expected day dawns. "You must come with me, Toxaris, to the amphitheatre," cries Sisinnes; "they give one of their strange Greek shows today; 'twill be quite new to you, and I think you'll be pleased with it." The two youths take their seats, and Toxaris for a time loses all sense of his sorrows in contemplation of the spectacle before him. First the wild beasts are introduced, and, while some fall pierced with the darts of the javelinmen, others are hunted with hounds, and others set on some malefactors in chains. The arena is then cleared, and the gladiators, marching forward, draw up in due order. The herald advances with the champion, a fine handsome young fellow. "Whoever," cries he, "will engage this man in single combat, shall have 5,000 drachmas for his pains." "I accept the challenge," shouts Sisinnes, and to the horror of Toxaris he leaps from his seat into the arena. Then taking the money, he places it in the hand of his friend. "Should I gain the day," says he, "there will be enough for us both, but should I fall, my dear fellow, you must see me decently buried, and go back at once to old Scythia." The sobs of Toxaris are his only reply. Sisinnes then puts on the arms that are offered him, excepting the helmet, and thus, with his head bare, takes his stand in the arena. He gets the first wound--a cut under the ham, from which issues a great gush of blood. His faint-hearted friend is half dead with alarm, and the gladiator, thinking the day is his own, rushes at him less guardedly than before. The Scythian sees his advantage, and shortening his sword runs his adversary through the body; then, fainting with loss of blood, sinks lifeless on the corpse. "Take heart, Sisinnes, you have won," exclaims Toxaris, as he leaps into the arena and raises his fallen friend, who is forthwith declared victor; then, carrying him to his lodgings, he tends him for many days while struggling between life and death. At length, however, he recovers and returns to his native land, where he bears with him an enduring though unpleasant testimony to his gallantry, in a limp that lasts for life. We now come to the fifth instance, and here we cannot but remark that our author has shown his art in reserving his most exalted instance for his last: in it, indeed, devotion in the cause of friendship must be admitted to have reached its climax, and after it any other must appear tame and spiritless. In the present day it is more likely to meet with blame than approbation, and in particular, were a jury of British matrons entrusted first with trying him and then executing their own judgment, we fear his skin and his eyes would be in no little danger. The tale is as follows:-A party of travellers were journeying to the city of the Borysthenites,* consisting of Abauchas, his wife, little girl, and infant son, and last, though not least, his friend Gyndanes. On their journey they are set on by banditti: the men, however, fight with spirit, and drive the villains off, but Gyndanes gets such a hurt in the melée that he scarce can stand upright for the pain. At last they arrive at the place of their destination, and, hiring an upper chamber for their lodging, betake themselves to rest. In the dead of night they are all sunk in sleep, when a shrill cry of fire is raised, and awaking they find themselves encompassed with flames. The woman and children naturally cling to Abauchas, but he sternly shakes them off, and catching up his friend bears him forth on his shoulders through the fire and smoke. The wife, thus abandoned, snatches up the babe, and bidding the little girl follow close, makes an attempt to break through: in her fright she drops the child and it perishes in the flames, while the little girl and herself escape barely with life. The decision of Abauchas in this case of conscience, as may be supposed, does not even at the time pass unimpeached, and the multitude express their indignation at conduct which they regard as a violation of the first *The city of the Borysthenites was situated at the mouth of the Hypanis or Boug, and not far from the mouth of the Borysthenes or Dnieper. It was the chief of the Milesian settlements on this coast, and went under various names, as Olbia, Olbiopolis, and Miletopolis-its site is supposed to be identical with that of the modern Kudak, near Oczakow. GENT. MAG. VOL. XLIV. Ꭰ laws of nature. The choice, however, which Abauchas has made he is at no loss to justify: "Children," replied he, "I could get again well enough; and after all 'twould be doubtful how they'd turn out: now Gyndanes I know, and if I lost him I should not meet such another friend in my life." Note. The sacrifice made by Abauchas to the cause of friendship is opposed to modern ideas of duty and even of decency; the history and literature of the ancient world are however fertile in instances where conjugal and filial claims are deliberately postponed to those of parents and cognate relations. The most