Studies from Attic Drama. By Edward George Harman. (Smith, Elder,
and Co. 5s.)—Mr. Harman has made a bold venture, and has come very well out of it. To construct "a play, after Euripides," as he has done with the Alcestis, is not very difficult. There are portions of the original which it is not easy to accom- modate to modern taste. A writer who feels himself free to deal with these as he thinks fit, changing or omitting, is at a great advantage. The Agamemnon is quite another affair. Here, it is true, Mr. Harman does not bind himself to absolute fidelity. Paraphrase he uses on occasion, and freely too. It wants a courage such as Browning's to venture on "dust, mud's thirsty brother." But he has succeeded in presenting the noblest of the Greek tragedies in a satisfying form. His metre is blank verse ; he uses it with such skill that even the choral odes, to which one would say a priori it is eminently unsuited, are well rendered. We cannot without reserve accept the bold expedient. The choral odes ought, after all, to bo lyric; yet it is fair to acknowledge that Mr. Harman has done them justice. Here is a specimen from the second ode, the famous Th' rev' i'avicuaCes, " Who could have given that name ? What power unseen
Guided his tongue, that she was ' Helen called? Spear-wooed in battle, bane of ill for men, For ships and cities, well she proved her name, When, passing from her curtained bower, she went
Before the felon west across the sea.
And after her a mighty hunt of men, Shield-bearing, stooped upon the vanished trail, Path of the oar far-smitten to the strand. Whose woods would cry the havoc of that fray. A bride of sorrow for the sons of Troy, By wrath pursued, which he, the god of guests, Sent for his vengeance on the song they sang,
Their triumph of an hour."
The translator avoids, it will have been noticed, the play of words on EX‘vaP, lxfvae, gAavSpoc, iAiarDuir. Browning more boldly gives : " Helena ? Ship's Hell, Man's Hell, City's Hell."
Previous page
