Part 24

HANC puto de proprio tinxit Sol aureus ortu aut unum ex radiis maluit esse suis; uel, si etiam centum foliis rosa Cypridis exstat, fluxit in hanc omni sanguine tota Venus. haec florum sidus, haec Lucifer almus in agris, huic odor et color est dignus honore poli.

_382. A Water Urn with a Figure of Cupid_

IGNE salutifero Veneris puer omnia flammans pro facibus facilis arte ministrat aquas.

_383. His Book's proper Place_

PARVVS nobilium cum liber ad domos pomposique fori scrinia publica cinctus multifido ueneris agmine, nostri defugiens pauperiem laris, quo dudum modico sordidus angulo squalebas, tineis iam prope debitus, si te despiciet turba legentium inter Romulidas et Tyrias manus, isto pro exsequiis claudere disticho: contentos propriis esse decet focis, quos laudis facile est inuidiam pati.

PHOCAS

circa 500 A.D. (?).

_384. Poetry and Time_

(Prefixed to his Life of Vergil)

O VETVSTATIS ueneranda custos, regios actus simul et fugacis temporum cursus docilis referre, aurea Clio, tu nihil magnum sinis interire, nil mori clarum pateris, reseruans posteris prisci monumenta saecli condita libris. sola fucatis uariare dictis paginas nescis, set aperta quicquid ueritas prodit, recinis per aeuum simplice lingua. tu senescentis titulos auorum flore durantis reparas iuuentae; militat uirtus tibi: te notante crimina pallent. tu fori turbas strepitusque litis effugis dulci moderata cantu, nec retardari pateris loquellas conpede metri. his faue dictis: retegenda uita est uatis Etrusci, modo qui perenne Romulae uoci decus adrogauit carmine sacro.

TRANSLATIONS AND IMITATIONS

The Selection that follows needs some explanation. I have made no systematic search in the literature of translation: and it is likely enough that I have omitted renderings more beautiful, or more interesting, than some which I have included. I have not tried to do more than to collect together a few old 'favourites' of my own. Moreover I have--save for one or two examples--confined myself to the four principal Latin poets.

I have interpreted the word 'Imitations' rather widely. It is quite possible, for example, that Clough never read Vergil's _Lines Written in a Lecture-Room_ (Catalepton V): yet the poem of Clough which I have brought into connexion with this piece is, I think, a truer translation of it than could be found elsewhere. I will venture to hope, again, that I may be readily forgiven for placing beside Statius' famous _Invocation to Sleep_ six sonnets on a like subject from six English masters of the sonnet-form.

I have to thank the following authors and publishers for permission to reprint copyright pieces: Messrs. G. Bell & Sons (four versions by Calverley, Nos. 67, 82, 145, 149), Prof. D.A. Slater (versions of Lucretius, Nos. 66, 69, and Catullus, No. 97), Messrs. Blackwood (two pieces by the late Sir Theodore Martin, Nos. 92, 136), Prof. Ellis and Mr. John Murray (version of Catullus, No. 85), The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press and the Executors of the late Sir R.C. Jebb (version of Catullus, No. 74), Mr. L.J. Latham and Messrs. Smith Elder (version of Propertius, No. 179, from Mr. Latham's _Odes of Horace and Other Verses_), Messrs. George Allen (version of Horace from the _Ionica_ of the late William Cory, No. 148), Mr. John Murray (version of Horace by Mr. Gladstone, No. 126), Dr. T.H. Warren and Mr. John Murray (version of Vergil, No. 110), Mr. James Rhoades and Messrs. Kegan Paul (version of Vergil, No. 119), Mr. W.H. Fyfe (version of Statius, No. 262).

_44_

By the side of this Epitaph may be placed Pope's Epitaph upon Mrs. Corbet, with Johnson's comment:

HERE rests a woman good without pretence, Blest with plain reason and with sober sense. No conquest she, but o'er herself, desired, No arts essayed but not to be admired. Passion and pride were to her soul unknown, Convinced that Virtue only is our own. So unaffected, so composed a mind, So firm, yet soft, so strong, yet so refined, Heaven, as its purest gold, by tortures tried; The saint sustained it, but the woman died.

