them doth it set in fault
So that whoever sees her anywhere
Must see how charm and every excellence Hold sway in her, untaint, and uncontested.
So that whoever sees her anywhere
Must see how charm and every excellence Hold sway in her, untaint, and uncontested.
Ezra-Pound-Instigations
Other women's lures are wasted.
And no truce
But misuse
Have I for them, they're not let
To my heart, where she regaleth Me with delights I'm not chancing.
Arnaut loves, and ne'er will fret
Love with o'er-speech, his throat quaileth. Braggart voust is naught t' his fancy.
In the next poem we have the chatter of birds in au- tumn, the onomatopoeia obviously depends upon the "-utz, -etz, -ences and -oris" of the rhyme scheme, 17 of the 68 syllables of each strophe therein included. I was able to keep the English in the same sound as the Cadahus, but I have not been able to make more than map of the relative positions in this canzos.
L'aura amara
Fals bruoilss brancutz Clarzir
? ARNAUT DANIEL
305
Quel doutz espeissa ab fuoills, Els letz
Bees
Dels auzels ramencs
Ten balps e mutz, Pars
E non-pars;
Per qu'eu m'esfortz De far e dir Plazers
A mains per liei
Que m'a virat has d'aut, Don tem morir
Sils afans no m'asoma.
The bitter air
Strips panoply
From trees
Where softer winds set leaves, And glad
Beaks
Now in brakes are coy, Scarce peep the wee Mates
And un-mates.
What gaud's the work?
What good the glees? What curse
I strive to shake!
Me hath she cast from high, In fell disease
I lie, and deathly fearing.
;;
? 3o6
INSTIGATIONS
II
So clear the flare
That first lit me
To seize
Her whom my soul believes If cad
Sneaks,
Blabs, slanders, my joy Counts little fee
Baits
And their hites.
I scorn their perk
And preen, at ease. Disburse
Can she, and wake
Such firm delights, that I Am hers, froth, lees
Bigod ! from toe to earring.
Ill
Amor, look yare!
Know certainly
The keys:
How she thy suit receives; Nor add
Piques,
'Twere folly to annoy. I'm true, so dree Fates
No debates
Shake me, nor jerk. My verities
;:;
? ARNAUT DANIEL
307
Turn terse,
And yet I ache
Her lips, not snows that fly Have potencies
To slake, to cool my searing.
IV
Behold my prayer,
(Or company
Of these)
Seeks whom such height achieves
Well clad
Seeks
Her, and would not cloy. Heart apertly
States
Thought. Hopewaits
'Gainst death to irk
False brevities And worse!
To her I raik. *
Sole her; all others' dry Felicities
I count not worth the leering.
Ah, visage, where
Each quality
But frees
One pride-shaft more, that cleaves Me; mad frieks
* Raik = haste precipitate.
? 3o8
INSTIGATIONS
(O' thy beck) destroy. And mockery
Baits
Me, and rates.
Yet I not shirk
Thy velleities, Averse
Me not, nor slake
Desire. God draws not nigh To Dome,* with pleas Wherein's so little veering.
VI
Now chant prepare.
And melody
To please
The king, who'll judge thy sheaves. Worth, sad.
Sneaks
Here; double employ Hath there. Get thee Plates
Full, and cates,
Gifts,go! Norlurk
Here till decrees Reverse,
And ring thou take.
Straight t' Arago I'd ply
Cross the wide seas
But "Rome" disturbs my hearing.
Our Lady of Poi de Dome? No definite solution of this reference yet found.
;
? ARNAUT DANIEL Coda.
At midnight mirk, In secrecies
I nurse
My served make * In heart; nor try My melodies
At other's door nor mearing. t
309
The eleventh canzo is mainly interesting for the open- ing bass onomatopoeia of the wind rowting in the au- tumnbranches. Arnautmayhavecaughthisalliteration from the joglar engles, a possible hrimm-hramm-hruffer, though the device dates at least from Na^vius.
En breu brisaral temps braus, Eill bisa busina els brancs Qui s'entreseignon trastuich De sobreclaus rams de fuoilla
Car noi chanta auzels ni piula
M' enseign' Amors qu'ieu fassa adonc Chan que non er segons ni tertz
Ans prims d'afrancar cor agre.
The rhythm is too tricky to be caught at the first reading, or even at the fifth reading; there is only part of it in my copy.
Briefly bursteth season brisk, Blasty north breeze racketh branch, Branches rasp each branch on each
*Make=mate, fere, companion.
t Dante cites this poem in the second book of De Vulgari Eloquio with poems of his own, De Horn's, and Cino Pistoija's.
:;
? 3IO
INSTIGATIONS
Tearing twig and tearing leafage,
Chirms now no bird nor cries querulous
So Love demands I make outright A song that no song shall surpass For freeing the heart of sorrow.
Love is glory's garden dose.
And is a pool of prowess staunch Whence get ye many a goodly fruit If true man come but to gather.
Dies none frost bit nor yet snowily, For true sap keepeth off the blight Unless knave or dolt there pass. . . .
The second point of interest is the lengthening out of the rhyme in piula, niula, etc. In the fourth strophe we find
The gracious thinking and the frank Clear and quick perceiving heart Have led me to the fort of love. Finer she is, and I more loyal
Than were Atlanta and Meleager.
Then the quiet conclusion, after the noise of the opening, Pensar de lieis m'es repaus:
To think of her is my rest
And both of my eyes are strained wry When she stands not in their sight, Believe not the heart turns from her,
For nor prayers nor games nor violing Can move me from her a reed's-breadth.
The most beautiful passages of Arnaut are in the canzo beginning:
;
? ARNAUX DANIEL 311
Doutz brais e critz,
Lais e cantars e voutas
Aug dels auzels qu'en lor latins fant precs Quecs ab sa par, atressi cum nos fam
A las amigas en cui entendem
E doncas ieu qu'en la genssor entendi Dei far chansson sobre totz de bell' obra Que noi aia mot fals ni rima estrampa.
GLAMOUR AND INDIGO
Sweet cries and cracks
and lays and chants inflected
By auzels who, in their Latin belikes,
Chirm each to each, even as you and I
Pipe toward those girls on whom our thoughts attract; Are but more cause that I, whose overweening
Search is toward the Noblest, set in cluster
Lines where no word pulls wry, no rhyme breaks gauges.
No culs de sacs
nor false ways me deflected
When first I pierced her fort within its dykes, Hers, for whom my hungry insistency PassesthegnawwherebywasVivienwracked; * Day-long I stretch, all times, like a bird preening. And yawn for her, who hath o'er others thrust her As high as true joy is o'er ire and rages.
Welcome not lax,
and my words were protected
Not blabbed to other, when I set my likes
* Vivien, strophe 2, nebotz Sain Guillem, an allusion to the romance "Enfances Vivien. "
--
? 312 INSTIGATIONS
On her. Not brass but gold was 'neath the die. That day we kissed, and after it she flacked
O'er me her cloak of indigo, for screening
Me from all culvertz' eyes, whose blathered bluster Can set such spites abroad; win jibes for wages.
God who did tax
not Longus' sin,* respected
That blind centurion beneath the spikes
And him forgave, grant that we two shall lie
Within one room, and seal therein our pact,
Yes, that she kiss me in the half-light, leaning
To me, and laugh and strip and stand forth in the lustre Where lamp-light with light limb but half engages.
The flowers wax
with buds but half perfected;
Tremble on twig that shakes when the bird strikes Butnotmorefreshthanshe! Noempery,
Though Rome and Palestine were one compact. Would lure me from her; and with hands convening I give me to her. But if kings could muster
In homage similar, you'd count them sages.
Mouth, now what knacks!
What folly hath infected .
Thee? Gifts, that th' Emperor of the Salonikes Or Lord of Rome were greatly honored by.
Or Syria's lord, thou dost from me distract;
O fool I am! to hope for intervening " FromLovethatshieldsnotlove! Yea,itwerejuster To call him mad, who 'gainst his joy engages.
* Longus, centurion in the crucifixion legend.
--:
? ARNAUT DANIEL Poi-iTicAL Postscript
The slimy jacks
with adders' tongues bisected,
313
Ifearnowhit,norhave; andifthesetykes
Have led Galicia's king to villeiny *
His cousin in pilgrimage hath he attacked
We know--Raimon the Count's son--my meaning Stands without screen. The royal filibuster Redeems not honor till he unbar the cages.
Coda
I should have seen itj but I was on such aifair. Seeing the true king crown'd here in Estampa. f
Arnaut's tendency to lengthen the latter lines of the strophe after the diesis shows in : Er vei vermeils, vertz, blaus, blancs, gruocs, the strophe form being
Vermeil, green, blue, peirs, white, cobalt.
Close orchards, hewis, holts, hows, vales.
And the bird-song that whirls and turns Morning and late with sweet accord.
