PROMETHEUS IN ENGLISH.*

IF the Latin verse-writing is at length giving place to more use- ful accomplishments at our public schools, the love of classical composition cannot be said to be involved in its fall. Especially noticeable is the number of translations from the Greek which bave appeared in the last few years. It would be an interesting addition to the next census, if we could be told how many persons were translating Homer, and how many Aeschylus, on that occa- sion. When Lord Derby was translating the Iliad there were some half a dozen rival Iliads being prepared. These and other translations from the Greek were undertaken front very various motives ; some from' genuine -and simple love of the original, and * 57,e Prtinughlus Bound of deschidus. Translated lii the Original Ntetres by C. B. Csylii, B.A., Tranalator of Danta's Divine Comedy, &e. lAnnlun J. C. Hellen. 18-17.

desire to make him accessible to Englishmen ; others on account of views held by their authors on the nature of the Homeric poems —F. W. Newman's, for instance, who holds Homer as pre-eminently a popular or ballad poet, and therefore assimilates hint as far as possible to the style and metre of our English ballads ; but all more or less for the sake of metrical experiments. The "English hexameters" having been subjected to severe handling, their adherents were put upon their mettle to do the very most and best that could be done with them ; and their opponents had their several crotchets for substituting some metre that would flow more smoothly from English lips. The same remark applies to the numerous attempts to naturalize the Attic drama. Attention has thus been, perhaps too exclusively, drawn to the metre, and away from the subject-matter and poetical worth of the translation.

One thing, however, has appeared very conspicuously,—that the best metrists are not necessarily the best poets, and that those who have the most feeling for the metrical form of the original often treat its subject-matter in the most dry and matter-of-fact way. No one has ever shown such skill in the metrical treatment and in the literal faithfulness (which is quite marvellous) of his version than Mr. Newman, yet (although some high poetical feeling ap- pears at times) it startles us by its prosaical dryness and oddity. On the other hand, Mr. Wonky, who in choosing the Spenserian stanza seems to depart the most widely from the form of the old poem, surprises us by the grand flow of his language, in which we acknowledge a true poet, and a spirit kindred to Homer himself. This experience prepares us for the issue of the metrical contro- versy, if it can have any issue,—that the true poet will, by one road or another, bring us into the presence of the original, though he offend our classical prejudices by refusing to work by our metrical rules ; but that the clever scholars who are not poets cannot afford to disregard these rules of form, by the observance of which they may produce, if not the highest, at least very use- ful and creditable works.

Mr. Cayley has translated the Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus, in the original metres. It is an experiment on the reproduction of the Attic dramatic metres in English, and on this he challenges criticism. He tells us at starting that it is necessary rigidly to "distinguish those elements of quantity and accent which have been so ruthlessly confounded by most of the poets and critics who have patronized the ' accentual ' hexameter." As the Greek language has a well marked word-accent, and yet in its prosody disregards this, and builds its verse on the length and shortness of its syllables, so, he thinks, we may do in English.

English writers of hexameters have generally assumed that syllabic quantity may be simply disregarded, and that the rise and fall of the rhythm is to be effected solely by the accent ; and when words are joined together in a sentence the same word may be sometimes accented and sometimes not, which produces a con- stant uncertainty. This certainly is so lax and elastic a principle that its insufficiency for the formation of really flowing and pleasant verse cannot be too strongly urged. Syllabic quantity must be considered as well as accent ; some words having a long vowel are so weighted thereby that (although unaccented) they cannot without violence do duty as prosodically short syllables ; others (especially small particles) cannot be made prosodically long. So, in the lines, "A chieftain to the Highlands bound

Cries, Boatman, do not tarry,'"

a fastidious taste may fairly condemn the accentuation of to in the first line, and the non-accentuation of so heavy a word as cries in the second. We select this example to show that Mr. Cayley's condemnation ought to fall on all English verse, and not specially on the hexameter. But surely his classical training has spoiled his ear for the natural flow of English verso, when he can say that "as the metrical syllable runs usually from vowel to vowel, and may be rendered long not only by containing a long vowel, but by ending on a combination of consonants in one or two words (thus lip is short, lips and leap long, but /ip before stained is long also)."

This classical but perfectly un-English idea is exemplified on every page of this translation, by such lines as,

"Tics Of blood and I Old fellOwship are I with pain kiviir'd," where of is long before blood; and, long from its double conso- nant; so also sever'd. Can any one read this line iambically, or is it not naturally trochaic, "Ties of blood and old," after which the rhythm cannot be scanned trochaically. We deny entirely that the English car admits the initial consonants of a word to work backwards, amid lengthen the final syllable of the preceding. The natural rhythm is precisely the same, whether we have "Ties of blood" or "Ties of age ;" yet to Mr. Cayley the former is the beginning of an iambic foot (— — —), the latter of a trochaic. If any doubt could be felt as to Mr. Cayley's mean-

ing in this matter, it will be dispelled by the following lines :—

"No, never have the devices of human kind The rule Jove defeated," where the odd elision of the f can only be accounted for on the supposition that he regards of before Jove as a long syllable.

We are not profound admirers of the English hexameter. But an example will show that the syllables we and those which Mr.

