Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1894) v1.djvu/12

viii Nevins (1870), Williams (1871), Browning (1871), and H. B. L. (1884); the Medea by Lee (1867), Cartwright (1868), Mrs. Webster (1868), and Williams (1871); the Hippolytus by Fitzgerald (1867), Williams (1871), Miss Robinson (1881), and H. B. L. (1894); the Hecuba by Beesley (1875); the Ion by H. B. L. (1889), and Verrall (1890); the Hercules Furens by Browning (1875); the Iphigeneia in Aulis and the Iphigeneia in Tauris by Cartwright (1868); the Bacchæ by M. Glouton (1845), Milman (1865), and Rogers (1872). On analysing this list, we find, (1) that only three plays have been translated in verse within the last dozen years; (2) that out of the eighteen tragedies two translators only have attempted so many as three; (3) that half of the plays have remained untouched since the complete verse translations by Wodhull (1782), and Potter (1781–83). These two versions, fairly faithful and in many respects meritorious as they are, are wholly lacking in two features which the present-day reader will hardly consent to forego:—in variety in the choral metres, and in distinction of the lyric portions of the dialogue from the prevailing blank-verse. The measured tread of the iambus or trochee, reappearing in stanzas of the same structure, and in lines of the same average length, through chorus after chorus of eighteen plays, produces an impression of monotony and heaviness which is in striking contrast with the swift and ever-varying movement of the metres of the original; and the quivering passion that thrills through the stormy lyric outbursts, which, like cataract and rapid, so often break the even flow of the senarii, is sorely missed when merged in the tranquil stream of blank-verse dialogue. To this metrical monotony may be largely due the fact that the choruses, instead of being, as they doubtless were to an Athenian audience, the most attractive portions of the plays, are to the modern reader of translations often the least attractive, the heaviest reading, and the most certain to share the general fate of