The Project Gutenberg eBook, Targum, by George Borrow

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Title: Targum

Author: George Borrow

Release Date: June 3, 2004 [eBook #12510]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TARGUM***

Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk

TARGUM.
Or Metrical Translations From Thirty Languages And Dialects.
By George Borrow.

"The raven has ascended to the nest of the nightingale."
Persian Poem

The following pieces, selections from a huge and undigested mass of
translation, accumulated during several years devoted to philological
pursuits, are with much diffidence offered to the public, the writer being
fully aware that not unfrequently he has failed in giving his version that
cast and turn, which constitute no slight part of the beauty of the
original; a point the accomplishment of which the poetical Translator
ought, in all instances, to bear particularly in view, but which he will
invariably find the most difficult part of the task which he has
undertaken; in comparison with which the rendering of the diction of his
Author into tolerable verse is an easy achievement. Perhaps no person,
amongst the many individuals who have distinguished themselves by skill in
the targumannic art, has more successfully surmounted this difficulty than
Fairfax, the Translator into English "octave rhyme" of "The Jerusalem,"
the master-piece of the greatest poet of modern Italy and, with one
exception, of modern time.

That the character of a nation is best distinguishable by the general tone
of its poetry, has been frequently remarked, and is a truth which does not
admit of controversy; the soft songs of the Persian, and the bold and
warlike ditties of the Dane are emblems of the effeminacy of the one, and
the reckless heroism of the other.--In most instances the writer in the
selection of pieces for this little work has been guided by a desire of
exhibiting what is most characteristic of the people to whose literature
it belongs. At the same time, he has been careful that this desire should
not lead him to the countenancing of any thing which could be considered
as pregnant with injury