Part 15 (1/2)
The following is Longfellow's translation of 1839, made by the man of thirty-two:--
”Oft have I seen, at the approach of day, The orient sky all stained with roseate hues, And the other heaven with light serene adorned.”
The following is the later version, made by the man of sixty, after ample conference with friendly critics:--
”Ere now have I beheld, as day began, The eastern hemisphere all tinged with rose, And the other heaven with fair serene adorned;”
I do not see how any English-speaking reader could hesitate for a moment in finding a charm far greater in the first version than in the second, or fail to recognize in it more of that quality which has made the name of Dante immortal. If this be true, the only question that can be raised is whether this advantage has been won by a sacrifice of that degree of literalness which may fairly be demanded of a translation in poetic form. Perfect and absolute literalness, it must be remembered, can only be expected of a prose version, and even after the most perfect metrical translation a prose version may be as needful as ever. Let us consider for a moment the two examples as given above. It may be conceded at the outset that the adverb _gia_ is more strictly and carefully rendered by ”ere” than by ”oft,” but the difference is not important, as any one old enough to describe a daybreak has undoubtedly seen more than one. The difference between ”the approach of day” and ”as day began” is important, since the last moment of the approach coincides with the first moment of the beginning. In the second line, ”la parte oriental”
is both more literally and more tersely rendered by ”the orient sky,”
than by the more awkward expression ”the eastern hemisphere,” unless it be claimed that ”sky” does not sufficiently recognize the earth as seen in the view; to which it may justly be replied that the word ”hemisphere,” if applied only to the earth, equally omits the sky, and the two defects balance each other. ”Tinged with rose” is undoubtedly a briefer expression for the untranslatable ”rosata” than ”stained with roseate hues” would be. The last line of the three finds an identical rendering in the two versions, and while ”bel sereno” is more literally rendered by ”fair serene” than by ”light serene,” yet the earlier phrase has the advantage of being better English, serene being there used as an adjective only, whereas in the later translation it is used as a noun, a practice generally regarded as obsolete in the dictionaries. Even where the word is thus employed, they tell us, it does not describe the morning light, but indicates, like the French word ”serein,” an evening dampness; as where Daniel says, ”The fogs and the serene offend us.”
Summing up the comparison, so far as this one example goes, it would seem that the revised version of Longfellow has but very slight advantage over its predecessor, while the loss of vividness and charm is unquestionable.
To carry the test yet farther, let us compare the three lines, in their two successive versions, with the prose version of Professor Norton, which reads as follows: ”I have seen ere now at the beginning of the day the eastern region all rosy, while the rest of heaven was beautiful with fair, clear sky.” Here the prose translator rightly discards the ”oft”
of the earlier Longfellow version, but his ”at the beginning” is surely nearer to the ”at the approach” of the first version than to the less literal ”as day began” of the second. The prose ”the eastern region”
conforms to the second version ”the eastern hemisphere,” but surely the Italian ”la parte oriental” is more nearly met by ”the orient sky” than by either of these heavier and more geographical subst.i.tutes, which have a flavor of the text-book. Both the Longfellow versions have ”the other heaven,” which is a literal rendering of ”l'altro ciel,” whereas ”the rest of heaven” is a shade looser in expression, and ”fair, clear sky”
also forfeits the condensation of ”light serene” or ”fair serene,” of which two phrases the first seems the better, for reasons already given.
On the whole, if we take Professor Norton's prose translation as the standard, Longfellow's later version seems to me to gain scarcely anything upon the earlier in literalness, while it loses greatly in freshness and triumphant joyousness.
Nor is this in any respect an unreasonable criticism. For what does a translation exist, after all, if not to draw us toward that quality in the original which the translator, even at his best, can rarely reach?
Goethe says that ”the translator is a person who introduces you to a veiled beauty; he makes you long for the loveliness behind the veil,”
and we have in the notes to his ”West-ostliche Divan” the celebrated a.n.a.lysis of the three forms of translation. He there says, ”Translation is of three kinds: First, the prosaic prose translation, which is useful in enriching the language of the translator with new ideas, but gives up all poetic art, and reduces even the poetic enthusiasm to one level watery plain. Secondly, the re-creation of the poem as a new poem, rejecting or altering all that seems foreign to the translator's nationality, producing a paraphrase which might, in the primal sense of the word, be called a parody. And, thirdly, ... the highest and last, where one strives to make the translation identical with the original; so that one is not instead of the other, but in the place of the other.
This sort of translation ... 'approaches the interlinear version, and makes the understanding of the original a much easier task; thus we are led into the original,--yes, even driven in; and herein the great merit of this kind of translation lies.'”{93}
It may be doubted, however, whether Longfellow, in his remarkable paper ”On the Translation of Faust” even if left to himself in making his version, could ever have reached the highest point attained by Goethe, from the mere difference between the two languages with which he and his original had to deal. The charm of Longfellow's earlier versions is, after all, an English charm, and perhaps the quality of Dante can no more be truthfully trans.m.u.ted into this than we can trans.m.u.te the charms of a spring morning into those of a summer afternoon, or violets into roses. Goethe, it is well known, took for his model as to the language of ”Faust” the poetry of Hans Sachs, Longfellow's ”cobbler bard;” and Dante's terse monosyllables were based upon the language of the people, which he first embodied in art. To mellow its refres.h.i.+ng brevities would perhaps be to destroy it, and that which Mr. Andrews finely says of the ”Faust” may be still more true of the ”Divina Commedia,” that it ”must remain, after all, the enchanted palace; and the bodies and the bones of those who in other days strove to pierce its encircling hedge lie scattered thickly about it.” So Mr. W. C. Lawton, himself an experienced translator from the Greek, says of Longfellow's work, ”His great version is but a partial success, for it essays the unattainable.”{94} But if it be possible to win this success, it is probably destined to be done by one translator working singly and not in direct cooperation with others, however gifted or accomplished. Every great literary work needs criticism from other eyes during its progress. Nevertheless it will always remain doubtful whether any such work, even though it be a translation only, can be satisfactorily done by joint labor.
After all, when others have done their best, it is often necessary to fall back upon the French Joubert for the final touch of criticism; and in his unequalled formula for translating Homer, we find something not absolutely applicable to Dantean translation, yet furnis.h.i.+ng much food for thought. The following is the pa.s.sage: ”There will never be an endurable translation of Homer, unless its words are chosen with skill and are full of variety, of freshness, and of charm. It is also essential that the diction should be as antique, as simple, as are the manners, the events, and the personages portrayed. With our modern style everything att.i.tudinizes in Homer, and his heroes seem fantastic figures which personate the grave and proud.”{95}
{92 _Life_, ii. 15.}
{93 I here follow the condensed version of Mr. W. P. Andrews, (_Atlantic Monthly_, lxvi., 733).}
{94 _The New England Poets_, p. 138.}
{95 Il n'y aura jamais de traduction d'Homere supportable, si tous les mots n'en sont choisis avec art et pleins de variete, de nouveaute et d'agrement. Il faut, d'ailleurs, que l'expression soit aussi antique, aussi nue que les murs, les evenements et les personnages mis en scene.
Avec notre style moderne, tout grimace dans Homere, et ses heros semblent des grotesques qui font les graves et les fiers.--_Pensees de J. Joubert_, p. 342.}
CHAPTER XXI
THE LOFTIER STRAIN: CHRISTUS
After all, no translation, even taken at its best, can wholly satisfy an essentially original mind. Longfellow wrote in his diary, November 19, 1849, as follows: ”And now I long to try a loftier strain, the sublimer Song whose broken melodies have for so many years breathed through my soul in the better hours of life, and which I trust and believe will ere long unite themselves into a symphony not all unworthy the sublime theme, but furnis.h.i.+ng 'some equivalent expression for the trouble and wrath of life, for its sorrow and its mystery.'”
This of course refers to the great poetic design of his life, ”Christus, a Mystery,” of which he wrote again on December 10, 1849, ”A bleak and dismal day. Wrote in the morning 'The Challenge of Thor' as prologue or '_Introtus_' to the second part of 'Christus.'” This he laid aside; just a month from that time he records in his diary, ”In the evening, pondered and meditated the sundry scenes of 'Christus.'” Later, he wrote some half dozen scenes or more of ”The Golden Legend” which is Part Second of ”Christus,” representing the mediaeval period. He afterwards wished, on reading Kingsley's ”Saint's Tragedy,” that he had chosen the theme of Elizabeth of Hungary in place of the minor one employed (Der Arme Heinrich), although if we are to judge by the comparative interest inspired by the two books, there is no reason for regret. At any rate his poem was published--the precursor by more than twenty years of any other portion of the trilogy of ”Christus.” The public, and even his friends, knew but little of his larger project, but ”The Golden Legend”