Part 1

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THE POEMS AND FRAGMENTS OF CATULLUS,

TRANSLATED IN THE METRES OF THE ORIGINAL

BY

ROBINSON ELLIS,

FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD, PROFESSOR OF LATIN IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON.

LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1871.

LONDON: BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.

TO ALFRED TENNYSON.

[Transcriber's note: The preface uses macrons and breves above some letters to indicate stresses. I have rendered the letters with breve inside parenthesis (like th(i)s) and the letters with macron inside square brackets (like th[i]s).]

PREFACE.

The idea of translating Catullus in the original metres adopted by the poet himself was suggested to me many years ago by the admirable, though, in England, insufficiently known, version of Theodor Heyse (Berlin, 1855). My first attempts were modelled upon him, and were so unsuccessful that I dropt the idea for some time altogether. In 1868, the year following the publication of my larger critical edition[A] of Catullus, I again took up the experiment, and translated into English glyconics the first Hymenaeal, _Collis o Heliconici_. Tennyson's Alcaics and Hendecasyllables had appeared in the interval, and had suggested to me the new principle on which I was to go to work. It was not sufficient to reproduce the ancient metres, unless the ancient quantity was reproduced also. Almost all the modern writers of classical metre had contented themselves with making an accented syllable long, an unaccented short; the most familiar specimens of hexameter, Longfellow's _Evangeline_ and Clough's _Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich_ and _Amours de Voyage_ were written on this principle, and, as a rule, stopped there. They almost invariably disregarded position, perhaps the most important element of quantity. In the first line of _Evangeline_--

_This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlocks,_

there are no less than five violations of position, to say nothing of the shortening of a syllable so distinctly long as the _i_ in _primeval_. Mr. Swinburne, in his Sapphics and Hendecasyllables, while writing on a manifestly artistic conception of those metres, and, in my judgment, proving their possibility for modern purposes by the superior rhythmical effect which a classically trained ear enabled him to make in handling them, neglects position as a rule, though his nice sense of metre leads him at times to observe it, and uniformly rejects any approach to the harsh combinations indulged in by other writers. The nearest approach to quantitative hexameters with which I am acquainted in modern English writers is the _Andromeda_ of Mr. Kingsley, a poem which has produced little effect, but is interesting as a step to what may fairly be called a new development of the metre. For the experiments of the Elizabethan writers, Sir Philip Sidney and others, by that strange perversity which so often dominates literature, were as decidedly unsuccessful from an accentual, as the modern experiments from a quantitative point of view. Sir Philip Sidney has given in his _Arcadia_ specimens of hexameters, elegiacs, sapphics, asclepiads, anacreontics, hendecasyllables. The following elegiacs will serve as a sample.

_Unto a caitif wretch, whom long affliction holdeth, And now fully believ's help to bee quite perished; Grant yet, grant yet a look, to the last moment of his anguish, O you (alas so I finde) caus of his onely ruine: Dread not awhit (O goodly cruel) that pitie may enter Into thy heart by the sight of this Epistle I send: And so refuse to behold of these strange wounds the recitall, Lest it might m' allure home to thyself to return._

In these the classical laws of position are most carefully observed; every dactyl ending in a consonant is followed by a word beginning with a vowel or _h_--_affl[i]ct(i)(o)n holdeth_, _mom[e]nt (o)f h(i)s anguish_, _ca[u]se (o)f h(i)s onely_; _affliction wasteth_, _moment of his dolour_, _cause of his dreary_, would have been as impossible to Sir Philip Sidney as _mo[e]r(o)r t(e)nebat_, _mom[e]nt(a) p(e)r curae_, _ca[u]s(a) v(e)l sola_ in a Latin writer of hexameters. Similarly where the dactyl is incided after the second syllable, the third syllable beginning a new word, the utmost care is taken that that word shall begin not only with a syllable essentially short, but, when the second syllable ends in a consonant, with a vowel: _[o]f th(i)s (e)pistle_, but not _[o]f th(i)s d(i)saster_, still less _[o]f th(i)s d(i)rection._ The other element of quantity is less rigidly defined; for (1) syllables strictly long, as _I_, _thy_, _so_, are allowed to be short; (2) syllables made long by the accent falling upon them are in some cases shortened, as _r(u)[i]ne_, _p(e)r(i)sh[e]d_, _cr(u)[e]l_; (3) syllables which the absence of the accent only allows to be long _in thesi_, are, in virtue of the classical laws of position, permitted to rank as long elsewhere--_mom[e]nt of his_, _[o]f this epistle_. It needs little reflection to see that it is to one or other of these three peculiarities that the failure of the Elizabethan writers of classical metres must be ascribed. Pentameters like