striking of these, and the first in point of time, is found in Herodotus, iii. 119. Among the privileges granted by Darius to his fellow-conspirators who had placed him on the throne of Persia, it was stipulated that they should always have free access to his person except when he retired to the seclusion of his harem. At one of these sacred moments, Intaphernes ventured to break in on the royal privacy, and, in punishment of his presumption, was himself with all the males of his family put in bonds to await a painful death. The tears and entreaties of the offender's wife touched the heart of the monarch, and he offered to release any one of the prisoners she might select. She made choice of her brother, and Darius expressed a very natural surprise that she had not preferred her husband or one of her children. replied the dame, "another husband, if Providence so wills, may fall to my lot, and so also other children though I lose those I now have, but, my father and mother being dead, another brother in no way can 1 get." The King, we are told, was pleased with this sophistry, and by way of testifying his approval, in addition to her brother, released her eldest son: the rest were all put to death. "Sire," In the Antigone of Sophocles, the Poet has put into the mouth of his heroine arguments manifestly borrowed from the wife of Intaphernes (Ant. 896-905). The case of the virgin however is distinguished from that of the matron, in this, that the sacrifice by the former of husband and children is necessarily merely hypothetical, while in that of the latter it is real. Similar instances to these may be found scattered through the early ballads and traditions of most nations. In modern times, however, this strange notion of the superiority of parental and cognate claims has, we conceive, given way to the influence of Christianity, which, while it sanctions the former, assigns a higher place to the matrimonial tie and those which flow out of it. In evidence of this, we may remark that all the instances we have met with are either derived from the Heathen world, or from a state of society in which Christianity had barely a nominal influence. We may also note in passing, that the sentiments of the Grecian maiden and Persian wife would have found little favour with the ill-starred daughter of Capulet. On hearing of Tybalt's death and Romeo's banishment, she breaks out into impassioned exclamation :— Tybalt's death Was woe enough, if it had ended there: Or-if sour Woe delights in fellowship, And needly will be ranked with other griefsWhy followed not when she said Tybalt's dead, Thy father or thy mother-nay, or both, Which modern lamentation might have mov'd But with a rereward following Tybalt's death, Romeo is banished: to speak that word Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet, All slain, all dead-Romeo is banished. There is no end, no limit, measure, bound, In that word's death: no word can that woe sound! The sorrows and sufferings however of the lovers of Verona, and the splendid poetry in which they are embalmed, cannot disguise from us the fact that either of that headstrong couple would have proved but a blind guide in any point of ethical inquiry. The Friar may be looked on as playing the part of the Chorus in the Greek drama, and pointing out to the audience the moral they were intended to draw from the scenes transacted before them. For instance, the practical improvement of this play may be found in a line addressed by the Friar to Romeo, who in a fit of passion has thrown himself upon the ground : "Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable." Again, on the meeting of the lovers, he attempts but in vain to moderate their ecstasies. These violent delights have violent ends, And many other similar admonitions may be found in the course of the play. Thus, as in Othello, the baneful effects of jealousy are portrayed, and in Macbeth those of ill-regulated ambition, so the drama of Romeo and Juliet presents us with the natural results of uncontrolled indulgence in a feeling which, when kept under proper restriction, the severest moralist will scarcely censure. It has been said by Dr. Johnson, and frequently repeated, that though a system of social duty may be collected from Shakspere's writings, yet he makes no distribution of good or evil, and that he seems to write without any moral purpose. This censure, which with respect to any of his plays can only be admitted with great qualification, is certainly not true of the three we have men tioned, in each of which we are led step by step from the birth of some passion to the misery and destruction in which the victims of it ultimately envelope themselves and those around them. SAPPHO, A TRAGEDY: BY GRILLPURZER. GERMAN literature has of late assumed so prominent and popular a place in England that we welcome every attempt to familiarise us with its richer stores. Nor can it be said that the study of the German