BOOKS.
CHURCH AND BRODR1BB'S "TACITUS." W1iEN Lamennais was engaged on his translation of Dante, a literary friend wrote to dissuade him from his arduous under- TI.e Complete Ilrurka of TadiVA. Translated into English by A. 3. Church and W. J. Brodribb, London Macmillan and Co. 1877. taking. "You will never," he said, "escape with life from the clutches of that monster ; he will flay you and devour- you, and your bones will be left to whiten in his dreadful den." We must congratulate Messrs. Church and Brodribb on having extricated themselves not merely with life, but with flying colours, from the dreadful den of a writer who is almost as terrible a bete noire to translators as the redoubtable Dante himself. It would be damning these gentlemen with very faint praise indeed to say that they- have given us a better translation of the works of Tacitus than has hitherto been written in our language. They have done much more than this. They have given us a really good translation of this difficult historian, and one which for the classical student's requirements is all but perfect. Their work is marked by sound scholarship and good-sense ; it is thoroughly and honestly done ; valuable notes and excursuses accompany it, and we repeat that for educational purposes, for the class of readers who need it most and are likely to use it most, this trans- lation is all but perfect. To make it a perfect translation for general readers there is one thing lacking, and that is stifle. The translators themselves seem to be aware of this, for they say, modestly enough, in their advertisement :—" To furnish the English reader with any- thing like an adequate representation of the style and genius of the original must over be in the highest degree difficult. It requires, besides a special aptitude for the work, such an expenditure of time and labour as only the amplest leisure could supply. If the work of translation could have a share in the proposed 'endowment of research,' it might be possible to reach an ideal to which those who have to live by their work can but distantly aspire." This is true enough, and we doubt if any one man, or any two men, with amplest leisure and all appliances and means to boot, could supply us with that ideal translation of Tacitus which an enthusiastic scholar might picture to his imagination—a scholar, we mean, who loves the language and literature of England as deeply and strongly as he loves the language and literature of "insolent Greece and haughty Rome." Such a scholar will undoubtedly miss much in this translation which he would like to find there, and find much which he would fain see away ; but for all that, the translators have for the present made Tacitus their own. Nay,. more, the foundation which they have laid is so solid and genuine that, for ourselves, we should be content for future translators to build on this foundation, and not seek to lay a fresh one. Then, indeed, in the course of years—or centuries, perhaps—we might finally come to possess a really great translation of Rome's greatest historian. Meanwhile, Church and Brodribb's trans- lation should be regarded as the "authorised version," and im- provements grafted upon it in subsequent editions might, or might not, in proportion to their worth and number, bear the name of the editor or reviser. Of course, during their lifetime these gentlemen alone must be allowed to undertake the task of such a revision as we are thinking of ; and in our opinion, it is the plain duty of every Latin scholar in England to send from time to time to Messrs. Church and Brodribb, for their approval, any felicitous phrase or probable interpretation which he may light upon. In this way-, far better and quicker than from "endowment of research," we may reasonably look for successful' and satisfactory results. Right willingly would we contribute our mite for such a purpose, if space permitted, but we can attempt nothing beyond a few general remarks, and we are as conscious as the translators are of the practical inutility of such a proceeding. "We have," say they, "to acknowledge much kind and generous approbation of our work, and much valuable and instructive criticism. Of this, when it has dealt with details, we have often availed ourselves. When we have been told in more general terms that we ought to be more forcible, more faithful, or more free, we have been obliged to be content with ac- knowledging the excellence of the advice, and regretting that we were not able to follow it." To the justice of the reproach thus gently made we readily assent. Vague criticism is almost as useless as wild criticism, and is profitable neither for reproof, nor for correction, nor for instruction. By the aid, however, of an admission made by the translators themselves, and of an extract from Dr. Arnold's article on the "Use of the Classics," we hope to do something more definite than merely repeat to Messrs. Church and Brodribb that they ought to be more faithful, more forcible, and more free. The admission we allude to is this, and is taken from the preface to the "Annals ":—" The last instal- ment of our work has been a somewhat laborious task. We can- not suppose that we have accomplished it to the full satisfaction of either the classical student or of the English reader. Scholars will no doubt find that many subtleties of expression have been missed, and that here and there we have misapprehend0 our author's meaning. English readers will complain that they are offended by phrases and constructions foreign to the language." We are glad to say that the translators have wronged themselves in this passage, for certainly if the English reader could make such a complaint with justice, it would argue a very grievous fault indeed in the translation. " Ileroclotus," says Dr. Arnold, "should be rendered in the style and language of the chroniclers ; Thucydides in that of Bacon or hooker; while Demosthenes, Cicero, Cwsar, and