_Gratefulness, sweetness, holy love, hearty regard, That the delights of life shall be to him dolorous, And even in that love shall I reserve him a spite;_

sapphics like

_Are then humane mindes privileg'd so meanly As that hateful death can abridg them of power With the vow of truth to record to all worlds That we bee her spoils?_

hexameters like

_F[i]re n(o) l(i)quor can cool: Nept[u]ne's re[a]lm would not avail us. Nurs inw[a]rd m(a)l(a)di[e]s, which have not scope to bee breath'd out. Oh n(o) n(o), worthie sheph[e]rd, worth c[a]n never enter a title;_

are too alien from ordinary pronunciation to please either an average reader or a classically trained student. The same may be said of the translation into English hexameters of the two first Eclogues of Virgil, appended by William Webbe to his _Discourse of English Poetrie_ (1586, recently reprinted by Mr. Arber). Here is his version of Ecl. I., 1-10.

MELIBAEUS.

_Tityrus, happilie then lyste tumbling under a beech tree, All in a fine oate pipe these sweete songs lustilie chaunting: We, poore soules goe to wracke, and from these coastes be remoued, And fro our pastures sweete: thou Tityr, at ease in a shade plott Makst thicke groues to resound with songes of brave Amarillis._

TITYRUS.

_O Melibaeus, he was no man, but a God who releeude me: Euer he shalbe my God: from this same Sheepcot his alters Neuer, a tender lambe shall want, with blood to bedew them. This good gift did he giue, to my steeres thus freelie to wander, And to my selfe (thou seest) on pipe to resound what I listed._

_ib._ 50-56.

_Here no unwoonted foode shall grieue young theaues who be laded, Nor the infections foule of neighbours flocke shall annoie them. Happie olde man. In shaddowy bankes and coole prettie places, Heere by the quainted floodes and springs most holie remaining. Here, these quicksets fresh which lands seuer out fro thy neighbors And greene willow rowes which Hiblae bees doo rejoice in, Oft fine whistring noise, shall bring sweete sleepe to thy sences._

The following stanzas are from a Sapphic ode into which Webbe translated, or as we should say, transposed the fourth Eclogue of Spenser's _Sheepheardes Calendar_.

_Say, behold did ye euer her Angelike face, Like to Phoebe fayre? or her heauenly hauour And the princelike grace that in her remaineth? haue yee the like seene?_

_Vnto that place Caliope dooth high her, Where my Goddesse shines: to the same the Muser After her with sweete Violines about them cheerefully tracing._

_All ye Sheepheardes maides that about the greene dwell, Speede ye there to her grace, but among ye take heede All be Virgins pure that aproche to deck her, dutie requireth._

_When ye shall present ye before her in place, See ye not your selues doo demeane too rudely: Bynd the fillets: and to be fine the waste gyrt fast with a tawdryne._

_Bring the Pinckes therewith many Gelliflowres sweete, And the Cullambynes: let vs haue the Wynesops, With the Coronation that among the loue laddes wontes to be worne much._

_Daffadowndillies all a long the ground strowe, And the Cowslyppe with a prety paunce let heere lye. Kyngcuppe and Lillies so beloude of all men and the deluce flowre._

There are many faults in these verses; over quaintnesses of language, constructions impossible in English, quantities of doubtful correctness, harsh elisions, for Webbe has tried even elisions. Yet, if I may trust my judgment, all of them can still be read with pleasure; the sapphics may almost be called a success. This is even more true of metres, where these faults are less perceptible or more easily avoided, for instance, Asclepiads. Take the verses on solitariness, Arcadia, B. II. fin.

