The Prose Works of William Wordsworth Part 103

Affectionately yours, W. WORDSWORTH.[79]

[79] _Memoirs_, ii. 62-3.

48. _The Cla.s.sics: Translation of Aeneid, &c._

[Laodamia, Dion, &c.] These poems were written in 1814-16. About this time Wordsworth's attention was given to the education of his eldest son: this occupation appears to have been the occasion of their composition. In preparing his son for his university career, he reperused the princ.i.p.al Latin poets; and doubtless the careful study of their works was not without a beneficial influence on his own. It imparted variety and richness to his conceptions, and shed new graces on his style, and rescued his poems from the charge of mannerism.

Among the fruits of this course of reading, was a translation of some of the earlier books of VIRGIL'S AENEID. Three books were finished. This version was not executed in blank verse, but in rhyme; not, however, in the style of Pope, but with greater freedom and vigour. A specimen of this translation was contributed by Wordsworth to the _Philological Museum_, printed at Cambridge in 1832.[80] It was accompanied with the following letter from the author:--

TRANSLATION OF PART OF THE FIRST BOOK OF THE AENEID.[81]

_To the editor off the Philological Museum_.

Your letter reminding me of an expectation I some time since held out to you, of allowing some specimens of my translation from the _Aeneid_ to be printed in the _Philological Museum_, was not very acceptable; for I had abandoned the thought of ever sending into the world any part of that experiment--for it was nothing more--an experiment begun for amus.e.m.e.nt, and, I now think, a less fortunate one than when I first named it to you. Having been displeased, in modern translations, with the additions of incongruous matter, I began to translate with a resolve to keep clear of that fault, by adding nothing; but I became convinced that a spirited translation can scarcely be accomplished in the English language without admitting a principle of compensation. On this point, however, I do not wish to insist; and merely send the following pa.s.sage, taken at random, from a wish to comply with your request.

W.W.[82]

[80] Vol. i. p. 382.

[81] _Philological Museum_, edit. Camb. 1832, vol. i. p. 382.

[82] _Memoirs_, ii. 68-9.

49. _On the same: Letters to Earl Lonsdale_.

MY LORD,

Many thanks for your obliging letter. I shall be much gratified if you happen to like my translation, and thankful for any remarks with which you may honour me. I have made so much progress with the second book, that I defer sending the former till that is finished. It takes in many places a high tone of pa.s.sion, which I would gladly succeed in rendering. When I read Virgil in the original I am moved; but not so much so by the translation; and I cannot but think this owing to a defect in the diction, which I have endeavoured to supply, with what success you will easily be enabled to judge.

Ever, my Lord, Most faithfully your obliged friend and servant, WM. WORDSWORTH.[83]

Feb. 5 [1829].

MY LORD,

I am truly obliged by your friendly and frank communication. May I beg that you would add to the favour, by marking with a pencil some of the pa.s.sages that are faulty, in your view of the case? We seem pretty much of opinion upon the subject of rhyme. Pentameters, where the sense has a close of some sort at every two lines, may be rendered in regularly closed couplets; but hexameters (especially the Virgilian, that run the lines into each other for a great length) cannot. I have long been persuaded that Milton formed his blank verse upon the model of the _Georgics_ and the _Aeneid_, and I am so much struck with this resemblance, that I should have attempted Virgil in blank verse, had I not been persuaded that no ancient author can be with advantage so rendered. Their religion, their warfare, their course of action and feeling, are too remote from modern interest to allow it. We require every possible help and attraction of sound, in our language, to smooth the way for the admission of things so remote from our present concerns.

My own notion of translation is, that it cannot be too literal, provided three faults be avoided: _baldness_, in which I include all that takes from dignity; and _strangeness_ or _uncouthness_, including harshness; and lastly, attempts to convey meanings which, as they cannot be given but by languid circ.u.mlocutions, cannot in fact be said to be given at all. I will trouble you with an instance in which I fear this fault exists. Virgil, describing Aeneas's voyage, third book, verse 551, says--

'Hinc sinus Herculei, si vera est fama. Tarenti Cernitur.'

[83] _Memoirs_, ii. 69.

