'IHE ODES OF PINDAR.*

Fr was Cowley, we believe, who said that if a person were to undertake to translate Pindar word by word, it would be thought that one madman had translated another. To this we may add that if a person had to read through some of the translations of the poet we have seen, it would probably make a madman of him. Most of them seem to us particularly dismal failures. Cary, the translator of Dante, made the attempt, but with rather poor success. Abraham Moore, a little more than fifty years ago, translated the Olympian and Pythian Odes, and his translation is here and there singularly happy and spirited. He was, too, a fairly good scholar, and of this his work shows evidence. Of late we have had a number of translations, both in prose and verse.

There is the prose translation of Mr. F. A. Paley, a well-known Cambridge scholar, who has done the Theban bard into modern newspaper English. We have had many a laugh over it ourselves, at the grotesque results of this singular pro- cess. Of the recent translation by Mr. Myers we wish to speak with sincere respect. Many passages are beautifully and, we

believe, most accurately rendered. One soon sees that Mr. Myers is a man of taste and poetic feeling, as well as a scholar. His version almost makes us think that if Pindar's poetry is to be presented at all in an intelligible shape, it must be through the medium of poetic prose, something akin to the prose of our English

Bible. But even thus, it is a question whether anything like a thorough success is possible. There is much, no doubt, in Mr. Myers's translation which would impress and delight a person who can really enjoy poetry, but his admiration would be by no means unqualified, and he would be obliged to own that the prince of Greek lyric bards was now and then both grotesque and wearisome.

That Pindar was one of the greatest of poets is not, we should suppose, to be for a moment doubted, but that, for various reasons, he defies the most skilful art of the translator is as certain as anything can be. Horace, it will be remembered, speaks of the peril of daring to imitate him, "as he rolls a new language through his dithyrambs, and rushes onward in numbers that know no law." Of all the poets of antiquity, he was perhaps the most intricate and obscure. A translator is almost hopelessly embarrassed by the extreme singu- larity of his diction, and by the lightning rapidity with which he hurries from one topic to another. Pindar has a way of

suddenly dashing into the old legends of the gods and heroes, and of carrying us with him, by brief allusion, into the remoter by-paths of Hellenic mythology. Often be pauses, and breaks the flow of his poetry with some moral reflection, thrown out, so to say, in a somewhat jerky fashion. This has a strange and rather unpleasant effect on our ears, and it adds considerably to the • The Olympian and Pythian Odes of Pindar, translated into English Verse. By F. D. Morice, M.A. London : Henry King and Co.

The Odes ej Pindar, in English Verse. London, Oxford, and Cambridge; itivingtone.

difficulties of translation. 11'e fear that the best of Pindar's poetry is lost. Of his dirges, of his dithyrambic and processional

odes, we have but a few scanty fragments. What remain are the odes commemorating victories in the great games, which were so grand an element in old Greek life. We may well believe that Pindar, who was in his prime when the battles of Marathon and Salamis were fought, felt that the physical education encouraged by these games was invaluable. For brave hearts and strong limbs lie had a most hearty admiration. All, too, that makes life bright and joyous he loved and praised with untiring ardour. He is undoubtedly a poet whose acquaintance any educated Englishman will make with pleasure. The fourth Pythian ode, which tells of the adventures of Jason and of the ship Argo,' is a splendid poem, unsurpassed, in Mr. Myers's opinion, by any- thing in all extant poetry. No one can read it in Mr. Myers's translation without feeling that Horace's estimate of Pindar's genius is not an exaggerated one.

We have before us two verse translations of the poet. That of Mr. Morice is clearly the result of much conscientious labour and of exact scholarship. He has taken the utmost pains to re- produce all the most. characteristic expressions of his author. This, no doubt, gives his work a certain air of quaintness. As he says in his preface, there is a danger of " degenerating into bom- bast and pathos, as Pindar's style always has a certain archaic elevation of tone." Consequently, as he goes on to say, " the translator's style must be kept at a high pitch, yet must avoid the 4Ercles' vein ;' the vocabulary must be antique, yet not pedantic ; the phrases dignified, yet not pompous." There is the further difficulty as to the sort of metre to be employed. Pindar's rhythms seem to us very irregular, and it is not possible for us to judge of the effect which they produced on the Greek ear. Any attempt at reproduction of these-rhythms "syllable by syllable " would, as Mr. Morice says, be unintelligible to most readers. As it is, he has ventured on a hazardous experiment in respect of metres ; and his work has been the more difficult, as he has most scrupulously endeavoured to be exact and even literal in his renderings. Of all verse translations we have seen, Mr. Morice's is infinitely the closest to the original. He has, of course, used all the newest lights, and his - book is a really good guide for the student of Pindar, and will continually help him at a pinch. This is a distinct merit. It would be hardly possible to say as much of such translations as those of Moore and Cary. They scarcely aimed at what a scholar would call accuracy. At the same time, Mr. Morice is quite in sympathy with his author, and the ideal which he proposes to himself seems to us the right one. But it can hardly be realised. Lyric metres are most difficult to handle, and even when handled by masters of the art are often rather unsatisfactory. Certain it is that only a very great poet can do much with them. We have, of course, a conspicuous instance in Milton's Lycidas, and Mr. Tennyson has now and then shown us bow be can triumph over the intricacies of such metres and rhythms. But Mr. Morice's readers, unless we are mistaken, will sometimes find his verse lame and halting. His phrases are often very happy, and truly poetic ; but we question whether the general form in which he has cast his translation will be quite acceptable to most readers. But with the particular aim which be set before him, he could hardly help attempting what be has done ; and if be has not been perfectly successful, it is simply because success was only possible to the highest genius. Every now and then we fancy we detect an expression which seems to have been suggested by Mr. Swin- burne. This is to Mr., Morice's credit. The " car of Poetry," to use a Pindaric phrase, must, however, be driven by a very skilful ruler of the steeds, if we are not pretty often to be uncomfortably jolted. We must frankly say that Mr. Morice gives us a few unpleasant jolts, though there is much of his verse which we like, and which, as a translation, we think very good.