_O sweet woods, the delight [o]f s(o)l(i)t[a]riness! O how much I do like your solitariness! Where man's mind hath a freed consideration Of goodness to receive lovely direction._

or the hendecasyllables immediately preceding,

_Reason tell me thy minde, if here be reason, In this strange violence, to make resistance, Where sweet graces erect the stately banner._

It is obvious that a very little more trouble would have converted these into very perfect and very pleasing poems. Had Sir Philip Sidney written every asclepiad on the model of _Where man's mind hath a freed consideration_, every hendecasyllable like _Where sweet graces erect the stately banner_, the adjustment of accent and quantity thus attained might, I think, have induced greater poets than he to make the experiment on a larger scale. But neither he nor his contemporaries were permitted to grasp as a principle a regularity which they sometimes secured by chance; nor, so far as I am aware, have the various revivals of ancient metre in this country or Germany in any case consistently carried out the _whole_ theory, without which the reproduction is partial, and cannot look for a more than partial success. Even the four specimens given in the posthumous edition of Clough's poems, two of them elegiac, one alcaic, one in hexameters, though professedly constructed on a quantitative basis, and, in one instance (_Trunks the forest yielded, with gums ambrosial oozing, &c._) combining legitimate quantity (in which accent and position are alike observed) with illegitimate (in which position is observed, but accent disregarded) into a not unpleasing rhythm, cannot be considered as more than imperfect realizations of the true positional principle. Tennyson's three specimens are, at least in English, still unique. It is to be hoped that he will not suffer them to remain so. Systems of Glyconics and Asclepiads are, if I mistake not, easily manageable, and are only thought foreign to the genius of our language because they have never been written on strict principles of art by a really great master.

What, then, are the rules on which such rhythms become possible? They are, briefly, these:--(1) accented syllables, _as a general rule_, are long, though some syllables which count as long need not be accented, as in

_All that on earth's leas blooms, what blossoms Thessaly nursing,_

_blossoms_, though only accented on the first syllable, counts for a spondee, the shortness of the second _o_ being partly helped out by the two consonants which follow it; partly by the fact that the syllable is _in thesi_; (2) the laws of position are to be observed, according to the general rules of classical prosody: (_a_) dactyls terminating in a consonant like _beautiful_, _bounteous_, or ending in a double vowel or a diphthong like _all of you, surely may, come to thee_, must be followed by a word beginning with a vowel or _y_ or _h_; dactyls terminating in a vowel or _y_, like _slippery_, should be followed, except in rare cases, by words beginning with a consonant; trochees, whether composed of one word or more, should, if ending in a consonant, be followed by a vowel, if ending in the vowel _a_, by a consonant, thus, _planted around_ not _planted beneath_, _Aurora the sun's_ not _Aurora a sun's_ (see however, lxiv. 253), but _unto a wood, any again, sorry at all, you be amused_. (_b_) Syllables made up of a vowel followed by two or more consonants, each of which is distinctly heard in pronunciation, as _long_, _sins_, _part_, _band_, _waits_, _souls_, _ears_, _must_, _heart_, _bright_, _strength_, _end_, _and_, _rapt_, _hers_, _dealt_, mo_ment_, bo_soms_, _answers_, moun_tains_, bear_est_, tum_bling_, gi_ving_, com_ing_, harbour_ing_, diffi_cult_, immi_nent_, strata_gems_, utter_ance_, happi_est_, trem_bling_ly, can never rank as short, even if unaccented and followed by a vowel, _h_ or _y_. Thus, to go back to Longfellow's line,

_This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlocks,_

_for(e)st_, _murmur(i)ng_, _pines (a)nd the_, are all inadmissible. But where a vowel is followed by two consonants, one of which is unheard or only heard slightly, as in _acc_use, sh_all_, _ass_emble, _diss_emble, kind_ness_, com_pass_, _aff_ect, _app_ear, _ann_oy, or when the second or third consonant is a liquid, as in _betray_, _beslime_, _besmear_, _depress_, _dethrone_, _agree_, the vowel preceding is so much more short than long as to be regularly admissible as short, rarely admissible as long. On this principle I have allowed _dis[o]rd(e)rl(y)_, _t[e]n(a)ntl(e)ss_, _heav(e)nl(y)_, to rank as dactyls.

