| Au pit she Mon e tög Ne mud wa wa wau we ne gög. The Spirit on high, Repeats my warlike name. |
In the translation of hymns, made during the modern period of missionary effort, there has been no general attempt to secure rhyme; and as these translations are generally due to educated natives, under the inspection and with the critical aid of the missionary, they have evinced a true conception of the genius of the language, by the omission of this accident. Eliot, who translated the psalms of David into the Massachusetts language, which were first printed in 1661, appears to have deemed it important enough to aim at its attainment: but an examination of the work, now before us, gives but little encouragement to others to follow his example, at least while the languages remain in their present rude and uncultivated state. The following is the XXIII Psalm from this version:
1. Mar teag nukquenaabikoo
shepse nanaauk God.
Nussepsinwahik ashkoshqut
nuttinuk ohtopagod
2. Nagum nukketeahog kounoh
wutomohkinuh wonk
Nutuss ∞unuk ut sampoi may
newutch ∞wesnonk.
3. Wutonkauhtamut pomushaon
mupp∞onk ∞nauhkoe
Woskehettuonk mo nukqueh tam∞
newutch k∞wetomah:
4. Kuppogkomunk kutanwohon
nish n∞nenehikquog
K∞noch∞ hkah anquabhettit
wame nummatwomog
5. Kussussequnum nuppuhkuk
weetepummee nashpea
Wonk woi God n∞tallamwaitch
pomponetupohs hau
6. ∞niyeuonk monaneteonk
nutasukkonkqunash
Tohsohke pomantam wekit God
michem nuttain pish[20].
[20] Eliot employed the figure 8, set horizontally, to express a peculiar sound. Otherwise he used the English alphabet in its ordinary powers.
This appears to have been rendered from the version of the psalms appended to an old edition of King James' Bible of 1611, and not from the versification of Watts. By comparing it with this, as exhibited below, there will be found the same metre, eights and sixes, the same syllabical quantity, (if the notation be rightly conceived,) and the same coincidence of rhyme at the second and fourth lines of each verse; although it required an additional verse to express the entire psalm. It could therefore be sung to the ordinary tunes in use in Eliot's time, and, taken in connection with his entire version, including the Old and New Testament, evinces a degree of patient assiduity on the part of that eminent missionary, which is truly astonishing: