F. Gower's translation is about as unfaithful as a translation can be; and that, far from bringing to his task a thorough knowledge of the language of his original, he has hardly construed any two consecutive pages aright. I proceed at once to establish these assertions by proof. Lord F. Gower's faults are twofold-of omission and commission. To begin with those of the first kind--he has omitted the Prologue in Heaven, with the exception of the Angel's Song at the commencement; the Shepherds' Song, post, p. 29; the beautiful little Song of the Invisible Spirits, which follows the curse, post, p. 55; a large part of the scene in Auerbach's cellar; the Flower Scene, post, p. 130;* the Summer-house Scene, post, p. 133; and the whole of the Interlude supposed to be played upon the Blocksberg. The inevitable effect of these omissions was forcibly stated in the Quarterly Review:-" In one page (of the original) we have Raphael and Gabriel uttering strains of Miltonic harmony and grandeur, in the hearing of all the host of Heaven. In another, the jabber of fiends and sorcerers in their witch-sabbath presents an unearthly mixture, in which it is impossible to draw any definite line between the grotesque and the ghastly, the sadness of immortal degradation, and the buffoonery of diabolical despair. In the midst of all this, human *Lord F. G. simply says, They make love. As I once heard a young lady remark-if it was'nt very naughty, one would like to know how they made it. passions-love, hatred, revenge, repentance, remorse-clothe themselves alternately in the severest simplicity of idiomatic dialogue, and the softest or noblest strains of lyric poetry. Even mere satire -the satire of literature, of manners, of politics, above all, of philosophy, finds its place. effect of so strange a medley of elements must have been abundantly considered by so learned an artist as Goethe; and no translator can have any right to interfere with him by diminishing their number or variety." The But besides omissions of the kind above-mentioned, omissions of two, four, six, or eight lines at a time, are constantly occurring, to the irreparable injury of those fine links of association in which all works of genius abound, and which are not the less to be regarded, because (as in the case of the finer fibres of the human body) we are often unconscious of their existence till they are snapped, and the work becomes loose and lifeless for want of them.* What renders these omis * In Mr. Coleridge's magnificent Translation-I had almost said, Poem-of Wallenstein, many lines are wanting; but the fact is, Mr. Coleridge translated from a MS. copy before the work was printed, and the lines in question were added subsequently. As there is little hope of his undertaking Faust, I must be pardoned for expressing a hope that he may yet be induced to supply these deficiencies, the only deficiencies, in his work. How beautifully, for instance, such lines as the following would read in his rich musical numbers, which often, it has been truly said, affect the heart and ear like a spell : Der Dienst, die Waffen sind mir eitler Tand. So müsste' es einem sel'gen Geiste seyn Der aus den Wohnungen der ew'gen Freude sions still more censurable is, that in the Second and last Edition no notice whatever is given that any omission of any sort has been made; and in the First Edition we are only cursorily informed that his lordship" had left sundry passages unattempted, from a conviction of his own inability to transfer their spirit to a translation, and that considerations of decency, also, in a few instances, prevented him from proceeding."* Where these omitted passages occur, and what may be their length and character, the reader must find out for himself; except in the single instance of the Prologue, which, from what I can collect from his note, is one of the instances in which he was checked by decency. Again, I shall borrow some just and striking remarks from Zu seinen Kinderspielen und Geschäften, Wo aber bleibt sie denn! O! goldne Zeit Es schien die Zeit dem Ueberseligen In ihrem ew'gen Laufe stillzustehen. O! der ist aus dem Himmel schon gefallen, Der an der Stunden Wechsel denken muss! The Piccolomini, Act 3, Sc. 3. Several beautiful lines are also omitted in Max's last speech but one, Act 1, Sc. 4. * As the Second Edition contains much (as in the May-Day Night Scene) that was not in the First, the omission of this Preface in the Second Edition would naturally lead every one to conclude that there was no longer any occasion for it. Quarterly:" It is no great wonder that persons who have considered only an analysis such as Madame de Staël's, or a version thus incomplete, should, in spite of occasional passages, mistake the general purpose of the poet--and accuse him of ridiculing curiosity, knowledge, and virtue, while, in fact, he had himself taken especial precautions (whatever may be thought of the taste with which he had selected some of these) to make it clear to every capacity, that the only objects of his attack were the extravagance, restlessness, and misery of curiosity when directed to subjects beyond the legitimate range of human intellect, the uselessness of mere knowledge divorced from wisdom by the intervention of vanity, and the feebleness of that virtue which presumes to rely solely on itself." According, therefore, to the opinion of a very partial critic, his Lordship has not merely aided in giving an immoral tendency to the poem he professes to purify, but has been, no doubt unwittingly, the means of fixing a stigma on the moral and religious character of Goethe. These are I now come to faults of commission. very, very numerous, and I shall be obliged to quote a great many, in order to counterbalance the weight of authority which Lord F. Gower has contrived to enlist upon his side. Most of the examples, however, are so irresistibly ludicrous, that I do not think the commentary will be found dull. All but one are taken from the Second Edition, published at an interval of two years from the first; ample time having been thus afforded for the correction of mistakes. That one is the following. In allusion to the spirits invoked by Faust, Wagner is made to say: "They feign their native home the sky, Assume a false gentility, And lisp in English when they lie." Patriotism compels me to say that englisch means like angels, and conveys no national reflection. The line therefore stands thus: "And lisp like angels when they lie." It is strange that Gregory's pun, embalmed in Wordsworth's poetry,* did not give his Lordship a suspicion of the truth. All future references are to the second edition. In the first six lines of the Archangels' Song, generally considered one of the best executed parts of the translation, there are two slight errors and one glaring one: "The sun his ancient hymn of wonder Is pouring out to kindred spheres, Thy visage gives thy angels power, Though none its dazzling rays withstand." Angli by name; and not an angel waves Vol. i. p. 17. His wing, who seemeth lovelier in Heaven's eye Than they appear to holy Gregory."-Ecclesiastical Sketches. |