Theocritus E-Book

Theocritus

• Herausgeber: Theocritus
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Sweet are the whispers of yon pine that makes
Low music o'er the spring, and, Goatherd, sweet
Thy piping; second thou to Pan alone.
Is his the horned ram? then thine the goat.
Is his the goat? to thee shall fall the kid;
And toothsome is the flesh of unmilked kids.

Leseprobe

Theocritus

Theocritus

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Table of contents

PREFACE.

IDYLL I.

IDYLL II.

IDYLL III.

IDYLL IV.

IDYLL V.

IDYLL VI.

IDYLL VII.

IDYLL VIII.

IDYLL IX.

IDYLL X.

IDYLL XI.

IDYLL XII.

IDYLL XIII.

IDYLL XIV.

IDYLL XV.

IDYLL XVI.

IDYLL XVII.

IDYLL XVIII.

IDYLL XIX.

IDYLL XX.

IDYLL XXI.

IDYLL XXII.

PART II.

IDYLL XXIII.

IDYLL XXIV.

IDYLL XXV.

IDYLL XXVI.

IDYLL XXVII.

IDYLL XXVIII.

IDYLL XXIX.

IDYLL XXX.

IDYLL XXXI.

FRAGMENT PROM THE "BERENICE."

EPIGRAMS AND EPITAPHS.

PREFACE.

