BOOKS.
A NEW TRANSLATION OF THE AENEID.* To discuss a new version of the Aeneid is the rashest of literary adventures. It is no doubt easy to argue about metres and to compare extracts from Dryden, Pitt, Conington, Bowen, Morris, or Rhoades, but a critic who does not thus "safely hug the shore" will, we think—and our remarks will probably illustrate the fact—quickly find that he is hopelessly perplexed and at a loss. For, as to the poem itself, to what end is any argument? Securus iudicat orbis terrarum, and the cause has long been determined, while the number of existing versions shows the equal fascination and difficulty of such attempts. The Aeneid, in fact, is a work of art which, like Beau Brummel's cravat, at once tempts and defies reproduction. "These are our failures," sighed the great man's valet, as he removed an armful of rejected neckcloths, and who shall presume to copy what the hand of genius only achieved by laborious striving after perfection ? Effort follows effort; first one man attempts to translate the Aeneid and then another, but there is no real success. Set side by side with the text the defects of all versions are clear, and read by themselves they do not suggest that the original is one of the great poems of the world. Nor is the reason, perhaps, far to seek ; for the Aeneid owes its charm chiefly to qualities which it is difficult to imitate. The story has little attractiveness of its own, and the poem as a whole is a fiction which never deceives. Homer, Dante, and Milton at once please us by their narrative and impose upon us by their imagina- tion. The substance of their poems has a perpetuity of interest which is independent of their form ; but with Virgil this is only very partially true. His subject seems to 1– as it was in fact, half forced upon him, and is obviously a burden. "Shouldering the destined glories of his sons" was, no doubt, a light task for "the huge Aeneas" when once Vulcan had engraved them on a shield ; but Roman history and the exploits of Augustus were a theme too ponderous for the most tender, sensitive, and refined of poets. Neither "Imperial Rome" nor "purple Caesar "— for that is the best which Tennyson can make of him —is exactly fitted to develop the finer play of fancy or lend grace to a legend. They both, in fact, represent all that is hard, solid, and poetically untractable. From such material a monument, but not a work of imagination, can be appro- priately fashioned. Granite is good stuff for a town hall or a tombstone, but does not adapt itself to portrayal of the Graces; and that Virgil, being set to hew Roman virtues into something ideal, did -aat wholly fail, is sufficient proof of his • The 22neid of Virgil. Translated by C. J. Billson, M.A. 2 vols. London : Edward Arnold. [30s. net.]
skill. That by his handling he produced a poem which still excites the wonder of every artist is a demonstration of his genius. Faults his work has, and must have; but let us forget them. Let us forget the painful virtues of "the good Aeneas," the dutiful catalogues of Roman heroes, the weary bloodshedding of the later books, and many other such things, in order to recall his vision of the underworld, his lament for Marcellus, the lines which tell of Pallas lying on his bier, or of Mezentius bidding farewell to his warhorse, and count- less other passages which each lover of Virgil chooses and treasures for himself. It is on these, surely, and not on the epic greatness of the whole, although many parts have the true epic character, that the fame of the Aeneid depends. But what are the distinguishing qualities of such passages ? They are, we think, three,—the magic of their verse, the artistic finish of their expression, and the peculiar sense which they convey of a singularly attractive personality. Tennyson notes them all, the "stately measure," the "lord- ship of language," and the "majestic sadness" of the poet. But though he notes, he fails to describe, for the harmonies of Virgil's verse are as various as Milton's ; and what is there "majestic" about the tender pity of such a line, say, as Sunt lacrirnae rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt ? And where Tennyson fails a reviewer must be silent, contented only to point out facts which make a translator's task almost hopeless. Whatever, indeed, the choice of metre, it will disappoint three readers out of four; while when it comes to the actual render- ing, who has at once the skill and the patience which are needed ? Virgil gave twelve years to his work, writing, that is, some twenty lines a week, and "licking" each line into shape, to use his own words, "as a bear licks its cub," while on his deathbed he desired the poem to be burned as " unemended and imperfect." It is a lesson to modern rhymers, and a warning to all translators, for few of them, we imagine, have ever devoted to their task half the poet's pains. They understand only in part what the industry of genius really is, and are not unlike the amateur who, after hearing Paganini, whispered to Heine :—"Ich spiele selber die Violine, and weiss, was es heisst, dieses Instrument zu bemeistern."
