BOOKS.

LORD JUSTICE BOWEN'S " VIRGIL."

Loan Joules BowsN lays it down as axiomatic that any translation of Virgil to be good, must be in itself an English poem, and next that that poem should be really a translation, and not merely a paraphrase. And, he adds, as not quite axiomatic, but still as next in importance to these two conditions, that as the charm of hundreds of Virgil's lines lingers about the lines themselves even when detached from their context, no translation can be perfect which does not to a very con- siderable extent at least, provide that Virgil shall be translated lineally as well as literally. The intrinsic reasonableness of these three conditions of a good translation of Virgil will, we think, be admitted by all who love the poet. And certainly we know of no translation which comes near Sir Charles Bowen's for the success with which all three are fulfilled. Dryden and Mr. Conington have, perhaps, both satisfied the first condition, Mr. Conington, it may be, even better than Sir Charles Bowen and much better than Dryden; but neither of them has in any sense attempted to satisfy the third ; and even as regards the second, Dryden's version is frequently a mere paraphrase, while Conington's, though a translation, is a translation dis- guised by a metre so intrinsically different in character, that it makes one almost think of Virgil as a contemporary of Sir Walter Scott. Dryden's translation,—which Sir Charles Bowen seems to us to admire too much even as an independent poem,—is not nearly so successful in reproducing the effect of grandeur when it deals with the grander passages of Virgil, as Pope's Homer is in reproducing the effect of grandeur when it deals with the grander passages of Homer, and it wanders quite as far from the original. Coningtou's ..Eneid gives, as Sir Charles Bowen truly says, a great shook to the reader by the complete transformation of form which he has effected in turning such a poem as the ..Eneicl into a ballad of the Marmion stamp. Nevertheless, the result is a genuine poem, —a much truer poem, we should have said, than Dryden's Virgil, which has a good deal of the air of excellent workmanship by a skilled hand about it, but not any of that air of the author's having been individually possessed by his theme which there is in Conington's,—and a poem, too, which often manages, in spite of its entire transformation of rhythm and movement, to give a memorable line of Virgil's in almost equally memorable, though not equally stately language. We are bound to say that of the three translators, Sir Charles Bowen manages to come much the nearest to Virgil, while generally maintaining the pathos and majesty of the poem as a poem at a high level,—he succeeds better with the pathos than with the majesty,—that Conington succeeds best in giving the version which, if the reader had not read Virgil, would strike his imagination most ; and that Dryden comes behind both of them, behind Sir Charles Bowen in every way, and behind Conington in the poetic impressiveness of the • Virgil in English Vers.: Eclogues and maid. By the Right Hon. Sir Charles Bowen. Books I: VI. London John Murray.

effect, while he is almost as far from Virgil's rhythm and tone as Conington himself. Of course, we speak here only of the

Afneid, for Conington never attempted the Eclogues. Let us take some of the greater passages, and compare the three translations in all these respects.

Take first the translation of Aneas's exhortation to his followers after the shipwreck. Here is Dryden's version :—

"Endure and conquer : Jove will soon dispose To future good, our past and present woes. With me the rocks of Scylla you have tried, The inhuman Cyclops and his den defied ; What greater ills hereafter can yen boar ? Resume your courage and dismiss your care. An hour will come, with pleasure to relate • Your sorrows past as benefits of fate. Through various hazards and events we move To Latium and the realm foredoomed by Jove, Called to the Beat (the promise of the skies), Where Trojan kingdoms once again may rise. Endure the hardships of your present state, Live and reserve yourselves for better fate."

That seems to us as devoid of grandeur as it ia of pathos, and to be little more than the skilled workmanship of an accom- plished rhymer. Now take Conington :—

" Comradee and friends ! For ours is strength

ilea brooked the teat of woes ; 0 worse-scarred hearts ! These wounds at length The Gods will heal like those.

You that have seen grim Scylla rave, And heard her monsters yell, You that have looked upon the cave Where savage Cyclops dwell; Come, cheer your mule, your fears forget ; This suffering will yield as yet A pleasant tale to tell.

Through chance, through peril lies our way To Latium where the fates display A mansion of abiding stay There Troy her falling realm shall raise : Bear np and live for happier days."

