HARVARD UNIVERSITY
INSTITUTE FOR CLASSICAL STUDIES

WERNER JAEGER, PH.D., LITT.D.
UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR

WIDENER 774
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

Feb.18,1943

Mrs. Jean Starr Untermeyer
235 East 73rd Street
New York, N.Y.

Dear Mrs. Untermeyer:

I received your letter and would be so glad to help you with the matter of the Vergil translations for your English version of Hermann Broch's book, "The Death of Virgil". But, unfortunately I am not very familiar with the history of the attempts that have been made since the Renaissance at translating the Roman poet. My secretary and research assistant, Miss H. Brown, found out the following translations in hexameter: Richard Stanyhurst, 1582; Webbe, 1586; Grist, 1865; Crane, 1888; Charles Bowen, 1889; I do not mention smaller parts of Vergil's works translated by several poets. I looked up Stanyhurst, Crane and Bowen and am sure you would find them as stilted as the version by William Morris. It seems to be hard to say which of them is the best. If you want to give lines of Vergil in a translation by one of the classical English poets, it might be a possible way out to follow the advice of E.K. Rand, with whom I consulted about the problem, and to quote Dryden. If, however, his language appears to be too unpalatable to the present literary taste, you might take the prose translation by Fairclough in the Loeb Classical Library and put the thoughts as he gives them in the form of hexameters yourself. Perhaps the latter solution would prove the easiest for you.

Looking forward to your translation, I am, with best wishes for your work,