V I R G I L I N E N G L I S H V E R S E — E CL OGUE S an d E NE ID I . VI . B Y TH E W RIGHT HON . SIR CHA RLES BO EN ’ ONE OF H E R MAJ EST Y S LORDS J U ST ICES OF APPEAL ON CE FELLOW AND N O W VI S I T OR OF BALLI O L C OLLE GE H O D. L O TH E NI VERS I Y O O ORD C . U X N . F T F F HON . D . O THE U N IVERS I Y O E D I NB RGH LL . F T F U SE CON D E DITION LONDON J O HN M Y A L B E M A RL E T E ET U RRA , S R 1 889 a A l l. r i g h t s w w r v ml wi o q fi g ? PRIN TED BY ‘ - SPO ISWOODE AN D CO . N EW S REE S U RE TT , T T Q A LON DON E P R E F A C . A TRANSLATOR of Virgil into E n glish verse finds the road along w hich he has undertaken to travel strewn with the bleachin g bones of unfortunate pilgrims who have pre c ede d him Th a o f e . e adventures an d the f te the great r number have been briefly set forth in an essay published by the late Profes sor Conington in the Quar terly Review of J uly 1 86 1 , and reprinted in the first volume of his m iscellaneous w s . T ZEn eid riting hat a translation of the , to be of any real an d e E permanent valu , must be in itself an nglish poem , T is an axiom to which few w ill take exc eption . hat the E nglish poem in its turn should be a translation , and not e m rely a paraphrase , is a condition singularly hard to fulfil e in the case of an original poet who , like Virgil , pres nts exceptional obstacles even to prose translators . Owing to f e the di ficulty of satisfying these two apparently simpl tests , most Virgili an v er sifiers h ave perished in the wilderne s s . D i ry den , whose rendering is the noblest and most mascul ne — of all for the ill-fated E arl of Surrey has bequeathed to [6] PRE FA CE — modern times two books of the ZEn eid only scarcely give s H has his us more than a paraphrase . e taken Virgil into a e e th e powerful gr sp , crush d him into atom s , and r produced w fragments in a form hich , though not devoid of genius , is ’ Th e no longer Virgil s . silver trumpet has disappeared , z and a manly strain is breathed through bron e . N ext ’ ’ D a D to ryden s in poetic l merit , superior to ryden s in the e scholarship and precision , comes , perhaps , v rse trans . h lation of the E neid by Professor Conington . T e sub stitu tion of the manner an d metre of Sir Walter Scott for th e m anner an d metr e of the Roman poet inflicts upon th e e e e r ad r , it is tru , at the very outset , a shock from which it is not e asy to r ecov er ; yet when the first s ensation of de spair i and novelty is past , a strong and last ng sense is borne in upon ’ th e Con in ton s e a student , as he progresses , of g gr at liter ry ’ skill , and of the finished accuracy with which Virgil s points ea z e d e and m ning are sei d , un erstood , and r nder ed . But the sweet and solemn majesty of the ancient form is wholly A a e gone . ll th t is l ft is what Virgil might have w ritten if “ ” the [Eneid had been a poem of th e charact er of Marmion or th e Lay of the Last Minstrel . To the a e e e the two xiom s or conditions abov r ferr d to , second of which has not been p erfe ctly observed eith er by D e b C ryd n or v onington , it is a grave question whether a third ought not to be added . An e ducat e d E nglishm an has in his Virgil a book upon which he has been fed from PRE FA CE [7] ’ H e his boyhood upwards . undr ds of Virgil s lines are for most of us familiar quotations , which linger in our memory , e and round which our literary associations clust r and hang , just as religious feeling clings to well -known texts or pas f Th sages o Scripture . e charm of such associations cannot be e preserved in a translation , unl ss upon fit occasions a n E e correspondi g nglish line , pointed and complet in itself, e e - can take , howev r imperfectly , the plac of the well known . To original satisfy this requirement , Virgil ought to be a lin eall . Th transl ted more or less y , as well as literally e e e P an d D d o heroic m tr of ope ryden cannot this , nor can the ordinary blank verse of ten syllables . The Virgilian e d line is too long to be represent d or reproduce in either . A th e ballad metre for Virgil is , on other hand , out of the — . E w question nglish hexameters , mean hile the vehicle of ’ “ ” ’ “ L E C B e ongfellow s vangeline , of lough s othi , and , ’ ! i e A first in metrical value of the three , of ngsl y s ndro - Th m e da have never become popular . e late Lord D erby —“ ’ 9 L condemns them as a pestilent heresy . ess impetuous critics will probably prefer to ab stain from despairing of a metre w hich has be en so little the subj e ct of experiment n M a d a . W e Mr . e l bour ith his usual delicate perc ption , atth w A e th e E a rnold observ d , many years ago , that nglish hex meter contained in its elf resources that might yet be de velo ed a p fruitfully , and there can b e little question but th t L r the genius of ord Tenny son or of M . Swinburne would [8] PRE FA CE make of the English hexameter—even in a prolonged poem e et . mor than has as y been deemed possible Still , there is on e feature in its structure and formation w hich pre — sents a considerable barrier the cadence of the final foot w w v w of two syllables , hich , hate er its beauties and hatever m its advantages in a more elodious language , appears to require (in English use) rhyme to prevent it from be et w w coming tedious , and y hich it ould be impossible to m e treat in rhyme , even if the atte pt were not c rtain to result in a med iaeval j ingle . In the present v olume an efiort has been made to accommodate the genuine hexameter to English purposes by shortening the final dissyllabic foot into a foot of a single Th e u m a e syllable . p re classical hexameter y be illustrat d by a v erse w hich the poet Coleridge has left behind for an E nglish specimen ’ i n In the hexameter rises the founta n s silvery colum . e e I have discard d the final dissyllabl , and put in place of it — a single syllabl e only a process w hich w ould c onvert the Coleridgian line into the following ’ In the hexameter rises the fountain s silvery spray . The e alteration giv s us a verse capable , amongst other w . A advantages , of being easily dealt ith in rhyme lthough v a translation in rhyme in olves embarrassing necessities , it cannot be deni e d that habit has taught an English c ar to PREFA CE [9] extract a pleasure from rhyme which is appreciable and R valuable . hyme adds to our sense of adjustment and of the nicety , and awakens in the reader an interest in for tunes and succ e ss of each single line which reacts usefully on the industry and care of the translator . — That the metre so produced though inferior to the classical hexameter and shorn of a syllable w hich in the original Latin is both an element of beauty and a s —i s ource of sustained strength nevertheles s a fine one , fl susceptible of varied treatment , full of exibility , capable o f rising to real grandeur , no failure of mine to manipulat e it will ever make me doubt . In the hand s of a great v ersification w master of it ould be a powerful instrument . That it preserves the orderly and majestic movement of the Roman hexameter it is not possible to claim ; nor can the cadence and c aesura of the classical model be consistently d . L L E imitated or observe atin is atin , and not nglish . Mr P . C e ure hexameters , moreover , as alv rley points out , th e e the a“re beyond reach of our more rugged languag , and quantity of w ords cannot by any amount of car e be d e E regulate with the sam precision in nglish as in Latin .