'The subject of it', says Johnson, 'is a character not discriminated by any shining or eminent peculiarities: yet that which really makes, though not the splendour, the felicity of life, and that which every wise man will choose for his final and lasting companion in the languor of age, in the quiet of privacy, when he departs weary and disgusted from the ostentatious, the volatile and the vain. Of such a character, which the dull overlook, and the gay despise, it was fit that the value should be made known and the dignity established.'

_66_

(Beginning at the third paragraph, _Illud in his rebus..._)

BUT here's the rub. There soon may come a time You'll count right reason treason and the prime Of mind the spring of guilt; whereas more oft In blind Religion are the seeds of crime.

Think how at Aulis to the Trivian Maid The hero-kings of Greece their homage paid, The flower of men, whose impious piety Iphianassa on the altar laid.

Behold the bride! upon her head the crown Of ritual, that from either cheek let down An equal streamer. But cold rapture hers As on her father's face she marked the frown:

A frown of anguish: at his side the men Of doom, and in their hands, screened from her ken, Death; and her countrymen shed tears to see The lamb, poor victim, in the lions' den.

Then dumb with fear, not tongue-tied with delight, She drooped to earth. What profited it her plight She was her father's first-born? Not the less They took her. Death, not Love, ordained the rite.

His were the bridesmen, and the altar his To which with quaking limbs in fearfulness Uplifted then, sans song, sans ritual due, She was brought home--but not to wedded bliss,

A maid, but marred not married, in the spring Of life and love's sweet prime, to yield the king A victim, and the fleet fair voyaging: Such wrongs Religion in her train doth bring.

D.A. SLATER.

_67_

SWEET, when the great sea's water is stirred to his depths by the storm-winds, Standing ashore to descry one afar-off mightily struggling: Not that a neighbour's sorrow to you yields dulcet enjoyment: But that the sight hath a sweetness, of ills ourselves are exempt from. Sweet too 'tis to behold, on a broad plain mustering, war hosts Arm them for some great battle, one's self unscathed by the danger:-- Yet still happier this: to possess, impregnably guarded, Those calm heights of the sages, which have for an origin Wisdom: Thence to survey our fellows, observe them this way and that way Wander amidst Life's path, poor stragglers seeking a highway: Watch mind battle with mind, and escutcheon rival escutcheon: Gaze on that untold strife, which is waged 'neath the sun and the starlight, Up as they toil on the surface whereon rest Riches and Empire. O race born unto trouble! O minds all lacking of eye-sight! 'Neath what a vital darkness, amidst how terrible dangers Move ye thro' this thing Life, this fragment! Fools that ye hear not Nature clamour aloud for the one thing only: that, all pain Parted and passed from the body, the mind too bask in a blissful Dream, all fear of the future and all anxiety over! Now as regards man's body, a few things only are needful, (Few, tho' we sum up all), to remove all misery from him, Aye, and to strew in his path such a lib'ral carpet of pleasures That scarce Nature herself would at times ask happiness greater. Statues of youth and of beauty may not gleam golden around him, (Each in his right hand bearing a great lamp lustrously burning, Whence to the midnight revel a light may be furnishëd always), Silver may not shine softly, nor gold blaze bright, in his mansion, Nor to the noise of the tabret his halls gold-cornicëd echo:-- Yet still he, with his fellow, reposed on the velvety greensward, Near to a rippling stream, by a tall tree canopied over, Shall, though they lack great riches, enjoy all bodily pleasure: Chiefliest then when above them a fair sky smiles, and the young year Flings with a bounteous hand over each green meadow the wild-flowers:-- Not more quickly depart from his bosom fiery fevers, Who beneath crimson hangings and pictures cunningly broidered Tosses about, than from him who must lie in beggarly raiment. Therefore, since to the body avail not riches, avails not Heraldry's utmost boast, nor the pomp and pride of an empire; Next shall you own that the mind needs likewise nothing of these things; Unless--when, peradventure, your armies over the champaign Spread with a stir and a ferment and bid War's image awaken, Or when with stir and with ferment a fleet sails forth upon ocean-- Cowed before these brave sights, pale Superstition abandon Straightway your mind as you gaze, Death seem no longer alarming, Trouble vacate your bosom and Peace hold holiday in you. But if (again) all this be a vain impossible fiction, If of a truth men's fears and the cares which hourly beset them Heed not the javelin's fury, regard not clashing of broad-swords, But all boldly amongst crowned heads and the rulers of empires Stalk, not shrinking abashed from the dazzling glare of the red gold, Not from the pomp of the monarch who walks forth purple-apparelled: These things shew that at times we are bankrupt, surely, of reason: Think too that all man's life through a great Dark laboureth onward. For as a young boy trembles and in that mystery, Darkness, Sees all terrible things: so do we too, ev'n in the daylight, Ofttimes shudder at that which is not more really alarming Than boys' fears when they waken and say some danger is o'er them. So this panic of mind, these clouds which gather around us, Fly not the bright sunbeam, nor the ivory shafts of the daylight: Nature, rightly revealed, and the Reason only, dispel them.

