The man, who loves the golden mean, Well-schooled the mind, when troubles press, The winter drear, Then drives it hence. What's ill to-day In straits of fortune steel your heart, I now pass to C. S. Calverley, the Cambridge scholar, to whom the whole world is indebted for many precious things, but perhaps for nothing quite so precious as his version of one of the loveliest lines in Catullus desideratoque acquiescimus lecto ('And nestle on the pillow of our dreams ') in the sonnet to the peninsula Sirmio. I choose Book I., Ode 9, because it stands first in Calverley's selections. Here is his version : One dazzling mass of solid snow Soracte stands the bent woods fret Pile on great faggots and break up Ask not what future suns shall bring. Ere time thy April youth hath changed Hear now the pretty laugh that tells I may say at once that Calverley seems to me to have handicapped himself unwisely by his choice of metre. In Memoriam claims that metre, by right of priority, for its own themes; and it is generally admitted that Tennyson discovered (or rediscovered) exactly the right metre for his subject-matter. But since few of the themes handled in the loosely-connected poems which make up Tennyson's In Memoriam would have had any attraction for Horace, it follows, I think, that this metre is unlikely to suit the very different themes for which Horace set apart the Alcaic stanza. It seems to me probable that Calverley knew nothing of the Omar Khayyam metre till after he had translated the Odes; that metre, I believe, is the nearest approach possible in English to the Alcaic stanza, not of Alcæus, but of Horace. His Alcaic best illustrates a grave and often a patriotic theme; the present ode, which is imitated, if not translated, from Alcæus, is rather exceptional, but even here Horace is preaching on the folly of taking anxious thought for the morrow and the obligation laid on us all to be as happy as we can. I need hardly remind my readers that Horace chose every tune for a special purpose, and reserved the tune, when chosen, for that purpose only-e.g., a subject suitable for the Sapphic metre would not be suitable for the Asclepiad. The great Roman odes (Book III., 1-6) could only be written in Alcaics. Very occasionally he uses a metre once, and once only, in the Odes; that is because he never again has thoughts which could be expressed in just that particular tune. It is time to give my own version of the ode: TO THALIARCHUS You see how on Soracte piled the snow Is white and shining, how their burdens grow Too heavy for the groaning oaks, and how To thaw the winter's cold those faggots are Draw, Thaliarchus, from the Sabine jar. Leave to the gods all else. It lies with these Fight out the battle. If their will be peace, Friend, think not of the morrow anxiously, As profit. While you are a boy, and while Is green, nor dances nor sweet love refuse : Sweetly the laugh betrays the girl you missed The forfeit of the game is snatched away Now let us try one of the great Alcaic odes of Book III. I choose Ode 2 as the shortest of the series, and as containing the most famous and also the most hackneyed line in Horace. I give Calverley's translation first : Friend! with a poor man's straits to fight Live in the field, inure his eye To danger. From the foeman's wall 'Dare not, in war unschooled, to rouse To whom red Anger ever saith, " Slay and slay on "-O prince, my spouse!' -Honoured and blest the patriot dies. Valour-unbeat, unsullied still- -Let too the sealed lip honoured be. A shallop. Heaven full many a time On reflection, I do not think that Calverley is here seen at his best, but the ode itself is intensely interesting, because here, above all, we discover what Horace considered to be the ideal education for a Roman boy. That ideal is certainly closer to the Prussian way of thinking than to ours; indeed, Mommsen wrote his monumental history of Rome partly to prove that the Romans were the forerunners of the Prussians. Boyhood, in Horace's view, should be sternly disciplined, for education is a preparation for war, which is the real business of all good Romans: boys should early be trained to live dangerously; soon it will be their business to invade the lands of their enemies. Death in battle is the crowning distinction of life; meanwhile manliness is what matters, and a good conscience. The ideal Roman will care comparatively little for politics, or for winning the people's voices; he will simply do his duty, and, though at the polls a capricious populace may reject him, he will be sure of the immortality which fame alone can confer. Further, he will be silent and trustworthy: to blab is dangerous, and those who blab should be shunned as companions, for they are all too likely to bring ruin on their associates as well as on themselves. I now give my own version : Book III., ODE 2 Let every Roman boy be taught to know Strong in fierce warfare, with dread lance and horse Aye, let him live beneath the open sky In danger. Him from leaguered walls should eye Should pray, poor maiden, lest, when hosts engage, So dangerous to touch what time he gluts Ev'n runaways. Can youth with feeble knees, Not taking up or laying office down Above the thronging multitudes, above A sure reward: I would not have him be Neath the same roof, the babbler who reveals Demeter's secret things, or launch with me A shallop frail: The god of heav'n has blent Seldom the miscreant has scaped the slow I come next to two metres neither of which Horace uses more than once, for the very simple reason which I have already given; he had something to say, once and once only, which to no other tune could be set quite so convincingly. The first of the two odes (Book I., Ode 4) gives a solemn turn to a trivial theme. The spring is here again, but it may be the last spring that we shall see: death at any rate is the certain end of all. I give the ode in Conington's version first : The touch of Zephyr and of Spring has loosen'd Winter's thrall; The ploughman cares not for his fire, nor cattle for their stall, With rhythmic feet the meadow beat, while Vulcan, fiery red, 'Tis now the time to wreathe the brow with branch of myrtle green, Or flowers, just opening to the vernal breeze; Now Faunus claims his sacrifice among the shady treen, Lambkin or kidling, whichsoe'er he please. Pale Death, impartial, walks his round: he knocks at cottage-gate How should a mortal's hopes be long, when short his being's date ? The void of the Plutonian hall, where soon as e'er you go, No more for you shall leap the auspicious die To seat you on the throne of wine: nor more your breast shall glow I do not think, now that I have read it again, that this is one of the most favourable specimens of Conington's versions. I chose the ode as the solitary representative of a striking metre, and I had no idea until I wrote out Conington's version that I had selected a tune which is almost identical with his. Have I not the right to hope that this makes it not so very unlikely that my predecessor and I have both hit on the metre which comes as near to representing the Latin original as is possible for any English metre? The ode is remarkable for being divided into two sharply contrasted parts, the former rather lovely, and the latter sombre. The first line of the second half is famous for its 'reverberating emphasis,' which Conington's version rather strangely ignores. I pass ' by treen' in silence and give my own translation : Sweet Zephyrs usher in the spring, and earth long bound is free, Nor herdsman loves the inglenook, nor herd the stall to-day, Cythera's Venus leads the dance: the Nymphs and Graces spring The Moon is watching overhead: swart Vulcan goes the round Now is the time on glossy locks the myrtle green to twine Or flow'rs that in the melting meadow shine, VOL. XCVIII-No. 582 U |