ing of the semichorus antiphonal to this; when Ulysses, hailed by the Cyclops, follows him out with the wine-skin, and the Chorus, secretly reassured and slily hopeful, sings to this ambiguous effect : "Fair, with fair looks prosperous, Waits alight-come, tender bride- And thine head shall soon be bound Not with single-coloured garlands round." I translate from Dindorf's text; that given by Mr. Paley might run thus in English : "There awaits thy flesh a lamp Of fierce fire, no tender bride," &c. 66 The "lamp" would then be, of course, the firebrand prepared to blind Polyphemus, and the two last lines, in the words of the editor (vol. iii. p. 509), mean that in the place of a crown of myrtle and roses a ring of gory hue shall encircle his brows." In either case I suppose the ironic allusions to the torch of marriage and the marriage-wreath of divers colours must be the same. There is no gap in the translation at v. 675, and the asterisks inserted after the words "Nowhere, O Cyclops," would be better away. The passage describing the cookery of Polyphemus (vv. 390-395) is difficult and debateable enough, but less hard than the desperate version of Shelley, who in his note "confesses that he does not understand this." The reading "four amphora," just above, is a misprint or slip of the pen for "ten;" the next few words are curiously tumbled together and mis construed. Shelley has not distinguished the drinkingcan or cup (kúpos) wrought of ivy-wood, or carved round with ivy-leaves, from the ninety-gallon bowl (parnp) into which the Cyclops had just milked his cows. Read : "Then he milked the cows, And, pouring in the white milk, filled a bowl Three cubits wide and four in depth it seemed— And spits made out of blackthorn shoots, with tips Or if σpayɛĩa can mean the axes themselves, and γνάθους be read for γνάθοις ; "And the under-jaws Of axes, huge Ætnæan slaughtering-tools." I do not see the meaning of those asterisks marking omission where omission is none, between the opening speech of Silenus and the parode. Of this Shelley has only translated the strophe and the latter part of the epode. Why the intervening verses were omitted it is impossible to say. In default of the better version he has begrudged us I offer this by way of makeshift, following the exact order and cadence of rhymes observed by Shelley. After the call to the she-goat 2 (which he 1 This line seems misplaced here, and has been marked as such by later editors. 2 Shelley seems to have overlooked the sex of the goat whom the satyrs are calling back to give suck to her young. In his text the words "he of race divine," and "father of the flocks," should be altered to "she" and "mother." translates "Get along;" it should rather be "Come," as the shout is not meant to scare, but to reclaim) the song continues a literal goat-song for once : "Ease your udders milk-distent, Here no Bacchus, no dance comes Nor glad clang of kettledrums, To the golden Aphrodite Do I lift," &c. Read do for will, which stands in Shelley's text through mere misreading of the passage; it was doubtless wrongly pointed in the copy by which he worked. There is another omission after verse 165, more accountable than this; whether any part of Shelley's version was struck out or not in the printing we have not been told. Perhaps the passage, essential as it is to the continuity of the scene, may be borne with in this reduced and softened form. After the verse-"I would give All that the Cyclops feed upon their mountains,”add : "And pitch into the brine off some white cliff, Having got once well drunk and cleared my brows. How mad is he whom drinking makes not glad!! * ; aye, dancing too, Aye, and forgetfulness of ills. What then, Fool Cyclops with his one mid eye go hang?" In this laudable frame of mind the Falstaff of Olympus makes off on his sheep-stealing errand; and the Chorus, which hitherto has modestly stood aside and left the talking to him, now first addresses the new-comer :— "Hear you, Ulysses, we would talk with you. ULYSSES. Well, on then, as you come like friends to a friend. CHORUS. Ye have taken Troy, and laid your hands on Helen? ULYSSES. And utterly destroyed the race of Priam.s CHORUS. Well, when ye had got the girl then, did ye not All of you take your sport with her in turn, Seeing she delights in marrying many men? ' Rabelais gives an admirable version of this line (Book iv. ch. 65): "Veritablement, il est escript par vostre beau Euripides, et le dict Silenus, beuveur memorable; Furieux est, de bon sens ne jouist, Quiconques boyt et ne s'en resjouist." 2 Or, if we retain the reading où kʊvýσoμaι instead of admitting this of οὐκ ὠνήσομαι, "Shall I not worship such a drink," &c., for we are told to take κυνεῖν here in the sense of προσκυνεῖν, or I should render it simply, "Shall I not kiss a drink like this?" These two lines are in Shelley's text. After this discussion of Helen by the satyrs, Silenus returns with his plunder; his speech begins (v. 188) "See, here are sheep," &c. Shelley, following the older editions, puts into his mouth all this last answer of the Chorus to Ulysses, with its exquisite satyric moralising on feminine levity. At the entrance of the Cyclops there is some misconstruction : "SILENUS. What ho! assistance, comrades, haste, assistance ! What is this tumult?" CYCLOPS. The line given to Silenus belongs to the Cyclops as he bursts in upon the stage, and might rather be rendered: "Hold hard, let's see here, lend a hand: what's this? What sloth? what rioting?" At verse 220 there is another break; Silenus has said, "Anything you like, only don't drink me up ;" and the Cyclops, as delicate a monster as Caliban, replies:— "By no means, for you'd be the death of me Then, tumbling in my belly, with your tricks." At verse 345, read, to fill up the gap at the end of the Cyclops' speech :— "So creep in quick, to stand about the shrine O' the god o' the cave and feast me fairly full." The god of the cave is explained to be, as above, " Myself And this great belly, first of deities.” Half a line is missed at v. 381 :- Р |