I render it thus:

'Hence we behold the bay that bears the name Of proud Tarentum, proud to share the fame Of Hercules, though by a dubious claim.'

I was unable to get the meaning with tolerable harmony into fewer words, which are more than to a modern reader, perhaps, it is worth.

I feel much at a loss, without the a.s.sistance of the marks which I have requested, to take an exact measure of your Lordship's feelings with regard to the diction. To save you the trouble of reference, I will transcribe two pa.s.sages from Dryden; first, the celebrated appearance of Hector's ghost to Aeneas. Aeneas thus addresses him:

'O light of Trojans and support of Troy, Thy father's champion, and thy country s joy, O long expected by thy friends, from whence Art thou returned, so late for our defence?

Do we behold thee, wearied as we are With length of labours and with toils of war?

After so many funerals of thy own, Art thou restored to thy declining town?'

This I think not an unfavourable specimen of Dryden's way of treating the solemnly pathetic pa.s.sages. Yet, surely, here is _nothing_ of the _cadence_ of the original, and little of its spirit. The second verse is not in the original, and ought not to have been in Dryden; for it antic.i.p.ates the beautiful hemistich,

'Sat patriae Priamoque datum.'

By the by, there is the same sort of antic.i.p.ation in a spirited and harmonious couplet preceding:

'Such as he was when by _Pelides slain_ Thessalian coursers dragged him o'er the plain.'

This introduction of Pelides here is not in Virgil, because it would have prevented the effect of

'Redit exuvias indutus Achillei.'

There is a striking solemnity in the answer of Pantheus to Aeneas:

'Venit summa dies et ineluctabile tempus Dardaniae: fuimus Troes, fuit Ilium, et ingens Gloria Teucrorum,' &c.

Dryden thus gives it:

'Then Pantheus, with a groan, Troy is no more, and Ilium was a town.

The fatal day, the appointed hour is come When wrathful Jove's irrevocable doom Transfers the Trojan state to Grecian hands.

The fire consumes the town, the foe commands.'

My own translation runs thus; and I quote it because it occurred to my mind immediately on reading your Lordship's observations:

'Tis come, the final hour, Th' inevitable close of Dardan power Hath come! we _have_ been Trojans, Ilium _was_, And the great name of Troy; now all things pa.s.s To Argos. So wills angry Jupiter.

Amid a burning town the Grecians domineer.'

I cannot say that '_we have been_,' and 'Ilium _was_,' are as sonorous sounds as 'fuimus,' and 'fuit;' but these latter must have been as familiar to the Romans as the former to ourselves. I should much like to know if your Lordship disapproves of my translation here. I have one word to say upon ornament. It was my wish and labour that my translation should have far more of the _genuine_ ornaments of Virgil than my predecessors. Dryden has been very careless of these, and profuse of his own, which seem to me very rarely to harmonise with those of Virgil; as, for example, describing Hector's appearance in the pa.s.sage above alluded to,

'A _b.l.o.o.d.y shroud_, he seemed, and _bath'd_ in tears.

I wept to see the _visionary_ man.'

Again,

'And all the wounds he for his country bore Now streamed afresh, and with _new purple ran_.'

I feel it, however, to be too probable that my translation is deficient in ornament, because I must unavoidably have lost many of Virgil's, and have never without reluctance attempted a compensation of my own. Had I taken the liberties of my predecessors, Dryden especially, I could have translated nine books with the labour that three have cost me. The third book, being of a humbler character than either of the former, I have treated with rather less scrupulous apprehension, and have interwoven a little of my own; and, with permission, I will send it, ere long, for the benefit of your Lordship's observations, which really will be of great service to me if I proceed. Had I begun the work fifteen years ago, I should have finished it with pleasure; at present, I fear it will take more time than I either can or ought to spare. I do not think of going beyond the fourth book.

As to the MS., be so kind as to forward it at your leisure to me, at Sir George Beaumont's, Coleorton Hall, near Ashby, whither I am going in about ten days. May I trouble your Lordship with our respectful compliments to Lady Lonsdale?

Believe [me] ever Your Lordship's faithful And obliged friend and servant, WM. WORDSWORTH.[84]