In the first Pythian ode, there is a famous passage telling of the wonderful power of the "golden lyre, the common treasure of Apollo and the Muses violet-tressed." It can control the step of the dancers, and brings slumber to the eagle of Zeus. This is Mr. Myers's rendering of the passage :—" Lo ! even the sworded lightning of immortal fire thou quenchest, and on the sceptre of Zeus his eagle sleepeth, slackening his swift wings either side, the king of birds, for a dark mist thou bast distilled on his arched head, a gentle seal upon his eyes, and he in slumber heaveth his supple back, spell-bound beneath thy throbs." Here is Mr Morice's translation :— " Thou quenchest the bolted lightning's heat, And the eagle of Zeus on the sceptre sleeps, and closes his pinions fleet, King of birds ! His hooked head hath a darkling cloud o'ercast, Sealing soft his eyes. In slumber his rippling back ho heaves, By thy sweet music fettered fast."

"Rippling back" is a good rendering of i7peim vierov, as " rippling " suggests the idea of water. In this passage Mr. Morice has been very literal, and we think, decidedly poetic. We pass to another, from the fourth Pythian ode. Jason is yoking the fire-breathing oxen, at the command of Aeetes, and then has to encounter the serpent which guarded the " Golden Fleece :"— " He spake, and Jason laid aside His saffron vest and. fortified

With trust in Heaven, his task began ; nor feared the flames, made bold By his weird hostess' hest. The plough he grasped, Round the bulls' necks constraining fetters clasped, Smote with fierce goad each massy frame, And to his hard task's ending came. In speechless pain, yet groaning as amazed, On his might Aeotes gazed. Then to the hero 'gan his comrades reach Welcoming bands, with wreathed bays They roofed his brow, and spoke his praise. And Helios' wondrous offspring them of the bright Fleece did teach, Where stretched by Phi isus' sacring knives it lay ; And deemed a task was here their hands to stay, For to it clung, beneath the brake, with greedy fangs a monstrous

Huge aakes, some penteconter's giant keel

Shaped amid the crash of steel." •

This is fairly exact, and it is spirited. The " weird hostess " is Medea, but " weird " is hardly an adequate rendering of Iret,capap,t.ccizou. And the word " penteconter," perhaps, ought hardly to have been admitted, but the three last of the above lines strike us as particularly good. Some of Mr. Morice's renderings will be thought questionable, but we think we may assume that he has always chosen them deliberately out of what commentators have suggested. There is a puzzling phrase near the end of the first Olympian ode, lavraig vrruxech- b'ig.medli, which Mr. Morice renders "Song's bright coil." Dissen's interpretation, which we think the best, takes it to mean " the recesses and labyrinths of poetry," into which Pindar so often plunges in his digressions. Accordingly, Mr. Myers translates, " in sounding labyrinths of song ;" and Abraham Moore appears to adopt the same view of its meaning, and so renders it " the mazes of the lay." But it is one of those phrases in Pindar's poetry which will never be quite satisfactorily explained. Once more, in the fourth Pythian we think Mr. Morice would have done better to have avoided render- ing 'A.SnYou omits (which means the mouth of the Euxine Sea) by " the Axine's mouth." This is needlessly embarrassing to an English reader. Why not say the " Inhospitable Sea "? So we see it is rendered in the other translation, about which we will now say a few words.

This translation is published anonymously. The author says " he looks back to no classical author with half the interest and love which from his boyhood he has felt for Pindar. On the whole, we think, his translation will be fairly pleasing to an ordinary reader. The verse runs more smoothly than that of Mr. Morice, and the work, too, is distinctly that of a scholar. The author, however, is not nearly so exact or literal as Mr. Morice, and he is apt to be too diffuse. For example, the fourth Pythian ode reaches a length of over 400 lines. Mr. Morice has compressed it into 300. In this translation, in fact, Pindar is perhaps rather too freely handled ; still, it has many merits. We should imagine that the translator takes rather a different view of the nature of the work from that of Mr. Morice. We can give only one specimen. It is from the second Olympian ode, and it describes the " Isles of the Blessed," the resting-place of the brave and godly :-

" But who in Godlike strife

Have dared to keep their secret souls from sin, Thrice tried in either life, E'en to old Saturn's tower their bright way win.

There with melodious din, Light breezes, east and west, Fan with soft breath the Islets of the Blest ; And golden flowerets breathe, Some from the Island trees, Some floating on the ambient seas, With which their twined arms and brows they wreathe."

Mr. Morice will, in our opinion, do well to complete his work, and to give us a translation of the Nemean and Isthmian Odes. It may be true enough that Pindar's poetry could be only thoroughly appreciated and enjoyed by those to whom their native hills and fields spoke of some familiar legend, but for all that, we see no reason why, if skilfully rendered, it should not have attractions for English readers.