The Press.
London, England, 1857-07-11 00:00:00

THE PRESS, JULY 11, 1857.

No other words under the sun can make amends for the
want of these—the eye must see, the ear must hear them,
from Andromache's looks and lips—else neither her heart
nor ours can be satisfied nor have any rest. " Come,
then, let pity plead," is good—but too modern; Homer
does not say " let pity plead," but, "come now, take pity
upon us," which is infinitely fuller of prayer, and there-
fore more natural in Andromache. All the rest is what
it ought to be—except, perhaps, the last line of all, which
appears pedantic. As a nhole, however, the translation is,
to our feelings, better than Pope's.
• • • •

Look at Pope's lines—and you see they are too ambitious
—Sotheby's are purely Homeric. Now for the—Test. Yes !
Sotheby has stood it with high aid, and is triumphant.

Yet thou! my Hector! thou art all alone,
Sire, mother, brethren, husband, all in one !

Let ten thousand translators try it, and not one will sur•
pass—not one will equal—Sotheby. True, that he is in-
debted for these two exquisite lines almost entirely to
Dryden. But how could he help that? John was before
William. Therefore, all that William could do was to
study John ; and, if possible, to polish up John, with the
fine feeling fingers of the soul, to uttermost perfection.
Pope tried to do so, and failed. Cowper proudly shunned
competition, and gave the difficulty the go-by. Sotheby,
by simply changing " my parents " into " sire, mother,"
and " lord " into " husband," and leaving alone and out
the two false lines that follow, has given us Homer, and
nothing but Homer--the bill, and nothing but the bill—
and it is a true bill, unlike some others we oould mention,
and may well bid defiance to farther reform. The rest is
all good, but not perfect. "fn pity guard this tower " is
nearly what it ought to be, but Andromache says,

Come now, have pity, and take your station on this tower,
which is more tenderly beseeching ; and she does not say,
" here shield thy life," though we pardon Sotheby for
making her say so, as beyond doubt that thought was in
her heart, as indeed it betrays itself in her afflicted words.
Yet, terrified as she was, Sotheby knows as well as we do
that Andromache would not, could not, have wounded
Rector's ears with such syllables as " shield thy life."
They would have made his crest shiver, and dimmed the
shine of his golden helmet.

Leave not an orphan child, a widow'd wife,
is faultless, and thus have we a few lines almost sufficient
of themselves to redeem all sins either of omission or
commission, which in this version, we fear, are neither few
nor feeble.

We confess, however, we cannot see here the
singular superiority of Sotheby's lines. The
second couplet of Pope is a pure interpola-
tion, and so far we think indefensible. But
the mere introduction of the word "husband "
in Sotheby's and Cowper's version does not,
in our opinion, constitute any such pre-
eminent merit. Both miss the epithet
Osx/F6c, and neither catch, as it seems to
us, the full force of the four last words alto-
gether—" You are my father, and my mother,
" and my brother, and you too—more than
" all—my beautiful husband." This thought,
coining at the last, after perhaps a moment's
pause, forms as it were the coping-stone to
the whole appeal. Hector is not to be enu-
merated simply as one of her relations. He
both supplies their place, and is in himself
separately an object of a distinct and deeper
love. The extreme tenderness and passion
thrown into tbis last clause seems equally to
have escaped the translators and their critic.
The next passage we shall place before our
readers is the famous moonlight scene :

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POPE.
As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,
O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light,
When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene ;
Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
And stars unnumber'd gild the glowing pole,
O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,
And tip with silver every mountain's head;
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,
A flood of glory bursts frota all the skies ;
The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight,
Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light.
COWPER.
As when around the clear bright moon, the stars
Shine in full splendour, and the winds are hush'd,
The groves, the mountain-tops, the headland heights
Stand all apparent, not a vapour streaks
The boundless blue, and ether open'd wide ;
All glitters, and the shepherd's heart is cheer'd.
SOTHEBY.
As when the stars, at night's illumined noon,
Beam in their brightness round the full-orb'd moon,
When sleeps the wind, and every mountain height,
Rock, and hokr cliff, shine tow'ring up in light,
Then gleam the vales, and ether, widely riven,
Expands to other stars another heaven,
While the lone shepherd, watchful of his fold,
Looks wondering up, and gladdens to behold.
With Wilson's own interpretation of' this
famous passage we cannot altogether' agree.