Bestir my heart to put my song in sheen T'equal that flower which hath such properties. It seeds in joy, bears love, and pain ameises.
* King of the Galjcians, Ferdinand II, King of Galicia, 1157- 88, son of Berangere, sister of Raimon Berenger IV ("quattro figlie ebbe," etc. ) of Aragon, Count of Barcelona. His second son, Lieutenant of Provence, 1168.
t King crowned at Etampe, Phillipe August, crowned May 29, 1 180, at age of 16. This poem might date Arnaut's birth as early as 1150.
::
? 314 INSTIGATIONS
The last cryptic allusion is to the quasi-allegorical descriptions of the tree of love in some long poem like the Romaunt of the Rose. .
Dante takes the next poem as a model of canzo con- struction; andhelearnedmuchfromitsmelody
Sols sui qui sai lo sobrefan quern sortz Al cor d'amor sofren per sobramar.
Car mos volers es tant ferms et entiers Cane no s'esduis de celliei ni s'estors Cui encubric al prim vezer e puois: Qu'ades ses lieis die a lieis cochos motz, Pois quan la vei non sai, tant I'ai, que dire.
We note the soft suave sound as against the staccato of "L'aura amara. "
Canzon.
I only, and who elrische pain support
Know out love's heart o'er borne by overlove,
For my desire that is so firm and straight
And unchanged since I found her in my sight
And unturned since she came within my glance,
That far from her my speech springs up aflame; Near her comes not. So press the words to arrest it.
I am blind to others, and their retort
I hear not. In her alone, I see, move.
Wonder. . . . And jest not. And the words dilate Nottruth; butmouthspeaksnottheheartoutright I could not walk roads, flats, dales, hills, by chance. To find charm's sum within one single frame
As God hath set in her t'assay and test it. ~
!
? ARNAUT DANIEL
315
And I have passed in many a goodly court
To find in hers more charm than rumor thereof. . . . In solely hers. Measure and sense to mate.
Youth and beauty learned in all delight,
Gentrice did nurse her up, and so advance
Her fair beyond all reach of evil name.
To clear her worth, no shadow hath oppresst it.
Her contact jBats not out, falls not off short . . . Let her, I pray, guess out the sense hereof For never will it stand in open prate
Until my inner heart stand in daylight,
So that heart pools him when her eyes entrance, As never doth the Rhone, fulled and untame, Pool, where the freshets tumult hurl to crest it.
Flimsy another's joy, false and distort.
No paregale that she springs not above . . .
Her love-touch by none other mensurate. Tohaveitnot? Alas! Thoughthepainsbite Deep, torture is but galzeardy and dance,
For in my thought my lust hath touched his aim. God! Shall I get no more! No fact to best it
No delight I, from now, in dance or sport,
Nor will these toys a tinkle of pleasure prove. Compared to her, whom no loud profligate
Shall leak abroad how much she makes my right. Is this too much? If she count not mischance What I have said, then no. But if she blame, Then tear ye out the tongue that hath expresst it.
The song begs you : Count not this speech ill chance, But if you count the song worth your acclaim, Arnaut cares lyt who praise or who contest it.
!
? 3i6 INSTIGATIONS
The XVIth canto goes on with the much discussed and much too emphasized cryptogram of the ox and the hare. I am content with the reading which gives us a classic allusion in the palux Laerna. The lengthening of the verse in the last three lines of the strophe is, I think, typicallyArnaut's. Ileavethetranslationsolelyforthe sake of one strophe.
Ere the winter recommences
And the leaf from bough is wrested,
On Love's mandate will I render
A brief end to long prolusion:
So well have I been taught his steps and paces That I can stop thje jtidaj-sea's inflowing. My stot outruns the hare; his speed amazes.
Me he bade without pretences
That I go not, though requested;
That I make no whit surrender
Nor abandon our seclusion:
"Differ from violets, whose fear effaces
Their hue ere winter; behold the glowing
Laurel stays, stay thou. Year long the genet blazes. "
"You who commit no offences
'Gainst constancy; have not quested;
Assent not ! Though a maid send her
Suit to thee. Think you confusion
Will come to her who shall track out your traces ?
And give your enemies a chance for boasts and crowing ? No! After God, see that she have your praises. "
Coward, shall I trust not defences Faint ere the suit be tested?
? ARNAUT DANIEL 317
Follow ! till she extend her
Favour. Keep on, try conclusion
For if I get in this naught but disgraces, Then must I pilgrimage past Ebro's flowing And seek for luck amid the Lemian mazes.
If I've passed bridge-rails and fences. Think you then that I am bested ?
No, for with no food or slender Ration, I'd have joy's profusion
To hold her kissed, and there are never spaces Wide to keep me from her, but she'd be showing In my heart, and stand forth before his gazes.
Lovelier maid from Nile to Sences
Is not vested nor divested.
So great is her bodily splendor
That you would think it illusion.
Amor, if she but hold me in her embraces, I shall not feel cold hail nor winter's blowing Nor break for all the pain in fever's dazes.
Arnaut hers from foot to face is.
He would not have Lucerne, without her, owing Him, nor lord the land whereon the Ebro grazes.
The feminine rhyming throughout and the shorter opening lines keep the strophe much lighter and more melodic than that of the canzo which Canello prints last of all.
;
? 3i8 INSTIGATIONS
SIM FOS AMORS DE JOI DONAR TANT LARGA
"Ingeniiim nobis ipsa puella facit. " Propertius II, i.
Sim fos Amors de joi donar tant larga Cum ieu vas lieis d'aver fin cor e franc,
Ja per gran ben nom calgra far embarc Qu'er am tant aut quel pes mi poia em tomba Mas quand m' albir cum es de pretz al som Mout m'en am mais car anc I'ausiei volar, C'aras sai ieu que mos cors e mos sens
Mi farant far lor grat rica conquesta.
Had Love as little need to be exhorted
To give me joy, as I to keep a frank
And ready heart toward her, never he'd blast
Hy hope, whose very height hath high exalted. And cast me down . . . to think on my default, And her great worth; yet thinking what I dare, More love myself, and know my heart and sense Shall lead me to high conquest, unmolested.
I am, spite long delay, pooled and contorted
And whirled with all my streams 'neath such a bank Of promise, that her fair words hold me fast
In joy, and will, until in tomb I am halted.
As I'm not one to change hard gold for spalt, And no alloy's in her, that debonaire
Shall hold my faith and mine obedience
Till, by her accolade, I am invested.
Long waiting hath brought in and hath extorted The fragrance of desire; throat and flank
!
? ARNAUT DANIEL 319
The longing takes me . . . and with pain surpassed By her great beauty. Seemeth it hath vaulted O'er all the rest . . .
them doth it set in fault
So that whoever sees her anywhere
Must see how charm and every excellence Hold sway in her, untaint, and uncontested.
Since she is such; longing no wise detorted Is in me . . . and plays not the mountebank, For all my sense is her, and is compassed Solely in her; and no man is assaulted (ByGodhisdove! ) bysuchdesiresasvault In me, to have great excellence. My care On her so stark, I can show tolerance
To jacks whose joy 's to see fine loves uncrested.
Miels-de-Ben, have not your heart distorted Against me now; your love has left me blank. Void, empty of power or will to turn or cast Desire from me . . . not brittle,* nor defaulted. Asleep, awake, to thee do I exalt
And offer me. No less, when I lie bare
Or wake, my will to thee, think not turns thence. For breast and throat and head hath it attested.
Pouch-mouthed blubberers, culrouns and aborted. May flame bite in your gullets, sore eyes and rank T' the lot of you, you've got my horse, my last Shilling, too; and you'd see love dried and salted. God blast you all that you can't call a halt
God's itch to you, chit-cracks that overbear
*"Brighterthanglass,andyetasglassis,brittle. " Thecom- parisons to glass went out of poetry when glass ceased to be a rare, precious substance. (C/. Passionate Pilgrim, III. )
!
? 320 INSTIGATIONS
And spoil good men, ill luck your impotence !
More told, the more you've wits smeared and congested.
Coda
Arnaut has borne delay and long defence
And will wait long to see his hopes well nested.
[In De Vulgari Eloquio II, 13, Dante calls for freedom in the' rhyme order within the strophe, and cites this canzo of Amaut's as an example of poem where there is no rhyme within the single strophe. Dante's "Rithi- morum quoque relationi vacemus" implies no careless- ness concerning the blending of rhyme sounds, for we find him at the end of the chapter "et tertio rithimorum asperitas, nisi forte sit lenitati permista: nam lenium asperorumque rithimorum mixtura ipsa tragoedia nite- scit," as he had before demanded a mixture of shaggy and harsh words with the softer words of a poem. "Nimo scilicet eiusdem rithimi repercussio, nisi forte novum aliquid atque intentatum artis hoc sibi praeroget. " The De Eloquio is ever excellent testimony of the way in which, a great artist approaches the detail of metier. ]
? VIII TRANSLATORS OF GREEK EARLY TRANSLATORS OF HOMER L HUGHES SALEL
The dilection of Greek poets has waned during the last pestilent century, and this decline has, I think, kept pace with a decline in the use of Latin cribs to Greek authors. The classics have more and more become a baton exclusively for the cudgelling of schoolboys, and
less and less a diversion for the mature.