C.S. CALVERLEY

_69_

OUT of the night, out of the blinding night Thy beacon flashes;--hail, beloved light Of Greece and Grecian; hail, for in the mirk Thou dost reveal each valley and each height.

Thou art my leader and the footprints thine, Wherein I plant my own. Thro' storm and shine Thy love upholds me. Ne'er was rivalry 'Twixt owl and thrush, 'twixt steeds and shambling kine.

The world was thine to read, and having read, Before thy children's eyes thou didst outspread The fruitful page of knowledge, all the wealth Of wisdom, all her plenty for their bread.

As honey-bees thro' flowery glades in June Rifle the blossoms, so at our high-noon Of life we gather in melodious glades The golden honey of thy deathless rune.

And whoso roams benighted, on his ear, Out of the darkness strikes an echo clear Of thy triumphant challenge:--'Ye who quail, Come unto me, for I have cast out fear.'

Thereat the walls o' the world fade far away And thou, great Nature's seër, dost display The miracle of her workings in the void:-- The night is past and reason dawns with day.

Heaven lies about us and we see the hall, Where never storm-fiend raves nor snow-flakes fall In webs of winter whiteness to ensnare The golden summer. Peace is over all;

A canopy of cloudless sky, a glow Of laughing sunshine; all the flowers that blow Are there, and there from Nature's teeming breast Rivers of strength and sweetness ever flow.

The veil of Acheron is rent in twain; His phantom precincts vanish. Ne'er again Can Earth conceal the secret:--it is ours; And all that once was hidden is made plain.

Hail, mighty Master, hail! The world was thine, For thou hadst read her riddle line by line, Scroll upon scroll; and now ... oh, ecstasy Of awe and rapture,... thou hast made her mine.

D.A. SLATER.

_70_

I give a part of this piece in the version of Dryden, beginning from _Cerberus et furiae_. 'I am not dissatisfied', says Dryden, 'upon the review of anything I have done in this author.'

AS for the Dog, the Furies and their Snakes, The gloomy Caverns and the burning Lakes, And all the vain infernal trumpery, They neither are, nor were, nor e'er can be. But here on earth the guilty have in view The mighty pains to mighty mischiefs due, Racks, prisons, poisons, the Tarpeian Rock, Stripes, hangmen, pitch and suffocating smoke, And, last and most, if these were cast behind, The avenging horror of a conscious mind, Whose deadly fear anticipates the blow, And sees no end of punishment and woe, But looks for more at the last gasp of breath. This makes a hell on earth, and life a death. Meantime, when thoughts of death disturb thy head, Consider: Ancus great and good is dead; Ancus, thy better far, was born to die, And thou, dost _thou_ bewail mortality? So many monarchs, with their mighty state Who ruled the world, were over-ruled by Fate. That haughty King who lorded o'er the main, And whose stupendous bridge did the wild waves restrain-- In vain they foamed, in vain they threatened wrack, While his proud legions marched upon their back,-- Him Death, a greater monarch, overcame, Nor spared his guards the more for their Immortal name. The Roman chief, the Carthaginian's dread, Scipio, the Thunder Bolt of War, is dead, And like a common slave by Fate in triumph led. The founders of invented arts are lost, And wits who made eternity their boast. Where now is Homer, who possessed the throne? The immortal work remains, the mortal author's gone.

DRYDEN.

_74_

DIANA guardeth our estate, Girls and boys immaculate; Boys and maidens pure of stain, Be Diana our refrain.

O Latonia, pledge of love Glorious to most glorious Jove, Near the Delian olive-tree Latona gave thy life to thee,

That thou should'st be for ever queen Of mountains and of forests green; Of every deep glen's mystery; Of all streams and their melody.