681

The basis of it is that a fresh idea is intro-
duced by eel r eaciyn x.T.x., that Homer intends
to express the breaking up of the clouds, and
the clear expanse of firmament opening itself
to the gazer's view. Now, independently of
the fact that no clouds have been mentione4,
which renders the interpi station, however
dexterous, a very forced one, we cannot think
it consonant with the genius of Greek poetry
that the two first lines should have been
written of a cloudy sky. It appears to us
that the fourth line is but an amplification of
the two first, and the fifth a description of its
effect upon the shepherd. It will be seen
that Wilson's comparison of the three trans-
lators is vitiated throughout by this error, if
error it be :
Let us say, that such is the double soul—the twofold
life of Homer's Nig!it-scene—and see if, hating all othee
objections, it has been transfused by Pope into his eels.
braced version. No. According to our interpretation, ,
Around her throne the vivid planets 1011,
is so far right. " Vivid " may do for actireusia, but " toll "
is very bad for .pesivlT'. Roll perhaps they may—indeed
otherwise they would not be planets—but certainly not
round the moon. Homer was, perhaps, no great astro•
nomer, though he knew well the Planetary Five ; but
Homer, who had the use of his eyes, never, drunk or sober,
thought when looking at the moon that he saw " around
her throne the vivid planets roll." If by " her throne"
Pope means the firmament, then he forgets the Greek
words ; but it is manifest he means the moon herself,
absurdly confusing with her throne the queen who site
thereon, whom bf the way he had chosen, injuriously tit
Nature and to Homer, to call, a few lines before, " reful•
gent lamp of night." However, we have said the line ia
so far right ; but that which follows, if our interpretatioa
of Homer's heaven be true, is altogether wrung—
And stars unnumber'd gild the glowing pole ;
for Homer yet has made no mention of stars unnumbered ;
if et'7lVt aii/ref7TICS mean " vivid planets," which it may,
Pope had no right to surround them with " unnumbered
stars," for it is afterwards, and when a great change has
occurred to the immeasurable firmament, that ira.'sYci Si i
IlliTes; et'CITELS. Homer speaks not of clouds, though we have
suggested the probability of clouds being there, the dill+
parting of which, and their floating away into nothing,
finally revealed this infinite starriness; but be that stir
gestion of ours right or wrong, Pope bad no right to assure
us of what Homer did not, " that not a cloud o'ereast the
solemn scene." Homer says merely that "the eminences
and pinnacles of the heights appear, and the groves."
Pope makes but sorry work of that, by needless elabora-
tion of its picturesque simplicity; we do not know that
lie makes it unnatural, though he does male it confused;
though there is far more light, there is far more darkness,
and the landscape is no longer in aught Homeric. That
much-admired line,

A flood of glory bursts from all the skles,l
would almost seem to be intended for a verslot
of oz:',eaci,69ey S' L, ,„ teC3=l7o; 404, Wars
Si T' an-as a'aTece—but then, unfortunately, Popi
has given us before, "and stars unnumber'd gild
the glowing pole ;" and really, after the refulgent
lamp of night has been hung on high, and vivid
planets roll round the throne of the moon, and stars =-
numbered gild the glowing pole, while not a cloud o'ercsatit
the solemn scene, how any farther flood of glory can burst
from all the skies we are not astronomer enough, either
scientific or empirical, to comprehend or conjecture; nor
do we believe that Pope himself had any theory on the
subject, but wrote away by candlelight, perhaps in his
grotto, from memory somewhat dim, while the shining
moon, it may have been, was herself in heaven, and the
boundless firmament thickstrewn with stars. The scrip-
tural simplicity of " and the shepherd rejoices in his heart,"
how far more touching, to every one who has walked over
the hills by night, than Pope's philosophical paraphrase
As for the application of the sky sight to the ground-soene,
we have no room to remark upon it farther than that,
while it departs equally from the original, and is laboured
overmuch, it possesses a certain shadowy magnificence,
for sake of which its faithlessness, or departure from the
faith, may in some moods of mind be forgiven.
• •

Cowper's translation is u usual admirable. Of him, u
truly as of any man that ever breathed, may we say, in that
fine line of Campbell,

lie mused on nature with a poet's eye.
He does not fear to say " the clear bright moon," despising
the reading ipalS 1,W," and in lore with "
Nor does he fear to say, that around the "clear bright
moon," " the stars shine in full splendour." Now, Cole.
ridge asserted in one of his lectures in the Royal Institu•
tion, that in the immediate neighbourhood of a "refulgent"
moon, the stnrs must look wan or dim ; and so, we under.
stand, saith Wordsworth. 'Tis but a mere matter of moon-
shine. it is true ; yet worth settling; and we go along with
Homer and Chapman and Cowper. There cannot be two
stronger words than .pw.Livin, and eto=rentrin ; moon and
stars were alike lustrous. " About the silver moon stars
shine clear," are Chapman's words, and they are in the
same spirit. Cowper's you have before you, more radiant
still. Do not abuse Pope, then, oye hikers, while you let
Homer, Chapman, and Cowper go scot•free. Horace, too,
speaks of a lady bright as the moon among the lesser fires,
meaning that they too were bright. She shone with a
larger end serener lustre, as if they from " her silver urn
drew light." In one line ('owper transcends all his nom•
petitors, and equals his divine original—
The groves, the mountain-tops, the headland heights,
stand all apparent.