I do not imagine I am the sole creature who has been
well taught his Latin and very ill-taught his Greek (be- ginning at the age, say, of twelve, when one is unready to discriminate matters of style, and when the economy oftheadjectivecannotbewhollyabsorbing). Achild may be bulldozed into learning almost anything, but man accustomed to some degree of freedom is loath to ap- proach a masterpiece through five hundred pages of grammar. Even a scholar like Porson may confer with former translators.
We have drifted out of touch with the Latin authors as well, and we have mislaid the fine English versions: Golding's Metamorphoses; Gavin Douglas' Mneids; Marlowe's Eclogues from Ovid, in each of which books a great poet has compensated, by his own skill, any loss
321
? 322 INSTIGATIONS
intransition; anewbeautyhasineachcasebeencreated. Greek in English remains almost wholly unsuccessful, or rather, there are glorious passages but no lohg or whole satisfaction. Chapman remains the best English "Homer," marred though he may be by excess of added ornament, and rather more marred by parentheses and inversions, to the point of being hard to read in many places.
And if one turn to Chapman for almost any favorite passage one is almost sure to be disappointed; on the other hand I think no one will excel him in the plainer passages of narrative, as of Priam's going to Achilles in the XXIVth Iliad. Yet he breaks down in Priam's prayer at just the point where the language should be the simplest and austerest.
Pope is easier reading, and, out of fashion though he is, he has at least the merit of translating Homer into something. ThenadirofHomerictranslationisreached by the Leaf-Lang prose; Victorian faddism having per- suaded these gentlemen to a belief in King James fustian; their alleged prose has neither the concision of verse nor the virtues of direct motion. In their preface they grumble about Chapman's "mannerisms," yet their version is full of "Now behold I" and "yea even as" and "even as when," tushery possible only to an affected age bent on propaganda. For, having, despite the exclusion of the Diciionnaire Philosophique from the island, finally found that the Bible couldn't be retained either as his- tory or as private Renter from J'hvh's Hebrew Press bureau, the Victorians tried to boom it, and even its wilfully bowdlerized translations, as literature.
"So spake he, and roused Athene that already was set
;::
? TRANSLATORS OF GREEK 323
thereon. . . . Evenasthesonof. . . eveninsuch guise. . . . "
perhaps no worse than
"With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving"* but bad enough anyway.
Of Homer two qualities remain untranslated: the magnificent onomatopoeia, as of the rush of the waves on the sea-beach and their recession in:
xapd diva iroXii<^Xoi(rj3oto SaXAcin/s
untranslated and untranslatable; and, secondly, the au- thentic cadence of speech; the absolute conviction that the words used, let us say by Achilles to the "dog-faced" chicken-hearted Agamemnon, are in the actual swing of words spoken. This quality of actual speaking is not untranslatable. NotehowPopefailstotranslateit
There sat the seniors of the Trojan race
(Old Priam's chiefs, and most in Priam's grace)
The king, the first; Thymcetes at his side; Lampus and Clytius, long in counsel try'd Panthus and Hicetaon, once the strong; And next, the wisest of the reverend throng, Antenor grave, and sage Ucalegon,
Lean'd on the walls, and bask'd before the sun. Chiefs, who no more in bloody fights engage. But wise through time, and narrative with age, In summer days like grasshoppers rejoice,
A bloodless race, that send a feeble voice.
These, when the Spartan queen approach'd the tower. In secret own'd resistless beauty's power:
* Milton, of course, whom my detractors say I condemn with- out due circumspection.
! : ! :
324
INSTIGATIONS
They cried, No wonder, such celestial charms For nine long years have set the world in arms What winning graces ! What majestic mien She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen Yet hence, oh Heaven, convey that fatal face, And from destruction save the Trojan race.
This is anything but the "surge and thunder," but it is, on the other hand, a definite idiom, within the limits of the rhymed pentameter couplet it is even musical in parts; there is imbecility in the antithesis, and bathos in "she looks a queen," but there is fine accomplishment in
"Wise through time, and narrative with age,"
Mr. Pope's own invention, and excellent. What we definitely can not hear is the voice of the old men speak- ing. Thesimileofthegrasshoppersiswellrendered,but the old voices do not ring in the ear.
Homer (iii. 156-160) reports their conversation:
Oil ;'^/iEO'(s, TpSias Kal kvKvriniSas Axatois
Toi^S &,n<j>l yvuaiKi iroKiiv xp^vov a\yea ir&. a-x(iv' Alias AflavaTjjffi de^s eis 3>ira ioiKev.
'AXXi Kal &s, rolrj xep ecus', kv vrjucrt vekaBco' MrjS' iliJilv TeKeeaai t' 'oirLffffu itrma Xittoito.
Which is given in Sam. Clark's ad verhum translation: "Non est indigne ferendum, Trojanos et bene-ocreatos
Archives
Tali de muliere longum tempus dolores pati
Omnino immortalibus deabus ad vultum similis est. Sed et sic, talis quamvis sit, in navibus redeat,
Neque nobis liberisque in posterum detrimentum
relinquatur. "
!
? ::
? TRANSLATORS OF GREEK 325
Mr. Pope has given six short lines for five long ones, but he has added "fatal" to face (or perhaps only. lifted it from vineaii), he has added "winning graces," "ma- jestic," "looks a queen. " As for owning beauty's resist- less power secretly or in the open, the Greek is
Toioi &pa Tpi)Ci)v ij7i^Topes ijvr' kvl vhpyt^.
Ot 8' &)$ oiv elSov 'Ekkviiv tirl irhpyov lovaav, 'Hxa wpos AXXijXous h/ea icripbevr' aySpevov'
and Sam. Clark as follows:
"Tales utique Trojanorum proceres sedebant in turri. Hi autem ut viderunt Helenam ad turrim venientem,
;"
*Hko is an adjective of sound, it is purely objective, even submisse* is an addition; though "Rxa might, by a slight strain, be taken to mean that the speech of the old men came little by little, a phrase from each of the elders. Still it would be purely objective. It does not even say they spoke humbly or with resignation.
Chapman is no closer than his successor. He is so galant in fact, that I thought I had found his description in Rochefort. The passage is splendid, but splendidly unhomeric
"All grave old men, and soldiers they had been, but for age
Now left the wars; yet counsellors they were exceed- ingly sage.
And as in well-grown woods, on trees, cold spiny grass- hoppers
*/. e. Clark is "correct," but the words shade differently. 'Hko means low, quiet, with a secondary meaning of "little by little. '' Submisse means low, quiet, with a secondary meaning of modesty, humbly.
Submisse inter se verbis alatis dixerunt
? 326 INSTIGATIONS
Sit chirping, and send voices out, that scarce can pierce our ears
For softness, and their weak faint sounds; so, talking on the tow'r.
These seniors of the people sat; who when they saw the pow'r
Of beauty, in the queen, ascend, ev'n those cold-spirited peers.
Those wise and almost wither'd men, found this heat in their years.
That they were forc'd (though whispering) to say: 'What man can blame
The Greeks and Trojans to endure, for so admir'd a dame.
So many mis'ries, and so long? In her sweet count'nance shine
Looks like the Goddesses. And yet (though never so divine)
Before we boast, unjustly still, of her enforced prise. And justly suffer for her sake, with all our progenies. Labor and ruin, let her go ; the profit of our land Mustpassthebeauty. ' Thus,thoughthesecouldbear
so fit a hand
On their affections, yet, when all their gravest powers
were us'd.
They could not choose but welcome her, and rather they
accus'd
The Gods than beauty; for thus spake the most-fam'd
:"
king of Troy
The last sentence representing mostly 'Qs ftp t<l>a in the line:
*i2s &p i<j>av' Uplafios S' 'EXkvTiv kKaXkffffaro tjiuv^' "Sic dixerunt: Priamus autem Helenam vocavit voce. "
: " :;
? TRANSLATORS OF GREEK 327 Chapman is nearer Swinburne's ballad with:
"But those three following men," etc. than to his alleged original.
Rochefort is as follows {lUade, Livre iii, M. de Rochefort, 1772)
"Helene a ce discours sentit naitre en son ame
Un doux ressouvenir de sa premiere flamme;
Le desir de revoir les lieux qu'elle a quittes
Jette un trouble inconnu dans ses sens agites. Tremblante elle se leve et les yeux pleins de larmes, D'un voile eblouissant elle couvre ses charmes
.
De deux femmes suivie elle vole aux remparts.
