St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-03-03
It presents the spirit of the translator rather


have adverted, the translation of Virgil's
poems by Dryden has for 200 years main
tanned, without formidable riyalship, its posi-
ton as the standard translation.
Pitt, Summons, bennington, Cranch, Pierce,
Long, yes, and Morris, with his wonderful,
mellifuous and faithful line for line render
ing, have in succession ''paled their ineffec-
tual fires'' as Virgilian translators, outshone,
as they were, by the lurid, famed achieY-
ment of Dryden.
| No translation of Virgil hitherto presented
to the world has equaled in correctness,
literary taste, and true scholastic finish, that
OF John Augustine Wilstach. 1t is marvel
OF excellence. In accurate reproduction o.
the original it is phenomenally successful.
The current of thought, the mode of express
| sion, the various moods, the play OF fancy,
which seem, as we read the Latin text, in
capable representation in modern speech, are
wrought into mastery English verse by this
latest of Virgilian translators.
1t will be found by those familiar with the
classics, an interesting experiment, to read a
score OF Virgifs lines, in Latin, and then to
read the translation Of the same
lines as given by Wilstach.
| The translation will be found to mirror
| forth the sense and sentiment OF the original
with wondrous fidelity. No shade of mean
ing has been lost. Virgil is not initiated,
but endowed with a new language, seems
to address US in his proper person and with
his own unrivaled poetic inspiration. 1t is
a common opinion that no English transla-
ton OF Latin author can be at once minute
| Inaccurate, and also elegant; that Liberal
translation is necessary to avoid the use OF
objectionable solecisms. To this opinion
Wilstach's exquisite rendering of Virgil
offers happy combination. The
English employed by Wilstach is
vigorous, chaste and elegant. His
rhetoric is admirable. Blank verse is en-
! ployed throughout the entire translation, and
with rare felicity. We have before us, evil
IDENTIFY, the work Of one who possesses moi
only clever skill as translator, but also the
genius and Imagination of poet.
Let US bestow a moments glance upon
some Of the most beautiful passages of Vir-
| giFs writings as interpreted in this new
| translation. In the first Pastoral, Meliboeus
! sings:
Thou fortunate old man! Here midst thy
streams
| That so familiar are, and midst the rills,
| The consecrated founts, thou shalt enjoy
! Thine own cool shade; and oft, as in the past,
The hedge that marks thy bounds shall, with its
bloom
OF willow sprays, feed the Hyblean bees,
| Whose cummings soft shall lull thee into sleep.
Nor will, meanwhile, thy pets, the murmuring
doves,
Their cooling cease, nor from the lofty elm
| The turtle fail to tril her plaintive song
In the first of the Georges, we fndQlines
| 312-330 thus translated:
''Of Autumn's storms and stars what may 1 say!
And what men now must watch, when shorter
hours
| Have come and milder heat, when the Spring
In showers comes rushing down, while in the
fields
The bearded crop is bristling, and while swell
Upon their green supports the milky grains.
Seen have oft, when TO his golden fields
The farmer would the mower bring, and while
He and his men were binding brittle stalks
OF barley ripe, in conflict clash the winds
| In all their fury dire, which, from its roots
Deep-set, the heavy crop would tear, and far
Expel sublime, and, in its whiilwind black,
The storm light stalks would bear and stubble
flying.
Oft from the heavens I've seen the host immense
OF waters come, the gathering clouds whose
march
From all the mighty depths drives on the gale
That hideous with the pitch black deluge is.
All ether headlong falls, and torrents vast.
Swim joyful harvest fields, the work severe
OF many bullock tolls: the bitches fill;
Rise hollow rivers fast with rushing sound,
And boils the through its straits it pours.'
A good description OF Minnesota cyclone,
and an Ohio river food.
The happiness of a country life as describ-
ed by Virgil Second Georgia, 455), reads
thus in Wilstach's translation.
so happy they o'ermuch the soil who till,
If they their own good only knew, to whom
Remote from and discords placed, pours forth
The earth herself, most just, from out Ter breast,
The ca : means OF life
The words in the commencement of the
Third Georgia, "Factorque oirWns yolitare per
na,' descriptive of Fame, are translated
with an ALTERATION happily initiative of the
original:
ssTred the way must be
| Whereby myself l also may lift upward, scorn
| The common earth, and fly victor forth,
Renowned through all the mouths Of marching
meR.''
The famous description of the shield of
Eneas, fabricated by Vulcan, at the SOW
ereign command of the hero's goddess
mother, Venus, that shield upon which was
sketched in bronze-wrought pictures, the
future history Of Rome-fnds in the present
translation rendering possessed of great
vigor, force and skill:
s'The shield, its depths
OF meaning wonderful aud pompof art,
Which all the power defes of words or thought.
For here the Italian state, and here of men
In all her history long the triumphs were,
Brought from Ascanius down, and wars fought
through
Tn order OF she years. Such things had made
Ohe Ignipotent, himself informed of all,
II prophecies old that seers and poets sung,
And of the events to come. which well he knew. -
The entire translation of the lines describ-
ing the shield is too long to be given here,
bnt it breathes the ''IHantuan a6tatlls'' in
every line.
In connection with the preparation and
publication of this work, some interesting
condolences may be noted.
Virgil first Georgia, lines 2S4-6) mentions
the Seventeenth day of the month as a propi-
tons day.
Virgil was born six hundred and eighty
three years after the founding of Rome. We
observe, from the account given
by the translator of his la
bors that the translation was COM
menced on the Seventeenth day of the month
January II, 1880. The work was an
nounced by the publishers as ready for sale
on the Seventeenth day of the month (Decem-
Der II, 1889.
Wilstach's Virgil was published A. D., 1888,
si1 hundred and eightyttrse years after the year
] 4 L
lish language had its birth--the year marked
by the appearance of Layamon's Romance
of Brutus.''
These are striking condolences, and, if we
indulge superstition, closely allied to that
iuStified nv Sir Thomas Rrorrno ub he