Page:Echoes from East and West.pdf/12

Rh that all the pieces down to "To the Muse" exhibit what I call the process of version, that is, rendering the sense of the original in my own manner and in a metrical form something like that of the original; while all the rest show what I call the process of translation, that is, rendering the original in the order of its words and in its exactly equivalent metrical form as far as it is in keeping with the true genius of the English language. In a few cases the process of translation has been more or less that of modernisation. The essential thing in these processes, which I have always tried to keep in view, is to fall into the inspiration of the original poet before attempting a rendering. Next, with regard to the prosody, I may say that most of the poems are in recognised English or Anglicised metrical forms, but there are a few poems written in Hexameters, Elegiacs, Alliterative Verse, Assonant Verse, and Unrimed Verse. In translating Classical Lyrical metres, I have given the same number of syllables and the same pauses as the original with an English disposition of accents, with the exception of "The Calm of Nature" from Alcman and "The Crab and the Snake" from a Greek skolion, where I have tried to replace the quantity of the original by the accent in English, as I have done in the case of the Hexameters and Elegiacs. One piece entitled "Baby and Nurse" has been rendered in hexameters, although the original is in a metre full of short syllables. I have introduced rime in translating Classical Sanskrit Quatrains and Pali Quatrains and Sestets, in order to lay stress on the fact that there is a deep rhythmic pause at the end of the second and fourth quarters of the quatrain or the second, fourth and sixth sections of the sestet, and that the uneven quarters