Tacitus require a style completely modern,— the perfection of the English language, such as we now speak and write, varied only to suit the individual dif- ferences of the different writers, but in its range of words, and in its idioms, substantially the same." Now, it is clear that the translators are at one with Dr. Arnold in theory on this point, for in the preface to the first edition of the "History" they tell us explicitly that they have written for English readers, and have tried to avoid whatever might grate harshly or unplea- santly on their ears. But in practice they have diverged some- what from the great schoolmaster's precept. It is not that the phrases and constructions in this translation are often or strik- ingly foreign to the genius of our language, but there is, if we may use the expression, a lack of English colouring about the diction of the work as a whole. We gladly admit that Messrs. Church and Brodribb have given "a generally correct and ade- quate expression of the original," but we can hardly agree with them that they have done so in a style which "does not too mani- festly reveal the hand of a translator." The remedy for this is not far to seek,—the translators have only to give a more Eng- lish turn to sentences which read awkwardly or harshly, and this should be a labour of love to men who have so stoutly and successfully grappled with the more serious difficulties of their very difficult task. If this criticism still seems too general, we would refer Messrs. Church and 13rodribb to one of their own corrections as an instance of what we should like to see done in many other passages. In the first edition (" History," i. 1) they wrote :—" With neither was there any regard for posterity between the enmity of the one and the servility of the other." This is altered in the third edition thus :—" And so between the enmity of the one and the servility of the other neither had any regard for posterity."
There is, however, another point on which we find ourselves slightly at variance with Messrs. Church and Brodribb. They say that "to give with sufficient faithfulness an author's meaning is now,with all the aids that a translator can command, comparatively easy." We venture to doubt the truth of this proposition, so far, at least, as Tacitus is concerned. There are many passages in this author which are so corrupt as to completely baffle the trans- lator, in spite of all the aids which he may command. Take, for instance, this from the "Annals," (xiv. 1G) :—" (Nero) etiam sapientiae doctoribus ternpus impertiebat post epulas, utque con- traria adseverant turn discordiae rueretur." Such a passage as this is past all surgery, and we cannot commend the way in which the translators have treated it. "lie would also bestow some leisure after his banquets on the teachers of philosophy, for he enjoyed the wranglings of opposing dogmatists," is their version, and the words which we have italicised are clearly evolved from their inner consciousness. Now we contend that in this case the translators ought to have italicised these words themselves, or have intimated in a note that they are only given as a pis cater. Again, on the very difficult and corrupt passage ("Annals,"
26), we are indeed told that the passage itself is corrupt, and that one or two words have dropped out, but the transla- tion given in the text is pure nonsense ; and we think that italics should have been used here, or some danger-signal set up to warn the reader that he is on unsafe ground. In "Annals," xiv. 59, we find in Church and Brodribb, "Why, would you have been a Nero?" given conjecturally (after Orelli) as the lost expres- sion which Nero is said to have used when the head of Plautus, whom he decapitated, was brought to him for inspection. But it is hardly possible to doubt that Nero's expression, which Tacitus thought fit to give verbatim (" ipso principis verba referam "), has been preserved by Dio Cassius. " Cur,' inquit Nero, 'to magnum nasum babere nesciebam,"—or some such words—will then have dropped from the text, erased perhaps, originally, by some Imperialist, ashamed of the Emperor's brutal and probably indecent jest. However this may be, we feel pretty confident that the famous sentence, "Non ease curae Deis securita-
tem nostrare, ease ultionem," has been wrongly translated. These celebrated words surely do not mean, as the French translator Louandre supposes them to mean, "Lea Dieux no s'occupent pas du bonheur de l'homme, male du soil de le punir." Orelli, in- deed, approves of this, and Church and Brodribb follow him. "Time gods take no thought for our happiness, but only for our punishment," is their version ; but the context, we think, leaves no doubt that securitatem nostrani means "the prosperity of Rome," and not "the happiness of mankind." We need not say that Messrs. Church and Brodribb have as much right to their own opinions on this and other disputed passages, when we differ from them, as we have to our opinions. In nearly every case of this kind the classical student may safely rely upon the interpretation given by these gentlemen being fully justified by authority. They, indeed, may be said to give, as a rule, the orthodox version of disputed points in Tacitus, and it is obvious. that the student will thank them more for this than for brilliant and uncertain originality. One thing, towever, he most assuredly will not thank them for, and that is the absence of indices, except for the " Annals."
In conclusion, we would gladly hope that the translators have taken too gloomy a view of their work, when they say that it brings them neither fame nor profit. They have richly earned the gratitude and support of all who are engaged in teaching or learning Latin, and we have reason to believe that this gratitude and support both have been and will be given to them most ungrudgingly and most deservedly.
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