Robert Browning
Published: 2015-06-16
Total Pages: 459
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Excerpt from The Agamemnon of Æschylus La Saisiaz: The Two Poets of Croisic, Dramatic Idyls, Joco-Seria, Ferishtah's Fancies Parleyings, and Asolando May I be permitted to chat a little, by way of recreation, at the end of a somewhat toilsome and perhaps fruitless adventure? If, because of the immense fame of the following Tragedy, I wished to acquaint myself with it, and could only do so by the help of a translator, I should require him to be literal at every cost save that of absolute violence to our language. The use of certain allowable constructions which, happening to be out of daily favor, are all the more appropriate to archaic workmanship, is no violence : but I would be tolerant for once - in the case of so immensely famous an original - of even a clumsy attempt to furnish me with the very turn of each phrase in as Greek a fashion as English will bear: while, with respect to amplifications and embellishments. - anything rather than, with the good farmer, experience that most signal of mollifications, " to gape for vEschylus and get Theognis." I should especially decline - what may appear to brighten up a passage - the employment of a new word for some old one, - 7rdro9, or fityas, or rtAos, with its congeners, recurring four times in three lines: for though such substitution may be in itself perfectly justifiable, yet this exercise of ingenuity ought to be within the competence of the unaided English reader if he likes to show himself ingenious. Learning Greek teaches Greek, and nothing else: certainly not common sense, if that have failed to precede the teaching. Further, - if I obtained a mere strict bald version of thing by thing, or at least word pregnant with thing, I should hardly look for an impossible transmission of the reputed magniloquence and sonority of the Greek; and this with the less regret, inasmuch as there is abundant musicality elsewhere, but nowhere else than in his poem the ideas of the poet. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