I had intended translating all or nearly all these Idylls into blank verse, as the natural equivalent of Greek or of Latin hexameters; only deviating into rhyme where occasion seemed to demand it. But I found that other metres had their special advantages: the fourteen-syllable line in particular has that, among others, of containing about the same number of syllables as an ordinary line of Theocritus. And there is also no doubt something gained by variety.Several recent writers on the subject have laid down that every translation of Greek poetry, especially bucolic poetry, must be in rhyme of some sort. But they have seldom stated, and it is hard to see, why. There is no rhyme in the original, and primâ facie should be none in the translation. Professor Blackie has, it is true, pointed out the "assonances, alliterations, and rhymes," which are found in more or less abundance in Ionic Greek.[A] These may of course be purely accidental, like the hexameters in Livy or the blank-verse lines in Mr. Dickens's prose: but accidental or not (it may be said) they are there, and ought to be recognised. May we not then recognise them by introducing similar assonances, etc., here and there into the English version? or by availing ourselves of what Professor Blackie again calls attention to, the "compensating powers"[B] of English? I think with him that it was hard to speak of our language as one which "transforms boos megaloio boeién into 'great ox's hide.'" Such phrases as 'The Lord is a man of war,' 'The trumpet spake not to the armed throng,' are to my ear quite as grand as Homer: and it would be equally fair to ask what we are to make of a language which transforms Milton's line into [Greek: ê shalpigx ohy proshephê ton hôplismhenon hochlon.][C] But be this as it may, these phenomena are surely too rare and too arbitrary to be adequately represented by any regularly recurring rhyme: and the question remains, what is there in the unrhymed original to which rhyme answers?To me its effect is to divide the verse into couplets, triplets, or (if the word may include them all) stanzas of some kind. Without rhyme we have no apparent means of conveying the effect of stanzas. There are of course devices such as repeating a line or part of a line at stated intervals, as is done in 'Tears, idle tears' and elsewhere: but clearly none of these would be available to a translator. Where therefore he has to express stanzas, it is easy to see that rhyme may be admissible and even necessary. Pope's couplet may (or may not) stand for elegiacs, and the In Memoriam stanza for some one of Horace's metres. Where the heroes of Virgil's Eclogues sing alternately four lines each, Gray's quatrain seems to suggest itself: and where a similar case occurs in these Idylls (as for instance in the ninth) I thought it might be met by taking whatever received English stanza was nearest the required length. Pope's couplet again may possibly best convey the pomposity of some Idylls and the point of others. And there may be divers considerations of this kind. But, speaking generally, where the translator has not to intimate stanzas—where he has on the contrary to intimate that there are none—rhyme seems at first sight an intrusion and a suggestio falsi.No doubt (as has been observed) what 'Pastorals' we have are mostly written in what is called the heroic measure. But the reason is, I suppose, not far to seek. Dryden and Pope wrote 'heroics,' not from any sense of their fitness for bucolic poetry, but from a sense of their universal fitness: and their followers copied them. But probably no scholar would affirm that any poem, original or translated, by Pope or Dryden or any of their school, really resembles in any degree the bucolic poetry of the Greeks. Mr. Morris, whose poems appear to me to resemble it more almost than anything I have ever seen, of course writes what is technically Pope's metre, and equally of course is not of Pope's school. Whether or no Pope and Dryden intended to resemble the old bucolic poets in style is, to say the least, immaterial. If they did not, there is no reason whatever why any of us who do should adopt their metre: if they did and failed, there is every reason why we should select a different one.Professor Conington has adduced one cogent argument against blank verse: that is, that hardly any of us can write it.