language has now become so universal as to preclude the necessity for translating into our own those works of real eminence which it contains; for not only are there still many who understand no German at all, but of those who do profess to read it, many are quite unable to appreciate with any degree of readiness the beauty of sentiment or of diction in what they work through rather than enjoy. Yet good translations are not abundant, even of prose works, if imaginative and of a high order; of poetical works they are yet more rare. Why? Because to constitute a good translator many qualities are required. There must be industry to obtain a complete mastery of the language; there must be poetry in the mind of the translator as well as in that of the author, or the attempt to carry into another tongue the expression of the finer shades of sentiment, or of the rapid transitions of passion, will be hopeless: and, again, there must not only be a poetical mind, but the pen must be accustomed to the mechanical portion of the poet's occupation; not merely must the line be faithful to the meaning, it must also convey a just notion of the harmony, or the abruptness, or the stateliness of the original. Such being (as we believe they are) the qualities essential to a good translator, we think Grillpurzer has been singularly fortunate to have met with one for his "Sappho," who has given this fine tragedy to the English world at once correctly and beautifully. Of the merits of the tragedy itself, as a dramatic composition, there may be many opinions; of the beauty of much of its poetry there can be but one. Sappho's own character as here delineated may be too full of passion, too violent in love, in anger, and despair, to accord with our ideas of womanly dignity and virtue. But we must think of her as the poet did, scarcely as a being of mere earthly mould, but one whose genius, while it raised her above the ordinary daughters of earth, was yet allied to feelings too impetuous for common restrictions. For Sappho is woman as well as poetess. Her first introduction, when coming in triumph from Olympia, she is welcomed by her household and fellow-citizens with joyful pride, and returns their greetings with cordial affection, lets us at once into that which is essential to her happiness. She must be loved and caressed at home or the applauses of the multitude will fall coldly on her ear. This yearning for affection is the key which unlocks all the mysteries of her being. She sees Phaon-is attracted by his beautyand pours upon him a prodigality of love quite in unison with the impetuosity of her own character, but totally at variance with the dreaminess of his, and immeasurably beyond anything he was calculated to inspire. So, however, in this world it has ever been. For still the source, not object, gives And equal to her love are her anger when she tries to still the tumults in her mind, and to argue herself into a belief that all may yet be well. The passage beginning Man's love by woman's must not measured be: though it tells nothing but "the old, old story," is one of remarkable beauty and pathos, and admirably translated. So in the second long speech in the same act, when she has become convinced of the truth, and sees that for a slave's sake Sappho is despised, is the conviction, that as genius was her peculiar attribute, so should its exercise constitute her happiness, finely expressed. Why came I from the heights? My place was there on high amidst the clouds; The remainder of the Act is less pleasing. Phaon's burst of passion wants nobleness, while Sappho's reproaches, with her attempt to use the dagger against Melitta, engage our sympathy for the defenceless rather than the injured one. The Fourth Act again opens with a fine, but perhaps somewhat tedious soliloquy of Sappho's. It is relieved, indeed, by some spirited lines on the sin of ingratitude, but as applied to Phaon they are not appropriate; he would have given her gratitude, but she wished for love, and when she says, All that I may and can do, all I am, I would have twined as wreaths around his head, One gentle word but asking as reward, 66 one she mistakes herself-had it not been for the agony of seeing Melitta beloved and herself despised, the gentle word" would soon have drawn from her Coleridge's exclamation,— O worse than all! O pang all pangs above, Is kindness counterfeiting absent love! But we will pass on to the Fifth Act, which, both as to poetry and incident, is far more deserving of attention. The picture drawn of Sappho's misery restores to her our sympathy, and Phaon's fury and mockery forbid it him; yet the history he gives of his fancied love for her and his real love for Melitta is truly and beautifully told; and looking upon Sappho on one side and Phaon and Melitta on the other, we say with him, Love unto mortals, reverence to the gods! Sappho should indeed have nought to do with Phaon! But we become weary of Phaon, and