THE AGAMEMNON.
Very many years ago I had translated parts of the
Agamemnon. I have been tempted by the surpassing
grandeur of the Drama, the Macbeth of antiquity, to
complete the work. In the passages formerly rendered,
I had generally followed the readings and interpretations
of the editions in the highest estimation at that time,
those of Porson (the text), Schütz, and Blomfield. I have
now consulted some of the later editions, especially the
copious notes of Dr. Peile, in which are embodied much
of Wellauer, Klausen, O. Müller, and Dindorf. I have,
in the many passages which are still left in great part
to conjecture, adopted that sense or reading which
appeared to me the best and most poetical. Possibly I
may have chosen some, as most poetical and Æschylean,
which the severer scholar may question or reject. The
peculiar manner and wonderful power of Æschylus in
suggesting, rather than developing or distinctly expressing,
many thoughts and many images by a few pregnant
and close-set words, or by an overteeming compound
epithet, sometimes compel the translator, if he would not
lose the full force of the poetry, to indulge in paraphrase
beyond what his judgment would allow in other cases.
I have abstained from looking into other translations
except that of Mr. Symmons of Christ Church (1824),
the Notes of which show scholarship of a very high order,
and a very fine and just appreciation of the poetry of
Æschylus. If Mr. Symmons had not indulged in paraphrase
to an extent, at least to me, not justifiable even
in the rendering of Æschylus, and had been gifted with
a finer ear for lyric harmony, his version would have
been excellent.