[D] But if this is so—if the 'blank verse' which we write is virtually prose in disguise—the addition of rhyme would only make it rhymed prose, and we should be as far as ever from "verse really deserving the name."[E] Unless (which I can hardly imagine) the mere incident of 'terminal consonance' can constitute that verse which would not be verse independently, this argument is equally good against attempting verse of any kind: we should still be writing disguised, and had better write undisguised, prose. Prose translations are of course tenable, and are (I am told) advocated by another very eminent critic. These considerations against them occur to one: that, among the characteristics of his original which the translator is bound to preserve, one is that he wrote metrically; and that the prattle which passes muster, and sounds perhaps rather pretty than otherwise, in metre, would in plain prose be insufferable. Very likely some exceptional sort of prose may be meant, which would dispose of all such difficulties: but this would be harder for an ordinary writer to evolve out of his own brain, than to construct any species of verse for which he has at least a model and a precedent.These remarks are made to shew that my metres were not selected, as it might appear, at hap-hazard. Metre is not so unimportant as to justify that. For the rest, I have used Briggs's edition[F] (Poetæ Bucolici Græci), and have never, that I am aware of, taken refuge in any various reading where I could make any sense at all of the text as given by him. Sometimes I have been content to put down what I felt was a wrong rendering rather than omit; but only in cases where the original was plainly corrupt, and all suggested emendations seemed to me hopelessly wide of the mark. What, for instance, may be the true meaning of [Greek: bolbhost tist kochlhiast] in the fourteenth Idyll I have no idea. It is not very important. And no doubt the sense of the last two lines of the "Death of Adonis" is very unlikely to be what I have made it. But no suggestion that I met with seemed to me satisfactory or even plausible: and in this and a few similar cases I have put down what suited the context. Occasionally also, as in the Idyll here printed last—the one lately discovered by Bergk, which I elucidated by the light of Fritzsche's conjectures—I have availed myself of an opinion which Professor Conington somewhere expresses, to the effect that, where two interpretations are tenable, it is lawful to accept for the purposes of translation the one you might reject as a commentator. [Greek: tetootaiost] has I dare say nothing whatever to do with 'quartan fever.'On one point, rather a minor one, I have ventured to dissent from Professor Blackie and others: namely, in retaining the Greek, instead of adopting the Roman, nomenclature. Professor Blackie says[G] that there are some men by whom "it is esteemed a grave offence to call Jupiter Jupiter," which begs the question: and that Jove "is much more musical" than Zeus, which begs another. Granting (what might be questioned) that Zeus, Aphrodite, and Eros are as absolutely the same individuals with Jupiter, Venus, and Cupid as Odysseus undoubtedly is with Ulysses—still I cannot see why, in making a version of (say) Theocritus, one should not use by way of preference those names by which he invariably called them, and which are characteristic of him: why, in turning a Greek author into English, we should begin by turning all the proper names into Latin. Professor Blackie's authoritative statement[H] that "there are whole idylls in Theocritus which would sound ridiculous in any other language than that of Tam o' Shanter" I accept of course unhesitatingly, and should like to see it acted upon by himself or any competent person. But a translator is bound to interpret all as best he may: and an attempt to write Tam o' Shanter's language by one who was not Tam o' Shanter's countryman would, I fear, result in something more ridiculous still.FOOTNOTES:[A]BLACKIE'S Homer, Vol. I., pp. 413, 414.[B]Ibid., page 377, etc.[C]Professor Kingsley.[D]Preface to CONINGTON'S Æneid, page ix.[E]Ibid.[F]Since writing the above lines I have had the advantage of seeing Mr. Paley's Theocritus, which was not out when I made my version.[G]BLACKIE'S Homer, Preface, pp. xii., xiii.[H]BLACKIE'S Homer, Vol. I., page 384.