These rules are after all only an outline, and perhaps can never be made more. It will be observed that they are more negative than positive. The reason of this is not far to seek. The main difference between my verses and those of other contemporary writers--the one point on which I claim for myself the merit of novelty--is the strict observance throughout of the rules of position. But the strict observance of position is in effect the strict avoidance of unclassical collocations of syllables: it is almost wholly negative. To illustrate my meaning I will instance the poems written in pure iambics, the _Phaselus ille_ and _Quis hoc potest uidere_. Heyse translates the first line of the former of these poems by

_Die Galeotte, die ihr schauet, liebe Herrn,_

and this would be a fair representation of a pure iambic line, according to the views of most German and most English writers. Yet not only is _Die_ no short syllable, but _ihr_, itself long, is made more hopelessly long by preceding three consonants in _schauet_, just as the last syllable of _schauet_, although in itself short, loses its right to stand for a true short in being followed by the first consonant of _liebe_. My own translation,

_The puny pinnace yonder you, my friends, discern,_

whatever its defects, is at least a pretty exact representation of a pure iambic line. xxix. 6-8, are thus translated by Heyse:--

_Und jener soll in Uebermuthes Ueberfluss Von einem Bett zum andern in die Runde gehn?_

by me thus,

_Shall he in o'er-assumption, o'er-repletion he, Sedately saunter every dainty couch along?_

The difference is purely negative; I have bound myself to avoid certain positions forbidden by the laws of ancient prosody. To some I may seem to have lost in vigour by the process; yet I believe the sense of triumph over the difficulties of our language, the satisfaction of approaching in a novel and perceptibly felt manner one of those excellences which, as much as anything, contributes to the permanent charm of Catullus, his dainty versification, will more than compensate for any shortcomings which the difficulty of the task has made inevitable. The same may be said of the elaborately artificial poem to Camerius (c. lv.), and the almost unapproachable Attis (c. lxiii.). Here, at least half the interest lies in the varied turns of the metre; if these can be represented with anything like faithfulness, the gain in exactness of prosody is enough, in my judgment, to counterbalance the possible loss of freedom in expression.

There is another circumstance which tends to make modern rules of prosody necessarily negative. Quantity, in English revivals of ancient metre, depends not only on position, but on accent. But accent varies greatly in different words; _heavy level ever cometh any_, have the same accent as _empty evil either boometh penny_; but the first syllable in the former set of words is lighter than in the latter. Hence, though accented, they may, on occasion, be considered and used as short; as, on the same principle, _dolorous stratagem echoeth family_, usually dactyls, may, on occasion, become tribrachs. But how lay down any positive rule in matter necessarily so fluctuating? We cannot. All we can do is to refuse admission as short syllables to any heavier accented syllable. Here, then, much must be left to individual discretion. My translation of the Attis will best show my own feeling in the matter. But I am fully aware that in this respect I have fallen far short of consistency. I have made _any_ sometimes short, more often long; _to_, usually short, is lengthened in lxi. 26, lxvii. 19, lxviii. 143; _with_ is similarly long, though not followed by a consonant, in lxi. 36; _given_ is long in xxviii. 7, short in xi. 17, lxiv. 213; _are_ is short in lxvii. 14; and more generally many syllables allowed to pass for short in the Attis are elsewhere long. Nor have I scrupled to forsake the ancient quantity in proper names; following Heyse, I have made the first syllable of _Verona_ short in xxxv. 3, lxvii. 34, although it retains its proper quantity in lxviii. 27. Again, _Pheneos_ is a dactyl in lxviii. 111, while _Satrachus_ is an anapaest in xcv. 5. In many of these instances I have acted consciously; if the writers of Greece and Rome allowed many syllables to be doubtful, and almost as a principle avoid perfect uniformity in the quantity of proper names, a greater freedom may not unfairly be claimed by their modern imitators. If Catullus could write _Phars(a)liam coeunt, Phars(a)lia regna frequentant_, similar license may surely be extended to me. I believe, indeed, that nothing in my translation is as violent as the double quantity just mentioned in Catullus; but if there is, I would remind my readers of Goethe's answer to the boy who told him he had been guilty of a hexameter with seven feet, and applying the remark to any seeming irregularities in my own translation would say, _Lass die Bestie stehen_.

