Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1896) v2.djvu/475



"His accomplished performances in Homeric translation should certainly procure a cordial reception for these scholarly renderings, admirably calculated and apparently intended — if we may judge from the separate publication of each of the three plays of the Alcestis, Medea, and Hecuba—to stimulate the youthful student's appreciation of Greek Tragedy."—Times.

"The rendering is good. Mr. Way has very considerable skill as a writer of blank verse. . . The lyrics for the most part go with great swing."—Saturday Review. [On first three plays published in advance.]

"Something more than an ordinary welcome seems to be due to this volume. Mr. Way's version is faithful. It is poetical. It affords a good idea of the original. A play read through in his translation may be appreciated as a real piece of literature. ... In the iambic passages, Mr. Way has translated line-for-line. . . In the lyrics, he has given himself a freer hand, and has produced some really fine poetry. . . The more advanced student, and especially the intelligent lover of literature who does not read Greek with ease, will be genuinely grateful to Mr. Way for having enabled them to appreciate for them- selves the genius of Euripides."—Athenæum.

"We have only congratulations to give him. The six plays in this volume are rendered into choice English and accomplished rhythms ; indeed Mr. Way's wealth of metrical variety is remarkable. . . It is in the choric lyrics, with their singular beauty of phrase and movement, that Mr. Way has excelled. Apart from all questions of scholarship and fidelity, he has produced translations that are fine poems ; and his poetical felicity is not purchased at the expense of accuracy . . Such work is worth many wordy essays, which comes to no conclusion : from Mr. Way's volume the reader, however little of a scholar he be, will catch much of the original spirit. ' Soft Pity's Priest,' to take the phrase of Dr. Warton, appears now for the first time in the fulness of his glory before English readers : the sad and splendid poet of a thousand faults, who yet, without insincerity and with exquisite art, 'wept tears of perfect moan.—Daily Chronicle.

"To the schoolboy with a natural taste for good literature, but who has to spell out his ' Greek play construe' in painful gobbets of twenty or fifty lines two or three times a week, it will come as a revelation and surprise that he has been reading poetry without knowing it — and exciting poetry too. For the general reader — if we can imagine one likely to take up this book, but so innocent of the classics as never to have heard the name of Euripides or his plays — we believe that, if he were a man of judgment, he would hail Mr. Way's volume as the work