IDYLL I.

The Death of Daphnis.THYRSIS. A GOATHERD.THYRSIS.Sweet are the whispers of yon pine that makesLow music o'er the spring, and, Goatherd, sweetThy piping; second thou to Pan alone.Is his the horned ram? then thine the goat.Is his the goat? to thee shall fall the kid;And toothsome is the flesh of unmilked kids.GOATHERD.Shepherd, thy lay is as the noise of streamsFalling and falling aye from yon tall crag.If for their meed the Muses claim the ewe,Be thine the stall-fed lamb; or if they chooseThe lamb, take thou the scarce less-valued ewe.THYRSIS.Pray, by the Nymphs, pray, Goatherd, seat thee hereAgainst this hill-slope in the tamarisk shade,And pipe me somewhat, while I guard thy goats.GOATHERD.I durst not, Shepherd, O I durst not pipeAt noontide; fearing Pan, who at that hourRests from the toils of hunting. Harsh is he;Wrath at his nostrils aye sits sentinel.But, Thyrsis, thou canst sing of Daphnis' woes;High is thy name for woodland minstrelsy:Then rest we in the shadow of the elmFronting Priapus and the Fountain-nymphs.There, where the oaks are and the Shepherd's seat,Sing as thou sang'st erewhile, when matched with himOf Libya, Chromis; and I'll give thee, first,To milk, ay thrice, a goat—she suckles twins,Yet ne'ertheless can fill two milkpails full;—Next, a deep drinking-cup, with sweet wax scoured,Two-handled, newly-carven, smacking yet0' the chisel. Ivy reaches up and climbsAbout its lip, gilt here and there with spraysOf woodbine, that enwreathed about it flauntsHer saffron fruitage. Framed therein appearsA damsel ('tis a miracle of art)In robe and snood: and suitors at her sideWith locks fair-flowing, on her right and left,Battle with words, that fail to reach her heart.She, laughing, glances now on this, flings nowHer chance regards on that: they, all for loveWearied and eye-swoln, find their labour lost.Carven elsewhere an ancient fisher standsOn the rough rocks: thereto the old man with painsDrags his great casting-net, as one that toilsFull stoutly: every fibre of his frameSeems fishing; so about the gray-beard's neck(In might a youngster yet) the sinews swell.Hard by that wave-beat sire a vineyard bendsBeneath its graceful load of burnished grapes;A boy sits on the rude fence watching them.Near him two foxes: down the rows of grapesOne ranging steals the ripest; one assailsWith wiles the poor lad's scrip, to leave him soonStranded and supperless. He plaits meanwhileWith ears of corn a right fine cricket-trap,And fits it on a rush: for vines, for scrip,Little he cares, enamoured of his toy.The cup is hung all round with lissom briar,Triumph of Æolian art, a wondrous sight.It was a ferryman's of Calydon:A goat it cost me, and a great white cheese.Ne'er yet my lips came near it, virgin stillIt stands. And welcome to such boon art thou,If for my sake thou'lt sing that lay of lays.I jest not: up, lad, sing: no songs thou'lt ownIn the dim land where all things are forgot.THYSIS [sings].Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song.The voice of Thyrsis. Ætna's Thyrsis I.Where were ye, Nymphs, oh where, while Daphnis pined?In fair Penëus' or in Pindus' glens?For great Anapus' stream was not your haunt,Nor Ætna's cliff, nor Acis' sacred rill.Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song.O'er him the wolves, the jackals howled o'er him;The lion in the oak-copse mourned his death.Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song.The kine and oxen stood around his feet,The heifers and the calves wailed all for him.Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song.First from the mountain Hermes came, and said,"Daphnis, who frets thee? Lad, whom lov'st thou so?"Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song.Came herdsmen, shepherds came, and goatherds came;All asked what ailed the lad. Priapus cameAnd said, "Why pine, poor Daphnis? while the maidFoots it round every pool and every grove,(Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song)"O lack-love and perverse, in quest of thee;Herdsman in name, but goatherd rightlier called.With eyes that yearn the goatherd marks his kidsRun riot, for he fain would frisk as they:(Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song):"With eyes that yearn dost thou too mark the laughOf maidens, for thou may'st not share their glee."Still naught the herdsman said: he drained aloneHis bitter portion, till the fatal end.Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song.Came Aphroditè, smiles on her sweet face,False smiles, for heavy was her heart, and spake:"So, Daphnis, thou must try a fall with Love!But stalwart Love hath won the fall of thee."Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song.Then "Ruthless Aphroditè," Daphnis said,"Accursed Aphroditè, foe to man!Say'st thou mine hour is come, my sun hath set?Dead as alive, shall Daphnis work Love woe."Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song."Fly to Mount Ida, where the swain (men say)And Aphroditè—to Anchises fly:There are oak-forests; here but galingale,And bees that make a music round the hives.Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song."Adonis owed his bloom to tending flocksAnd smiting hares, and bringing wild beasts down.Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song."Face once more Diomed: tell him 'I have slainThe herdsman Daphnis; now I challenge thee.'Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song."Farewell, wolf, jackal, mountain-prisoned bear!Ye'll see no more by grove or glade or glenYour herdsman Daphnis! Arethuse, farewell,And the bright streams that pour down Thymbris' side.Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song."I am that Daphnis, who lead here my kine,Bring here to drink my oxen and my calves.Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song."Pan, Pan, oh whether great Lyceum's cragsThou haunt'st to-day, or mightier Mænalus,Come to the Sicel isle! Abandon nowRhium and Helicè, and the mountain-cairn(That e'en gods cherish) of Lycaon's son!Forget, sweet Maids, forget your woodland song."Come, king of song, o'er this my pipe, compactWith wax and honey-breathing, arch thy lip:For surely I am torn from life by Love.Forget, sweet Maids, forget your woodland song."From thicket now and thorn let violets spring,Now let white lilies drape the juniper,And pines grow figs, and nature all go wrong:For Daphnis dies. Let deer pursue the hounds,And mountain-owls outsing the nightingale.Forget, sweet Maids, forget your woodland song."So spake he, and he never spake again.Fain Aphroditè would have raised his head;But all his thread was spun. So down the streamWent Daphnis: closed the waters o'er a headDear to the Nine, of nymphs not unbeloved.Now give me goat and cup; that I may milkThe one, and pour the other to the Muse.Fare ye well, Muses, o'er and o'er farewell!I'll sing strains lovelier yet in days to be.GOATHERD.Thyrsis, let honey and the honeycombFill thy sweet mouth, and figs of Ægilus:For ne'er cicala trilled so sweet a song.Here is the cup: mark, friend, how sweet it smells:The Hours, thou'lt say, have washed it in their well.Hither, Cissætha! Thou, go milk her! Kids,Be steady, or your pranks will rouse the ram.

IDYLL II.

The Sorceress.

Where are the bay-leaves, Thestylis, and the charms?

Fetch all; with fiery wool the caldron crown;

Let glamour win me back my false lord's heart!

Twelve days the wretch hath not come nigh to me,

Nor made enquiry if I die or live,

Nor clamoured (oh unkindness!) at my door.

