CHAPTER X
IT IS LESS DIFFICULT TO ATTAIN THE EASE OF ORIGINAL COMPOSITION IN POETICAL, THAN IN PROSE TRANSLATION.—LYRIC POETRY ADMITS OF THE GREATEST LIBERTY OF TRANSLATION.—EXAMPLES DISTINGUISHING PARAPHRASE FROM TRANSLATION,—FROM DRYDEN, LOWTH, FONTENELLE, PRIOR, ANGUILLARA, HUGHES.
It may perhaps appear paradoxical to assert, that it is less difficult to give to a poetical translation all the ease of original composition, than to give the same degree of ease to a prose translation. Yet the truth of this assertion will be readily admitted, if assent is given to that observation, which I before endeavoured to illustrate, viz. That a superior degree of liberty is allowed to a poetical translator in amplifying, retrenching from, and embellishing his original, than to a prose translator. For without some portion of this liberty, there can be no ease of composition; and where the greatest liberty is allowable, there that ease will be most apparent, as it is less difficult to attain to it.
For the same reason, among the different species of poetical composition, the lyric is that which allows of the greatest liberty in translation; as a freedom both of thought and expression is agreeable to its character. Yet even in this, which is the freest of all species of translation, we must guard against licentiousness; and perhaps the more so, that we are apt to persuade ourselves that the less caution is necessary. The difficulty indeed is, where so much freedom is allowed, to define what is to be accounted licentiousness in poetical translation. A moderate liberty of amplifying and retrenching the ideas of the original, has been granted to the translator of prose; but is it allowable, even to the translator of a lyric poem, to add new images and new thoughts to those of the original, or to enforce the sentiments by illustrations which are not in the original? As the limits between free translation and paraphrase are more easily perceived than they can be well defined, instead of giving a general answer to this question, I think it safer to give my opinion upon particular examples.
Dr. Lowth has adapted to the present times, and addressed to his own countrymen, a very noble imitation of the 6th ode of the third book of Horace: Delicta majorum immeritus lues, &c. The greatest part of this composition is of the nature of parody; but in the version of the following stanza there is perhaps but a slight excess of that liberty which may be allowed to the translator of a lyric poet:
Motus doceri gaudet Ionicos
Matura virgo, et fingitur artubus
Jam nunc, et incestos amores
De tenero meditatur ungui.
The ripening maid is vers’d in every dangerous art,
That ill adorns the form, while it corrupts the heart;
Practis’d to dress, to dance, to play,
In wanton mask to lead the way,
To move the pliant limbs, to roll the luring eye;
With Folly’s gayest partizans to vie
In empty noise and vain expence;
To celebrate with flaunting air
The midnight revels of the fair;
Studious of every praise, but virtue, truth, and sense.
Here the translator has superadded no new images or illustrations; but he has, in two parts of the stanza, given a moral application which is not in the original: “That ill adorns the form, while it corrupts the heart;” and “Studious of every praise, but virtue, truth, and sense.” These moral lines are unquestionably a very high improvement of the original; but they seem to me to transgress, though indeed very slightly, the liberty allowed to a poetical translator.
In that fine translation by Dryden, of the 29th ode of the third book of Horace, which upon the whole is paraphrastical, the version of the two following stanzas has no more licence than what is justifiable:
Fortuna sævo læto negotio, et
Ludum insolentem ludere pertinax,
Transmutat incertos honores,
Nunc mihi, nunc alii benigna.
Laudo manentem: si celeres quatit
Pennas, resigno quæ dedit: et mea
Virtute me involvo, probamque
Pauperiem sine dote quæro.
Fortune, who with malicious joy
Does man, her slave, oppress,
Proud of her office to destroy,
Is seldom pleas’d to bless.
Still various and inconstant still,
But with an inclination to be ill,
Promotes, degrades, delights in strife,
And makes a lottery of life.
I can enjoy her while she’s kind;
But when she dances in the wind,
And shakes her wings, and will not stay,
I puff the prostitute away:
The little or the much she gave is quietly resign’d;
Content with poverty, my soul I arm,
And Virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.