La s'etaient assembles ces illustres vieillards
Qui courbes sous le faix des travajix et de I'age N'alloient plus au combat signaler leur courage, Mais qui, pres de leur Roi, par de sages avis, Mieux qu'en leurs jeunes ans defendoient leur pais.
Dans leurs doux entretiens, leur voix toujours egale Ressembloit aux accents que forme la cigale, Lorsqu'aux longs jours d'ete cachee en un buisson, Elle vient dans les champs annoncer la moisson.
Une tendre surprise enflamma leurs visages; Frappes de ses appas, ils se disoient entre eux
'Qui pourroit s'etonner que tant de Rois fameux, Depuis neuf ans entiers aient combattu pour elle? Sur le trone des cieux Venus n'est pas plus belle.
"Mais quelque soit I'amour qu'inspirent ses attraits, Puisse lUion enfin la perdre pour jamais, Puisse-t-elle bientot a son epoux rendue.
Conjurer I'infortune en ces lieux attendue. '
:
? 328 INSTIGATIONS
Hugues Salel (1545), praised by Ronsard, is more pleasing
"Le Roi Priam, et auec luy bon nombre De grandz Seigneurs estoient a I'ombre Sur les Crenaulx, Tymoetes et Pahthus, Lampus, Clytus, excellentz en vertus, Hictaon renomme en bataille, Ucalegon iadis de fort taille,
Et Antenor aux armes nompareil
Mais pour alors ne seruantz qu'en conseil.
La, ces Vieillards assis de peur du Hasle Causoyent ensemble ainsi que la Cignalle Ou deux ou trois, entre les vertes fueilles. En temps d'Este gazouillant a merveilles; Lesquelz voyans la diuine Gregeoise, Disoient entre eux que si la grande noise De ces deux camps duroit longe saision, Certainement ce n'estoit sans raision:
Veu la Beaulte, et plus que humain outrage. Qui reluysoit en son diuin visaige.
Ce neantmoins il vauldrait mieulx la rendre, (Ce disoyent ilz) sans gueres plus attendre. Pour eviter le mal qui peult venir,
Qui la voudra encores retenir. "
Salel is a most delightful approach to the Iliads; he is still absorbed in the subject-matter, as Douglas and Golding were absorbed in their subject-matter. Note how exact he is in the rendering of the old men's mental attitude. Note also that he is right in his era. I mean simply that Homer is a little rustre, a . little, or perhaps a good deal, mediaeval, he has not the dovetailing of Ovid. Hehasonomatopoeia,asofpoetrysungout;he
? TRANSLATORS OF GREEK
329
has authenticity of conversation as would be demanded by an intelligent audience not yet laminated with aesthetics; capable of recognizing reality. He has the repetitions of the chanson de geste. Of all the French and English versions I think Salel alone gives any hint ofsomeofthesecharacteristics. Tooobviouslyheisnot onomatopoeic, no. But he is charming, and readable, and "Briseis Fleur des Demoiselles" has her reality.
Nicolo Valla is, for him who runs, closer:
"Consili virtus, summis de rebus habebant
Sermones, et multa inter se et magna loquentes, Arboribus quales gracili stridere cicadse
Ssepe solent cantu, postquam sub moenibus altis Tyndarida aspiciunt, procerum tum quisque fremebat, Mutuasque exorsi, Decuit tot funera Teucros Argolicasque pati, longique in tempore bellum
Tantus in ore decor cui non mortalis in artus
Est honor et vultu divina efflagrat imago.
Diva licet fades, Danauum cum classe recedat
' Longius excido ne nos aut nostra fatiget Pignora sic illi tantis de rebus agebant. "
This hexameter is rather heavily accented. It shows, perhaps, the source of various "ornaments" in later Eng- lish and French translations. It has indubitable sonority even though monotonous.
It is the earliest Latin verse rendering I have yet come upon, and is bound in with Raphael of Volterra's first two Iliads, and some further renderings by Obsopeo.
Odyssea (Liber primus) (1573).
"Die mihi musa uirum captae post tempora Troiae Qui mores hominum multorum uidit et urbes
? 330
INSTIGATIONS
Multa quoque et ponto passus dum naufragus errat Ut sibi turn sociis uitam seruaret in alto
Non tamen hos cupens fato deprompsit acerbo
Ob scelus admissum extinctos ausumque malignum Qui fame compulsu solis rapuere iuvencos
Stuiti ex quo reditum ad patrias deus abstulit oras. Horum itaque exitium memora mihi musa canenti. "
Odyssea (Lib. sec. ) (1573).
"Cumprimum effulsit roseis aurora quadrigis Continuo e stratis proles consurgit Ulyxis Induit et uestes humerosque adcomodat ensem Molia denin pedibus formosis uincula nectit Parque dec egrediens thalamo praeconibus omnis Concilio cognant extemplo mandat Achaeos
Ipse quoque ingentem properabat ad aedibus hastam Corripiens : gemenique canes comitantor euntem Qtiumque illi mirum Pallas veneranda decorem Preberer populus venientem suspicit omnis
Inque throno patrio ueteres cessere sedenti. "
The charm of Salel is continued in the following ex- cerpts. They do not cry out for comment. I leave Ogilby's English and the lines of Latin to serve as con- trast or cross-light.
Iliade (Livre I). Hugues Salel (1545). *
THE IRE
"Je te supply Deesse. gracieuse, Vouloir chanter I'lre pernicieuse,
* Later continued by I'Abbe de St. Cherrou,
::
? TRANSLATORS OF GREEK
331
Dont Achille fut tellement espris.
Que par icelle, ung grand nombre d'espritz Des Princes Grecs, par dangereux encombres, Feit lors descente aux infernales Umbres. , Et leurs beaulx Corps privez de Sepulture Furent aux chiens et aux oiseaulx pasture. "
Iliade (Lib. III). John Ogilby (1660).
HELEN
"Who in this chamber, sumpteously adornd Sits on your ivory bed, nor could you say,
By his rich habit, he had fought to-day
A reveller or masker so comes drest.
From splendid sports returning to his rest. Thus did love's Queen warmer desires prepare. But when she saw her neck so heavenly faire, Her lovely bosome and celestial eyes.
Amazed, to the Goddess, she replies
Why wilt thou happless me once more betray, And to another wealthy town convey,
Where some new favourite must, as now at Troy With utter loss of honour me enjoy. "
Iliade (LivreVI). Salel.
GLAUCUS RESPOND A DIOMfiDE
"Adonc Glaucus, auec grace et audace, Luy respoftdit: 'T'enquiers tu de ma race? Le genre humain est fragile et muable Comme la fueille et aussi peu durable.
:
? 332
INSTIGATIONS
Car tout ainsi qu'on uoit les branches uertes Sur le printemps de fueilles bien couuertes Qui par les uents d'automne et la froidure Tombent de I'arbre et perdent leur uerdure Puis de rechef la gelee passee,
II en reuient a la place laissee
Ne plus ne moins est du lignage humain: Tel est buy uif qui sera mort demain.
S'il en meurt ung, ung autre reuint naistre.
"
Iliade (Lib. VI). As in Virgil, Dante, and others.
"Quasim gente rogas ? Quibus et natalibus ortus ? Persimile est foliis hominum genus omne caduciis Quae nunc nata uides, pulchrisque, uirescere sylvis Automno ueniente cadunt, simul ilia perurens Incubuit Boreas : quaedam sub uerna renasci Tempora, sic uice perpetua succrescere lapsis, Semper item nova, sic alliis obeuntibus, ultro Succedunt alii luuenes aetate grauatis.
Quod si forte iuvat te qua sit quisque suorum Stirpe satus, si natales cognoscere quaeris
Forte meos, referam, quae sunt notissima multis. "
Iliade (Livre IX). Salel.
CALYDON
"En Calydon regnoit Oeneus, ung bon Roy qui donnoit
De ses beaulx Fruictz chascun an les Primices Aux Immortelz, leur faisant Sacrifices.
Voyla comment se conserue leur estre. '
;
? TRANSLATORS OF GREEK
333
Or il aduint (ou bien par son uouloir,
Ou par oubly) qU'il meit a nonchalloir
Diane chaste, et ne luy feit offrande,
Dont elle print Injiignation grande
Encontre luy, et pour bien le punir
Feit ung Sanglier dedans ses Champs uenir Horrible et fier qui luy feit grand dommage Tuant les Gens et gastant le Fruictage. Maintz beaulx Pomiers, maintz Arbres reuestuz De Fleur et Fruict, en furent abattuz,
Et de la Dent aguisee et poinctue,
Le Bled gaste et la Vigne tortue.
Meleager, le Filz de ce bon Roy,
Voyant ainsi le piteux Desarroy
De son Pays et de sa Gent troublee
Proposa lors de faire une Assemblee
De bons Veneurs et Leutiers pour chasser L'horrible Beste et sa Mort pourchasser.
