by Catullus
We, poore soules goe to wracke, and from these coastes be remoued,
And fro our pastures sweete: thou Tityr, at ease in a shade plott
Makst thicke groues to resound with songes of brave Amarillis.
TITYRUS.
O Melibaeus, he was no man, but a God who releeude me:
Euer he shalbe my God: from this same Sheepcot his alters
Neuer, a tender lambe shall want, with blood to bedew them.
This good gift did he giue, to my steeres thus freelie to wander,
And to my selfe (thou seest) on pipe to resound what I listed.
ib. 50-56.
Here no unwoonted foode shall grieue young theaues who be laded,
Nor the infections foule of neighbours flocke shall annoie them.
Happie olde man. In shaddowy bankes and coole prettie places,
Heere by the quainted floodes and springs most holie remaining.
Here, these quicksets fresh which lands seuer out fro thy neighbors
And greene willow rowes which Hiblae bees doo rejoice in,
Oft fine whistring noise, shall bring sweete sleepe to thy sences.
The following stanzas are from a Sapphic ode into which Webbe translated, or as we should say, transposed the fourth Eclogue of Spenser’s Sheepheardes Calendar.
Say, behold did ye euer her Angelike face,
Like to Phoebe fayre? or her heauenly hauour
And the princelike grace that in her remaineth?
haue yee the like seene?
Vnto that place Caliope dooth high her,
Where my Goddesse shines: to the same the Muser
After her with sweete Violines about them
cheerefully tracing.
All ye Sheepheardes maides that about the greene dwell,
Speede ye there to her grace, but among ye take heede
All be Virgins pure that aproche to deck her,
dutie requireth.
When ye shall present ye before her in place,
See ye not your selues doo demeane too rudely:
Bynd the fillets: and to be fine the waste gyrt
fast with a tawdryne.
Bring the Pinckes therewith many Gelliflowres sweete,
And the Cullambynes: let vs haue the Wynesops,
With the Coronation that among the loue laddes
wontes to be worne much.
Daffadowndillies all a long the ground strowe,
And the Cowslyppe with a prety paunce let heere lye.
Kyngcuppe and Lillies so beloude of all men
and the deluce flowre.
There are many faults in these verses; over quaintnesses of language, constructions impossible in English, quantities of doubtful correctness, harsh elisions, for Webbe has tried even elisions. Yet, if I may trust my judgment, all of them can still be read with pleasure; the sapphics may almost be called a success. This is even more true of metres, where these faults are less perceptible or more easily avoided, for instance, Asclepiads. Take the verses on solitariness, Arcadia, B. II. fin.
O sweet woods, the delight ōf sŏlĭtāriness!
O how much I do like your solitariness!
Where man’s mind hath a freed consideration
Of goodness to receive lovely direction.
or the hendecasyllables immediately preceding,
Reason tell me thy minde, if here be reason,
In this strange violence, to make resistance,
Where sweet graces erect the stately banner.
It is obvious that a very little more trouble would have converted these into very perfect and very pleasing poems. Had Sir Philip Sidney written every asclepiad on the model of Where man’s mind hath a freed consideration, every hendecasyllable like Where sweet graces erect the stately banner, the adjustment of accent and quantity thus attained might, I think, have induced greater poets than he to make the experiment on a larger scale. But neither he nor his contemporaries were permitted to grasp as a principle a regularity which they sometimes secured by chance; nor, so far as I am aware, have the various revivals of ancient metre in this country or Germany in any case consistently carried out the whole theory, without which the reproduction is partial, and cannot look for a more than partial success. Even the four specimens given in the posthumous edition of Clough’s poems, two of them elegiac, one alcaic, one in hexameters, though professedly constructed on a quantitative basis, and, in one instance (Trunks the forest yielded, with gums ambrosial oozing, &c.) combining legitimate quantity (in which accent and position are alike observed) with illegitimate (in which position is observed, but accent disregarded) into a not unpleasing rhythm, cannot be considered as more than imperfect realizations of the true positional principle. Tennyson’s three specimens are, at least in English, still unique. It is to be hoped that he will not suffer them to remain so. Systems of Glyconics and Asclepiads are, if I mistake not, easily manageable, and are only thought foreign to the genius of our language because they have never been written on strict principles of art by a really great master.
