The Sun.
London, England, 1859-01-13 00:00:00

Poems and Ballads of Goethe. Translated by W.
Edmonstoune Aytoun, D.C.L., and Theodore
Martin. Blackwood.and Sons.
An exquisite companion volume to the Poems
and Ballads of Schiller, already issued from the
press by the same publishers. What Sir Bulwer
Lytton accomplished so successfully in the one in-
stance, Messrs. Aytoun and Martin have achieved
no less successfully in the other; so that henceforth
the two greatest poets of Germany take their place
side by side among the grand foreign classics per-
manently incorporated with our own literature.
The majority of these translations from the. Poems
and. Ballads of Goethe—as in the instance of the
kindred translations from the Poems and Ballads
of Schiller—originally appeared in instalments in
the pages of Blackwood's Magazine. Several years
have elapsed since that partial and periodical pub-
lication. And now at last those scattered frag-
ments have been grouped together, and—consider-
ably enhanced both in number and excellence—
here make at length their very welcome collective
appearance. As the joint editors and translators
intimate in their Preface, they have by no means
attempted to give in this volume a version of all or
even of the majority of the minor poetical pieces of
Goethe, fugitive and miscellaneous. In this they
have acted without doubt most judiciously. Their
selection from that wilderness of grace and beauty is
surely all that the most unreasonable under the cir-
cumstances could well have hoped from their blended
taste and assiduity. " Every voluminous author"—
they write by way- of explanation as to their motive
in making this selection instead of giving the whole
—" every voluminous author has been unequal in
his efforts ;" adding, " Goethe, who .was the most
industrious and indefatigable literary, man of his
age [and they might have added, who lived himself
to the age cf a patriarch] was no exception to this
rule." They append to this obviously sufficient re-
mark a hackneyed simile only too suggestive of a
derisive application altogether undesigned. " His
wheat,though of the finestquality,h as not been so well
winnowed that the chaff has entirely disappeared."
The deteriorating particles making up the aggre-
gate bulk were surely worse than anything that
might be thus indicated. With the wheat garnered
up from the fields of literature in the toils of that
laborious and extended life, there were tares too
abundantly intermingled. There, moreover, were
the wild oats—sown in affluent and heedless profu-
sion—now only worth the perishing. A more
accurate, while at the same time a less hackneyed,
metaphor, expressive of the motley aspect of the
treasure opened up to them for selection in
that mine of jewels—the Complete Poems
and Ballads of Goethe—would have been the
one applied by Dr. Johnson (in his famous Pre-
face) to Shakspere, where, speaking of the scarcely,
calculable gems of thought and poetry there em-
bedded, he described them with eloquent allitera-
tion as "clouded with incrustations, debased with
impurities, and mingled with a mass of meaner
minerals." Here—in this delicious little volume of
the choicest selections—William Aytoun and Theo-
dore Martin have given the rarest of the poetic
gems of Goethe, in undimmed lustre, and as
nearly as possible in the actual counterpart of the
original exquisite setting. In regard to the blend-
ing of those ever-welcome names upon the present
title-page, it is pleasant to read the acknowledg-
ment here subjoined—familiar though the fact re-
lated had long been rendered by the rumoured
knitting together of the reputations of the Beau-
mont and Fletcher of burlesque—" The translators
may, perhaps, be allowed to add that they have
already had some experience of the advantages of
literary co-operation ; for a volume of humorous
poems and jeux-d'esprit, issued by them several
years ago, under the title of ' Bon Gaultier's Bal•
lads,' has been fortunate enough to obtain a wide
circulation." The familiar voices had long been
recognised, it is true—yet it is not the less agree-
able to have the double mask at length
thrown aside as superfluous. Wherefore
" All hail, Macbeth and Banquo ! Banquo and
Macbeth, all hail !" Opening the book with a three-
fold relish of anticipation, we find this Aytoun-
Martin version of Goethe comprising within it
upwards of one hundred (in all 108) of these minor
poetical productions from the hand of the metrical
giant of Rhineland. Fortv.one " Songs and Lyrics"
—a quarter of a hundred.'" Miscellaneous" pieces—
a score of "Ballads and Legends"—one-and-twenty
"Poems in the manner of the Antique"—and the
poet's own " Introduction." To all these there
are only two explanatory notes appended—one to
the eltrich ballad of the " Erl King"—the other to
that wonderful, impassioned, pagan masterpiece,
" The Bride of Corinth." The translation of the
last-mentioned poem, in itself one of the most
signal though it must be confessed also one
of the most horribly sensual of the triumphs
of the genius of Goethe, is also here one
of the most remarkable achievements accomplished
by the united skill of the translators. In the
melody, no less than in the accuracy of the version,
it is worthy of being thus designated in simple
truth—an achievement. It is a triumph won by
Messrs. Aytoun and Martin together—as in a lesser
degree is that gained by them conjointly in the
translation of the mystical and (in itself for the
most part) unsatisfactory " Introduction." Else-
where in the volume, with one or two rare
exceptions, they work each upon a separate
canvass, each copying a separate picture,
from the original before them by the Great Master,
with the like glowing colours and with an admi-
rable faithfulness. Sometimes the skill of one is
shown in the epigrammatic, as in " The Husband-
man :"
" Lightly doth the furrow fold the golden grain within its
breast,
Dceper shroud, old man, shall cover in thy limbs when
laid at rest.
Blithely plough, and sow as blithely Here are springs
of mortal cheer,
And wheno'er the grave is closing, Hope is ever stand-
ing near."
Sometimes the dainty adroitness of the other is
shown in the mirrored playfulness of .a ditty like
that charming one, " Who'll buy a Cupid :"
" Now see this little Creature—
flow modest seems his feature
He nestles so demurely,
you'd think him safer surely;
And yet for all his shyness, ,
There's danger in his slyness,
The cunning rogue ! Young loves to sell I
My pretty loves who'll buy 1"
Nothing could well be finer than the version of
that marvellous, goblin, grimly " Dance of Death,"
from the weird. opening to the ghostly climax
"It must have its shroud—it must have it betimes—
The quaint Gothic carving it catches •
And upwards from story to story it climbs,
And scrambles with leaps and with snatches.
Now woe to the warder, poor sinner, betides
Like a spindle-legged spider the skeleton strides
From buttress to buttress still upward 1"
As a contrast to which—ah! charming the fresh-
ness of " Early Spring." It is Aytoun here who
sings the song of Goethe :

" Come ye so early,
Days of Delight ?
Making the hillside
Blithesome and bright ?
" Merrily, merrily,
Little brooks rush,
Down by the meadow
Under the bush.
* * #—
u Birds of gay feather
Flit through the grove,
Singing together
Ditties of love.
* *

* #

" Now comes there sounding
A sough of the breeze,
Shakes thro' the thicket,
Sinks in the trees.

" Sinks, but returning,
It ruffles my hair ;
Aid me this rapture,
Muses 7 to bear !
" Know ye the passion
That stirs in me here?
Yestreten 21 gloaming
Was I with my dear I"
Daintily, too, daintily—this time it is by Theodore