Ce qui fut faict. Maintes Gens I'y trouverent Qui contre luy ses Forces eprouverent
Mjais a la fin le Sanglier inhumain Recent la Mort de sa Royale Main.
But misuse
Have I for them, they're not let
To my heart, where she regaleth Me with delights I'm not chancing.
Arnaut loves, and ne'er will fret
Love with o'er-speech, his throat quaileth. Braggart voust is naught t' his fancy.
In the next poem we have the chatter of birds in au- tumn, the onomatopoeia obviously depends upon the "-utz, -etz, -ences and -oris" of the rhyme scheme, 17 of the 68 syllables of each strophe therein included. I was able to keep the English in the same sound as the Cadahus, but I have not been able to make more than map of the relative positions in this canzos.
L'aura amara
Fals bruoilss brancutz Clarzir
? ARNAUT DANIEL
305
Quel doutz espeissa ab fuoills, Els letz
Bees
Dels auzels ramencs
Ten balps e mutz, Pars
E non-pars;
Per qu'eu m'esfortz De far e dir Plazers
A mains per liei
Que m'a virat has d'aut, Don tem morir
Sils afans no m'asoma.
The bitter air
Strips panoply
From trees
Where softer winds set leaves, And glad
Beaks
Now in brakes are coy, Scarce peep the wee Mates
And un-mates.
What gaud's the work?
What good the glees? What curse
I strive to shake!
Me hath she cast from high, In fell disease
I lie, and deathly fearing.
;;
? 3o6
INSTIGATIONS
II
So clear the flare
That first lit me
To seize
Her whom my soul believes If cad
Sneaks,
Blabs, slanders, my joy Counts little fee
Baits
And their hites.
I scorn their perk
And preen, at ease. Disburse
Can she, and wake
Such firm delights, that I Am hers, froth, lees
Bigod ! from toe to earring.
Ill
Amor, look yare!
Know certainly
The keys:
How she thy suit receives; Nor add
Piques,
'Twere folly to annoy. I'm true, so dree Fates
No debates
Shake me, nor jerk. My verities
;:;
? ARNAUT DANIEL
307
Turn terse,
And yet I ache
Her lips, not snows that fly Have potencies
To slake, to cool my searing.
IV
Behold my prayer,
(Or company
Of these)
Seeks whom such height achieves
Well clad
Seeks
Her, and would not cloy. Heart apertly
States
Thought. Hopewaits
'Gainst death to irk
False brevities And worse!
To her I raik. *
Sole her; all others' dry Felicities
I count not worth the leering.
Ah, visage, where
Each quality
But frees
One pride-shaft more, that cleaves Me; mad frieks
* Raik = haste precipitate.
? 3o8
INSTIGATIONS
(O' thy beck) destroy. And mockery
Baits
Me, and rates.
Yet I not shirk
Thy velleities, Averse
Me not, nor slake
Desire. God draws not nigh To Dome,* with pleas Wherein's so little veering.
VI
Now chant prepare.
And melody
To please
The king, who'll judge thy sheaves. Worth, sad.
Sneaks
Here; double employ Hath there. Get thee Plates
Full, and cates,
Gifts,go! Norlurk
Here till decrees Reverse,
And ring thou take.
Straight t' Arago I'd ply
Cross the wide seas
But "Rome" disturbs my hearing.
Our Lady of Poi de Dome? No definite solution of this reference yet found.
;
? ARNAUT DANIEL Coda.
At midnight mirk, In secrecies
I nurse
My served make * In heart; nor try My melodies
At other's door nor mearing. t
309
The eleventh canzo is mainly interesting for the open- ing bass onomatopoeia of the wind rowting in the au- tumnbranches. Arnautmayhavecaughthisalliteration from the joglar engles, a possible hrimm-hramm-hruffer, though the device dates at least from Na^vius.
En breu brisaral temps braus, Eill bisa busina els brancs Qui s'entreseignon trastuich De sobreclaus rams de fuoilla
Car noi chanta auzels ni piula
M' enseign' Amors qu'ieu fassa adonc Chan que non er segons ni tertz
Ans prims d'afrancar cor agre.
The rhythm is too tricky to be caught at the first reading, or even at the fifth reading; there is only part of it in my copy.
Briefly bursteth season brisk, Blasty north breeze racketh branch, Branches rasp each branch on each
*Make=mate, fere, companion.
t Dante cites this poem in the second book of De Vulgari Eloquio with poems of his own, De Horn's, and Cino Pistoija's.
:;
? 3IO
INSTIGATIONS
Tearing twig and tearing leafage,
Chirms now no bird nor cries querulous
So Love demands I make outright A song that no song shall surpass For freeing the heart of sorrow.
Love is glory's garden dose.
And is a pool of prowess staunch Whence get ye many a goodly fruit If true man come but to gather.
Dies none frost bit nor yet snowily, For true sap keepeth off the blight Unless knave or dolt there pass. . . .
The second point of interest is the lengthening out of the rhyme in piula, niula, etc. In the fourth strophe we find
The gracious thinking and the frank Clear and quick perceiving heart Have led me to the fort of love. Finer she is, and I more loyal
Than were Atlanta and Meleager.
Then the quiet conclusion, after the noise of the opening, Pensar de lieis m'es repaus:
To think of her is my rest
And both of my eyes are strained wry When she stands not in their sight, Believe not the heart turns from her,
For nor prayers nor games nor violing Can move me from her a reed's-breadth.
The most beautiful passages of Arnaut are in the canzo beginning:
;
? ARNAUX DANIEL 311
Doutz brais e critz,
Lais e cantars e voutas
Aug dels auzels qu'en lor latins fant precs Quecs ab sa par, atressi cum nos fam
A las amigas en cui entendem
E doncas ieu qu'en la genssor entendi Dei far chansson sobre totz de bell' obra Que noi aia mot fals ni rima estrampa.
GLAMOUR AND INDIGO
Sweet cries and cracks
and lays and chants inflected
By auzels who, in their Latin belikes,
Chirm each to each, even as you and I
Pipe toward those girls on whom our thoughts attract; Are but more cause that I, whose overweening
Search is toward the Noblest, set in cluster
Lines where no word pulls wry, no rhyme breaks gauges.
No culs de sacs
nor false ways me deflected
When first I pierced her fort within its dykes, Hers, for whom my hungry insistency PassesthegnawwherebywasVivienwracked; * Day-long I stretch, all times, like a bird preening. And yawn for her, who hath o'er others thrust her As high as true joy is o'er ire and rages.
Welcome not lax,
and my words were protected
Not blabbed to other, when I set my likes
* Vivien, strophe 2, nebotz Sain Guillem, an allusion to the romance "Enfances Vivien. "
--
? 312 INSTIGATIONS
On her. Not brass but gold was 'neath the die. That day we kissed, and after it she flacked
O'er me her cloak of indigo, for screening
Me from all culvertz' eyes, whose blathered bluster Can set such spites abroad; win jibes for wages.
God who did tax
not Longus' sin,* respected
That blind centurion beneath the spikes
And him forgave, grant that we two shall lie
Within one room, and seal therein our pact,
Yes, that she kiss me in the half-light, leaning
To me, and laugh and strip and stand forth in the lustre Where lamp-light with light limb but half engages.
The flowers wax
with buds but half perfected;
Tremble on twig that shakes when the bird strikes Butnotmorefreshthanshe! Noempery,
Though Rome and Palestine were one compact. Would lure me from her; and with hands convening I give me to her. But if kings could muster
In homage similar, you'd count them sages.
Mouth, now what knacks!
What folly hath infected .
Thee? Gifts, that th' Emperor of the Salonikes Or Lord of Rome were greatly honored by.
Or Syria's lord, thou dost from me distract;
O fool I am! to hope for intervening " FromLovethatshieldsnotlove! Yea,itwerejuster To call him mad, who 'gainst his joy engages.
* Longus, centurion in the crucifixion legend.
--:
? ARNAUT DANIEL Poi-iTicAL Postscript
The slimy jacks
with adders' tongues bisected,
313
Ifearnowhit,norhave; andifthesetykes
Have led Galicia's king to villeiny *
His cousin in pilgrimage hath he attacked
We know--Raimon the Count's son--my meaning Stands without screen. The royal filibuster Redeems not honor till he unbar the cages.
Coda
I should have seen itj but I was on such aifair. Seeing the true king crown'd here in Estampa. f
Arnaut's tendency to lengthen the latter lines of the strophe after the diesis shows in : Er vei vermeils, vertz, blaus, blancs, gruocs, the strophe form being
Vermeil, green, blue, peirs, white, cobalt.
Close orchards, hewis, holts, hows, vales.
And the bird-song that whirls and turns Morning and late with sweet accord.
Bestir my heart to put my song in sheen T'equal that flower which hath such properties. It seeds in joy, bears love, and pain ameises.