What, then, are the rules on which such rhythms become possible? They are, briefly, these: — (1) accented syllables, as a general rule, are long, though some syllables which count as long need not be accented, as in
All that on earth’s leas blooms, what blossoms Thessaly nursing,
blossoms, though only accented on the first syllable, counts for a spondee, the shortness of the second o being partly helped out by the two consonants which follow it; partly by the fact that the syllable is in thesi; (2) the laws of position are to be observed, according to the general rules of classical prosody: (a) dactyls terminating in a consonant like beautiful, bounteous, or ending in a double vowel or a diphthong like all of you, surely may, come to thee, must be followed by a word beginning with a vowel or y or h; dactyls terminating in a vowel or y, like slippery, should be followed, except in rare cases, by words beginning with a consonant; trochees, whether composed of one word or more, should, if ending in a consonant, be followed by a vowel, if ending in the vowel a, by a consonant, thus, planted around not planted beneath, Aurora the sun’s not Aurora a sun’s (see however, lxiv. 253), but unto a wood, any again, sorry at all, you be amused. (b) Syllables made up of a vowel followed by two or more consonants, each of which is distinctly heard in pronunciation, as long, sins, part, band, waits, souls, ears, must, heart, bright, strength, end, and, rapt, hers, dealt, moment, bosoms, answers, mountains, bearest, tumbling, giving, coming, harbouring, difficult, imminent, stratagems, utterance, happiest, tremblingly, can never rank as short, even if unaccented and followed by a vowel, h or y. Thus, to go back to Longfellow’s line,
This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
forĕst, murmurĭng, pines ănd the, are all inadmissible. But where a vowel is followed by two consonants, one of which is unheard or only heard slightly, as in accuse, shall, assemble, dissemble, kindness, compass, affect, appear, annoy, or when the second or third consonant is a liquid, as in betray, beslime, besmear, depress, dethrone, agree, the vowel preceding is so much more short than long as to be regularly admissible as short, rarely admissible as long. On this principle I have allowed disōrdĕrly˘, tēnăntlĕss, heavĕnly˘, to rank as dactyls.
These rules are after all only an outline, and perhaps can never be made more. It will be observed that they are more negative than positive. The reason of this is not far to seek. The main difference between my verses and those of other contemporary writers — the one point on which I claim for myself the merit of novelty — is the strict observance throughout of the rules of position. But the strict observance of position is in effect the strict avoidance of unclassical collocations of syllables: it is almost wholly negative. To illustrate my meaning I will instance the poems written in pure iambics, the Phaselus ille and Quis hoc potest uidere. Heyse translates the first line of the former of these poems by
Die Galeotte, die ihr schauet, liebe Herrn,
and this would be a
fair representation of a pure iambic line, according to the views of most German and most English writers. Yet not only is Die no short syllable, but ihr, itself long, is made more hopelessly long by preceding three consonants in schauet, just as the last syllable of schauet, although in itself short, loses its right to stand for a true short in being followed by the first consonant of liebe. My own translation,
The puny pinnace yonder you, my friends, discern,
whatever its defects, is at least a pretty exact representation of a pure iambic line. xxix. 6-8, are thus translated by Heyse: —
Und jener soll in Uebermuthes Ueberfluss
Von einem Bett zum andern in die Runde gehn?
by me thus,
Shall he in o’er-assumption, o’er-repletion he,
Sedately saunter every dainty couch along?
The difference is purely negative; I have bound myself to avoid certain positions forbidden by the laws of ancient prosody. To some I may seem to have lost in vigour by the process; yet I believe the sense of triumph over the difficulties of our language, the satisfaction of approaching in a novel and perceptibly felt manner one of those excellences which, as much as anything, contributes to the permanent charm of Catullus, his dainty versification, will more than compensate for any shortcomings which the difficulty of the task has made inevitable. The same may be said of the elaborately artificial poem to Camerius (c. lv.), and the almost unapproachable Attis (c. lxiii.). Here, at least half the interest lies in the varied turns of the metre; if these can be represented with anything like faithfulness, the gain in exactness of prosody is enough, in my judgment, to counterbalance the possible loss of freedom in expression.
There is another circumstance which tends to make modern rules of prosody necessarily negative. Quantity, in English revivals of ancient metre, depends not only on position, but on accent. But accent varies greatly in different words; heavy level ever cometh any, have the same accent as empty evil either boometh penny; but the first syllable in the former set of words is lighter than in the latter. Hence, though accented, they may, on occasion, be considered and used as short; as, on the same principle, dolorous stratagem echoeth family, usually dactyls, may, on occasion, become tribrachs. But how lay down any positive rule in matter necessarily so fluctuating? We cannot. All we can do is to refuse admission as short syllables to any heavier accented syllable. Here, then, much must be left to individual discretion. My translation of the Attis will best show my own feeling in the matter. But I am fully aware that in this respect I have fallen far short of consistency. I have made any sometimes short, more often long; to, usually short, is lengthened in lxi. 26, lxvii. 19, lxviii. 143; with is similarly long, though not followed by a consonant, in lxi. 36; given is long in xxviii. 7, short in xi. 17, lxiv. 213; are is short in lxvii. 14; and more generally many syllables allowed to pass for short in the Attis are elsewhere long. Nor have I scrupled to forsake the ancient quantity in proper names; following Heyse, I have made the first syllable of Verona short in xxxv. 3, lxvii. 34, although it retains its proper quantity in lxviii. 27. Again, Pheneos is a dactyl in lxviii. 111, while Satrachus is an anapaest in xcv. 5. In many of these instances I have acted consciously; if the writers of Greece and Rome allowed many syllables to be doubtful, and almost as a principle avoid perfect uniformity in the quantity of proper names, a greater freedom may not unfairly be claimed by their modern imitators. If Catullus could write Pharsăliam coeunt, Pharsălia regna frequentant, similar license may surely be extended to me. I believe, indeed, that nothing in my translation is as violent as the double quantity just mentioned in Catullus; but if there is, I would remind my readers of Goethe’s answer to the boy who told him he had been guilty of a hexameter with seven feet, and applying the remark to any seeming irregularities in my own translation would say, Lass die Bestie stehen.