Cayley would condemn are hardly ever the same :—

" This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of old, with voices sad and prophetic,

Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms."

To us the questionable or faulty words are primeval, indistinct, voices, harpers, that; in the first two words, syllables used as short which should be long; and in the three last, the reverse. But to Mr. Cayley the three last at least would be correct, and he would condemn the following syllables, which to us sound perfectly right:—is, -rest, -cal, -ring, and, -ded, with, and, in, in-dis, in, ids, and, on, their. And the capital difficulty of wielding the (accentual) hexameter is mainly this, that it demands a greater proportion of short to long syllables than natural English composition readily affords. But this diffi- culty it shares with all three-syllable (dactylic or anapaestic) verse in English ; and the accurate ear will find as many syllables to

condemn in such native ballad measures as in Longfellow's hexa- meter; witness the italicized syllables in the following :—

" The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold." "When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee." "Bold knights and fair dames, to my harp give an ear." "When the clock struck the hour for retiring." "From the field of his fame fresh and gory."

The last instance is especially instructive, as showing that the weight of a word in the sentence may make it long, though its

vowel be short ; fresh wounded (— ,) would be correct, and so also and his glory (, ,) ; but fresh and gory („ ,), allowing fresh to have no more weight than an unaccented par- ticle and, offends the ear.

The iambic trimeter is retained by Mr. Cayley for the dialogue. There is a pretty general consensus of opinion that our blank verse of ten syllables may be held to answer to the classical trimeter of twelve. All previous translators of Aeschylus whose works we have examined—Mrs. E. Barrett Browning, Mr. C. Cavendish Clifford, Professor Blackie, Mrs. Webster, and Miss A. Swan- wick—agree in this, and we think wisely. The two additional syllables are more often a hinderance than a help, in a language which, from having discarded most of its formative syllables, is far more concise than the Greek. Yet we would not quarrel with these two final syllables if they were always iambic ; but how can

any Englishman read iambically, " Biit yonder I I see Jupiter's courier cOnting ? " or, "For with the Father's order who can dare daily?"

With the treatment of the ehoric metres every candid critic must be disposed to leniency. They are so varied, so difficult and intricate, and perhaps we may say so imperfectly understood even by scholars, that the translator must either give up all attempts to imitate them, and adopt some English rhythm of sufficient pliability, or gird himself for severe work with the probability of utter failure in making them readable to others. Mr. Cayley has chosen the latter course ; the result may be judged from the follow- ing :—

" Jove, the governor Of all, Ne'er on Our ciinscience set a bar with his Empire, Nor let Os loiter visiting The divine tables with approv'd heciltOmbs, Yonder O'er the water abateless ■ Of Our sireOceanlis Or by It word give Offence !"

Compare with this Mrs. Webster's version, which is almost as literal, and sometimes more correct (the hecatombs are not in the original, and surely the Oceanides did not mean the conscience by yvalbs?)

"May he who doth all guide, Even Zeus, ne'er pit his strength against our will.

May we ne'er fail, with righteous sacrifice Of slaughtered oxen, to approach the deities By our father Ocean's never ceasing tide, And may our words be sinless still."

Mr. Cayley's metrical experiments, then, we must pronounce a failure. Perhaps it was well they should be tried ; but they will scarcely be repeated. We have no space to speak of the merits of the translation apart from the verse, except to say that it is very faithful, and even close, to the original, and of high

poetical feeling. Occasionally (though not very often) the writer seems to have misunderstood the meaning. In common with Mrs.

Webster, he has innovated on the Greek, by making the chorus speak in the plural,—very improperly, we think, since their

speech is often quite personal, and should thefore be regarded as the simultaneous soliloquy of a number of persons. In the dia- logue, though the diction is sometimes too prosaic or even slovenly, sometimes, especially in the passages of repartee, it is exceedingly terse and apt, as— "Pr. Why, what should awe me,—death not in my destinies? Ch. But if some heavier suffering be decreed to thee? Pr. Let him ! For all extremities I've to be prepared. Ch. Yet are the fawners on the Needs-Must-Be the wise. Pr. Revere, adore, cringe unto those aloft ever;

But I reck of Jove less than of nonentity. Leave him to do, to lord it all this hour of his!

Not long the Sovereign of the Gods shall he remain."

And in the sublime passages the translation sometimes rises to a grandeur which would certainly not be expected from the writer

of those unmusical single lines which, in dealing with the metrical question, we have quoted apart from their context. As a favour-

able example of Mr. Cayley's power, we will conclude with a quotation of the soliloquy of Prometheus, when just bound to the rock and left alone :— " 0 splendid Aether, 0 ye Winds of nimble wing,

0 Fountain-heads, and yonder hoary Deep's billows Innumerow3ly smiling, and all-teeming Earth, You, and the Sun's orb that beholdeth all, attest How well the Gods their fellow-god are revenged upon!

Woe, woe! sufferings, anticipations Both compel a moan: where in eternity Shall a boundary loom to my anguish? Yet why this utterance ? All the future unto me Stands clear beforehand : and an unforeseen penance Cannot befall me : but the weird I must abide Of Fate, as I most lightly can, remembering Necessity's armed with power incontestable. . .

Here's then the suffering, which to mine offence belongs, Below the welkin riveted in my chains to pine."