Perhaps, however, a translator of Aristophanes has in one respect a comparatively simple task. In the Greek tragedians, as in many other poets, there is often more felt than is expressed. Ideas that float half unconsciously on the mind are only dimly shadowed forth. They have no clear-cut shape, but are present, as it were, after a ghostly fashion, and the images they suggest will vary with the particular character or mood of each exponent. For though the so-called 'subliminal' soul is rather an uncertain thing, and though the maxim, 'Der hat es wirklich als Poët Noch nicht sehr weit getrieben, In dessen Werken nichts mehr steht is not always true, yet no one can read Eschylus, Sophocles, or Euripides without feeling that there is often in their words an underlying something which evades an exact comprehension, and on which no one can lay such sure hold as to reconstitute it with exactly the same effect. But in Aristophanes it is otherwise. He is neither mystic nor visionary. His imagination is rich, varied, and brilliant, but he never ventures into those realms of the spirit where language fails, and if it 'half reveals' yet also 'half conceals' the thought within. What he thinks he expresses, so that the art of reproducing him needs no spiritual insight, but becomes almost wholly an art of words. What is true of Aristophanes is true also of the Greek Anthology. There is nothing deep or mysterious about the Greek epigrammatists. They deal only with simple themes-life and death, love and merrymaking, or the like-and with simple thoughts. Except in rare instances, such as the 'Emirúußidiov of Plato's: Αστὴρ πρὶν μὲν ἔλαμπες ἐνὶ ζωοῖσιν Εφος, νῦν δὲ θανὼν λάμπεις Εσπερος ἐν φθιμένοις. 'Thou wert the morning star among the living Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus giving they present no conspicuous novelty of ideas. Their whole merit is that of form and expression, so that, together with their shortness, they offer an almost irresistible temptation to every one who has any knack of rhyming and a taste for small literary ventures. But they are not so easy to imitate as they appear. For the best of them are not only finished and compact, but also remarkable for a total absence of ornament, so that even Shelley's rendering, which has just been quoted, seems to lack the chastened and almost austere purity of the original, while Dr Grundy, whose version is as follows: 'Erstwhile the star of dawn, thy light on living men was shed; But now in death an evening star, thou'rt light among the dead,' shows how hard it is to adopt the most simple style,' and adhere 'as closely as possible to literal translation without at least some loss of distinction and poetic quality. But a good Greek epigram, however undecorated, never ceases to be poetry and a work of art. Even the inscription over the Spartans who fell at Thermopyla is not, for all its plainness, what a Roman inscription would be, merely monumental. It is not merely powerful, but it also pleases. It stirs the heart, but it also touches the artistic sense, and one lingers over the last four words—τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι—as over something that delights because it cannot be bettered. Art has here reached its highest by complete self-effacement; and just as, in spite of unnumbered attempts, this particular epigram has never been successfully rendered, so, if all others were equally severe in their beauty, the translator might well despair. But happily for them even Simonides relaxes, and in this epigram the 'art' is apparent: Εἰ τὸ καλῶς θνήσκειν ἀρετῆς μέρος ἐστι μέγιστον, Ελλάδι γὰρ σπεύδοντες ἐλευθερίαν περιθεῖναι κείμεθ ̓ ἀγηράντῳ χρώμενοι εὐλογία, and Mr Headlam, seizing the opportunity, is not unequal to it: 'If the best merit be to lose life well, To us beyond all else that fortune came: while if any one wishes to contrast true art with tricky art, let him contrast the Thermopyla epigram with the second couplet of another by the same author, 'On those who fell at the Eurymedon': ἀντὶ δ ̓ ἀκοντοδόκων ἀνδρῶν μνημεῖα θανόντων ἄψυχ ̓ εὐψύχων ἅδε κέκευθε κόνις. 