Sure his swift fancy wanders otherwhere,

The slave of Aphroditè and of Love.

I'll off to Timagetus' wrestling-school

At dawn, that I may see him and denounce

His doings; but I'll charm him now with charms.

So shine out fair, O moon! To thee I sing

My soft low song: to thee and Hecatè

The dweller in the shades, at whose approach

E'en the dogs quake, as on she moves through blood

And darkness and the barrows of the slain.

All hail, dread Hecatè: companion me

Unto the end, and work me witcheries

Potent as Circè or Medea wrought,

Or Perimedè of the golden hair!

Turn, magic wheel, draw homeward him I love.

First we ignite the grain. Nay, pile it on:

Where are thy wits flown, timorous Thestylis?

Shall I be flouted, I, by such as thou?

Pile, and still say, 'This pile is of his bones.'

Turn, magic wheel, draw homeward him I love.

Delphis racks me: I burn him in these bays.

As, flame-enkindled, they lift up their voice,

Blaze once, and not a trace is left behind:

So waste his flesh to powder in yon fire!

Turn, magic wheel, draw homeward him I love.

E'en as I melt, not uninspired, the wax,

May Mindian Delphis melt this hour with love:

And, swiftly as this brazen wheel whirls round,

May Aphroditè whirl him to my door.

Turn, magic wheel, draw homeward him I love.

Next burn the husks. Hell's adamantine floor

And aught that else stands firm can Artemis move.

Thestylis, the hounds bay up and down the town:

The goddess stands i' the crossroads: sound the gongs.

Turn, magic wheel, draw homeward him I love.

Hushed are the voices of the winds and seas;

But O not hushed the voice of my despair.

He burns my being up, who left me here

No wife, no maiden, in my misery.

Turn, magic wheel, draw homeward him I love.

Thrice I pour out; speak thrice, sweet mistress, thus:

"What face soe'er hangs o'er him be forgot

Clean as, in Dia, Theseus (legends say)

Forgat his Ariadne's locks of love."

Turn, magic, wheel, draw homeward him I love.

The coltsfoot grows in Arcady, the weed

That drives the mountain-colts and swift mares wild.

Like them may Delphis rave: so, maniac-wise,

Race from his burnished brethren home to me.

Turn, magic wheel, draw homeward him I love.

He lost this tassel from his robe; which I

Shred thus, and cast it on the raging flames.

Ah baleful Love! why, like the marsh-born leech,

Cling to my flesh, and drain my dark veins dry?

Turn, magic wheel, draw homeward him I love.

From a crushed eft tomorrow he shall drink

Death! But now, Thestylis, take these herbs and smear

That threshold o'er, whereto at heart I cling

Still, still—albeit he thinks scorn of me—

And spit, and say, ''Tis Delphis' bones I smear.'

Turn, magic wheel, draw homeward him I love.

[Exit Thestylis.

Now, all alone, I'll weep a love whence sprung

When born? Who wrought my sorrow? Anaxo came,

Her basket in her hand, to Artemis' grove.

Bound for the festival, troops of forest beasts

Stood round, and in the midst a lioness.

Bethink thee, mistress Moon, whence came my love.

Theucharidas' slave, my Thracian nurse now dead

Then my near neighbour, prayed me and implored

To see the pageant: I, the poor doomed thing,

Went with her, trailing a fine silken train,

And gathering round me Clearista's robe.

Bethink thee, mistress Moon, whence came my love.

Now, the mid-highway reached by Lycon's farm,

Delphis and Eudamippus passed me by.

With beards as lustrous as the woodbine's gold

And breasts more sheeny than thyself, O Moon,

Fresh from the wrestler's glorious toil they came.

Bethink thee, mistress Moon, whence came my love.

I saw, I raved, smit (weakling) to my heart.

My beauty withered, and I cared no more

For all that pomp; and how I gained my home

I know not: some strange fever wasted me.

Ten nights and days I lay upon my bed.

Bethink thee, mistress Moon, whence came my love.

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