Aphrodite. By Ernst Eckstein. Translated by Mary J. Safford. (William
S. Gottsberger.)—We cannot say that either the original or the translation of this book is a work of high artistic merit. The story is a prose amplification of the story of Acontins and Cydippe, so gracefully told by Mr. William Morris in "The
Earthly Paradise," which forms the subject of two of Ovid's poems. But Herr Eckstein has marred the tale in the telling of it with carious infelicity. The central incident of the original tale is that Cydippe, a virgin in the service of the Temple of Artemis, or about to be bound to her by vows of virginity for ever, is seen and loved by an unknown stranger, Acontius. She, of course, also falls in love with him at first eight. They both despair till, on the high day, or the day in which her vows are to be taken, Acontius, unseen, throws an apple into her bosom as she advances to the altar. She takes it out, and reads the inscription on it, " I will marry Aeontius." Every declaration spoken in the temple is a vow which must be adhered to, and so the heroine is pledged to Acontius, against the will of father and mother. Eventually, of course, love wins the day, and they are married. This trick is naturally the invention of the lover. But in this prosaic version of the story, the author haa bad the ruinous bad taste to place the incident in the temple of Aphrodite, and makes /Wonting merely the ignorant agent of an old priest who liked bringing the lovers together; while Cydippe was not in danger of perpetual virginity, but only of another lover. As for the rest of the story, it is pompous, stupid, and wholly unnatural in style and matter, with an attempt to impart a classical air to it by calling a cloak a himation, a ball a domation, and so on. As for the translation, here are a few samples of English :—" He was not one of those despots who impoverish their people to riot at the expense of their toiling subjects."
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