The Complete Works of Richard Crashaw Volume II Part 6

Thou shalt have from the eternal Requiter Deserved punishment for the unjust crime: Proud admirer of thy honours, Rebellious usurper of another's seat!

Transformed, and fallen into Phlegethon, Proud Narcissus, impious Phaethon!'

Milton takes from Crashaw, not Marino, in his portrait of the Destroyer:

'From Death's sad shades to the life-breathing ayre This mortall enemy to mankind's good Lifts his _malignant eyes, wasted with care, To become beautifull in humane blood_.' (st. xi.)

Literally in Marino:

'He from the shades of death to the living air, Envious in truth of our human state, Lifted aloft his eyes by where The hollow vent-hole opened straight down.'

Well-nigh innumerable single lines and words are inevitably marked: _e.g._

'the rebellious eye Of sorrow.' (st. xlix.)

So the eyes of Satan:

'the sullen dens of Death and Night Startle the dull ayre with a dismal red;' (st. vii.)

for Marino's

'Negli occhi ove mestizia alberga e morte, Luce fiammeggia torbida e vermiglia;'

literally:

'In the eyes where sadness dwells and death A turbid vermilion-coloured light s.h.i.+nes.'

Again: the sun is seen by the Tempter to

Make proud the ruby portalls of the East;' (st. xvi.)

for 'la Reggia Oriental.' Crashaw has the same vivid fancy in the Hymn for Epiphany:

'Aurora shall set ope Her ruby cas.e.m.e.nts.'

Finally, to show that even where our Translator keeps closest to the original, he yet gives the creative touches of which I have already spoken, read his st. v. beside this literal translation:

'Under the abysses, at the very core of the world, In the central point of the universe, Within the bowers of the darkest deep, There stands the fiendly perverse Spirit: With sharp thongs an impure group Binds him with a hundred snakes athwart: With such bonds girds him for ever, The great champion who conquered HIM in Paradise.'

Thus we might go over the entire poem, and everywhere we should gather proofs that he was himself all he conceived in his splendid portraiture of the true Poet's genius:

'no rapture makes it live Drest in the glorious madnesse of a Muse, Whose feet can walke the Milky Way, Her starry throne, and hold up an exalted arm To lift me from my lazy urn and climbe Upon the stooped shoulders of old Time, And trace eternity.' (vol. i. p. 238.)[38]

Fully to estimate Crashaw's own grander imaginative faculty the Reader must study here the now-first-printed and very Miltonic poems on Apocalypse xii. 7 (Vol. II. pp. 231-3) and 'Christe, veni' (_ib._ pp.

223-5). It is profoundly to be regretted that our Poet should have limited himself to Book I. of the 'Strage degli Innocenti,' viz.

'Sospetto d'Herode.' Book VII. especially, 'Della Gerusalemme Distruta,'

would have demanded all his powers. The entire poem was 'done in English,' and it is '_done_' (by T.R. 1675).

With reference to our own Translations of Crashaw, if in some instances we have enlarged on our original, and adventured to fill-in what in the Latin the Poet is fettered in uttering, may we apologise by pleading his own example as a Translator, though with unequal steps and far off? I would specify the very remarkable 'Bulla,' in which, indeed, I find Crashaw's highest of pure poetic faculty within the region of Fancy in its delicatest and subtlest symbolisms; also the scarcely less remarkable address 'To the Reader' ('Lectori'); and his 'Fides &c. &c.'

and his cla.s.sical legends of 'Arion,' and his University 'Laments' and 'Appeals' for Peterhouse. Throughout, my co-workers and myself have aimed to give the _thought_ of Crashaw; and, unless I egregiously mistake, we have together earned some grat.i.tude from admirers of our Worthy.

I leave to other Scholars to deal critically with the Latin and Greek of these Poems and Epigrams now first translated. Read unsympathetically, I fear that very often his quant.i.ties and versification will be regarded as barbarous; but we have done something, it is believed, to neutralise Turnbull's most discreditable misprints herein, as in the English Poems.

In the places (vol. ii. pp. 5-6, 244, and 332) we have recorded some of his more flagrant blunders; but besides we have silently corrected as many more of the original and early editions.

That Crashaw was not an accurate scholar the Greek Epigrams (as well as some of the Latin ones) furnish sufficient proof. Of the many obvious errors in quant.i.ty and construction, I have only corrected such as may have been mere oversights, some of them perhaps caused by his MS. having been misread; in other cases I have followed the original editions, and corrected the numerous errors made by Turnbull from his not being able to read the Greek ligatures &c. It may be well to indicate a few of the typical corrections that I felt obliged to make, and note other lapses which I did not feel justified in altering.

In XI. last line, ?p????pt?? for ?p????pt??; CXXI. last line, ??? for ??; CXXV. line 5. ?e??' for ?e??; CLx.x.x. line 1 has p???? as if the penult were long instead of short, and ???? an unused form, so that the line offends both quant.i.ty and usage--it might be amended thus, ??? ?? ???, ? ?? te p???? pe????e?, ???a?; CLx.x.xII. line 1, ?p?a??e? for ?p?a??e?; CLx.x.xIII.

line 2, s?????e should be s?????e, but altered for scansion; line 3, ???????? should perhaps be ????????; line 4, unscanable; and in CXXV. line 4, das???? should be das?s??.

???a???, the penult of which is short, he uses as either long or short.

I must add, that the accentuation was as often wrong as right. I have carefully corrected it throughout. And this seems to me to be the only allowable way of reproducing Crashaw. An Editor cannot be held responsible for his Author writing imperfect Greek or Latin, any more than for his mistakes either in opinion or in matters-of-fact or taste.

Anderson's and Chalmers' Poets, and Peregrine Phillip's Selections, and Turnbull's edition in Russell Smith's 'Old Authors' and that in Gilfillan's Poets (a selection only), are our predecessors in furnis.h.i.+ng Crashaw's Poetry. We confess to a feeling of just pride (shall we say?) in being the first worthily and adequately to present as remarkable Poetry, in its own region, as is anywhere to be found. RICHARD CRASHAW has a.s.suredly not yet gathered all his fame.[39]

ALEXANDER B. GROSART.

Latin Poems.

PART FIRST. SACRED.

I.

EPIGRAMMATA SACRA.

(1634-1670.)

NOTE.

The earliest appearance of CRASHAW as a poet was in the University Collections of Latin Verse on the (then) usual conventional occasions of royal births and deaths, and the like. These pieces will be found in their places in the present volume. The place of honour herein we a.s.sign to his own published volume of 1634, of which the following is the t.i.tle-page, within a neat woodcut border:

EPIGRAM-

MATUM

SACRORUM

LIBER.

University Printer's ornament, with legend, 'Hinc. Lvcem. Et.