German author gave the opinions of Albertus just as they stand in his own works; the French translator (Victor Cousin) gave the account as he found it in the German work; and the English translator gave the kind of version which would render it palatable to his own sect. A translator of this class little thinks of the extent to which he may injure his work in a reader's mind,-for when we have once discovered a single passage dealt with in this manner, it naturally destroys our faith in all the rest. Let me be exonerated from the least wish to cast any odium upon respected names on account of any of the so-called translations which are among us; it was the regular system in their time-has been thought the best ever since is still practised to a great extent—and all I wish to do is to protest against it, with a view to the promulgation of the true principle, and to call upon competent scholars to give to their nation what has so long been wanted-faithful translations of the ancients.

It is a great pleasure to be able to say that a true principle of translation has appeared among us, some years since, as well as recently; but the instances are very few. I allude to Lord Thurlow's modernization of Chaucer's Knight's Tale, which is done on the true principle-word for word with the original, wherever it was possible, and (so far as I examined it) without the interpolation of a single line-and is an honour to his memory. Mr. Wordsworth

has also adopted the same plan on two or three occasions. The most recent specimens of good translations from the Greek are those of the Cyclops of Euripides, and Frere's translations of Aristophanes and Theognis. The last instance of an excellent translation from a living language with which I am acquainted, is that of Calderon's La Vida es Sueño, by Mr. John Oxenford, which is singularly faithful, and line for line with the original wherever that is possible.

Very few instances of pretended translation have been here particularized, because to name a few is to name nearly all; and, besides, every body who has examined our translations is well aware of what they are.

A concluding remark may be offered on the frequently repeated assertion that no language can truly be translated into another language; and that poetry, in especial, will not bear translation, and is, in fact, lost. This is partially true with regard to poetry; for its music, from which, as an art, it is inseparable, is always liable to be perverted or utterly lost. But this applies with little force to any other class of writing. In works of philosophy, we can always have by translation the principles, the deductions, the truths; in science, we can have the facts, the experiments, the practical results; in history, the events, the knowledge; and even in poetry, we can have the design, subject, ruling principle, fable, allegory, the main ideas and images-and sometimes, a

form and melody closely answering to the original, though far more commonly the original form and melody will be quite lost. The music of poetry is its art; and although its art is not its sole element, yet is it the only medium whereby a full development can be obtained. Certain forms of expression are peculiar to most languages, and must, so far, influence translations of all kinds of works. A given passage bearing a certain form in one language, will be beautiful, which bearing the same form in another language may be barbarous; in these cases, therefore, the original form is an essential part-not all the essence.

The diffi

culties attending faithful translations are great and manifold, no doubt; but surely this can be no reason why they should be executed in the worst possible way-viz., with special reference to the individualities of the translator, and with no respect for the words of the original

author.

R. H. HORNE.

ON THE SCENE OF THE PHEDRUS OF PLATO.

THERE are few natural scenes so forcibly brought before us in Greek literature, as that of the opening of Plato's dialogue of the Phædrus. And as no Greek topographer has pointed out its exact site, a few words may not be ill placed in fixing it.

The Ilissus has a character of its own, very different from the vague ideas with which we are accustomed to invest it. The probable etymology of its name (eiλéw, volvo) well accords with its appearance: "anfracta riparum incurvus Elissos," which is the description given by Statius (Theb. IV. 52) of its namesake in Thessaly, is well applied by Colonel Leake (2nd edit. Athens, 1. 134) to the Ilissus itself. It is a mere mountain-torrent, in summer usually only a dry gravelly bed, in winter, at times sufficiently swollen with rain as to fall in a slight cascade over the rocks by the spring of Callirhoe-and till it emerges into the open plain of the Limne, south of the city of Athens, where it is soon lost, it winds its way between two steep banks, broken with rock-being in fact the last undulations of the wild slopes of Hymettus, descending on the plain of Athens. On those slopes, running up into the desolate bosom of the mountain, the early Pelasgian inhabitants of the country, when driven from Athens by the Hellenic race, still hovered, as if to keep within sight of their ancient home, exactly as the modern banditti have been known to do in later times-and the visit of the Athenian women to get water from the Ilissus, would naturally invite them to make those predatory descents described by Herodotus (vI. 137). Such being the wild character of the scenery in general, which helps us to understand the complete retirement and seclusion of the scene, remote

