder is and will always be untranslatable. Sir John Sandys us:se every kind of device in order to maintain a diction not unworthy of tho superb dignity of his original, but no literal translator can hope to achieve anything like Pindar's wealth of language without falling into heaviness. In all other respects the volume is a model. There is an introduction telling just as much as is necessary to make Pindar intelligible to the man who reads for pleasure. Every ode is prefaced by a summary of its contents, and the notes are copious but always instructive and never burdensome. Indeed, it was a great stroke of good fortune for the editors to secure for their series a new work from so supreme a scholar.
Mr. Evelyn White's volume 4 also deserves special praise. The Greek epic style is comparatively easy to translate, but this version is neat, accurate, and lucid. Indeed, Mr. White's version is almost readable for its own sake, and, if it achieves this in addition to verbal accuracy, a translation of the literal school has achieved all that it can do.
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