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66 6 'Perseus, my child, what woes are mine!
Thou sleepest, take thy rest,
Upon that breast which nurses thee,
-Thy loving mother's breast;

"Cheerless abode for thee, my babe,
This brazen-bolted ark!

Which though the moonbeams flicker o'er,
Yet all within is dark.

"Thou heedest not the surging waves,
The wild waves rolling by,

They injure not thy deep long hair,
For every lock is dry:

"Thou heedest not the angry brawl
Of the loud winds piping wild,
Wrapt in thy little purple cloak,-
My beautiful! - my child!

"Oh, if thou felt that depth of woe,
That makes thy mother weep,

How would thine ears drink in her words!
- No, no, she bids thee sleep.

"Sleep on, my babe, I bid thee sleep,
And sleep, thou raging sea,

And sleep, ye countless, cruel griefs,
Of miserable me.

'Grant, mighty Jove, that this device

May yet confounded be,

And, daring prayer! may this my son,
Avenge thy Danaë." "

We quote from the same article the criticism of the writer, (we suppose Professor Wilson) upon the original and the preceding translations.

"The original is very simple, natural, and pathetic, — and

--

reads like the fragment of an old Scottish ballad, — reminding us of Lady Bothwell's Lament. Lord Woodhouselee, in his elegant Essay on Translation, says, that Jortin's admirable translation falls short of its original only in a single particular, the measure of the verse. One striking beauty of the original is, the easy and loose structure of the verse, which has little else to distinguish it from animated discourse but the harmony of syllables; and hence it has more of natural impassioned eloquence than is conveyed by the regular measure of the translation. We feel that there is truth in that remark; and the poem is quoted by Dionysius as an apposite example of that species of composition in which poetry approaches to the freedom of prose. Yet, no doubt, the versification is constructed according to rule, though we, for our own parts, do not know what it is; and though there are various arrangements of it, to our ear they are all musical. Fragment as it is, and probably in itself imperfect, it is felt to justify the character assigned to the poet by Catullus,

"Mæstius lacrymis Simonideïs,"

and at its close we can join in the wish so finely breathed by Wordsworth,

"O ye who patiently explore

The wreck of Herculanean lore,
What rapture, could ye seize
Some Theban fragment, or unroll
One precious tender-hearted scroll
Of pure Simonides!'

Jortin's version is indeed very beautiful, and not one of our modern scholars wrote Latin verse with more purity and delicacy than he did, except perhaps Vincent Bourne, whom Cowper, if we mistake not, preferred to Tibullus. It is very close, yet misses one or two effective touches, such as οἷον ἔχω πόνον,· and the child's little purple cloak. Teque premunt placidi vincula blanda dei,' is sufficiently classical for a copy of prize verses at College, but out of place and time here, and not at all Simonidean.

6

"Et vehemens flavos everberat aura capillos,"

is surely not true to the sense of the original, — for the inside of the chest was lown; but no more fault-finding with lines which no living scholar could excel or equal. Denman's version is very good, and having been for twenty years before the public, it has become part of our English Poetry. But it is far from faultless. Why northern sky?' Why fastidiously fear to write

'chest,' or some other word, rather than mere vessel? Wordsworth was not afraid to speak, in one of his most interesting poems on Childhood, of

"A washing-tub like one of those

That women use to wash their clothes,
That carried the blind boy."

"What woes does Danaë weep,'

is very bad, the Greek how exquisitely touching! And worse are these two lines,

Grown up people breathe hard in deep sleep; but the breath of Perseus, in his little purple cloak, we venture to affirm, was inaudible even to his mother's ear till she kissed his cheek, and what has become of the cloak?* The passionate repetition of the same word 'sleep,' applied to wind, sea, and woe, is unaccountably, and it would almost seem purposely, — lost in the version, and with it how much is gone! There are other flaws; yet the lines flow smoothly, and the translator laudably aims at a simplicity which he scarcely attains. Read without reference to the original, they are affecting, but with the original in our heart, they fade before the tender-hearted scroll of pure Simonides.' Elton's version shows the scholar. The meanings of all those comprehensive words, so difficult to the translator, are fully and accurately given; not a thought, a feeling, or an image is omitted; the emphasis is always laid on the right place; his heart and imagination are with the Danaë of Simonides. Blank verse is capable of any thing, and his blank verse is good; yet with the simple sweet words of the free-flowing Greek strain, all impulses of soul and sense,' still lingering with us, we feel for a while as if there were something heavy and cumbrous in the measure, and cannot easily reconcile ourselves to the change. Danaë, in her peril, speaks like a princess and a poetess beloved of Jove; but perhaps there is a slight tendency, in a line or two of Elton's version, towards a swelling wordiness scarcely natural to such a voyager, and somewhat impairing the pathos. We shall not minutely criticize the version quoted from an early Number of this Magazine; but with a few slight defects, occasioned by the difficulties voluntarily encountered, and on the whole successfully overcome, in the choice of a rhymed stanza, it is, we think, extremely elegant and true to nature and Simonides. Bryant's

