WINE, WOMEN, AND SONG. - The Language Realm
WINE, WOMEN, AND SONG. - The Language Realm
WINE, WOMEN, AND SONG. - The Language Realm
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<strong>The</strong> time has now come for me to introduce my reader to the versions I have made from the<br />
songs of Wandering Students. I must remind him that, while the majority of these translations<br />
aim at literal exactness and close imitation of the originals in rhyme and structure, others are<br />
more paraphrastic. It has always been my creed that a good translation should resemble a plaster<br />
cast; the English being plaquè upon the original, so as to reproduce its exact form, although it<br />
cannot convey the effects of bronze or marble, which belong to the material of the work of art.<br />
But this method has not always seemed to[39] me the most desirable for rendering poems, an<br />
eminent quality of which is facility and spontaneity. In order to obtain that quality in our<br />
language, the form has occasionally to be sacrificed.<br />
What Coleridge has reported to have said of Southey may be applied to a translator. He too "is in<br />
some sort like an elegant setter of jewels; the stones are not his own: he gives them all the<br />
advantage of his art, but not their native brilliancy." I feel even more than this when I attempt<br />
translation, and reflect that, unlike the jeweller, it is my doom to reduce the lustre of the gems I<br />
handle, even if I do not substitute paste and pebbles. Yet I am frequently enticed to repeat<br />
experiments, which afterwards I regard in the light of failures. What allures me first is the<br />
pleasure of passing into that intimate familiarity with art which only a copyist or a translator<br />
enjoys. I am next impelled by the desire to fix the attention of readers on things which I admire,<br />
and which are possibly beyond their scope of view. Lastly comes that ignis fatuus of the hope,<br />
for ever renewed, if also for ever disappointed, that some addition may be made in this way to<br />
the wealth of English poetry. A few exquisite pieces in Latin literature, the Catullian Ille mi par,<br />
for example, a few in our own, such as Jonson's Drink to me only with thine eyes, are translations.<br />
Possibly the miracle of such poetic transmutation may be repeated for me; possibly an English<br />
song may come to birth by my means also. With this hope in view, the translator is strongly<br />
tempted to engraft upon his versions elegances[40] in the spirit of his native language, or to use<br />
the motives of the original for improvisations in his own manner. I must plead guilty to having<br />
here and there yielded to this temptation, as may appear upon comparison of my English with the<br />
Latin. All translation is a compromise; and while being conscious of having to sacrifice much,<br />
the translator finds himself often seeking to add something as a makeweight.<br />
I shall divide my specimens into nine Sections. <strong>The</strong> first will include those which deal with the<br />
Order of Wandering Students in general, winding up with the Confession ascribed to Golias, the<br />
father of the family. <strong>The</strong> second, third, fourth, and fifth are closely connected, since they contain<br />
springsongs, pastorals, descriptive poems touching upon love, and erotic lyrics. <strong>The</strong> sixth<br />
Section will be devoted to a few songs of exile, doubt, and sorrow. In the seventh we shall reach<br />
anacreontics on the theme of wine, passing in the eighth to parodies and comic pieces. Four or<br />
five serious compositions will close the list in the ninth Section.<br />
At the end of the book I mean to print a table containing detailed references to the originals of<br />
the songs I have chosen for translation, together with an index of the principal works that have<br />
been published on this subject.<br />
[41]