are glad to consign him to the tender mercies of the ancient Rhamnes, who in rather many lines tells him truths concludes with a fine burst of praise not of the most flattering order, and for Sappho and indignant prophecy to Phaon himself. The crowning beauty of the drama, however, is Sappho's address to the gods, and her parting blessing to Phaon and Melitta ere she casts herself from the rock. Mortal weaknesses now pass away, genius reassumes her empire and assures her that Only with the earth will Sappho wholly die! Be it so! even in these utilitarian days we envy not the mind over which the high names of old exercise no influence-to whom "the blue symplegades" are but rocks to be avoided in navigation, or in whose ears the breezes from the shores of Lesbos waft no fancied sounds of Sappho's "golden lyre." Our general admiration of this drama and of the translation before us we have already expressed. Some of the speeches are, perhaps, too long, yet their beauty and pathos usually redeem this fault; the shorter and more conversational scenes are more deficient in power. The versification of the translation is usually so good, that like Coleridge's Wallenstein it scarcely reads like a translation, yet there are some lines which might well be amended. There is one in the second scene of the First act to which we much object Greece has not so adorned her as her words have done. Surely, so clever a translator might manage to convey the sense with sufficient exactness without so many redundant syllables. Towards the close of the same act too, the effect of one of those speeches in which Sappho's love for Phaon gushes from her heart like a spring leaping from its native source, is marred by the closing line And love Was a mere magic land as yet to me, An unknown, untried, magic, stranger-land! Why not substitute for the last line, Unknown, untried, a magic stranger-land. The remainder of this First Act is admirable, closing with what is probably the most difficult part of the play to the translator, namely one of the two only poems which are still known as Sappho's own compositions. The metre is not easy to carry into English verse, and it requires more than once reading to bring it "trip VASCO NUNEZ DE BALBOA. SINKING more and more into hopeless decrepitude, and proving by her frequent revolutions, not the power of renewing her vitality, but her increasing and incurable weakness and decay, Spain seems to be losing that last inspiration of a dying people, pride in the fecund, the brave, the strong, the majestic of the past. She is forgetting her great men and great deeds, and leaves to foreign pens the celebration of the former and the record of the latter. Philip the Second, by a bigotry pertinacious, indomitable, sublime, if ever bigotry can be sublime, saved the Catholic Church, but ruined his country. As in the nineteenth century Spain shattered the stupendous empire of Napoleon, so in the sixteenth she arrested the victorious march of Protestantism. At what a price to herself, however, did Spain purchase the renown of snatching the tottering papacy from ruin? Except through some tragical episodes, she has been severed from Europe's grandest movements, and in the presence of Europe's grandest industrialisms she has, rotting, fumbered with her sullen loneliness the Atlantic and Mediterranean waves. It would be absurd and false to deny the civilization which grew up by the side of or in the bosom of Catholicism; it would be equally absurd and false to deny that Spain when at the apogee of her vigour, and in the full sweep of her conquests, was the mightiest of Ca tholic lands. But the Reformation, its religious aspects and bearings altogether apart, introduced new conditions of social, political, scientific, and commercial developement and success, which could not be spurned without deadliest peril, and which Spain alone had the daring and the madness scornfully to reject. What three hundred years ago was daring and madness is now simply idiotcy and impotence. Spain by some of her most recent acts has proclaimed her determination to stand by a condemned, accursed, and exhausted theological cretinism. Abominations long buried she disentombs, and brandishes the bones as her weapons, and holds up the grave-clothes as her banner in the face of the world. Those of her children who like Balmez would flatter her may call this magnanimity, chivalry, martyrdom if they choose. By far other names would the wise deplore, and the stern denounce it. As an anarchy and helplessness in the very heart of the culture, the ideas, the enterprises common to all the nations of the West, Spain is destined to become the spoil of the first foe that has the courage to attack her. Perhaps on no picture could the historian lavish a more valiant glow, and a more enchanting opulence of colour, than on what Spain, now a lazy, leprous, imbecile thing, was for fifty or sixty years after the discovery of America. |