The Trojan Women. Translated into English Rhyming Verse by Gilbert
Murray, LL.D. (G. Allen. 2s.)—We expect admir- able work in the way of translation from Professor Murray, and we certainly get it. He deals, it is true, freely with his original, but he gives us all that is there,—and perhaps something more. And he gives it in verse which has nothing of the awkwardness of a translation about it, so easy is the movement of the verse, for all that it is fettered with rhyme. The Treacles is not a specially fine play ; but justice, possibly more than justice, is done to whatever excellency it has,—and Euripides never quite misses the crowning praise that Aristotle bestows upon him of being rpwyucdrraros. Here is a specimen of Professor Murray's work. It is the end of the dialogue between Poseidon and Pallas :— I give thy boon unbartered. These mine hands Shall stir the waste Aegean ; reefs that cross The Hoban pathways, jag-torn Myconos, Scyros and Lemnos, yea and storm-driven Caphereus with the bones of drowned men Shall glut him.-Oo thy ways, and bid the Sire Yield to thine hand the arrows of his fire. Then wait thine hour, when the last ship shall wind Her cable coil for home I
How are ye blind,
"I give thy .boon unbartered" is an excellent example of free translation in which nothing is lost. It represents ij xdpa ob funcpi:r ?thew aefrat better than the more literal "thy boon needs not many words" of another translator. "Reefs that cross the Delian pathways " is more than AiXtei Xolinfass, but it is an addition which an Athenian audience would appreciate; the idea suggested by " glut " is one of the cases of improvement: tlie original is commonplace. Wo do not see where the "un- trodden" comes from unless Professor Murray has followed another reading. Our text has ipnufic Sobs abrbs 6xe9' b'exepor. Here, again, are a few lines from the chorus beginning gEhio-crorpolpou 7412Aagpor
"In Salamis filled with the foaming Of billows and murmur of bees, Old Telamon stayed from his roaming, Long ago, on a throne of the seas ; Looking out on the hills olive laden, Enchanted, where first from the earth The grey-gleaming fruit of the Maiden Athena had birth ; A soft grey crown for a city BelovScl, a City of Light."
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