New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1902-06-07
ENGLISH AND LATIN.
AN ANTHOLOGY OF TRANSACTIONS.

AN ANTHOIOG1 Of Iha4NoA@<a AO-'N''
e1i Verse victorian Poets Edited by Fran
els St John Thackeray: NJ: a. r: > A. any
299. John Lane.
This second volume of translations of English
noetrv INTO Latin is like the first, full Of de-
Ightfu1 and suggestive reading for the lover
of sucb exercises An ideal verse translation
would. of course be one in which not only the
thought but also the form are perfectly re-
produced This has been done In Engnsh IN
some few instances, notably from the German
or the Scandinavian languages German trans
lators have been particularly successful In THESE
exercises a recent example being that Of Kip
ling's "Mandalay," which loses absolutely noth-
ing in its German form. But any one con-
versant with the multifarious attempts to put
Latin and Greek lyrics into English must con-
fess that there is scarcely one where both
requisites are fulfilled. The thought may be &C
curately transferred, but the form of classic
metres is thoroughly alien. English depends
wholly on accent Latin and Greek depend on
ouantity Out of the whole number of poems
included in this collection of Latinzed Victorian
poets there are not more than two that make
any attempt to reproduce the metre OF the Eng
fish. In the eight lines Of Tennyson's "Slrmlo"
there is but one rhyme:
Row US out from Desenzano' to your sirnlone
row.
So they rowed and there We landed-"O venusta
Sirmio!"
In the Latin version by Mr.. Stone there is no
rhyme unless in the second and sixth lines. so
that the effect of the is very different in
spite of the trochaic octametres:
Adplicate nos ad istam Sirmiona, navitae!
renligant: ad tie volamus, venusta Sirmio!
The Alcaic and Sapphic metres, with a large
sprinkling of elegiacs. prevail. Names are freely
varied. Lord Elgin becomes Regulus magnus;
Tennyson's Lord Burleigh is Torquatus; Ar
thur in I'm Memoriam," appears as Metellus, his
loved remains ''caros Meteli cfneres." Dickens
would not be recognized except from the facing
text, for he is changed into Flaccus. Dearest
May" is "venusta Lyde," and Nellie becomes
Chloe. The Philip in Tennyson's Brook is the
Virgilian Tityrus. When it comes to more
technical transmogrihcations, one rapidly counts
up against Horace myriad of analogies. What
is more important is the fact that this body Of
modern Latinity holds its own wonderfully well
with ancient verse. It stands for charming
exercise Of wit and ingenuity, which gives
great air of distinction to English letters. There
are seventy-fve authors represented in the COL
lection. Tennyson has no less than forty-three
whole poems or extracts thus done into classic
form. One of the most curious experiments is
that made upon THE Brook" The grace Of the
original, which has something of the dash and
OF streamlet, is not unworthily repre-
scented by the short five line stanzas Of the
translation. This stanza:
I chatter chatter as I flow
To join the brimmfng river,
For men may come and may go,
But I go for ever
is translated by James Robertson, head master
Of Haileybury. as follows:
Garrula tamen explicor
Voice. nee mora fumini
Pergo iungior estuans:
Sit dies hominum fugax,
Usque deferor idem.
Mr.. Bourdillon's exquisite conceit: 1.-THE night
has a thousand eyes," is condensed from eight
lines to a quatrain and the fortyfour words
Of the original are reduced to twenty-eight. On
the other hand, all but three of these words
monosyllables, whereas the Latin stretches out
to at least ffty-seven sylab1es. It will be
found almost universally the case that verbally
the Latin shows far greater condensation-for
instance in the proportion of 90 to 81 POI to
49, and the Hke-while the Latin syllabifica-
ton and the actual number of words are dis
proportionate the other way. Matthew Arnold
comes next to Tennyson, with seventeen poems
selected, and William Watson. with fourteen.
Curiously enough, Sir Lewis Morris. whose
penchant for classic subjects is well known, is
represented by only one brief poem of twenty
four lines America has a fair share in this
solemn conclave: Bret Harte. W. c. Bryant
Emerson, Colonel Hay, Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Longfellow. Lowell, John G. SAKE E. R. Sill
and Whittier are all here. Mr.. H. w. Green's
admire BILE version of the Rubaiyat Of Omar
Khayyam is levied upon to the extent of four
teen stanZas. Lovers of Omar may like to see
what Mr. Green makes Of the Heaven and
He'll quatrains:
visibus humans sigma negata nova;
il, redit, et narrat, "Caalestia gaudla, poenas
Tartareas, albi quas petis, intus habes"
lila exauditi tibi stunt initanina voti.
hfec amman urentis stunt velut umbra metus
que tremula insight tenebras, unde exftus OHM,
ct quo nobs, crede. regressus crit.
Among the other chosen hards may be men
toned Grant Allen. Robert Bridges. the two
Brownings c. s. Calverley Cwhose name is in
one instance misprinted), Rudyard Kipling, An
drew Lang Stephen Phillips, r. L. Stevenson
and Swinburne What strikes above all in
examining such a collection this is the i'm
mense Indebtedness that modern poetry must
acknowledge to the classics This has been Of
ten pointed out in the case Of Tennyson, but
classical illusions abound in nearly all the best
Of modern poets. and the size Of the present
collection might have been easily multiplied
many times if the attempt had been made to
present all adaptable verse in classic form