%

682

Compare that with Pope, and" Oh! the difference to me !"
But Pope's beautiful hue,
And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene,
was in Cowper's memory when he said,
Not a vapour streaks the boundless blue ;
for Homer says nothing of vapours, nor, had not Pope
negatived the idea of clond4, had Cowper. But seldom
indeed it is that that most original writer owes even a word
to anybody ; here Pope was natural, and Cowper, in uncoil•
seiously remembering him, forgot Homer. Neither does
Homer speak of " blue " as Cowper does; yet blue, beyond
doubt or praise, is the firmament, and there can be no
harm in saying so. Cowper felt the meaning of that un•
translatable word kericeiir, and his
• Ether, open'd wide,
All glitters,

is magnificent—perhaps even finer than Homer, for it
gives the effect in fewer and simpler words—it is indeed
poAry. " And the shepherd's heart is cheer'd," is, like
Idemer—bible-like and divine.
And now for Sotheby. He must have come to the
passage prepared for a high achievement. Has he sue.
ceetled ? Not entirely to our heart's desire. "At night's
illumined noon " is a fine expression, had it stood by
itself—for it shows us at once the moon and stars in
heaven. It proves Sotheby to be a poet. But it does not,
like the town of Kilkenny, "shine well where it stands."
Thit nothing resembling it is in Homer, is one fatal ob-
jection to it, on the score of fidelity, the first of virtues in a
translator—herself the Queen, all others being her sub-
jects, and brightening and extending her sway. But there
is another. Why is there nothing resembling it in
Homer? Because Homer is going to show us " night's
illumined noon ;" and in what lies the illumination.
Therefore he does not lay down that thesis, as Sotheby
does, and then illustrate it by divine discourse. So
pregnant is that thesis of Sotheby's, that it is in itself a
shining sermon, and needed no preacher. Mr. Sotheby
will see at once that this objection is, like every objection
of ours, insuperable. He hashed the misfortune to paint
a fine picture at one sweep ; and we are so perfectly
satisfied with it, that we are dissatisfied with Lis future
filling-up, and eager to snatch the pencil out of his hand.
It may seem hard to punish a man for a flush of genius,
bat justice compels us to do so; and Sotheby stands
reproved before us, exalted, however, rather than humbled
by the sentence of an incorruptible Itademantlius.
Beam in their brightness round the full.orb'd moon,
is fine and hold; and also in itself a picture. The next
two lines are perfect; "then gleam the vales," very imper-
fect, as we said before, and we do wish lie had given us the
woods. " Ether widely riven," comes perhaps as near as
is possible to the difficult
Zw•teio'ys Ao-vcruzo;
and there is great grandeur in the line,
Expands to other stars another heaven.
That, unquestionably, is the vision seen by Homer. Would
not " for," in place of " to," perhaps be betters The
riving up from below of the boundless ether expands
another heaven for (or with) other stars. In that expan-
sion they have room for all their multitudes—then and
there seems to be infinitude. With the concluding lines,
fine as they are in themselves, we are not satisfied.
Sotheby knows as well as any man wherein lies the
power of Homer's immortal half hexameter. Cowper
caught it, and embodied it in equal bulk. Chapman like-
wise seized its spirit. Pope, unaffected apparently by
that scripture, or betrayed into forgetfulness of its manifest
character by the ruling passion in which he wrote, ambition
to excel Homer, diluted the simple sentiment of the shep-
herd, which is indeed nothing else than natural religion,
into feeble metaphysics and a cold philosophy. " Conscious
swains," is silly ; and " bless the useful light," is absolutely
the doctrine of the Utilitarians applied to the gratitude of
the shepherd,
Where he doth summer high in bliss upon the hills of God!
Our objections to Sotheby's lines, over and above the
main one, amplification of simplicity, are different front
those urged against Pope's, but nearly as strong.
• Watchful of his fold," is an idea always interesting, but
" watchful " is, to our ear, •needlessly intense. In that
beautiful chapter of the New Testament, the shepherd.
• were watching their flocks by night." " Watchful,"
could never have entered into that verse. On so serene a
night as that Homer tlescrib;!s, when all was pence, the
shepherd could have had no fears about his fold. He was
sitting or lying beside them, but not " watchful ;" he
merely felt that they were there ; for their sakes ton, as well
as his own, his heart was cheered by the heavens he looked
on ; and happier even than he knew at that hour was the
pastoral life.
There is much that is true and beautiful, but
something also of the hypereriticitl, in the
above remarks. We must say w.) can see no
objection to " refulgent lamp of light." The
two lines beginning " O'er the dark trees" are
more open to objection, as marked by
Pope's inveterate habit of interpolation ; but
the next two lines are in our opinion inaani-
ficent. far superior to Cowper, and somewhat
superior to Sotheby. The " widely riven "of
the latter is prosaic, and " opened wide"
utterly tame. The more we gaze upon the
sky on a bright starry night, tha farther we
seem to see into it.
All heaven bursts her Many floors,
And strews her lights below,
Aod deepens on and up ;
and Mr. Tennyson when ho wrote these
glorious lines must have been unconsciously