Women in travail ask their peace From thee, our Lady of Release: Thou art the Watcher of the Ways: Thou art the Moon with borrowed rays:

And, as thy full or waning tide Marks how the monthly seasons glide, Thou, Goddess, sendest wealth of store To bless the farmer's thrifty floor.

Whatever name delights thine ear, By that name be thou hallowed here; And, as of old, be good to us, The lineage of Romulus.

R.C. JEBB.

_82_

GEM of all isthmuses and isles that lie, Fresh or salt water's children, in clear lake Or ampler ocean: with what joy do I Approach thee, Sirmio! Oh! am I awake, Or dream that once again my eye beholds Thee, and has looked its last on Thynian wolds? Sweetest of sweets to me that pastime seems, When the mind drops her burden: when--the pain Of travel past--our own cot we regain, And nestle on the pillow of our dreams! 'Tis this one thought that cheers us as we roam. Hail, O fair Sirmio! Joy, thy lord is here! Joy too, ye waters of the Garda Mere! And ring out, all ye laughter-peals of home.

C.S. CALVERLEY.

_83_

This beautiful and delicate piece remains the despair of the translator. I quote a few lines of Cowley's sometimes rather clumsy version (beginning from _Sic, inquit, mea uita_):

'MY little life, my all,' said she, 'So may we ever servants be To this best god, and ne'er retain Our hated liberty again: So may thy passion last for me As I a passion have for thee Greater and fiercer much than can Be conceived by thee a man. Into my marrow is it gone, Fixt and settled in the bone, It reigns not only in my heart But runs like fire through every part.' She spoke: the god of Love aloud Sneezed again, and all the crowd Of little Loves that waited by Bowed and blest the augury.

COWLEY.

_85 b_

So many critics have compared Catullus to Burns that some of them may be glad to see this North-Italian rendered into the English of the North.

WEEP, weep, ye Loves and Cupids all, And ilka Man o' decent feelin': My lassie's lost her wee, wee bird, And that's a loss, ye'll ken, past healin'.

The lassie lo'ed him like her een: The darling wee thing lo'ed the ither, And knew and nestled to her breast, As ony bairnie to her mither.

Her bosom was his dear, dear haunt-- So dear, he cared na lang to leave it; He'd nae but gang his ain sma' jaunt, And flutter piping back bereavit.

The wee thing's gane the shadowy road That's never travelled back by ony: Out on ye, Shades! ye're greedy aye To grab at aught that's brave and bonny.

Puir, foolish, fondling, bonnie bird, Ye little ken what wark ye're leavin': Ye've gar'd my lassie's een grow red, Those bonnie een grow red wi' grievin'.

G.S. DAVIES.

I append the version of Prof. R. Ellis, which preserves the metre of the original:

WEEP each heavenly Venus, all the Cupids, Weep all men that have any grace about ye. Dead the sparrow, in whom my love delighted, The dear sparrow, in whom my love delighted.

Yea, most precious, above her eyes, she held him, Sweet, all honey: a bird that ever hail'd her Lady mistress, as hails the maid a mother;

Nor would move from her arms away: but only Hopping round her, about her, hence or hither, Piped his colloquy, piped to none beside her.

Now he wendeth along the mirky pathway, Whence, they tell us, is hopeless all returning.

Evil on ye, the shades of evil Orcus, Shades all beauteous happy things devouring, Such a beauteous happy bird ye took him.

Ah! for pity; but ah! for him the sparrow, Our poor sparrow, on whom to think my lady's Eyes do angrily redden all a-weeping.

R. ELLIS.

_86 a_

Langhorne is best known by his translation of Plutarch's _Lives_. But he was a copious poet; and Catullus has never perhaps been more gracefully rendered than in the following piece:

LESBIA, live to love and pleasure, Careless what the grave may say: When each moment is a treasure Why should lovers lose a day?

Setting suns shall rise in glory, But when little life is o'er, There's an end of all the story-- We shall sleep, and wake no more.

Give me, then, a thousand kisses, Twice ten thousand more bestow, Till the sum of boundless blisses Neither we nor envy know.

J. LANGHORNE.

I append the beginning of Blacklock's version:

THOUGH sour-loquacious Age reprove, Let _us_, my Lesbia, live for love. For when the short-lived suns decline They but retire more bright to shine: But we, when fleeting life is o'er And light and love can bless no more, Are ravished from each dear delight To sleep one long eternal night.