The celebrated verses of Adrian, addressed to his Soul, have been translated and imitated by many different writers.
Animula, vagula, blandula,
Hospes, comesque corporis!
Quæ nunc abibis in loca,
Pallidula, frigida, nudula,
Nec ut soles dabis joca?
By Casaubon.
Ερασμιον ψυχαριον,
Ξενη και εταιρη σωματος,
Ποι νυν ταλαιν ελευσεαι,
Αμενης, γοερατε και σκια,
Ουδ’ ὁια παρος τρυφησεαι;
Except in the fourth line, where there is a slight change of epithets, this may be termed a just translation, exhibiting both the sense and manner of the original.
By Fontenelle.
Ma petite ame, ma mignonne,
Tu t’en vas donc, ma fille, et Dieu sache ou tu vas.
Tu pars seulette, nue, et tremblotante, helas!
Que deviendra ton humeur folichonne?
Que deviendront tant de jolis ébats?
The French translation is still more faithful to the original, and exhibits equally with the former its spirit and manner.
The following verses by Prior are certainly a great improvement upon the original; by a most judicious and happy amplification of the sentiments, (which lose much of their effect in the Latin, from their extreme compression); nor do they, in my opinion, exceed the liberty of poetical translation.
Poor little pretty flutt’ring thing,
Must we no longer live together?
And do’st thou prune thy trembling wing,
To take thy flight, thou know’st not whither?
The hum’rous vein, the pleasing folly,
Lies all neglected, all forgot;
And pensive, wav’ring, melancholy,
Thou dread’st and hop’st thou know’st not what.
Mr. Pope’s Dying Christian to his Soul, which is modelled on the verses of Adrian, retains so little of the thoughts of the original, and substitutes in their place a train of sentiments so different, that it cannot even be called a paraphrase, but falls rather under the description of imitation.
The Italian version of Ovid in ottava rima, by Anguillara, is a work of great poetical merit; but is scarcely in any part to be regarded as a translation of the original. It is almost entirely paraphrastical. In the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, the simple ideas announced in these two lines,
Tempore crevit amor: tædæ quoque jure coïssent;
Sed vetuere patres quod non potuere vetare,
are the subject of the following paraphrase, which is as beautiful in its composition, as it is unbounded in the licence of its amplification.
Era l’amor cresciuto à poco à poco
Secondo erano in lor cresciuti gli anni:
E dove prima era trastullo, e gioco,
Scherzi, corrucci, e fanciulleschi inganni,
Quando fur giunti a quella età di foco
Dove comincian gli amorosi affanni
Che l’alma nostra ha si leggiadro il manto
E che la Donna e’l huom s’amano tanto;
Era tanto l’amor, tanto il desire,
Tanta la fiamma, onde ciascun ardea:
Che l’uno e l’altro si vedea morire,
Se pietoso Himeneo non gli giungea.
E tanto era maggior d’ambi il martire,
Quanto il voler de l’un l’altro scorge.
Ben ambo de le nozze eran contenti,
Ma no’l soffriro i loro empi parenti.
Eran fra i padri lor pochi anni avanti
Nata una troppo cruda inimicitia:
E quanto amore, e fè s’hebber gli amanti,
Tanto regnò ne’ padri odiò e malitia.
Gli huomini della terra piu prestanti,
Tentar pur di ridurli in amicitia;
E vi s’affaticar piu volte assai;
Ma non vi sepper via ritrovar mai.
Quei padri, che fra lor fur si infedeli
Vetaro à la fanciulla, e al giovinetto,
A due si belli amanti, e si fedeli
Che non dier luogo al desiato affetto:
Ahi padri irragionevoli e crudeli,[51]
Perche togliete lor tanto diletto;
S’ogn’un di loro il suo desio corregge
Con la terrena, e la celeste legge?
O sfortunati padri, ove tendete,
Qual ve gli fa destin tener disgiunti?
Perche vetate, quel che non potete?
Che gli animi saran sempre congiunti?