* King of the Galjcians, Ferdinand II, King of Galicia, 1157- 88, son of Berangere, sister of Raimon Berenger IV ("quattro figlie ebbe," etc. ) of Aragon, Count of Barcelona. His second son, Lieutenant of Provence, 1168.
t King crowned at Etampe, Phillipe August, crowned May 29, 1 180, at age of 16. This poem might date Arnaut's birth as early as 1150.
::
? 314 INSTIGATIONS
The last cryptic allusion is to the quasi-allegorical descriptions of the tree of love in some long poem like the Romaunt of the Rose. .
Dante takes the next poem as a model of canzo con- struction; andhelearnedmuchfromitsmelody
Sols sui qui sai lo sobrefan quern sortz Al cor d'amor sofren per sobramar.
Car mos volers es tant ferms et entiers Cane no s'esduis de celliei ni s'estors Cui encubric al prim vezer e puois: Qu'ades ses lieis die a lieis cochos motz, Pois quan la vei non sai, tant I'ai, que dire.
We note the soft suave sound as against the staccato of "L'aura amara. "
Canzon.
I only, and who elrische pain support
Know out love's heart o'er borne by overlove,
For my desire that is so firm and straight
And unchanged since I found her in my sight
And unturned since she came within my glance,
That far from her my speech springs up aflame; Near her comes not. So press the words to arrest it.
I am blind to others, and their retort
I hear not. In her alone, I see, move.
Wonder. . . . And jest not. And the words dilate Nottruth; butmouthspeaksnottheheartoutright I could not walk roads, flats, dales, hills, by chance. To find charm's sum within one single frame
As God hath set in her t'assay and test it. ~
!
? ARNAUT DANIEL
315
And I have passed in many a goodly court
To find in hers more charm than rumor thereof. . . . In solely hers. Measure and sense to mate.
Youth and beauty learned in all delight,
Gentrice did nurse her up, and so advance
Her fair beyond all reach of evil name.
To clear her worth, no shadow hath oppresst it.
Her contact jBats not out, falls not off short . . . Let her, I pray, guess out the sense hereof For never will it stand in open prate
Until my inner heart stand in daylight,
So that heart pools him when her eyes entrance, As never doth the Rhone, fulled and untame, Pool, where the freshets tumult hurl to crest it.
Flimsy another's joy, false and distort.
No paregale that she springs not above . . .
Her love-touch by none other mensurate. Tohaveitnot? Alas! Thoughthepainsbite Deep, torture is but galzeardy and dance,
For in my thought my lust hath touched his aim. God! Shall I get no more! No fact to best it
No delight I, from now, in dance or sport,
Nor will these toys a tinkle of pleasure prove. Compared to her, whom no loud profligate
Shall leak abroad how much she makes my right. Is this too much? If she count not mischance What I have said, then no. But if she blame, Then tear ye out the tongue that hath expresst it.
The song begs you : Count not this speech ill chance, But if you count the song worth your acclaim, Arnaut cares lyt who praise or who contest it.
!
? 3i6 INSTIGATIONS
The XVIth canto goes on with the much discussed and much too emphasized cryptogram of the ox and the hare. I am content with the reading which gives us a classic allusion in the palux Laerna. The lengthening of the verse in the last three lines of the strophe is, I think, typicallyArnaut's. Ileavethetranslationsolelyforthe sake of one strophe.
Ere the winter recommences
And the leaf from bough is wrested,
On Love's mandate will I render
A brief end to long prolusion:
So well have I been taught his steps and paces That I can stop thje jtidaj-sea's inflowing. My stot outruns the hare; his speed amazes.
Me he bade without pretences
That I go not, though requested;
That I make no whit surrender
Nor abandon our seclusion:
"Differ from violets, whose fear effaces
Their hue ere winter; behold the glowing
Laurel stays, stay thou. Year long the genet blazes. "
"You who commit no offences
'Gainst constancy; have not quested;
Assent not ! Though a maid send her
Suit to thee. Think you confusion
Will come to her who shall track out your traces ?
And give your enemies a chance for boasts and crowing ? No! After God, see that she have your praises. "
Coward, shall I trust not defences Faint ere the suit be tested?
? ARNAUT DANIEL 317
Follow ! till she extend her
Favour. Keep on, try conclusion
For if I get in this naught but disgraces, Then must I pilgrimage past Ebro's flowing And seek for luck amid the Lemian mazes.
If I've passed bridge-rails and fences. Think you then that I am bested ?
No, for with no food or slender Ration, I'd have joy's profusion
To hold her kissed, and there are never spaces Wide to keep me from her, but she'd be showing In my heart, and stand forth before his gazes.
Lovelier maid from Nile to Sences
Is not vested nor divested.
So great is her bodily splendor
That you would think it illusion.
Amor, if she but hold me in her embraces, I shall not feel cold hail nor winter's blowing Nor break for all the pain in fever's dazes.
Arnaut hers from foot to face is.
He would not have Lucerne, without her, owing Him, nor lord the land whereon the Ebro grazes.
The feminine rhyming throughout and the shorter opening lines keep the strophe much lighter and more melodic than that of the canzo which Canello prints last of all.
;
? 3i8 INSTIGATIONS
SIM FOS AMORS DE JOI DONAR TANT LARGA
"Ingeniiim nobis ipsa puella facit. " Propertius II, i.
Sim fos Amors de joi donar tant larga Cum ieu vas lieis d'aver fin cor e franc,
Ja per gran ben nom calgra far embarc Qu'er am tant aut quel pes mi poia em tomba Mas quand m' albir cum es de pretz al som Mout m'en am mais car anc I'ausiei volar, C'aras sai ieu que mos cors e mos sens
Mi farant far lor grat rica conquesta.
Had Love as little need to be exhorted
To give me joy, as I to keep a frank
And ready heart toward her, never he'd blast
Hy hope, whose very height hath high exalted. And cast me down . . . to think on my default, And her great worth; yet thinking what I dare, More love myself, and know my heart and sense Shall lead me to high conquest, unmolested.
I am, spite long delay, pooled and contorted
And whirled with all my streams 'neath such a bank Of promise, that her fair words hold me fast
In joy, and will, until in tomb I am halted.
As I'm not one to change hard gold for spalt, And no alloy's in her, that debonaire
Shall hold my faith and mine obedience
Till, by her accolade, I am invested.
Long waiting hath brought in and hath extorted The fragrance of desire; throat and flank
!
? ARNAUT DANIEL 319
The longing takes me . . . and with pain surpassed By her great beauty. Seemeth it hath vaulted O'er all the rest . . .
them doth it set in fault
So that whoever sees her anywhere
Must see how charm and every excellence Hold sway in her, untaint, and uncontested.
Since she is such; longing no wise detorted Is in me . . . and plays not the mountebank, For all my sense is her, and is compassed Solely in her; and no man is assaulted (ByGodhisdove! ) bysuchdesiresasvault In me, to have great excellence. My care On her so stark, I can show tolerance
To jacks whose joy 's to see fine loves uncrested.
Miels-de-Ben, have not your heart distorted Against me now; your love has left me blank. Void, empty of power or will to turn or cast Desire from me . . . not brittle,* nor defaulted. Asleep, awake, to thee do I exalt
And offer me. No less, when I lie bare
Or wake, my will to thee, think not turns thence. For breast and throat and head hath it attested.
Pouch-mouthed blubberers, culrouns and aborted. May flame bite in your gullets, sore eyes and rank T' the lot of you, you've got my horse, my last Shilling, too; and you'd see love dried and salted. God blast you all that you can't call a halt
God's itch to you, chit-cracks that overbear
*"Brighterthanglass,andyetasglassis,brittle. " Thecom- parisons to glass went out of poetry when glass ceased to be a rare, precious substance. (C/. Passionate Pilgrim, III. )
!
? 320 INSTIGATIONS
And spoil good men, ill luck your impotence !
More told, the more you've wits smeared and congested.
Coda
Arnaut has borne delay and long defence
And will wait long to see his hopes well nested.
[In De Vulgari Eloquio II, 13, Dante calls for freedom in the' rhyme order within the strophe, and cites this canzo of Amaut's as an example of poem where there is no rhyme within the single strophe. Dante's "Rithi- morum quoque relationi vacemus" implies no careless- ness concerning the blending of rhyme sounds, for we find him at the end of the chapter "et tertio rithimorum asperitas, nisi forte sit lenitati permista: nam lenium asperorumque rithimorum mixtura ipsa tragoedia nite- scit," as he had before demanded a mixture of shaggy and harsh words with the softer words of a poem. "Nimo scilicet eiusdem rithimi repercussio, nisi forte novum aliquid atque intentatum artis hoc sibi praeroget. " The De Eloquio is ever excellent testimony of the way in which, a great artist approaches the detail of metier. ]
? VIII TRANSLATORS OF GREEK EARLY TRANSLATORS OF HOMER L HUGHES SALEL
The dilection of Greek poets has waned during the last pestilent century, and this decline has, I think, kept pace with a decline in the use of Latin cribs to Greek authors. The classics have more and more become a baton exclusively for the cudgelling of schoolboys, and
less and less a diversion for the mature.
