Page:Goethe and Schiller's Xenions (IA goetheschillersx00goetiala).pdf/29

 now be entirely forgotten had not the two poets immortalized them in the Xenions.

Some Xenions are of mere transitory importance, especially such as contain allusions and criticisms that are lost to those who are not thoroughly versed in the history of the times, while others are gems of permanant value, reflecting in a few words flashes of the deepest wisdom, and they ought to be better known among English-speaking people. We have therefore extracted and translated those which we deem worthy of preservation for all time.

Goethe and Schiller's distichs, we are sorry to add, are not always very elegant, and sometimes lack in smoothness and correctness. The first half of their pentameters is often very weak, and many of the second parts are extremely awkward, as for instance in the distich on page 163, where we read:

"Und warum kei´ne?" Aus Re´ligion´.

This excited the anger of Voss, the translator of Homer in the original meter of dactylic hexameters. Voss ridiculed Goethe and Schiller for their bad versi