[* This criticism is altogether inaccurate. Every mother has heard "the heavy sigh of deep repose," from her sleeping infant, its occasional long audible breathings.]

version is not properly a version at all, and we suspect he never saw the original; but 't is a very pretty little poem, and very natural, with the exception of the cold conceit in the last two lines of the penultimate stanza, which expresses a sentiment the very reverse of that which was at poor Danaë's heart, and which must be offensive to the feelings of any mother. Of the seven, by far the best, we think, is that of our esteemed friend, Mr. Hay; nor do we doubt that such will be the opinion, too, of Mr. Merivale and the Lord Chief Justice. Mr. Hay is well known in Edinburgh as one of the most accomplished classical scholars, and those youths are fortunate who enjoy the benefit of his tuition."

To the translations quoted from Blackwood we add another, which originally appeared in "The Literary Miscellany," published at Cambridge (N. E.), 1805, 1806. (See Vol. II., p. 403.) We have not been able to learn the name of the translator.

"Now, in her little ark confined,
Danaë hears the howling wind,
The surging billows as they roll,
With deepest terror chill her soul;
And down her cheek, with sorrow drear,
In silence steals the trickling tear.
The little Perseus she addrest,
And fondly clasped him to her breast.
'Sweet boy, what pains harass my mind,
While slumbers calm thy senses bind!
Thou sleep'st though in this cheerless cell,
Whose brass-bound joints each ray repel;
Where, though the moon imparts her light,
We feel one dark, perpetual night.
Thou heed'st not, that thy flaxen head,
Though dry, is deep in ocean's bed.
Laid on thy purple robe, sweet boy,
No roaring winds thy peace annoy.
My lovely infant, pure as snow,
Didst thou thy perils truly know,
Thou wouldst incline thy listening ear,
Thy weeping mother's plaints to hear.
Sleep on, sweet babe, in quiet sleep,
And sleep in peace, thou swelling deep,

* Mr. Merivale is the editor of a new edition of Bland's "Collections

And sleep, if favoring Jove decree,
The piercing stings of misery.
Or if my prayer too bold appear,
Deign for my infant's sake to hear.

The following translation has not before been printed.

"When the strong ark which Danaë bore
Was tossing 'mid the waters' roar,
While rising winds her soul dismay,
She bent o'er Perseus as he lay,

Gazed with wet cheeks, and placed her arm
Around him, as to shield from harm:
'My boy,' she said, what woe I bear,
But thou sleep'st sweetly, free from care,
An infant's sleep, in this drear room,
Dim-lighted, 'mid a night of gloom :
Though the high waves are dashing by,
As yet thy clustering hair is dry;
Wrapt in thy purple mantle warm,
Thou, darling, dost not heed the storm.
But were this dreadful scene to thee
As dreadful as it is to me,

Then wouldst thou turn a quickened ear
Thy mother's troubled words to hear.
Sleep, sleep, my child, in slumber deep;
Would that the waves and I might sleep.
May there some change of purpose be,
Disposer of my fate, with thee;
Grant me, a bolder prayer I make,
Grant justice for this infant's sake.'

The extracts before given from Blackwood's Magazine are from one of a series of articles on Merivale's new edition of Bland's Collections from the Greek Anthology. Since what precedes was in type we have seen a review of the same work in the last number of the Quarterly. The reviewer gives another English and another Latin version of the fragment of Simonides, both which, as matters of curiosity, we will add to our collection. The reviewer says,

Amongst what little remains of a lyric kind, the celebrated fragment of Danaë and her child is preeminently conspicuous. This is the tenderest passage in Greek poetry; there is nothing that we remember so unmixedly pathetic, and if we pronounce the Sapphic ode the acme of poetic expression of Passion, we may, upon the same principle of judgment, set up the Danaë of