MARTIN'S CAT13LLUS.*

To translate Catullus really well is about as difficult a task as for a bashful man to return thanks for the bridesmaids at a wedding break. fast. Mr. Martin had done Horace so very fairly, that be had esta- blished a right to try his skill on the older poet, but, as might be ex- pected, he has not attained an equal success. Much is, indeed, good and readable, as English, apart from the original—an amount of dis- tinction—with which, as translations go, a man ought perhaps to be satisfied. In the case of Catullus a translator has fewer predecessors than in that of Horace, but this, though an advantage in some re- spects, forms also a temptation to content himself with a lower standard of excellence, while it implies that a smaller amount of critical power likely to be useful to him has been expended on the subject. At the same time we can well understand the fascination which Catullus must exercise on one who has so considerable a mastery of English verse, so much practice in translation, and so keen an ap- preciation of the beauties of Roman literature, as Mr. Martin. In Catullus there is something which we do not find in any other Roman, or, indeed, any Greek, poet, and which makes us feel that the an- cients were after all of the same flesh and blood as ourselves—more strongly even than in dealing with classics of more universal cele- brity. He interests us by means of the deep personal feeling which breathes through his works, while his style combines the unconven- tionality of a high and fervid imagination with the directness and terseness of expression which characterize a man of the world. His Helicon is the Burgundyof the Latin vintage. He has freshness and simplicity, but not the naiveté which would belong to one uncon- taminated by the influences of his age or the temptations of his own nature. In his character, in the warmth of his affections, the readi- ness of his satire, and the vigour of his style, we are reminded of Byron, though the parallel is not to be, pressed too far, for the deli- cate grace of Catullus's smaller poems, which have made them fa- vourites of all ages, would have been as impossible to the author of " Childe Harold" as a poem like "Don Juan" would probably have been to Catullus. But if Byron could have expressed himself in the style of Herrick, he would probably have written in a fashion much resembling the Roman poet.

Only one Englishman has, in our opinion, shown qualifications

which would entitle him to undertake a translation of Catullus with real chance of success. We need hardly say that we allude to Mr. Landor, whose lyrics and elegiac pieces, except where disfigured by a needless obscurity, breathe all the spirit of the ancients, and are expressed with a finish which the Best of them need not have dis- dained. The want of this kind of merit in Mr. Martin is most felt in the shorter pieces, many of which are inferior in point and polish to those by Lamb. Some of Mr. Martin's are injured by a common- ness of poetic expression into which all who have written verse have probably felt tempted to slide, but which is most alien from the spirit of Catullus; • in one or two is introduced a modern sentiment, good in itself, but not to be found in the original ; while one or two are so much expanded that they ought to be called paraphrases. Very few are quite satisfactory, though all, as we have already said, would be found pleasant by the mere English reader. It is in the longer pieces that Mr. Martin'spowers have best been shown; and in these he far surpasses Lamb, both in spirit and closeness to his original. The two Epithalaraia, the " Atys," and the "Nuptials of Peleus and Thetis," are translated with much grace and freedom, and often with a considerable degree of power. To give anything like an adequate translation of the "Atys" is, of course, impossible, for much of its rhythm in Latin depends upon the quantity of short syllables, which we cannot at all imitate in our language, and which, were such imitation possible, nothing but an Italian mouth could roll out with the requisite rapidity and the due distinctness of articula- tion. Apart from this—which must have had some such effect as that produced by the well-known operatic morceau called the " Sing- ing Lesson"—the only English composition at all approaching the "Atys" in character, is the second paragraph in Tennyson's "Vision of Sin; where, however, the force of the passage depends upon a trochaic rather than an anapiestic movement. Mr. Martin's version shows a slight change of metre :

" Swiftly, swiftly, o'er the ocean Atys urged his flying bark,

Swiftly leapt to land, and plunged into the Phrygian forest dark,"—

are trochaic tetrameter catalectics, like "Lockaley Hall," while the lines,

Still on he flew, the maddening crew whied after,—at the shrine they stopp'd; There, wan and wearied, lifelessly they all upon the threshold dropp'd,

are iambics, a measure which is adhered to with good effect in the greater part of the poem. The " Nuptials of Peleus and Thetis" is given in the rhymed heroic couplet, which, from the pauses at the end of the Latin lines occurring much more frequently than in Virgil and the later poets, is a very suitable metre, and its adoption has not in this instance led, as it usually does, to an undue expansion of the sense. The following passage, which describes the Fates who came to the marriage-feast to prophesy the birth and exploits of Achilles, is, from its Homeric simplicity and picturesqueness, thoroughly characteristic of Catullus, and is also a favourable specimen of Mr. Martin's powers as a translator. He has not added to or subtracted anything from the original:

"When.on the couches now the guests divine, Laid all along, their snowy limbs recline, The feast was served, and all the tables round With varied viands were profusely crown'd, Then, swaying feebly to and fro their limbs,

The Poema of Catzd les. Translated into English Verse, with an Introduction and Notes. By Theodore Martin. Parker and Bourn.

