ween these two rival schools
and to condemn one of them? Assuredly not. Both have their merits. An
instance in point is the exquisite "Rosa Rosarum" of Dionysius, which
runs thus:

[Greek: He ta rhoda, rhodoessan echeis charin; alla ti poleis,
sauten, e ta rhoda, ee synamphothera?]

Mr. Pott, in his _Greek Love Songs and Epigrams_, adopted the triolet
metre, which is singularly suitable to the subject, in dealing with this
epigram, and gracefully translated thus:

Which roses do you offer me,
Those on your cheeks, or those beside you?
Since both are passing fair to see,
Which roses do you offer me?
To give me both would you agree,
Or must I choose, and so divide you?
Which roses do you offer me,
Those on your cheeks or those beside you?

Here the two lines of the original are expanded into eight lines in the
translation, and some fresh matter is introduced. Dr. Grundy imposes
more severe limitations on his muse. His translation, which is more
literal, but at the same time singularly felicitous, is as follows:

Hail, thou who hast the roses, thou hast the rose's grace!
But sellest thou the roses, or e'en thine own fair face?

Any one of literary taste will find it difficult to decide which of
these versions to prefer, and will impartially welcome both.

It cannot, however, be doubted that strict adherence to Dr. Grundy's
principle occasionally leads to results which are open to criticism from
the point of view of English style. A case in point is his translation
of Plato's epitaph on a shipwrecked sailor:

[Greek: Nauegou taphos eimi; ho d' antion esti georgou;
hos hali kai gaie xynos hupest' Aides.]

Dr. Grundy's translation, which is as follows, adheres closely to the
original text, but somewhat grates on the English ear:

A sailor's tomb am I; o'er there a yokel's tomb there be;
For Hades lies below the earth as well as 'neath the sea.

Another instance is the translation of the epigram of Nicarchus on The
Lifeboat, in which the inexorable necessities of finding a rhyme to
"e'en Almighty Zeus" has compelled the translator to resort to the
colloquial and somewhat graceless phrase "in fact, the very deuce."

But criticisms such as these may be levelled against well-nigh all
translators. They merely constitute a reason for holding that Shelley
was not far wrong in the opinion quoted above. Few translators have,
indeed, been able to work