It would not be difficult to swell this Preface by enlarging on the novelty of the attempt, and indirectly panegyrising my own undertaking. I doubt whether any real advantage would thus be gained. If I have merely produced an elaborate failure, however much I might expatiate on the principles which guided me, my work would be an elaborate failure still. I shall therefore say no more, and shall be contented if I please the, even in this classically trained country, too limited number of readers who can really hear with their ears--if, to use the borrowed language of a great poet, I succeed in making myself vocal to the intelligent alone.

[Footnote A: The translation follows this edition (Oxford, 1867), in the constitution of the text, as well as in the sectional division of the poems.]

CATULLUS.

I.

Who shall take thee, the new, the dainty volume, Purfled glossily, fresh with ashy pumice?

You, Cornelius; you of old did hold them Something worthy, the petty witty nothings,

While you venture, alone of all Italians, 5 Time's vast chronicle in three books to circle, Jove! how arduous, how divinely learned!

Therefore welcome it, yours the little outcast, This slight volume. O yet, supreme awarder, Virgin, save it in ages on for ever. 10

II.

Sparrow, favourite of my own beloved, Whom to play with, or in her arms to fondle, She delighteth, anon with hardy-pointed Finger angrily doth provoke to bite her:

When my lady, a lovely star to long for, 5 Bends her splendour awhile to tricksy frolic; Peradventure a careful heart beguiling, Pardie, heavier ache perhaps to lighten;

Might I, like her, in happy play caressing Thee, my dolorous heart awhile deliver! 10 . . . . . . . . I would joy, as of old the maid rejoiced Racing fleetly, the golden apple eyeing, Late-won loosener of the wary girdle.

III.

Weep each heavenly Venus, all the Cupids, Weep all men that have any grace about ye. Dead the sparrow, in whom my love delighted, The dear sparrow, in whom my love delighted.

Yea, most precious, above her eyes, she held him, 5 Sweet, all honey: a bird that ever hail'd her Lady mistress, as hails the maid a mother.

Nor would move from her arms away: but only Hopping round her, about her, hence or hither, Piped his colloquy, piped to none beside her. 10

Now he wendeth along the mirky pathway, Whence, they tell us, is hopeless all returning.

Evil on ye, the shades of evil Orcus, Shades all beauteous happy things devouring, Such a beauteous happy bird ye took him. 15

Ah! for pity; but ah! for him the sparrow, Our poor sparrow, on whom to think my lady's Eyes do angrily redden all a-weeping.

IV.

1.

The puny pinnace yonder you, my friends, discern, Of every ship professes agilest to be. Nor yet a timber o'er the waves alertly flew She might not aim to pass it; oary-wing'd alike To fleet beyond them, or to scud beneath a sail. 5

Nor here presumes denial any stormy coast Of Adriatic or the Cyclad orbed isles, A Rhodos immemorial, or that icy Thrace, Propontis, or the gusty Pontic ocean-arm,

Whereon, a pinnace after, in the days of yore 10 A leafy shaw she budded; oft Cytorus' height With her did inly whisper airy colloquy.

2.

Amastris, you by Pontus, you, the box-clad hill Of high Cytorus, all, the pinnace owns, to both Was ever, is familiar; in the primal years 15 She stood upon your hoary top, a baby tree, Within your haven early dipt a virgin oar:

To carry thence a master o'er the surly seas, A world of angry water, hail'd to left, to right The breeze of invitation, or precisely set 20 The sheets together op'd to catch a kindly Jove.

Nor yet of any power whom the coasts adore Was heard a vow to soothe them, all the weary way From outer ocean unto glassy quiet here.

But all the past is over; indolently now 25 She rusts, a life in autumn, and her age devotes To Castor and with him ador'd, the twin divine.

V.

Living, Lesbia, we should e'en be loving. Sour severity, tongue of eld maligning, All be to us a penny's estimation.

Suns set only to rise again to-morrow. We, when sets in a little hour the brief light, 5 Sleep one infinite age, a night for ever.

Thousand kisses, anon to these an hundred, Thousand kisses again, another hundred, Thousand give me again, another hundred.

Then once heedfully counted all the thousands, 10 We'll uncount them as idly; so we shall not Know, nor traitorous eye shall envy, knowing All those myriad happy many kisses.

VI.