“Think of thy father, an old man like me,
God-like Achilles! on the dreary verge
Of closing life he stands, and even now
Haply is fiercely pressed by those who dwell
Around him, and has none to shield his age
From war and its disasters. Yet his heart
Rejoices when he hears thou yet dost live,
And every day he hopes that his dear son
Will come again from Troy. My lot is hard,
For I was father of the bravest sons
In all wide Troy, and none are left me now!
*****
Oh! revere
The gods, Achilles, and be merciful,
Calling to mind thy father, happier he
Than I; for I have borne what no man else
That dwells on earth could bear—have laid my lips
Upon the hand of him who slew my son.”
Had these lines been pointed at by the legend, we could well understand why Solon should have burned his epic. Let us not stay for criticism, but, with eyes fixed on the Greek, give our ears to Voss!
“Deiners Vaters gedenk! O gottergleicher Achilleus,
Sein des Bejahrten wie ich, an der traurigen Schwelle des Alters,
Und vielleicht dass jenen die umbewohnende Völker
Drängen, und niemand ist ihm Jammer und Weh zu entfernen.
Jener indess so oft er von dir dem lebenden höret
Freut er sich innig im Geist, und hofft von Tage zu Tage
Dass er den trautesten Sohn noch seh’ heimkehren von Troja.
Ich unseliger Mann die tapfersten Söhn’ erzeugt’ ich
Weil im Troegebiet, und nun ist keiner mir übrig!
Scheue die Götter demnach, O Peleid! und erbarme dich meiner
Denkend des eigenen Vaters! Ich bin noch werther des Mitleids:
Duld’ ich doch was sonst kein sterblicher Erdebewohner
Ach die die Kinder getödtet die Hand an die Lippen zu drücken.”
We hold that it lies not in the power of translation to surpass these lines of Voss. They are truly marvels in photography. To every Homeric line corresponds a German hexameter. In every verse the emphatic word stands where Homer placed it. The very pauses are for the most part preserved. The translator has not retrenched a word. He has scarcely added one. He has certainly not added an idea. On the nice propriety of his diction, and his perfect sympathy with the feeling of the Greek, we need not dwell. In these respects Mr. Bryant must be ranked next to him—with an interval, perhaps, but next. His “dreary verge of closing life” skilfully interprets an ambiguous phrase which Voss has chosen to retain. Again, unseliger Mann is somewhat cold, whereas “my lot is hard” has caught, so to speak, the genuine accents of heartbreak. “And every day he hopes that his dear son,” etc. Readers of the Holy Dying will recall the touching picture of a drowned sailor rolled upon his floating bed of waves, while at home his father “weeps with joy to think how happy he shall be when his beloved boy returns into the circle of his father’s arms.”
Voltaire has somewhere asserted that Homer never drew a tear. Yet even he could not behold this scene unmoved, and himself entered the lists as a translator. His version of this passage embodies the principles which he maintained ought to govern translators of Homer. It forms a curious chapter in the history of taste. Achilles turning discovers Priam, “ce vieillard vénérable,”
“Exhalant à ses pieds ses sanglots et ses cris
Et lui baisant la main qui fit périr son fils;
Il n’osait sur Achille encor jeter la vue,
Il voulait lui parler, et sa voix s’est perdue,
Enfin il le regarde et parmi ses sanglots
Tremblant, pâle, et sans force, il prononce ces mots.
‘Songez, seigneur! songez que vous avez un père—’
Il ne put achever. Le héros sanguinaire
Sentit que la pitié pénétrait dans son cœur,
Priam lui prend les mains, ah prince! ah mon vainqueur?
J’étais père d’Hector, et ses généreux frères
Flattaient mes derniers jours, et les rendait prospères.
Ils ne sont plus.”
These lines are not altogether without merit, but no man, we suppose, who possesses what has been termed a historical conscience will allow them to be poetic. The elements of the scene are there, but they are worked up in accordance with the tricks and traditions of the Comédie Française. To the eye of Voltaire, Priam was simply an antitype of the père noble, and must assume the attitude and demeanor appropriate to that rôle. In short, the verses are conceived in the spirit of his age, and exhibit his best manner. But read them after the Greek, and what fresh point they impart to the familiar words, “In old times men wrote like orators, but now like rhetoricians.”