Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/9



with respect to some of the plays in vol. ii, the translator might almost regard himself as challenging for them the attention of the English reader and the average student, he has, in this concluding volume, to take up the burden of attempting an adequate presentation of works whose fame so raises expectation as to add not a little to the formidable nature of his task. Hence I have, I trust, been not ungrateful for the strictures of some of my critics on preceding volumes, and have endeavoured to profit by them, the more willingly, as I cannot but recognise that their general tendency is in the direction of making the translation metrically more satisfactory, and so more readable. If in my blank verse these my counsellors (may I call them fellow-helpers?) still detect some of the old blemishes, I would ask that, before condemning me of obstinacy or of insensibility to rhythm, they will take note of the special difficulties involved in attempting to combine the four objects I have kept constantly before me, three of which seem to me to be essentials of every translation which claims to be more than a paraphrase. First, the English reader demands, not lexicon-language, but clear, straightforward, idiomatic English, free from all meaningless inversions which are simply evasions of metrical difficulties. Secondly, the scholar requires a close adherence to the original, omitting nothing that is vital to the author's meaning, inserting nothing that is not at least latent in the text, and not neglecting nuances of signification