The Parcae chanted their soothsaying hymns. Their palsied forms in robes of white were wound, Braided with purple where they touch'd the ground. Upon their heads were snowy fillets tied, And their thin hands their endless labours plied. The left the distaff held, from which the right, Plucking the wool with npturn'd fingers light, Twisted the threads, which o'er the thumb they wound, Then swiftly whirled the well-poised skindle round. With teeth they smooth their work, as on it slips, And flecks of wool stick to their wither'd lips, Bit from the threads ; while at their feet, and fall, Stand osier-baskets of the whitest wool.

Then as they span, with voices shrill and strong, They pour'd this weird in alternating song, Which no succeeding age shall e'er convict of wrong."

We have said that we are not satisfied with the rendering of the smaller poems. In the first page we fimd the Cui Bono lepiduus Nov= libellum expanded into

" And now what patron shall I choose For these gay sallies of my muse ?"

the latter of which lines is very far from being Catullian. In the same poem, the exclamation, Doelis, Jupiter! et laboriosis, has a touch of "chaff" not conveyed by "Great Jove, what lore, what labour there !" The poem " Quinctia and Lesbia" is, on the whole, fairly rendered, but in the stanza,

"For nowhere in her can you find That subtle voiceless art,

That something which delights the mind,

And satisfies the heart,"

the two latter lines would never by themselves be recognizable as a translation of

"nam nulls venustas, Nulls in tam magno corpora mica sails."

Lamb's are Much better :

" No grain of sprightliness or grace In all her lofty form we trace."

In the poem at page 12, which Mr. Martin entitles "The Idol Rein- stated," and which, by the table of contents, appears to correspond to No. 75 of the common editions, we cannot find anything in the Latin to warrant the first of the two stanzas. That which he calls "The Idol Shattered" fails to express with at all sufficient fulness the idea which it is evidently written to embody. Catullus says he has loved Lesbia, "not as men commonly love a mistress, but as a father loves his child?' " But now," he continues, "I know you; and yet, though you seem more unworthy than ever, I love you still more madly than ever, and if you ask why, I can only say that an injury like that which you have inflicted on me, while it lessens a lover's esteem, yet fatally heightens his passion :" " Num to cognovi. Tamen, etsi impensius uror, Multo mi tamen as vilior at levior.

Qni potis est? inquis. Quod amantem injnria talis

Cogit amare magis, sed bane velie minus.".

Mr. Martin's translation is :

"I know you now. Alas! and though

Your fall, your fickleness I spurn, Yet can I not forget you, no!

But with a wilder passion burn-

" You ask, how this can be? Then bear Such wrongs as mine the heart may chill,

But charms so prized must still be dear, And haunt the fancy fondly still."

In his note on the passage, he says, " The ideal charm is dis- solved, but the earthly passion still burns," which shows that he has not apprehended the full force of the words. What Catullus means is, that the " earthly passion" burns much more strongly from his knowledge that his mistress is false to him ; a notion which nineteen out of twenty people will think absurd, and which is so to a healthy and innocent mind, but which the sore and morbid feelings of a man like Catullus world recognize as thoroughly true. We fancy, how- ever, that it does not occur in any other poet. Lamb conveys the idea more tersely :

" Nor wonder, passion's unrestrained excess Makes me desire thee more, but love thee less."

A somewhat similar weakness is shown in the translation of the lines in which Catullus expresses his conviction that he must tear out the thought of Lesbia at any cost :

" Una salus Mac est, hoc est tibi pervincendum,

Hoc facies, sive id non pote, sive pote."