T. BLACKLOCK.

_86 b_

KISS me, sweet: the wary lover Can your favours keep, and cover, When the common courting jay All your bounties will betray. Kiss again! no creature comes; Kiss, and score up wealthy sums On my lips, thus hardly sundered, While you breathe. First give a hundred, Then a thousand, then another Hundred, then unto the tother Add a thousand and so more, Till you equal with the store All the grass that Rumney yields, Or the sands in Chelsea fields, Or the drops in silver Thames, Or the stars that gild his streams In the silent summer nights When Youth plies its stolen delights: That the curious may not know How to tell 'em as they flow, And the envious, when they find What their number is, be pined.

BEN JONSON.

_92_

CATULLUS, let the wanton go: No longer play the fool, but deem For ever lost what thou must know Is fled for ever like a dream!

O life was once a heaven to thee! To haunt her steps was rapture then-- That woman loved as loved shall be No woman ever on earth again.

Then didst thou freely taste the bliss, On which empassioned lovers feed: When she repaid thee kiss for kiss, O, life was then a heaven indeed!

'Tis past: forget as she forgets: Lament no more, but let her go: Tear from thy heart its mad regrets, And into very marble grow!

Girl, fare thee well. Catullus ne'er Will sue where love is met with scorn: But, false one, thou with none to care For thee, shalt pine through days forlorn.

Think, think, how drear thy life will be! Who'll woo thee now? who praise thy charms? Who now will be all in all to thee And live but in thy loving arms?

Ay, who will give thee kiss for kiss, Whose lip wilt thou in rapture bite? But thou, Catullus, think of this And spurn her in thine own despite.

THEODORE MARTIN.

_97_

Of this, one of the most famous and effective of Catullus's poems, I offer two versions. The first (an adaptation) is by 'knowing Walsh', the friend of Pope, pronounced by Dryden to be 'the first critic in the nation': the second is by Prof. Slater of Cardiff:

IS there a pious pleasure that proceeds From contemplation of our virtuous deeds? That all mean sordid action we despise, And scorn to gain a throne by cheats and lies? Thyrsis, thou hast sure blessings laid in store From thy just dealing in this curst amour. What honour can in words or deeds be shown Which to the fair thou hast not said and done? On her false heart they all are thrown away: She only swears more easily to betray. Ye powers that know the many vows she broke, Free my just soul from this unequal yoke. My love boils up, and like a raging flood Runs through my veins and taints my vital blood. I do not vainly beg she may grow chaste, Or with an equal passion burn at last-- The one she cannot practise, though she would, And I contemn the other, though she should--: Nor ask I vengeance on the perjured jilt; 'Tis punishment enough to have her guilt. I beg but balsam for my bleeding breast, Cure for my wounds and from my labours rest.

W. WALSH.

IF any joy awaits the man Of generous hand and conscience clean, Who ne'er has leagued with powers unseen To wrong the partner of his plan;

Rich store of memories thou hast won From this thy seeming-fruitless love, Who all that man may do to prove His faith by word or deed hast done,

And all in vain. Her thankless heart Is hardened. Harden then thine own. Writhe not but part, as stone from stone, And willy-nilly heal the smart.

'Tis hard, ay, hard to fling aside A love long cherished. Yet you must. Be strong, prevail, and from the dust A conqueror rise, whate'er betide.

Ye gods, who of your mercy give Force to the fainting, let my life Of honour win me rest from strife, And from my blood the canker drive; Ere yet from limb to limb it steal, And in black darkness plunge my soul, Oh, drive it hence and make me whole; A caitiff wounds, a god may heal.

No more for answering love I sue, No more that her untruth be true: Purge but my heart, my strength renew And doom me not my faith to rue.

D.A. SLATER.

_100_

OVER the mighty world's highway, City by city, sea by sea, Brother, thy brother comes to pay Pitiful offerings unto thee.

I only ask to grace thy bier With gifts that only give farewell, To tell to ears that cannot hear The things that it is vain to tell,

And, idly communing with dust, To know thy presence still denied, And ever mourn forever lost A soul that never should have died.

Yet think not wholly vain to-day This fashion that our fathers gave That hither brings me, here to lay Some gift of sorrow on thy grave.