I do not imagine I am the sole creature who has been
well taught his Latin and very ill-taught his Greek (be- ginning at the age, say, of twelve, when one is unready to discriminate matters of style, and when the economy oftheadjectivecannotbewhollyabsorbing). Achild may be bulldozed into learning almost anything, but man accustomed to some degree of freedom is loath to ap- proach a masterpiece through five hundred pages of grammar. Even a scholar like Porson may confer with former translators.
We have drifted out of touch with the Latin authors as well, and we have mislaid the fine English versions: Golding's Metamorphoses; Gavin Douglas' Mneids; Marlowe's Eclogues from Ovid, in each of which books a great poet has compensated, by his own skill, any loss
321
? 322 INSTIGATIONS
intransition; anewbeautyhasineachcasebeencreated. Greek in English remains almost wholly unsuccessful, or rather, there are glorious passages but no lohg or whole satisfaction. Chapman remains the best English "Homer," marred though he may be by excess of added ornament, and rather more marred by parentheses and inversions, to the point of being hard to read in many places.
And if one turn to Chapman for almost any favorite passage one is almost sure to be disappointed; on the other hand I think no one will excel him in the plainer passages of narrative, as of Priam's going to Achilles in the XXIVth Iliad. Yet he breaks down in Priam's prayer at just the point where the language should be the simplest and austerest.
Pope is easier reading, and, out of fashion though he is, he has at least the merit of translating Homer into something. ThenadirofHomerictranslationisreached by the Leaf-Lang prose; Victorian faddism having per- suaded these gentlemen to a belief in King James fustian; their alleged prose has neither the concision of verse nor the virtues of direct motion. In their preface they grumble about Chapman's "mannerisms," yet their version is full of "Now behold I" and "yea even as" and "even as when," tushery possible only to an affected age bent on propaganda. For, having, despite the exclusion of the Diciionnaire Philosophique from the island, finally found that the Bible couldn't be retained either as his- tory or as private Renter from J'hvh's Hebrew Press bureau, the Victorians tried to boom it, and even its wilfully bowdlerized translations, as literature.
"So spake he, and roused Athene that already was set
;::
? TRANSLATORS OF GREEK 323
thereon. . . . Evenasthesonof. . . eveninsuch guise. . . . "
perhaps no worse than
"With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving"* but bad enough anyway.
Of Homer two qualities remain untranslated: the magnificent onomatopoeia, as of the rush of the waves on the sea-beach and their recession in:
xapd diva iroXii<^Xoi(rj3oto SaXAcin/s
untranslated and untranslatable; and, secondly, the au- thentic cadence of speech; the absolute conviction that the words used, let us say by Achilles to the "dog-faced" chicken-hearted Agamemnon, are in the actual swing of words spoken. This quality of actual speaking is not untranslatable. NotehowPopefailstotranslateit
There sat the seniors of the Trojan race
(Old Priam's chiefs, and most in Priam's grace)
The king, the first; Thymcetes at his side; Lampus and Clytius, long in counsel try'd Panthus and Hicetaon, once the strong; And next, the wisest of the reverend throng, Antenor grave, and sage Ucalegon,
Lean'd on the walls, and bask'd before the sun. Chiefs, who no more in bloody fights engage. But wise through time, and narrative with age, In summer days like grasshoppers rejoice,
A bloodless race, that send a feeble voice.
These, when the Spartan queen approach'd the tower. In secret own'd resistless beauty's power:
* Milton, of course, whom my detractors say I condemn with- out due circumspection.
! : ! :
324
INSTIGATIONS
They cried, No wonder, such celestial charms For nine long years have set the world in arms What winning graces ! What majestic mien She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen Yet hence, oh Heaven, convey that fatal face, And from destruction save the Trojan race.
This is anything but the "surge and thunder," but it is, on the other hand, a definite idiom, within the limits of the rhymed pentameter couplet it is even musical in parts; there is imbecility in the antithesis, and bathos in "she looks a queen," but there is fine accomplishment in
"Wise through time, and narrative with age,"
Mr. Pope's own invention, and excellent. What we definitely can not hear is the voice of the old men speak- ing. Thesimileofthegrasshoppersiswellrendered,but the old voices do not ring in the ear.
Homer (iii. 156-160) reports their conversation:
Oil ;'^/iEO'(s, TpSias Kal kvKvriniSas Axatois
Toi^S &,n<j>l yvuaiKi iroKiiv xp^vov a\yea ir&. a-x(iv' Alias AflavaTjjffi de^s eis 3>ira ioiKev.
'AXXi Kal &s, rolrj xep ecus', kv vrjucrt vekaBco' MrjS' iliJilv TeKeeaai t' 'oirLffffu itrma Xittoito.
Which is given in Sam. Clark's ad verhum translation: "Non est indigne ferendum, Trojanos et bene-ocreatos
Archives
Tali de muliere longum tempus dolores pati
Omnino immortalibus deabus ad vultum similis est. Sed et sic, talis quamvis sit, in navibus redeat,
Neque nobis liberisque in posterum detrimentum
relinquatur. "
!
? ::
? TRANSLATORS OF GREEK 325
Mr. Pope has given six short lines for five long ones, but he has added "fatal" to face (or perhaps only. lifted it from vineaii), he has added "winning graces," "ma- jestic," "looks a queen. " As for owning beauty's resist- less power secretly or in the open, the Greek is
Toioi &pa Tpi)Ci)v ij7i^Topes ijvr' kvl vhpyt^.
Ot 8' &)$ oiv elSov 'Ekkviiv tirl irhpyov lovaav, 'Hxa wpos AXXijXous h/ea icripbevr' aySpevov'
and Sam. Clark as follows:
"Tales utique Trojanorum proceres sedebant in turri. Hi autem ut viderunt Helenam ad turrim venientem,
;"
*Hko is an adjective of sound, it is purely objective, even submisse* is an addition; though "Rxa might, by a slight strain, be taken to mean that the speech of the old men came little by little, a phrase from each of the elders. Still it would be purely objective. It does not even say they spoke humbly or with resignation.
Chapman is no closer than his successor. He is so galant in fact, that I thought I had found his description in Rochefort. The passage is splendid, but splendidly unhomeric
"All grave old men, and soldiers they had been, but for age
Now left the wars; yet counsellors they were exceed- ingly sage.
And as in well-grown woods, on trees, cold spiny grass- hoppers
*/. e. Clark is "correct," but the words shade differently. 'Hko means low, quiet, with a secondary meaning of "little by little. '' Submisse means low, quiet, with a secondary meaning of modesty, humbly.
Submisse inter se verbis alatis dixerunt
? 326 INSTIGATIONS
Sit chirping, and send voices out, that scarce can pierce our ears
For softness, and their weak faint sounds; so, talking on the tow'r.
These seniors of the people sat; who when they saw the pow'r
Of beauty, in the queen, ascend, ev'n those cold-spirited peers.
Those wise and almost wither'd men, found this heat in their years.
That they were forc'd (though whispering) to say: 'What man can blame
The Greeks and Trojans to endure, for so admir'd a dame.
So many mis'ries, and so long? In her sweet count'nance shine
Looks like the Goddesses. And yet (though never so divine)
Before we boast, unjustly still, of her enforced prise. And justly suffer for her sake, with all our progenies. Labor and ruin, let her go ; the profit of our land Mustpassthebeauty. ' Thus,thoughthesecouldbear
so fit a hand
On their affections, yet, when all their gravest powers
were us'd.
They could not choose but welcome her, and rather they
accus'd
The Gods than beauty; for thus spake the most-fam'd
:"
king of Troy
The last sentence representing mostly 'Qs ftp t<l>a in the line:
*i2s &p i<j>av' Uplafios S' 'EXkvTiv kKaXkffffaro tjiuv^' "Sic dixerunt: Priamus autem Helenam vocavit voce. "
: " :;
? TRANSLATORS OF GREEK 327 Chapman is nearer Swinburne's ballad with:
"But those three following men," etc. than to his alleged original.
Rochefort is as follows {lUade, Livre iii, M. de Rochefort, 1772)
"Helene a ce discours sentit naitre en son ame
Un doux ressouvenir de sa premiere flamme;
Le desir de revoir les lieux qu'elle a quittes
Jette un trouble inconnu dans ses sens agites. Tremblante elle se leve et les yeux pleins de larmes, D'un voile eblouissant elle couvre ses charmes
.
De deux femmes suivie elle vole aux remparts.
La s'etaient assembles ces illustres vieillards
Qui courbes sous le faix des travajix et de I'age N'alloient plus au combat signaler leur courage, Mais qui, pres de leur Roi, par de sages avis, Mieux qu'en leurs jeunes ans defendoient leur pais.