But, supposing all technical difficulties mastered, the problem of producing the same personal impression as Virgil remains, we think, insoluble. Some poets, Homer, for example, and the author of Job, stand as it were wholly outside their work, which hardly suggests their personality. Far more are deliberately subjective and self-revealing, their aim being to mirror in their works a direct image of their own minds. But Virgil does not belong to either class. He neither holds himself aloof from his work, nor obtrudes him- self in it, and yet in all that he writes there is, along with the outward beauty, a sense "of something far more deeply inter- fused," which can only be felt and not explained. The mind of the poet seems to permeate and irradiate his poetry, giving to the simplest words a new significance, and he stamps the current coin of speech with a superscription of his own. Take as a single instance the description of the unburied on the banks of Styx-
" Stabant °mites primi transmitters cursum, Tendebantque manus ripm ulterioris amore "— and examine the wonder of these ten ordinary words. They convey their direct meaning perfectly; they compel admira- tion by the combined simplicity and refinement of their art; and they also do something more. They suggest to the mind, as hundreds of Virgil's lines do, a certain tender melancholy and pensive sadness which it at once associates with the person of the writer. We picture him as one who loved to wander
with even step and musing gait" silently "meditating" some finely modulated phrase, and then repeating it very gently and very beautifully aloud. That he could so speak his own verse we know from history, but could have divined it for ourselves, for some of his tear-laden lines could only have been written by one who himself realised of what soft and moving tones the human voice is master. Just as we feel without being told that Tennyson must have "mouthed his hollow oes and aes" ; just as his "I salute thee, Mantovano," has a certain bluffness and bigness in its very sound, so we see and hear Virgil in his verse. It is in vain that he with- draws from observation. His words are so penetrated with his personality that the most retiring of poets has become, as all literature shows, perhaps the most striking and impressive.
And he is so not because of what he says, for he has little originality, and is, indeed, the prince of plagiarists, but because of the way in which he says it. He has certain subtle inflections and unregistered tones which are peculiar to himself, and although this may not be the highest of poetic gifts—indeed, the best poetry is ever, we think, the simplest— yet it is, at any rate, a quality which translators can hardly reproduce. The result of their labours is often good poetry, but who has ever seen a translation that really resembled Virgil ? Let any one read Dryden's Aeneid and say whether it does not call up thoughts of "glorious John" lording it in a London coffee-house rather than of that "anima cortese" to whom Beatrice makes appeal in the land of shadows.
But if causes such as those thus hinted at prevent full success, the present translator has certainly gone far to achieve whatever is possible. Wisely making choice of that form of verse which, so long as Paradise Lost remains unsur- passed, must be the ideal form for an English translation of the Aeneid, he does not shrink from the severe test of setting
his own version to confront the original page for page and line for line. The attempt thus to use only ten syllables where the Latin on the average takes fifteen might seem desperate, but is, in fact, happy. Mr. Billson's version, though compressed, is not cramped, and, though terse, moves easily, while its close parallelism to the text affords opportunity for that continual comparison and criticism which to lovers of the classics is one of the chief pleasures that a rendering can afford. Many people, no doubt, would agree with Cowley that the virtue of a translator is "to supply the lost Excellencies of another Language with new ones of our own," and so to produce almost a new poem; but those who do not fancy an old favourite tricked out in "new Excellencies," and want Virgil not rewritten but reproduced, should be delighted with this work. It necessarily misses much, as when the two lines quoted above become-
" They stand and plead First to be ferried o'er, with hands outspread, Craving for that far bank"; but it also keeps much, and its merits far exceed its faults. Such renderings, for instance, as— "Time and the changes of the toiling days Have mended much,"
"He, riding to and fro Tempestuous, seeks approach where way is none. As when a wolf at midnight prowling round Some crowded sheep-fold in the wind and rain, Yelps at the pens : beneath their mothers lambs Bleat scathless ; but the wild and angry beast Rages at those =reached, to madness worn By famine, and his jaws long dried of blood."
-We do not say that such lines affect the mind in the same way that Virgil does, or that they are great poetry ; but as translation they unquestionably rank very high, and Mr. Billson's volumes may safely be recommended to all who love the Aeneid, or have succumbed—as who has not ?—to the fascination of thinking how some favourite lines could best be turned into English.
"And far away we hear the loud sea moan
On beaten crags, and the shore's broken voice,"
are at once excellent and exact, while here is the famous passage (ix. 57) which describes Turnus outside the Trojan camp :—
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