Welsh Journals

War Poems and other Translations By Lord Curzon of Kedleston London John Lane. 1915. Pp. xvi. 222. 4s. 6d. net. The War Poems constitute the first part of this collection. There are eighteen of them, being translations from the French of E. Cammaerts, Dominique Bonnaud, Francois Coppee, Louis Frechette, and two anonymous authors, into English from the Greek of Simonides of Ceos and Demos- thenes likewise into English and from the English of Collins, Byron and Tennyson into Latin. The second part of the volume contains thirty-three translations. They include poems from the French of Verhaeren, Spiess, Coppee, Verlaine, Angellier, De Musset, Scarron, Lebrun and Voltaire; the Paolo and Francesca episode from the Inferno of Dante; The Myth of Er. from the Republic of Plato a metrical version of Addison's Vision of Mirzah, together with English translations of some Greek and Latin verse, and Latin versions of English poems by Gray, Mrs. Hemans, Wordsworth, Cowley, Hogg and Clough. In both parts, with one or two exceptions, the originals are given. In his Preface, Lord Curzon, dealing with the translation of the poetry of one country into the language and metre of another," says: The translator should, I think, remember that the work is not primarily his, but that of another man, of whose ideas he is merely the vehicle and interpreter. There is a substantial identity in modern cultured thought and expression, which renders the translation e.g., of French or German lyrics into English one of no extraordinary difficulty. My object has been, nearly everywhere, not to para- phrase, but to translate." Judged, then, by his own standard, it must be said that Lord Curzon has not invariably succeeded. He is generally much too diffuse and interpretative in his versions of the strikingly simple poems of M. Cammaerts. Bien des faiblesses, bien des aveux qu'on ne devrait Jamais ecrire, becomes, for instance, in English: Many a whispered foolishness, Many a thing that to confess, Might be overbold." Here the terse simplicity of the original is weakened into mere journalese. In the following stanza, it seems to us that the English version is a loose para- phrase rather than a translation: Come with flaming beechen branches, And the music of the drum; REVIEWS Come. and strew them on the earth-heaps Where our dead lie buried, come I Choose a day like this. my brothers, When the wind a pattern weaves 'Mid the shivering poplar tree-tops. When the scent of fallen leaves Floats like perfume through the woodland. As it doth to-day, that so Some sweet odour of our good land May be with them, down bdow." ("Avec des branches de hfttre, de hfetre flamboyant. Au son du tambour, Nous couvrirons les tombes de nos enfants. Nous choisirons un jour Comme cdui-d, Où les peupliers tremblent doucement Dans le vent, Et où l'odeur des feuilles mortes Embaume les bois, Comme aujourd'hui, Ann qu'ils emportent La-bas Le parfum du pays.") The version of the story of Paolo and Francesca is fairly faithful to the original, but the metre selected is unfortunate, and lacks the wonderful narrative flow of the Italian terza rima And now the cries of suffering begin To reach me. as I draw more near; Now have I entered on a place wherein There strikes upon my ear Wailing incessant. To a spot I came, Void of all light, which, like a sea Lashed with opposing winds that naught can tame. Bellows in agony. This is altogether too jerky, compared with the original Ora incomincian le dolenti note A farmisi sentire or son venuto LA dove molto pianto mi percuote. Io venni in loco d'ogni luce muto, Che mugghia, come fa mar per tempests, Se da contrari venti e combattuto. In his version of The Myth of Er, the translator has adopted the same metre, with much the same result. Dr. Jowett's prose translation, which is printed instead of the original Greek, is much more stately and even poetical than the inversions and tossings of Lord Curzon adaptation. The same remarks will apply to his version of The Vision of Mirzah. To adapt the words of the sententious Bishop Hurd": Mr. Addison was certainly a much better poet in prose than Lord Curzon in