Dans leurs doux entretiens, leur voix toujours egale Ressembloit aux accents que forme la cigale, Lorsqu'aux longs jours d'ete cachee en un buisson, Elle vient dans les champs annoncer la moisson.
Une tendre surprise enflamma leurs visages; Frappes de ses appas, ils se disoient entre eux
'Qui pourroit s'etonner que tant de Rois fameux, Depuis neuf ans entiers aient combattu pour elle? Sur le trone des cieux Venus n'est pas plus belle.
"Mais quelque soit I'amour qu'inspirent ses attraits, Puisse lUion enfin la perdre pour jamais, Puisse-t-elle bientot a son epoux rendue.
Conjurer I'infortune en ces lieux attendue. '
:
? 328 INSTIGATIONS
Hugues Salel (1545), praised by Ronsard, is more pleasing
"Le Roi Priam, et auec luy bon nombre De grandz Seigneurs estoient a I'ombre Sur les Crenaulx, Tymoetes et Pahthus, Lampus, Clytus, excellentz en vertus, Hictaon renomme en bataille, Ucalegon iadis de fort taille,
Et Antenor aux armes nompareil
Mais pour alors ne seruantz qu'en conseil.
La, ces Vieillards assis de peur du Hasle Causoyent ensemble ainsi que la Cignalle Ou deux ou trois, entre les vertes fueilles. En temps d'Este gazouillant a merveilles; Lesquelz voyans la diuine Gregeoise, Disoient entre eux que si la grande noise De ces deux camps duroit longe saision, Certainement ce n'estoit sans raision:
Veu la Beaulte, et plus que humain outrage. Qui reluysoit en son diuin visaige.
Ce neantmoins il vauldrait mieulx la rendre, (Ce disoyent ilz) sans gueres plus attendre. Pour eviter le mal qui peult venir,
Qui la voudra encores retenir. "
Salel is a most delightful approach to the Iliads; he is still absorbed in the subject-matter, as Douglas and Golding were absorbed in their subject-matter. Note how exact he is in the rendering of the old men's mental attitude. Note also that he is right in his era. I mean simply that Homer is a little rustre, a . little, or perhaps a good deal, mediaeval, he has not the dovetailing of Ovid. Hehasonomatopoeia,asofpoetrysungout;he
? TRANSLATORS OF GREEK
329
has authenticity of conversation as would be demanded by an intelligent audience not yet laminated with aesthetics; capable of recognizing reality. He has the repetitions of the chanson de geste. Of all the French and English versions I think Salel alone gives any hint ofsomeofthesecharacteristics. Tooobviouslyheisnot onomatopoeic, no. But he is charming, and readable, and "Briseis Fleur des Demoiselles" has her reality.
Nicolo Valla is, for him who runs, closer:
"Consili virtus, summis de rebus habebant
Sermones, et multa inter se et magna loquentes, Arboribus quales gracili stridere cicadse
Ssepe solent cantu, postquam sub moenibus altis Tyndarida aspiciunt, procerum tum quisque fremebat, Mutuasque exorsi, Decuit tot funera Teucros Argolicasque pati, longique in tempore bellum
Tantus in ore decor cui non mortalis in artus
Est honor et vultu divina efflagrat imago.
Diva licet fades, Danauum cum classe recedat
' Longius excido ne nos aut nostra fatiget Pignora sic illi tantis de rebus agebant. "
This hexameter is rather heavily accented. It shows, perhaps, the source of various "ornaments" in later Eng- lish and French translations. It has indubitable sonority even though monotonous.
It is the earliest Latin verse rendering I have yet come upon, and is bound in with Raphael of Volterra's first two Iliads, and some further renderings by Obsopeo.
Odyssea (Liber primus) (1573).
"Die mihi musa uirum captae post tempora Troiae Qui mores hominum multorum uidit et urbes
? 330
INSTIGATIONS
Multa quoque et ponto passus dum naufragus errat Ut sibi turn sociis uitam seruaret in alto
Non tamen hos cupens fato deprompsit acerbo
Ob scelus admissum extinctos ausumque malignum Qui fame compulsu solis rapuere iuvencos
Stuiti ex quo reditum ad patrias deus abstulit oras. Horum itaque exitium memora mihi musa canenti. "
Odyssea (Lib. sec. ) (1573).
"Cumprimum effulsit roseis aurora quadrigis Continuo e stratis proles consurgit Ulyxis Induit et uestes humerosque adcomodat ensem Molia denin pedibus formosis uincula nectit Parque dec egrediens thalamo praeconibus omnis Concilio cognant extemplo mandat Achaeos
Ipse quoque ingentem properabat ad aedibus hastam Corripiens : gemenique canes comitantor euntem Qtiumque illi mirum Pallas veneranda decorem Preberer populus venientem suspicit omnis
Inque throno patrio ueteres cessere sedenti. "
The charm of Salel is continued in the following ex- cerpts. They do not cry out for comment. I leave Ogilby's English and the lines of Latin to serve as con- trast or cross-light.
Iliade (Livre I). Hugues Salel (1545). *
THE IRE
"Je te supply Deesse. gracieuse, Vouloir chanter I'lre pernicieuse,
* Later continued by I'Abbe de St. Cherrou,
::
? TRANSLATORS OF GREEK
331
Dont Achille fut tellement espris.
Que par icelle, ung grand nombre d'espritz Des Princes Grecs, par dangereux encombres, Feit lors descente aux infernales Umbres. , Et leurs beaulx Corps privez de Sepulture Furent aux chiens et aux oiseaulx pasture. "
Iliade (Lib. III). John Ogilby (1660).
HELEN
"Who in this chamber, sumpteously adornd Sits on your ivory bed, nor could you say,
By his rich habit, he had fought to-day
A reveller or masker so comes drest.
From splendid sports returning to his rest. Thus did love's Queen warmer desires prepare. But when she saw her neck so heavenly faire, Her lovely bosome and celestial eyes.
Amazed, to the Goddess, she replies
Why wilt thou happless me once more betray, And to another wealthy town convey,
Where some new favourite must, as now at Troy With utter loss of honour me enjoy. "
Iliade (LivreVI). Salel.
GLAUCUS RESPOND A DIOMfiDE
"Adonc Glaucus, auec grace et audace, Luy respoftdit: 'T'enquiers tu de ma race? Le genre humain est fragile et muable Comme la fueille et aussi peu durable.
:
? 332
INSTIGATIONS
Car tout ainsi qu'on uoit les branches uertes Sur le printemps de fueilles bien couuertes Qui par les uents d'automne et la froidure Tombent de I'arbre et perdent leur uerdure Puis de rechef la gelee passee,
II en reuient a la place laissee
Ne plus ne moins est du lignage humain: Tel est buy uif qui sera mort demain.
S'il en meurt ung, ung autre reuint naistre.
"
Iliade (Lib. VI). As in Virgil, Dante, and others.
"Quasim gente rogas ? Quibus et natalibus ortus ? Persimile est foliis hominum genus omne caduciis Quae nunc nata uides, pulchrisque, uirescere sylvis Automno ueniente cadunt, simul ilia perurens Incubuit Boreas : quaedam sub uerna renasci Tempora, sic uice perpetua succrescere lapsis, Semper item nova, sic alliis obeuntibus, ultro Succedunt alii luuenes aetate grauatis.
Quod si forte iuvat te qua sit quisque suorum Stirpe satus, si natales cognoscere quaeris
Forte meos, referam, quae sunt notissima multis. "
Iliade (Livre IX). Salel.
CALYDON
"En Calydon regnoit Oeneus, ung bon Roy qui donnoit
De ses beaulx Fruictz chascun an les Primices Aux Immortelz, leur faisant Sacrifices.
Voyla comment se conserue leur estre. '
;
? TRANSLATORS OF GREEK
333
Or il aduint (ou bien par son uouloir,
Ou par oubly) qU'il meit a nonchalloir
Diane chaste, et ne luy feit offrande,
Dont elle print Injiignation grande
Encontre luy, et pour bien le punir
Feit ung Sanglier dedans ses Champs uenir Horrible et fier qui luy feit grand dommage Tuant les Gens et gastant le Fruictage. Maintz beaulx Pomiers, maintz Arbres reuestuz De Fleur et Fruict, en furent abattuz,
Et de la Dent aguisee et poinctue,
Le Bled gaste et la Vigne tortue.
Meleager, le Filz de ce bon Roy,
Voyant ainsi le piteux Desarroy
De son Pays et de sa Gent troublee
Proposa lors de faire une Assemblee
De bons Veneurs et Leutiers pour chasser L'horrible Beste et sa Mort pourchasser.
Ce qui fut faict. Maintes Gens I'y trouverent Qui contre luy ses Forces eprouverent
Mjais a la fin le Sanglier inhumain Recent la Mort de sa Royale Main.