Nothing could be more forcibly put, or a better instance of the style, redolent of real life, for which we have said that Catullus is remark- able : "You must do it, whether you can or not." This is diluted by Mr. Martin into

" 'Tis hard, but 'tis thy duty. Come what may, Crush every record of its joys, its fears I"

In the poem on "Acme and Septimius" (" butterflies !" as Mephis-

topheles in Faust would say) the three best lines— "At Acme leviter espnt reflectena, Et dulcis pueri ebnos °cellos Illo purpureo ore stutviata"—

are the least elegantly rendered :

" Then bending gently back her bead, With that sweet month so rosy-red, Upon his eyes she dropp'd a kiss, Intoxicating them with bliss." ,

" Dropp'd a kiss" reminds one of sealing-wax, and " intoxicating them" is chronologically wrong, as the eyes were " ebrii" before the kiss in question took place. Mr. Martin's scholarship is generally unimpeachable, but in one instance he has made a slip ; in another he has adopted the least preferable of two meanings. In the well-known poem to Lesbia's sparrow, he translates "Cum desiderio meo nitenti Ceram nescio quid lubet jocari," by " Whense'er with wanton quip She makes sport of my desire."

taking—as also appears from his note—desiderio meo as governed by jocari, instead of as depending on lubet. Desiderium does not refer to the lover's feelings, bnt to their object—Lesbia herself ; a use of the word which may be found in any good Latin dictionary, and which is paralleled by isle mens stupor" in a subsequent poem. " Whene'er my dazzling pet may please Me in her pretty way to tease,' wea' give a clearer, though we do not say an elegant, notion of the meaning. In the poem inscribed to "Manus Acilins Glabrio," Catnllus says, speaking of that very good friend of his, "Is clausum late patefecit fimite campum Isque domum nobis, isque dedit dominam, Ad quern communes ezerceremus amores, Quo men as molli candida diva pede Intulit, et trito fulgentem in limine plantain lnnixa, argata constitnit Conjugis ut quondam flagrans advenit amore Protesilattam Laodamis domum."

Mr Martin translates the first three lines : "To my domains he set an ampler bound, And unto me a home and mistress gave. Her love we shared: methinks I see her now,wdim. &c.

One would rather, if possible, avoid the supposition that Catullus and his friend were actual sharers of the " domina" as well as the " domus," and one of the commentators refers quail; not to dominam, but to domum, and explains communes as equivalent to mutuos. The construction of the following line, "Quo mtulit," i.e. " into the house," the expression "area diva," and the repetition of the word dowse; afterwards, corroborate this view; and at the end of the poem are four lines which also seem to imply the less objec- tionable arrangement : " Sitis felices, et to simul, et tna vita, Et domes ipsa, in qua lusimus, et domina ;

Et lunge ante omnes mihi gnaw me carior ipso est, Lux mea, qua viva vivere dulce mihi est.' , We are bound to say that both Doering and Lamb take Mr. Martin's view of the passage; but we think Catalina might have had the benefit of the doubt.

Mr. Martin's introduction tells us, in an interesting fashion, the very little there is to be known of the life of Catullus, and contains some good criticism on his genius. At page x., however, we ob- serve two contradictory statements, which seem to have escaped attention. In the text dr. Martin says " his invective against Cesar

and Mamurra is mentioned by Cicero in his writing to Adieus as something which had just come out In a note he quotes the passage, " tune audivit de Maniurra," and in the same breath tells us that the view of Dr. Middleton, who contends " that this passage must be held as referring to the attack by Catullus on Mamurra,' is " mere conjecture." So it is. Why, then, specify it in the text as a certainty ? The notes, which explain the subjects and occasions of each poem, so far as these are discoverable, will be to many almost as interesting as the translation itself. They show much thoughtfulness and subtlety of criticism, and contain a good selection of parallel passages. To these one or two might have been added. Catullus's reproduction of the celebrated fragment of Sappho has exercised many translators, of whom Mr. Martin quotes Dir. Gladstone, and refers to Ambrose Phillips. He has not noticed Shelley's " Lines to Constantia. Singing," winch, if not meant for an imitation, closely. resemble Sappho, and are, indeed, more full of passion than any of the actual translations from either the Greek or the Latin versions. In the humorous poem, beginning " 0 Colonia, gum cupis ponte ludere longo," are two lines- " Et pelt tenellnlo delicatior hudo,

Aaservanda nigerrimis diligentius uvis"—

of which Landor has a piquant paraphrase, which we expected to see quoted in the commentary : " The blackest of grapes, with a footpath hard by,

Should hardly be watcbt with so watchful an eye, As that kid of a girl, whom old Egon has made His partner for life, not ashamed, nor afraid."

The poem in question is very well rendered by Mr. Martin, and we much prefer his version to that of Lamb, or to Dr. Badham's, which latter he has placed in juxtaposition. The same praise may be given

to the lines to " Marrucinus Asinins," and to the " .Pinnace," in which the curiosities of idiom are preserved with somewhat remark- able felicity. These, together with the versions of the longer poems, already referred to, are sufficient to redeem the faults we have noted, and Mr. Martin deserves the thanks of the scholar for rekindling his interest in them, as well as those of the English reader, for giving him a translation, which, after all deductions, is probably the best yet produced.