It would not be difficult to swell this Preface by enlarging on the novelty of the attempt, and indirectly panegyrising my own undertaking. I doubt whether any real advantage would thus be gained. If I have merely produced an elaborate failure, however much I might expatiate on the principles which guided me, my work would be an elaborate failure still. I shall therefore say no more, and shall be contented if I please the, even in this classically trained country, too limited number of readers who can really hear with their ears — if, to use the borrowed language of a great poet, I succeed in making myself vocal to the intelligent alone.
I.
Who shall take thee, the new, the dainty volume,
Purfled glossily, fresh with ashy pumice?
You, Cornelius; you of old did hold them
Something worthy, the petty witty nothings,
While you venture, alone of all Italians, 5
Time’s vast chronicle in three books to circle,
Jove! how arduous, how divinely learned!
Therefore welcome it, yours the little outcast,
This slight volume. O yet, supreme awarder,
Virgin, save it in ages on for ever. 10
II.
Sparrow, favourite of my own beloved,
Whom to play with, or in her arms to fondle,
She delighteth, anon with hardy-pointed
Finger angrily doth provoke to bite her:
When my lady, a lovely star to long for, 5
Bends her splendour awhile to tricksy frolic;
Peradventure a careful heart beguiling,
Pardie, heavier ache perhaps to lighten;
Might I, like her, in happy play caressing
Thee, my dolorous heart awhile deliver! 10
. . . . . . . .
I would joy, as of old the maid rejoiced
Racing fleetly, the golden apple eyeing,
Late-won loosener of the wary girdle.
III.
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, 5
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. 10
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. 15
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.
IV.
1.
The puny pinnace yonder you, my friends, discern,
Of every ship professes agilest to be.
Nor yet a timber o’er the waves alertly flew
She might not aim to pass it; oary-wing’d alike
To fleet beyond them, or to scud beneath a sail. 5
Nor here presumes denial any stormy coast
Of Adriatic or the Cyclad orbed isles,
A Rhodos immemorial, or that icy Thrace,
Propontis, or the gusty Pontic ocean-arm,
Whereon, a pinnace after, in the days of yore 10
A leafy shaw she budded; oft Cytorus’ height
With her did inly whisper airy colloquy.
2.
Amastris, you by Pontus, you, the box-clad hill
Of high Cytorus, all, the pinnace owns, to both
Was ever, is familiar; in the primal years 15
She stood upon your hoary top, a baby tree,
Within your haven early dipt a virgin oar:
To carry thence a master o’er the surly seas,
A world of angry water, hail’d to left, to right
The breeze of invitation, or precisely
set 20
The sheets together op’d to catch a kindly Jove.
Nor yet of any power whom the coasts adore
Was heard a vow to soothe them, all the weary way
From outer ocean unto glassy quiet here.
But all the past is over; indolently now 25
She rusts, a life in autumn, and her age devotes
To Castor and with him ador’d, the twin divine.
V.
Living, Lesbia, we should e’en be loving.
Sour severity, tongue of eld maligning,
All be to us a penny’s estimation.
Suns set only to rise again to-morrow.
We, when sets in a little hour the brief light, 5
Sleep one infinite age, a night for ever.
Thousand kisses, anon to these an hundred,
Thousand kisses again, another hundred,
Thousand give me again, another hundred.
Then once heedfully counted all the thousands, 10
We’ll uncount them as idly; so we shall not
Know, nor traitorous eye shall envy, knowing
All those myriad happy many kisses.
VI.
But that, Flavius, hardly nice or honest
This thy folly, methinks Catullus also
E’en had known it, a whisper had betray’d thee.
Some she-malady, some unhealthy wanton,
Fires thee verily: thence the shy denial. 5
Least, you keep not a lonely night of anguish;
Quite too clamorous is that idly-feigning
Couch, with wreaths, with a Syrian odour oozing;
Then that pillow alike at either utmost
Verge deep-dinted asunder, all the trembling 10
Play, the strenuous unsophistication;
All, O prodigal, all alike betray thee.
Why? sides shrunken, a sullen hip disabled,
Speak thee giddy, declare a misdemeanour.
So, whatever is yours to tell or ill or 15
Good, confess it. A witty verse awaits thee
And thy lady, to place ye both in heaven.
VII.
Ask me, Lesbia, what the sum delightful