That at least has the full pathos, though not the dignity, of the noble line, " 0 passi graviora debit dens his qucque finem ; though hardly can the same be said of "Forean et hsec alim meminisse juvabit." Finally, "Per varios cases, per tot dis- crimina rernm, tendimue in Latium," is very finely rendered. From the English, as from the Latin, "there surges that Vir- gilian cry, the sense of tears in mortal things," which is of the very essence of the poet, though in the.English of Conington the rhythm of the pathos is lees resonant, and has perhaps even more in it of the pain of an acute grief, and less of the permanence of a settled melancholy. Now take Sir Charles Bowen :-

"Comrades, in other days we have known Misfortune well, Ills more dire ye have suffered, and these, too, Heaven will dispel. Scylla's monsters,--her caverns that ring to the wild sea's shocks,— Bravely ye faced ere now ; and the terrible Cyclops rooks. Summon your ancient courage; away with sorrowful fears ; Memory even of this may be joy in the distant years. Still towards Latium's shore we advance through dangers and

woes, Where our Destiny points to a promised laud of repose. Troy once more shall yonder a glorious kingdom raise. Steel your souls to endure, and await those happier days."

The last line contains unquestionably far and away the finest rendering of " Durate, et vosmet rebus servate sect:India " of the three translations. Dryden's "Endure the hardship of pour present state" is more like a preacher's jejune exhortation than the reticent emotion of Virgil's hero, who, as we are told by the poet, is, for the sake of his companions, feigning a cheerfulness he did not feel. Conington's " Bear up, and: ive for happier days," is wanting in grandeur, and does not ,even suggest the under- lying melancholy. Sir Charles Boweria line is well-nigh as memorable as the original, and its music is hardly inferior. But he falls below Conington, we think, in the pathos of his render- ing of "0 paasi graviora ;" while he surpasses him, again, in the happy line, "Memory even of this may be joy in the distant years," where Conington's words, "a pleasant tale," fall below the dignity of Virgil. On the whole, we,should call the present version of this passage mush the neaseet to Virgire, and greatly superior to Dryden's in poetical merit. If Conington's could be judged apart from the poem he is rendering, we think it would come nearest to touching the hearts of ids readers with a feeling not precisely Virgilian, but somewhat more poignant and less stately than that of Virgil's hero.

Again, in translating the celebrated line, "Sent laerimm rernm, at mentem mortalia tangunt," Sir Charles Bowen soars far above either of his rivals. Dryden does not even seem to have felt its beauty at all, and yet it is the very core of a most beautiful passage. .Eneae is gazing on the pictures of the Trojan War in Dido's temple, and exclaims to his companion :—

" En Primus Bent hie etiam sea prremia Medi ; Sant lacrimm rerum, et mentem mortalia tangent. Solve metes ; feret tam atiquam tibi fame salutes. Sic ait, atque animnm pietnra paecit Mani Malta gemens, largoque humeetat flumine vultum."

Dryden's translation seems to us to miss every fine touch but one :—

" 'See there, where old, unhappy Priam stands ! E'en the mute walls relate the warrior's fame, And Trojan griefs, the Tyrians' pity claim.' He said his tears a ready passage dud, Devouring what he saw so well designed, And with an empty picture fed his mind ;"

—where the last couplet would be good but for the bald phrase, so well designed," with which Dryden has coarsely patched his original. Conington's version is much better :—

" 'See Priam ! aye praise waits on worth E'en in this comer of the earth ; E'en here the tear of pity springs, And hearts are touched by human things.

Dismiss your fear, we sure may claim To find some safety in our fame.' He said, and feeds his hungry heart With shapes of unsubstantial art, In fond remembrance groaning deep While briny floods his visage steep."

.Sir Charles Bowen's is best :—

"Priam is here, here seed to heroic worth is assigned, Team are to human sorrows given, hearts feel for mankind. 'Fear not,' he cries, Troy's glory will save thee in danger still,' Then on the lifeless painting he feeds his heart to his fill. Tears streamed over his cheek as he gazed ; groans broke from his

breast."

That is the only version of the three which can be said to be at once poetic and the equivalent of the original. Dryden has supplanted the finest line in the passage by an unmeaning antithesis, of which Virgil is quite innocent, between "Trojan griefs" and " Tyrian pity." Conington misses much of the pathos of that line by breaking the great wave into two wavelets, and separating by the rhythm the "aunt lacrimm rerum " from the "mentem mortalia tangent." To transform Virgil's line into a couplet, is to extinguish the majesty of the feeling which the line breathes, and to compensate no by a rhyme. Further, Conington's translation of the line describing 2Eneas's tear- stained face reminds one too much of Dibdin and his tars. Sir Charles Bowen's translation of this passage, if once you can fall in love with his rhythm, is very near perfection.

Again, take the translation of Dido'e last majestic speech in the moment before her suicide. Dryden gives it thus :—

" But when she viewed the garments loosely spread

Which once he wore, and saw the conscious bed ; She paused, and with a sigh the robes embraced.

Then on the coach her trembling body cast, Repressed the ready tears, and spate her last,- ' Dear pledges of my love while Heaven no pleased, Receive a soul of mortal anguish eased ; My fatal course is- finished, and I go A glorious name among the ghosts below.