from the bustle of the city, to which Socrates is invited by Phædrusthe particular spot is no less in exact accordance with the express words of Plato. Two or three stadia, i. e. about 500 yards above the church of St. Peter Stauromenos, which is built out of an ancient temple, justly identified with that of Artemis Agræa, there is a sharp turn in the stream where it descends more immediately from Hymettus, and in doing so an opening occurs in the rocky banks, which forms just such a marked place as would invite a pause in the walk of the two conversers. There is exactly the small grassy plot or slope (κομψόπατον τὸ τῆς πόας ἐν ἠρέμα προσάντει),—the less confined banks, which would admit of the gentle air (veûμa μéтpiov)— the thick shrubs of agnus castus' (тò σúσkiov máykaλov), which fills indeed the whole course of the stream, and in summer adorns it with its white and purple flowers, but luxuriates especially on this spot; the spring rising from beneath one of the rocks, and trickling into the brook, which therefore has generally a small pool of water here, even when dry elsewhere (nyn xapieσTáτn). The planetree indeed is gone with so many of the trees, which, even up to the time of the late Greek war, shaded this side of Athens. A neighbouring convent, for example, before that time was surrounded with a grove of palms, not one of which now remains: and it is probably owing to the loss of its planes, that the Ilissus is now a more scanty stream than it would have been when it had to be crossed by the bridge, where two picon still exist opposite the stadium. But immediately overhanging this little plot of open ground is a rocky knoll, which closes it on the north, about fifteen feet high, on the top of which is a small chapel of S. George, and in the crumbling sides of which is a small cavern (see Gell's Itinerary of Greece, p. 93). To those who know how almost invariably a Greek temple was succeeded by a Christian church, and also how essential a cavern was to the worship of the very gods, who are said by Plato to have been there honoured, it will be evident how this tends to fix the locality, especially when it is considered that no such features are found in any other part of the neighbourhood, sufficiently in accordance with the distances indicated by Plato. Doubtless on that rocky knoll stood a small shrine, and in that rugged cave were placed those offerings to Pan and the nymphs which Socrates saw, and which so exactly accord with the worship which we know to have been paid to them in the cavern of Pan under the Acropolis, at Marathon, in the Corcyrian cave, and of which such

1 The modern Greek name of agnus castus is Avyavea—or λvyos—in the vulgar dialect about Athens, καβενατζα.

? The confusions about the spring of Castalia and Callirhoe, noticed in the

article on Greek Topography in our first Number, would account for the application of the term anуn to what would not be strictly deserving of the name of spring.

remarkable traces remain in the grotto on Hymettus, described in Dr. Wordsworth's Athens, p. 158. Nor is this without its significance in the dialogue itself. And the rocky protuberances of the place are themselves the tokens of the worship of the gods called by the Greeks xóvio. The peculiar characteristic of all their sanctuaries consists of the simplest elements of the earth bursting forth from her inmost recesses-springs rushing from deep clefts in mountains, as at Delphi, Lebadea, and the Pnyx-rocks shewing themselves (to use the language of geology) in strength, as at the hill of Colonos, the Areopagus, and the spot in question,—all of them sacred to the deities especially termed x0ovio. Any one who has ever seen an ancient statue of Pan-one such, for example, was lately discovered at the Piræeus— and calls to mind the exquisite comic expression of his face, and the grotesqueness of his whole figure, will see what a playful character all the allusions to the worship of the spot impart to the dialogue generally, and how mistaken, though pleasing, is the view which could discern a solemn prayer in the concluding speech of Socrates (see Sewell's Dialogues of Plato), when in fact it was merely that cheerful banter with the drollery of the quaint deity who presided there, such as would naturally flow from the lips of the great master at once of Grecian philosophy and Grecian irony.

A. P. S.

DR. CRAMER'S ANECDOTA GRÆCA.

To the EDITOR of the CLASSICAL MUSEUM.

