SLEEPLESS.
[To TIM EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR")
S112,—As several of your correspondents have referred to the Latin verse on sleep written by Thomas Warton, author of a
"History of English Poetry," and given translations of it, it may not be out of place to remind your readers that Words- worth wrote an English version of it in a copy of the 1836 edition of his own poems, along with his translations of a fragment by Michael Angelo on "Sleep," although he never included these in any of his published works. The trans- lations from Michael Angelo were as follows :—
"Grateful is Sleep; my life, in stone bound fast,
More grateful still. While wrong and shame shall last, On me can Time no happier state bestow Than to be left unconscious of the woe.
Ah then, lest you awaken me, speak low."
"Grateful is Sleep ; more grateful still to be Of marble ; for while shameless wrong and woe Prevail, 'tis best to neither hear nor Bee.
Then wake me not, I pray you. Hush, speak low."
His version of Warton's lines, beginning " Somne veal! quamvis placidissima mortis imago es," is as follows :—
"Come, gentle Sleep, Death's image though thou art, Come share my couch, nor speedily depart; How sweet thus living without life to lie, Thus without death how sweet it is to die."
Previous page
