DANTE IN GREEK.*

THE renaissance of literature that is now taking place in the Greek people is a remarkable phenomenon, to which we can hardly find a parallel in the history of literature. And the appearance of this volume, a really excellent translation of a great classic, is a noteworthy incident in it. Translation comes before original work, in a literature which finds itself sur- rounded by other literatures already fully developed. But the original work will doubtless follow in good time ; and it is • liarrou d ',Ahs. Mcniippaats Korovarrivou Moveotipou. Lando* Williams and Norgate. 1882.

scarcely extravagant to hope that Athens may yet give another set of masterpieces to the world.

The language of M. Musnrus' translation is not exactly the Greek with which scholars are familiar in the Attic writers of

.the best period and their later imitators, but it closely resembles it. Its inflexions and verbal forms are mostly the same. Some-

times, but not very often, we come across such a form as

?;tifiee90,11.. The syntax, too, in its larger outlines, is the .same. In fact, the first impression that the language makes upon the reader is that of easiness and simplicity, though diffi- culties arising from the vocabulary and occasional modernisms will sometimes occur to those who are familiar only with classical Greek. Easy and simple it really is (allowing for the peculiar difficulty which must always attach to the translation of such an author as Dante), because it is free from that which makes an exact rendering of classical Greek so hard to attain,—

the copious use of particles. A brief specimen will give a better idea than any length of description. Here is the well-known passage in which the love of Francesca di Rimini is told :—

" vi,ave7a,40-froaiw VOTE a.* xdpir, ror' tpcort AcrfictAarros icEXce povaxof, inAv 6rovoo0Pres• 110.6.6cts iiscov r&Nutra crvvrivrhen, '0 xp6s brpainp cruwavayrynacncorron, Mr6Aeare ipas tv ;AMY xopior. 'Or' 1w4vLwev, Tag 6 roeetvbr 74Atos ipcurroi; Tototh-ou KaTelnkben, aros,Orrep 66617roe epcara.kefiPco, M' i/Earicre Tll CTOp.a OW471= Tpilawv.

ra)terZTos 13106.os 80-e wag/as.

"EKTOT oinc tivgirvoyiav TL WEpall"440 MOMXo[ for " alone," -and larom for " thereafter " are doubtful

words, but otherwise the language is classical ; only, if a reader will compare the passage with as many average lines of an Attic dramatist, he will note the scarcity of particles. That the rendering has simplicity, dignity, and force will, we think, be generally allowed.

The metre is described by M. Masurns as " twelve-syllabled paroxytone, resembling, indeed, the iambic metre, but wanting the rhythm of quantity." Quantity, he says, has "almost entirely perished," and he accordingly makes his rhythm depend on

accent. Of its effectiveness, we cannot profess to judge. An ear accustomed to the iambics of the Dramatists fails alto- gether to appreciate it, welcoming with pleasure the occasions, naturally very rare, when the line falls into a shape resembling the ordinary tragic senarins, as, for instance, in,—

" OOTOL AV 011K fiparrOY, &XA' XpiCrT4T7g."

One extraordinary liberty which M. linsurns has taken with biz author must not be passed over. In the ninth " bolgia " (canto xxviii.), Dante has placed Mahommed among "sowers of schisms and dissenaions." The Ambassador of the Caliph,

" out of respect," he tells ns, " to the numerous Mussnlman Atations, many millions of whom live peaceably under the Otto- man Power with their Christian fellow-subjects," has rescued

Mahommed from this locality, substituting for him Arius, " the great heresiarch, who, being a Christian and a priest, brought among Christian nations, by his teaching directed against the consubstantial divinity of Christ, that fatal schism which rent

the Church asunder for many years." Similar liberties have been taken before by adapters and translators—the Pilgrim's Progress, for instance, has been strangely travestied—bat none, we think, quite so audacious.