SIR, I SEND you a few pages of remarks on some of the medical extracts contained in Dr. Cramer's Anecdota Græca, though I am afraid you will hardly consider them of sufficient general interest to deserve a place in the Classical Museum. I think, however, that such of your readers as possess the work may like to correct in the margin of their copy the following errata, which accordingly I have noticed in the shortest possible way. To any one who is at all acquainted with the literature and technical terms of ancient medicine, they will (I am well aware,) appear obvious enough, though by any one else they might easily be passed over unobserved. I have not noticed the work by Meletius De Natura Hominis, which occupies half of one of the volumes, as to have corrected all the most important mistakes contained in it would have trespassed too much on your pages on the present occasion: perhaps, however, I may be allowed to notice them on some future opportunity.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

W. A. GREENHILL, M.D.

Anecd. Græca [Oxon.] Vol. III.

p. 188, 189. Of the eight physicians mentioned here, Soranus, Hippocrates, Galen, Herophilus, and Herodotus were celebrated men; the names of Trypho and Hero occur in two or three other passages; but Herodianus may be added to the list of ancient physicians given by Fabricius in his Biblioth. Gr., and by Haller in his Biblioth. Medic. Pract., nor (as far as I am aware,) is he mentioned any where else.

p. 190, 1. 4. τὰ πρὸς Πίσωνα—τοῦ σοῦ Γαληνοῦ] i.e. his treatise, Πρὸς Πίσωνα περὶ τῆς Θηριακῆς.

p. 412, 1. 7. 'Epvoepμos] read Xpúoeppos. His name occurs several times in ancient authors: the story in the text is taken from Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrhon. Hypotyp. 1. 14, § 84.

p. 119, 1. 11. Tzetzes mistakes was Xenon.

p. 255, l. 16.

p. 319, 1. 1.

Anecd. Gr. [Oxon.] Vol. iv.

In the celebrated epitaph on Acron of Agrigentum, akpov for the name of his father, which however

Пoλéμw] See his Physiognom. 1. 6.

'Avtiyovos.] See Hist. Mirab. cap. 10.

Anecd. Gr. Paris. Vol. 1.

p. 340, 1. 20. The comma after yentaι disturbs the sense, and should be placed after σrépμaros in the next line, where it is wanted. p. 340, 1. 22. μépovs ti] read μépos T, as in Fabr. Bibl. Gr. t. v. 130; Cf. Plut. De Phys. Philos. Decr. v. 6; Gal. De Hist. Philos.

p.

c. 32, tom. XIX. p. 323 ed. Kühn.

p. 340, 1. 23. ¿§vypawoμévŋv] read—μévŋ, as in Fabr. οἷον ὕλη] read οἷον δὲ ὕλη, as in Fabr.

p. 340, 1. 25.

p. 340, 1. 29. The semicolon should be after. xola's, and the comma after αμφοτέρων.

p. 340, 1. 30. Èπ eλaTTov] These words have been supplied from Fabr.; probably the e' should be omitted.

p. 341, 1. 9. ἀῤῥενοπώτερον] read ἀῤῥενωπότερον.

p. 341, 1. 16. ☛аρкwσes] Both Galen p. 326. and Plutarch c. 9. read σapкons, without a semicolon.

เ

p. 341, 1. 21. ☛apéɣkλŋow] read пapéykλow, which, if we give to the the sound it bears in modern Greek, and pronounce the word according to the accent and not the quantity, will have exactly the same sound as the word in the text.

ἀσύληπτον] read ἀσύλληπτον.

p. 341, 1. 24. p. 394, 1. 25. Varia Antiqq. Medicor. Remedia] Most of these prescriptions are to be found in Galen, De Compos. Medicam. sec. Locos, from which work they have probably been taken: several errors may be corrected by a reference to Galen.

p. 394, 1. 26. Αρχιγένους περίπλασμα καὶ ἐπιθέματα, κ. τ. λ.] read περιπλάσματα. Galen quotes from Archigenes as follows : περιπλάσμασι de Kai éπiléμasi TOIOÚTOIS TIƠI XPw. (Lib. v. c. 5. tom. XII. p. 859.)