Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/198

174 But herein lies the value of the essay: it is no mere impressionalist sketch, dashed off at a white heat, but each separate statement is supported by a reference. This is by far the best account of Pausanias we ever saw or heard of. Mr. Frazer is a little hard on the style of Pausanias, and exhausts a large vocabulary of uncouth adjectives upon him; we do not admire his style, but we confess we think he does not deserve to be called a corn-crake. We may observe in passing that on page lxviii. the argument seems unsound: "If we take his word for what he tells us he did not see, we must take it for what he tells us he did see." Things need not be all true, or all lies. We do believe Pausanias; but that is because he gives the impression of being an honest man, and because he proves to be correct where we can check him.

As regards Mr. Frazer's translation, he has made his corn-crake sing quite melodiously in English. The style is simple and clear, and in many parts fresh and musical. See, for instance, viii. 2, 2 fin., and x. 23, 3, where if the Greek be compared, Pausanias will be acquitted of always croaking like a corn-crake. As for accuracy, Mr. Frazer's translation may be depended upon. Hitherto Thomas Taylor's has held the field, and if we may judge from a very limited acquaintance with that work, and from an intimate knowledge of one other, he is not to be depended on. There are only a few places where we venture to say Mr. Frazer has departed from the Greek; and in none of these is the general sense misrepresented. In vii. 21, i, the sentence about the doves and the oak tree should be "thought that there was more truth in the doves and the oracles from the oak tree than in any other;" the word "oracles" does not apply to the doves. In ix. 29, 1, "revolving year" should be "revolving seasons," as in the swallow-song. The phrase (i. 29, 15) seems to us certainly to mean a "life-painter," i.e. painter of animals and men, as  does.

There are one or two other places where Mr. Frazer's judgement may be called in question. It is strange, for example, to read of a time when men fed on roots "of which none were edible, and some were even poisonous" (p. 374); the Greek means "some of which were not only bad to eat, but were poisonous." Mr. Frazer is also somewhat fanciful in his translation of numerals. Why should be translated "ninth" year (p.