LITERATURE AND DRAMA 



; a fact much to be deplored, for a version of a great 

 poet by a true poet should have been a boon to the mass ol 

 readers, not merely to a select few. In ' Balaustion's Adven- 

 ture ' Mr. Browning gave this boon. The translation of the 

 1 Alcestis ' can be read aloud, so as in most places to be fol- 

 lowed by the hearer, which cannot be done with the present 

 play. 



We do not ask Mr. Browning to write in such perspicuous 

 sort that he who runs may read, but we think it not unreason- 

 able to ask him to write so that a man who has mastered the 

 meaning of any passage may be able when reading aloud to 

 convey that meaning to his hearers, with the aid of due emphasis 

 and inflection. The translator obviously felt that his version 

 was obscure, and therefore himself qualifies his effort as perhaps 

 a fruitless adventure. He argues that ^Eschylus is hard read- 

 ing, and therefore that, to resemble ^Eschylus, the translation 

 must be hard reading also. But surely ^Eschylus must have 

 been intelligible, the phrases if not the thoughts of the man, to 

 the thirty thousand hearers in the theatre at Athens. Can a 

 dramatist be popular on the stage if unintelligible to the 

 masses ? Surely we must think that the obscurity of ^Eschylus 

 arises chiefly from our ignorance of the language, of popular 

 well-understood allusions and customs, and from corruptions in 

 the text. Mr. Browning, in his version of passages usually 

 accepted as corrupt, has maintained an obscurity that cor- 

 responds with the original in a way which is almost humorous. 

 This he may justify, but it is difficult to excuse him when the 

 obscurity is really due to his own style and not to ^Eschylus at 

 all. But let his version speak for itself. After the prologue by 

 the Warder, the chorus enters and speaks as follows : 



The tenth year this, since Priamos' great match, 

 King Menelaos, Agamemnon King, 

 The strenuous yoke-pair of the Atreidai's honor, 

 Two-throned, two-sceptred, whereof Zeus was donor- 

 Did from this land the aid, the armament dispatch, 

 The thousand-sailored force of Argives clamouring 

 * Ares ' from out the indignant breast, as fling 

 Passion forth vultures which, because of grief 

 Away, as are their young ones, with the thief, 



