Gilbert Murray

BOOKS OF THE DAY

By E. E. KELLETT

ONE cannot better introduce these volumes than in the words of the Greek epigram which Mr. Bowra has set at the beginning of the more specially learned of the two. They are a tribute of gratitude to the mellow wisdom and " aganophrosyne " of one of the most highly esteemed of living men—this latter term, I take it, being chosen- to remind us of the tenderness Anticleia found in her son Odysseus : andithe-choice is signifir' cant. Professor Murray may, like Odysseus, stir our awe and admiration by the depth and width of his knoirledge of men and things ; but more remarkable even than his scholarship are the modesty and urbanity which have gained for him the affection -of a host of friends. _ He has thousands of friends who are not scholars, and many of whom have never seen him ; but all will share in the feeling which has • prompted 'this more intimate and more erudite empany of friends to follow the pleasant fashion of celebra- ting the seventieth birthday of a distinguished teacher by offering contributions to the study he has made his own. In the ease of Professor Murray this is particularly appropriate. One recalls how, at his inauguration, he dwelt on the enormous and ever-accelerating growth of the subject called, for short, " Greek,'"' how he pointed out that no one man could keep pace with this growth, and how he asked other scholars to help him in the task. These essays are a sign that the request has been met : they are astonishingly learned dissertations on all sorts of subjects, great and minute, from the treatment of disease in „antiquity to lyrical clausulae in Sophocles or teliambi: and they are representative of a vast amount of research in the background. It would take a Gilbert Murray adequately to discuss the half of them : the amateur invidet, miratur magis.

But Professor Murray's energies have not been confined to classical learning.: He has done so much work in other fields that future schoolboys may imagine the Rise of the Greek Epic and a score of similar books to have been written not by Murray but by another man of the same name. The second volume, though it is not without articles as learned in their own way as those in the first—I might mention specially a most striking paper by Dr. Hammond on " Gladstone and the League of Nations Mind," and another by Dr. Edwyn Bevan on " Ancient Rhetoric "—is mainly devoted to these other sides of a most varied activity. It opens with a reminiscent letter by Mr. H. A. L. Fisher, dealing chiefly with the early days of the League of Nations ; and this is supplemented by Lord. Cecil, who, in an account of the League of Nations Union, relying on the force of a simple statement of fact, reveals how much the Union owes to Professor Murray, with whom he has worked from the first, and who, labouring ohne Hast, ohne Rast, has been one of the main agents in making it what it is. Lord Cecil tells us, for instance, that Lord Grey on one occasion, when he rather reluctantly came to a Union meeting, said he did so largely because of his admiration for Professor Murray. It is much laudari a laudato viro ; but the praise was still more decisively spoken by the eleven mil- lions who signed the Peace Ballot.

But there is yet more. Professor Murray seems to stand Polygonal to all the winds that blow. There are some Greek Poetry and Life : Essays Presented to Gilbert Murray. (Oxford University Press. 2184 Essays in Honour of Gilbert Murray. (Allen and Unwin. 12s. ed.)

admirable and really delightful chapters on his relations with the stage. It was Carlyon Sahib that, as early as 1895,

brought him the friendship of William Archer, to which apparently we owe the series of translations of Creek plays. The two talked much about the best way of reproducing, for modern minds, the spirit of the Athenian drama ; and, after

long- -experimenting, the real beginning was made. About 1900 Archer heard Murray read some extracts from a verso translation of the Hippolytus, and there and then found a

satisfying solution of the problem." People will always dispute whether these versions arc Euripides or Murray. I remember that when Verrall wanted to give English readers

an idea of the exact wording of the Alcestis or the Racchae,

he preferred Way. It does not matter. One thing is certain, that Euripides was a poet and that these versions are poetry. Euripides was also a playwright. If there be any who doubt whether Dr. Murray's translations show the playwright's gift, let them read Mr. Harley Granville-Barker's chapter later in the volume.

From these translations sprang a further friendship—with Dame Sybil Thorndfice ; and nothing more charming could

easily be found than the account of this friendship, she gives

is the chapter entitled " Gilbert Murray and Some Actois." " If you are lucky," said Lewis Casson to her in 1908, " you may have a chance of being in a Gilbert Murray translation,

as I'm hoping in the autumn to produce the Hippolytus." She looked impressed, but vacant ; she had heard of Gilbert Murray, but her acquaintance with Greek saga was prac- tically limited to Kingsley's Heroes. " Well, you just wait," said Casson ; " you haven't lived yet." " I felt from the tone that I was to learn and know something wonderful." The rest of the story must be read in the chapter itself.

Then there is Miss Margery Fry on Professor Murray's work for Somerville College and for women's education generally : by itself no small labour. (Incidentally, two of

the articles in Greek Poetry and Life arc by Fellows of women's colleges.) Then Mrs. Salter's chapter on " The Evidence for

Telepathy," from which those who did not know it already will learn that Gilbert Murray not merely is interested in that fascinating subject, but possesses very extraordinary telepathic powers ; and this though " any suggestion that the faculties of a perfectly respectable professor of Greek have a supernormal taint is confessedly repugnant to him."

Unluckily, it appears that these powers arc those rather of the percipient than of the transmitter. If only he could pass on his knowledge and his liberal ideas, undiluted, to certain people one could name, how different the world would be Finally, for one must stop somewhere, Mr. Fisher tells us that when Murray stood for his Fellowship at New College,

Professor Margoliouth paid him the grim compliment of announcing that he would set papers which would strain even his capacity. The Professor would seem, in this bolk, to have done the same thing over again : for the article h contributes is on " Some Problems of the Acts of Thomas," crammed with references to Hebrew, Syriac, Aramaic, the Targums, Midrashes, and much besides. To assume that, in addition to being a master of the whole range of Creek studies, you can appreciate a chapter like this, is perhaps the subtlest and highest praise ever paid by one great student to another.