Ahi, che sara di voi, se gli vedrete
Per lo vostro rigor restar defunti?
Ahi, che co’ vostri non sani consigli
Procurate la morte a’ vostri figli!
In the following poem by Mr. Hughes, which the author has intitled an imitation of the 16th ode of the second book of Horace, the greatest part of the composition is a just and excellent translation, while the rest is a free paraphrase or commentary on the original. I shall mark in Italics all that I consider as paraphrastical: the rest is a just translation, in which the writer has assumed no more liberty, than was necessary to give the poem the easy air of an original composition.
I
Indulgent Quiet! Pow’r serene,
Mother of Peace, and Joy, and Love,
O say, thou calm, propitious Queen,
Say, in what solitary grove,
Within what hollow rock, or winding cell,
By human eyes unseen,
Like some retreated Druid dost thou dwell?
And why, illusive Goddess! why,
When we thy mansion would surround,
Why dost thou lead us through enchanted ground,
To mock our vain research, and from our wishes fly.
II
The wand’ring sailors, pale with fear,
For thee the gods implore,
When the tempestuous sea runs high
And when through all the dark, benighted sky
No friendly moon or stars appear,
To guide their steerage to the shore:
For thee the weary soldier prays,
Furious in fight the sons of Thrace,
And Medes, that wear majestic by their side
A full-charg’d quiver’s decent pride,
Gladly with thee would pass inglorious days,
Renounce the warrior’s tempting praise,
And buy thee, if thou might’st be sold,
With gems, and purple vests, and stores of plunder’d gold.
III
But neither boundless wealth, nor guards that wait
Around the Consul’s honour’d gate,
Nor antichambers with attendants fill’d,
The mind’s unhappy tumults can abate,
Or banish sullen cares, that fly
Across the gilded rooms of state,
And their foul nests like swallows build
Close to the palace-roofs and towers that pierce the sky?
Much less will Nature’s modest wants supply:
And happier lives the homely swain,
Who in some cottage, far from noise,
His few paternal goods enjoys;
Nor knows the sordid lust of gain,
Nor with Fear’s tormenting pain
His hovering sleeps destroys.
IV
Vain man! that in a narrow space
At endless game projects the darting spear!
For short is life’s uncertain race;
Then why, capricious mortal! why
Dost thou for happiness repair
To distant climates and a foreign air?
Fool! from thyself thou canst not fly,
Thyself the source of all thy care:
So flies the wounded stag, provoked with pain,
Bounds o’er the spacious downs in vain;
The feather’d torment sticks within his side,
And from the smarting wound a purple tide
Marks all his way with blood, and dies the grassy plain.
V
But swifter far is execrable Care
Than stags, or winds, that through the skies
Thick-driving snows and gather’d tempests bear;
Pursuing Care the sailing ship out-flies.
Climbs the tall vessel’s painted sides;
Nor leaves arm’d squadrons in the field,
But with the marching horseman rides,
And dwells alike in courts and camps, and makes all places yield.
VI
Then, since no state’s completely blest,
Let’s learn the bitter to allay
With gentle mirth, and, wisely gay,
Enjoy at least the present day,
And leave to Fate the rest.
Nor with vain fear of ills to come
Anticipate th’ appointed doom.
Soon did Achilles quit the stage;
The hero fell by sudden death;
While Tithon to a tedious, wasting age
Drew his protracted breath.
And thus, old partial Time, my friend,
Perhaps unask’d, to worthless me
Those hours of lengthen’d life may lend,
Which he’ll refuse to thee.
VII
Thee shining wealth, and plenteous joys surround,
And all thy fruitful fields around
Unnumber’d herds of cattle stray;
Thy harness’d steeds with sprightly voice,
Make neighbouring vales and hills rejoice,
While smoothly thy gay chariot flies o’er the swift-measur’d way.
To me the stars with less profusion kind,
An humble fortune have assign’d,
And no untuneful Lyric vein,
But a sincere contented mind
That can the vile, malignant crowd disdain.[52]