The Complete Works of Richard Crashaw, Volume II

by Richard Crashaw

Dryden's 'The conscious water saw its God, and blush'd,' is a mere remembrance of Crashaw.[35]

(d) Translations and (briefly) Latin and Greek Poetry. It may seem semi-paradoxical to affirm it, but in our opinion the genius of Crashaw shines with its fullest splendour in his Translations, longer and shorter. Even were there not his wonderful 'Suspicion of Herod' and 'Musick's Duell,' this might be said; for in his 'Dies Irae,' and 'Hymne out of Sainte Thomas,' and others lesser, there are felicities that only a genuine Maker could have produced. His 'Dies Irae' was the earliest version in our language. Roscommon and Scott alike wrote after and 'after' it. But it is on the two truly great Poems named we found our estimate. Turning to 'Musick's Duell,' as we ask the reader to do now (vol. i. 197-203), we have only to read critically the Latin of Strada, from whence it is drawn, to discern the creative gift of our Poet. Here it is:

Jam Sol a medio pronus deflexerat orbe
Mitius, e radiis vibrans crinalibus ignem.
Cum Fidicen, propter Tiberina fluenta, sonanti
Lenibat plectra curas, aestumque levabat,
Ilice defensus nigra scenaque virenti.
Audiit hunc hospes silvae Philomela propinquae
Musa loci, nemoris siren, innoxia siren;
Et prope succedens stetit abdita frondibus, alte
Accipiens sonitum, secumque remurmurat, et quos
Ille modos variat digitis, haec gutture reddit.
Sensit se Fidicen Philomela imitante referri,
Et placuit ludum volucri dare; plenius ergo
Explorat citharam, tentamentumque futurae
Praebeat ut pugnae, percussit protinus omnes
Impulsu pernice fides, nec segnius illa.
Mille per excurrens variae discrimina vocis,
Venturi specimen praefert argutula cantus.
Tunc Fidicen per fila movens trepidantia dextram,
Nunc contemnenti similis diverberat ungue,
Depectitque pari chordas, et simplice ductu:
Nunc carptim replicat, digitisque micantibus urget
Fila minutatim, celerique repercutit ictu.
Mox silet. Illa modis totidem respondet, et artem
Arte refert. Nunc seu rudis aut incerta canendi
Projicit in longum, nulloque plicatile flexu
Carmen init, simili serie, jugique tenore,
Praebet iter liquidum labenti e pectore voce;
Nunc caesim variat, modulisque canora minutis.
Delibrat vocem, tremuloque reciprocat ore.
Miratur Fidicen parvis e faucibus ire
Tam varium, tam dulce melos; majoraque tentans
Alternat mira arte fides; dum torquet acutas
Inciditque, graves operoso verbere pulsat,
Permiscetque simul certantia rauca sonoris,
Ceu resides in bella viros clangore lacessat.
Hoc etiam Philomela canit: dumque ore liquenti
Vibrat acuta sonum, modulisque interplicat acquis;
Ex inopinato gravis intonat, et leve murmur
Turbinat introrsus, alternantique sonore
Clarat, et infuscat ceu martia classica pulset.
Scilicet erubuit Fidicen, ...
Non imitabilibus plectrum concentibus urget.
Namque manu per fila volat, simul hos, simul illos
Explorat numeros, chordaque laborat in omni,
Et strepit, et tinnit, crescitque superbius, et se
Multiplicat religens, plenoque choreumate plaudit.[36]

It will be noted by the student that such word-painting as in these lines belongs to Crashaw, not Strada:

'and streightway she
Carves out her dainty voyce as readily.
· · · · · · · ·
Through the sleeke passage of her open throat
A clear unwrinckled song;
· · · · · · · ·
closes the sweet quarrell, rowsing all,
Hoarce, shrill at once; as when the trumpets call
Hot Mars to th' harvest of Death's field, and woo
Men's hearts into their hands:'
· · · · · · · ·
staggers in a warbling doubt
Of dallying sweetnesse, hovers o'er her skill,
And folds in wav'd notes with a trembling bill
· · · · · · · ·
a tide
Of streaming sweetnesse, which in state doth ride
On the wav'd backe of every swelling straine,
Rising and falling in a pompous traine.
· · · · · · · ·
Thus high, thus low, as if her silver throat
Would reach the brazen voyce of War's hoarce bird.

... his hands sprightly as fire, he flings
And with a quavering coynesse tasts the strings.
The sweet-lip't sisters, musically frighted,
Singing their feares, are fearefully delighted,
Trembling as when Appolo's golden haires
Are fan'd and frizled, in the wanton ayres
Of his own breath: which marryed to his lyre
Doth tune the spheares.
· · · · · · · ·
with nectar drop,
Softer than that which pants in Hebe's cup.
· · · · · · · ·
The lute's light genius now does proudly rise,
Heav'd on the surges of swolne rapsodyes,
· · · · · · · ·
Creeps on the soft touch of a tender tone.'

In the words of Willmott (as before), 'We shall seek in vain in the Latin text for the vigour, the fancy, and the grandeur of these lines. These remain with Crashaw, of whose obligations to Strada we may say, as Hayley [stupidly, if picturesquely] remarked of Pope's debt to Crashaw, that if he borrowed anything from him in this article, it was only as the sun borrows from the earth, when, drawing from thence a mere vapour, he makes it the delight of every eye, by giving it all the tender and gorgeous colouring of heaven' (vol. i. p. 323). The richness and fulness of our Poet as a Translator becomes the more clear when we place beside his interpretation of Strada the 'translations' of others, as given in the places (vol. i. pp. 203-6). A third (anonymous) version we discovered among the Lansdowne mss. 3910, pt. lxvi., from which we take a specimen:

'Now the declininge sunn 'gan downward bende
From higher heauene, and from his locks did sende
A milder flame; when neere to Tyber's flowe
A Lutaniste allayde his carefull woe,
With sondinge charmes, and in a greeny seate
Of shady oake, toke shelter from the heate.

A nitingale ore-hard hym that did use
To soiourne in y^e neighbour groues, the Muse
That files the place, the syren of the wood:
Poore harmeles Syren, steling neere she stood
Close lurkinge in the leaues attentiuely:
Recordinge that vnwonted mellodye,
She condt it to herselfe, and every straine
His fingers playde, her throat return'd againe.'

And so to the end (MS. 3910, pp. 114-17). We have reserved until now incomparably the second, but only a far-off second, to Crashaw's, from John Ford's 'Lover's Melancholy' (1629); which probably was our Poet's guide to Strada. Here is the substance of the fine reminiscent version, from act i. scene 1: