The Poems and Fragments of Catullus | Page 4

English writers. Yet not only is
_Die_ no short syllable, but _ihr_, itself long, is made more hopelessly
long by preceding three consonants in _schauet_, just as the last
syllable of _schauet_, although in itself short, loses its right to stand for
a true short in being followed by the first consonant of _liebe_. My
own translation,
_The puny pinnace yonder you, my friends, discern,_
whatever its defects, is at least a pretty exact representation of a pure
iambic line. xxix. 6-8, are thus translated by Heyse:--
_Und jener soll in Uebermuthes Ueberfluss
Von einem Bett zum
andern in die Runde gehn?_
by me thus,
_Shall he in o'er-assumption, o'er-repletion he,
Sedately saunter every
dainty couch along?_
The difference is purely negative; I have bound myself to avoid certain
positions forbidden by the laws of ancient prosody. To some I may
seem to have lost in vigour by the process; yet I believe the sense of

triumph over the difficulties of our language, the satisfaction of
approaching in a novel and perceptibly felt manner one of those
excellences which, as much as anything, contributes to the permanent
charm of Catullus, his dainty versification, will more than compensate
for any shortcomings which the difficulty of the task has made
inevitable. The same may be said of the elaborately artificial poem to
Camerius (c. lv.), and the almost unapproachable Attis (c. lxiii.). Here,
at least half the interest lies in the varied turns of the metre; if these can
be represented with anything like faithfulness, the gain in exactness of
prosody is enough, in my judgment, to counterbalance the possible loss
of freedom in expression.
There is another circumstance which tends to make modern rules of
prosody necessarily negative. Quantity, in English revivals of ancient
metre, depends not only on position, but on accent. But accent varies
greatly in different words; _heavy level ever cometh any_, have the
same accent as _empty evil either boometh penny_; but the first
syllable in the former set of words is lighter than in the latter. Hence,
though accented, they may, on occasion, be considered and used as
short; as, on the same principle, _dolorous stratagem echoeth family_,
usually dactyls, may, on occasion, become tribrachs. But how lay down
any positive rule in matter necessarily so fluctuating? We cannot. All
we can do is to refuse admission as short syllables to any heavier
accented syllable. Here, then, much must be left to individual discretion.
My translation of the Attis will best show my own feeling in the matter.
But I am fully aware that in this respect I have fallen far short of
consistency. I have made _any_ sometimes short, more often long; _to_,
usually short, is lengthened in lxi. 26, lxvii. 19, lxviii. 143; _with_ is
similarly long, though not followed by a consonant, in lxi. 36; _given_
is long in xxviii. 7, short in xi. 17, lxiv. 213; _are_ is short in lxvii. 14;
and more generally many syllables allowed to pass for short in the Attis
are elsewhere long. Nor have I scrupled to forsake the ancient quantity
in proper names; following Heyse, I have made the first syllable of
_Verona_ short in xxxv. 3, lxvii. 34, although it retains its proper
quantity in lxviii. 27. Again, _Pheneos_ is a dactyl in lxviii. 111, while
_Satrachus_ is an anapaest in xcv. 5. In many of these instances I have
acted consciously; if the writers of Greece and Rome allowed many

syllables to be doubtful, and almost as a principle avoid perfect
uniformity in the quantity of proper names, a greater freedom may not
unfairly be claimed by their modern imitators. If Catullus could write
_Phars(a)liam coeunt, Phars(a)lia regna frequentant_, similar license
may surely be extended to me. I believe, indeed, that nothing in my
translation is as violent as the double quantity just mentioned in
Catullus; but if there is, I would remind my readers of Goethe's answer
to the boy who told him he had been guilty of a hexameter with seven
feet, and applying the remark to any seeming irregularities in my own
translation would say, _Lass die Bestie stehen_.
It would not be difficult to swell this Preface by enlarging on the
novelty of the attempt, and indirectly panegyrising my own undertaking.
I doubt whether any real advantage would thus be gained. If I have
merely produced an elaborate failure, however much I might expatiate
on the principles which guided me, my work would be an elaborate
failure still. I shall therefore say no more, and shall be contented if I
please the, even in this classically trained country, too limited number
of readers who can really hear with their ears--if, to use the borrowed
language of a great poet, I succeed in making myself vocal to the
intelligent alone.
[Footnote A: The translation