A lofty city by my hands is raised, Pygmalion punished, and my lord appeased ; What could my fortune have afforded more Had the false Trojan never touched my shore Then kissed the conch ; And must I die,' she said,

And enrevenged 'Tie doubly to be dead.

Yet e'en this death with pleasure I receive ; On any terms 'tie better than to live.

These flames from far may the false Trojan view, Their boding omens his base flight pursue.'"

Vonington'e version seems to us not only far faller of the spirit

of Virgil, but more worthy of the dying Queen. Certainly he has no phrase nearly so comically prosaic as Dryden's

"Yet e'en this death with pleasure I receive; On any terms 'tie better than to lire":—

" She eyed the robes with wistful look, And, pausing, thought awhile and wept.

Then pressed her to the conch, and spoke Her last good-night or ere she slept.

'Sweet relics of a time of love

When Fate and Heaven were kind, Receive my life-blood and remove These torments of the mind.

My life is lived, and I have played The part that Fortune gave, And now I pros a queenly shade Majestic to the grave.

A glorious city I have built,

Have seen my walls ascend ;

Chastised, for blood of husband spilt,

A brother; yet no friend. Blest lot ! yet laoked one blessing more, That Troy had never touched my shore.' Then as she kissed the darling bed, ' To die and unreveaged,' she said, Yet let me die ; thus, thus I go Exalting to the shades below. Let the false Darden feel the blaze That burns me pouring on his gaze, And bear along to cheer his way The funeral presage of today.' "

If, as Sir Charles Bowen says, Virgil could have Written a Marmian at all, this seems as near what he must have written as words could be. Sir Charles Bowen's version is as follows :—

" Soon as the well-known conch and his Trojan raiment she sees,

Pausing a little to weep, and bethink her, down on the bed Softly she lies, then speaks this last farewell of the dead ' Raiment worn ! sweet relics of love till Fate was unkind !

Take this lingering breath and release my suffering mind.

Now life closes ! The course my destiny gave me is run. Now as a great Queen's shadow, I pass from the world of the inn. Goodly the city I leave: I have seen her battlements built ; Venged a beloved one, meted a brother measure for guilt ; Happy, alas ! too happy, if only a Teurrian's ships

Never had touched these shores!' She pressed to the pillow her lip.,

And as she pressed them cried, ' Do I die scavenged on the foe ? Yet let me die. Thus, thus with joy to the shadows I go.

Let the Dardanian feast on the fires his merciless eyes, Carry the omens with him of Dido's death as he flies."

Virgil's fifteen lines are here rendered by precisely the same number, lofty in cadence and passionate in expression. Dryden gives us nineteen, and murders the finest lines of all,— "Vial, et quern dederat curium fortune, peregi ; Et nano magus mei sub terras ibit imago,"

with,—

"My fatal course is finished, and I go A. glorious name among the ghosts below."

Conington gives us twenty-six of his shorter lines, and is as terse as Dryden, while he comes infinitely closer to Virgil's thought, —the verse corresponding to the Latin couplet we have quoted presenting the thought with great beauty, though in a less stately form. Sir Charles Bowen fails only in the rendering of the majestic " Vizi," which is watered down to "Hero life closes." Otherwise, the rendering is very fine, though the " as " before " a great Queen's shadow," and the return to the first person in " I pass," seem to us to weaken the grandeur of the line, without warrant from the original, Surely it should run,—" And now a great Queen's shadow shall pass from the world of the sun." The last two lines are far grander in Sir Charles Bowen's version, as well as far more literal than in either Dryden's or Conington's. Neither of these has given the fall force to the " hauriat" of Virgil, the wish that Mamie may " drink-in " the fire of Dido's funeral rites.

As to the metre itself, though we fully admit that Sir Charles Bowen has chosen amongst many difficulties that which is the nearest to Virgiliau metre of which our language admits, we cannot say that as yet we are reconciled to it, though it may win its way to those who read it often. Is there not something in the rhythm of different nations' speech which is literally untranslatable,—which needs casting in a different form in a different language; for in one language the same thought will stretch itself out and take a larger scope than that thought would naturally assume in another ? Thus, when Sir Charles Bowen comes to translate the lines in Virgil's second, " Georgic,"—

" Felix qui potoit renal; cognoseere caneas

Atque metes omens et inezorabile fatum Subjecit pedibue, etrepitumque Acherontis avari !"

—will he find any rendering in his chosen metre so stately as Matthew Arnold has (virtually) given us in that very different metre chosen for his "Memorial Verses" on Byron, Goethe, and Wordsworth ? The following is contained in his description- of Goethe :—

"And he was happy, if to know Causes of things, and far below Hie feet to Bee the lurid flow Of terror and insane distress And headlong fate, be happiness."