'No one,' writes Dr Grundy, 'has yet succeeded in reproducing these lines.' And it may well be so, for there is nothing in them but an artificial play on the words 'spirit-less' (i.e. dead) and 'spirited,' which even if it could be reproduced' would not be worth the effort. To enter, however, on a discussion of epigrams and their translation would be to take up, at the end of an article, a long task, and also one which is here superfluous. For the subject has been treated some four years back (July 1911) by Dr Grundy in this Review, and moreover it is one in which there are as many judgments as men.' If there are no fixed laws according to which translations should be judged-and every writer on the subject must feel that he is at best 'tamquam bombyx bombyzans in vacuo'-most certainly there is no rule by which sentence can be passed upon an epigram. Each rendering has to be judged on its own merits; it has to hit its own mark, and the final test of success is that it should please, that the reader should say, 'That is how I should have put it myself.' But, to enable a reader to do this, the text should go with the rendering; and it is a defect of Dr Grundy's excellent collection that, whereas he gives a whole page to each tiny version, he has not added the original. For the Anthologia Græca is not in every one's hands; and, since an epigram is chiefly a piece of literary cleverness, not having the text we lose the pleasure that comes from a sort of artistic competition. Here, for instance, is a bit by Lucilius: Ἤ τὸ φιλεῖν περίγραψον, Ἔρως, ὅλον, ἢ τὸ φιλεῖσθαι and here it is rendered by R. Garnett: 'Eros, I pray thee to remove Surely it is a pleasure-is it not?-to sit, as it were, in judgment and then award the palm to the translator. But, if Dr Grundy grudges us this added delight, many at least of the pieces which he has brought together will delight every one sufficiently by themselves, while, after all, criticism is a poor thing and it is better simply to admire and enjoy such work as this: ON THE STATUE OF OLYMPIAN Jove. 'Did Jove descend, and thus unveil His form before the sculptor's eyes? To view the monarch of the skies?' Or this, which is from Dionysius, but might have been 'Hail, thou who hast the roses, thou hast the rose's grace! But sellest thou the roses, or e'en thine own fair face?' or finally this 'Epitaph' by Paulus Silentiarius : 'My name and country were no matter what! Now here I lie-and no one cares a jot!' T. E. PAGE PENRE PUBLIC LIBR Art. 2.-ITALY AND THE ADRIATIC. 1. Monumenta spectantia historiam Slavorum Meridionalium. Agram: Academia Scientiarum et Artium. 2. The Republic of Ragusa. By Luigi Villari. London: Dent, 1904. 3. Oesterreich-Ungarn und Italien. By Leopold, Freiherr von Chlumecky. Leipzig and Vienna: Deuticke, 1907. 4. The Hapsburg Monarchy. By Henry Wickham Steed. London: Constable, 1914. 5. La Monarchia degli Absburgo. By Alessandro Dudan. Rome: Bontempelli, 1914. 6. L'Italia d'oltre confine. By Virginio Gayda. Turin: Bocca, 1914. 7. L'Adriatico. By Milan Treves, 1914. 8. Il Mare adriatico; sua funzione attraverso i tempi. By Gellio Cassi. Milan: Hoepli, 1915. And other works. THE present war has brought the Adriatic Sea and the various problems connected with it once more into public notice. A long arm of the Mediterranean, piercing its way almost into the heart of Central Europe, the Adriatic divides the Italian from the Balkan peninsula, taps the rich inland districts both south and north of the Alps, and provides a valuable waterway for the trade of Italy, Germany, Austria and Switzerland with the Near and Middle East and the Mediterranean basin. Many races have dwelt on its shores and fought for the mastery of its waters; and to-day, after a period of peace, several nations are again struggling for the control of this sea and the traffic to which it gives life-old nations with great traditions and young nations full of ambitious dreams of future greatness. The character and general conditions of the two shores are very different. The western coast is an almost uniform line of sandy beach with broad stretches of shallows, broken at only two points-the promontory of Ancona and that of the Gargano-and with few natural harbours. At the northern and southern ends are wide plains spreading far inland before they reach mountain barriers, whereas in the middle section the rugged |