“Mr. Lafcadio Hearn, a talented writer on the staff of the New Orleans Times-Democrat, has just translated some of Gautier’s fantastic romances, under the name of ‘One of Cleopatra’s Nights.’ The book comprises six fascinating stories—the one which gives the title, ‘Clarimonde,’ ‘Arria Marcella, a Souvenir of Pompeii,’ ‘The Mummy’s Foot,’ ‘Omphale, a Rococo Story,’ and ‘King Candaule.’ Mr. Hearn has few equals in this country as regards translation, and the stories lose nothing of their artistic unity in his hands. But his hobby is literalism. For instance, of the epitaph in ‘Clarimonde,’—
‘Ici-gît Clarimonde,
Qui fut de son vivant
La plus belle du monde,’
he remarks: ‘The broken beauty of the lines is but inadequately rendered thus:—
‘Here lies Clarimonde,
Who was famed in her lifetime
As the fairest of women.’
Very true—it is inadequate. But why not vary it? For example:—
Here lieth Clarimonde,