The Persians of tEschylus. Translated into English Verse. By W.
Gurney, M.A. (Bell and Deighton.)—We cannot congratulate Mr. Gurney upon having accomplished a successful translation. Beyond a respectable knowledge of the text, he does not seem to possess any of the qualifications of a translator. His language is bald and his versifi- cation rugged and unskilful, without melody in the lyrical, and with- out dignity in the narrative parts of the drama. Of the ingenuity which the translator of /Eschylus especially needs we do not see a trace. Take, for instance, his translation of the speech with which Atossa makes her appearance on the stage :- "For this same cause I come, my palace difht with gold Have left; left, too, our couch, both Dara s and mine own. Me, too, at heart, corroding care doth rend ; but you, My friends, my tale shall hear, myself o'erwhelmed with fears, Lest wealth untold with dusty speed have overturned The bliss that Dare raised, nor raised without some god. Therefore a two-fold care, past words, doth MI mine heart : That we have worshipped gold without the manly soul; Or light on poverty bath smiled, though less than meet."
The last two linos are certainly obscure, but Mr. Gurney does not de the best with them.
ixpe,etei.roisi XtettwEly 41:14 Year direE veipa
is the second of the two contingencies which Meese dreads, but it is hardly recognisable in the English, which, as far as the last clause is concerned, is indeed unmeaning. Mr. Gurney must surely have fol- lowed another reading different to ;gnu olive; weeeet. The reader shall see another specimen of Mr. Gurney's manner, and judge whether he likes it better. It is the description of the advance of the Greek fleet at Salamis "There brat, in comely pomp, the right wing led, All marshalled well; and next came all their fleet, Unfolding out : rose then in unison This mighty cry: • Go, eons of Greece, advance, Your country free; tree too your sons—your wives ; The altars of your fathers' gods, go, free, And your ancestral tombs! fight now for all;' And yet from us to greet this song went forth The din of Persia's shout; nor stayed we lone."
Some foot-notes are supplied, more or less judicious. Mr. Gurney has probably authorities to support him in saying that the two sisters of Atom's dream are the two races of Asiatic and European Greeks. But how did she come to see them fighting with each other? And would she speak of the one inhabiting Persia, the other Greece ? It Is much more reasonable to suppose Europe and Asia to be meant. What, again, does he mean by saying that "Lempriere says Sicinus was sent by Themistocles to deceive Xerxes and advise him to attack the Greeks, and that he had been preceptor to Themistocles." Lompriere was not a contemporary ; but Herodotus, who was, says that the man's name was Sicinnus, and that he was a domestic of Themistocles, slave and tutor to his children. Mr. Gurney, who is a schoolmaster, ought not to translate se.Leyoyet by ' preceptor.' Lastly, there is a certain oddity and want of taste in annotating on the line which tells us that the Greeks slaughtered their foes ZOTS itirPOL$ 4. TIP' XO 'Saar, that the "twiny- fish when cooked very much resembles veal."
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