Body'S Beauty

Of Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told (The witch he loved before the gift of Eve,) That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive, And her enchanted hair was the first gold. And still she sits, young while the earth is old, And subtly of herself contemplative, Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave, Till heart and body and life are in its hold.

The rose and poppy are her flowers; for where Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare? Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent, And round his heart one strangling golden hair.

The reference to the rose and the poppy may need some explanation. The rose has been for many centuries in Western countries a symbol of love; and the poppy has been a symbol of death and sleep from the time of the Greeks. It is from the seeds of the poppy that opium is extracted. The Greeks did not know the use of opium; but they knew that the seeds of the flower produced sleep, and might, in certain quantities, produce death. We have the expression "poppied sleep" to express the sleep of death.

A final word must be said about Rossetti's genius as a translator. He has given us, in one large volume, the most precious anthology of the Italian poets of the Middle Ages that ever has been made--the poets of the time of Dante, under the title of "Dante and his Circle." This magnificent work would alone be sufficient to establish his supreme excellence as a translator of poetry; but the material is mostly of a sort that can appeal to scholars only. Rossetti is better known as a translator through a very few short pieces translated from French poets, chiefly. Such is the wonderful rendering of Villon's "Ballad of Dead Ladies," beginning

Tell me now in what hidden way is Lady Flora, the lovely Roman? Where's Hipparchia, and where is Thais, Neither of them the fairer woman? Where is Echo, beheld of no man, Only heard on river and mere,-- She whose beauty was more than human?-- But where are the snows of yester-year?

Even Swinburne, when making his splendid translations from Villon, refrained from attempting to translate this ballad, saying that no man could surpass, even if he could equal, Rossetti's version. The burthen is said to be especially successful as a rendering of the difficult French refrain:

Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?

You will find this matchless translation almost anywhere, so we need not occupy the time further with it; but I doubt whether you have noticed as yet other wonderful translations made by this master from the French. Such is the song from Victor Hugo's drama "Les Burgraves"; you will not forget Rossetti's translation after having once read it.

Through the long winter the rough wind tears; With their white garments the hills look wan. Love on: who cares? Who cares? Love on! My mother is dead; God's patience wears; It seems my chaplain will not have done! Love on: who cares? Who cares? Love on! The Devil, hobbling up the stairs, Comes for me with his ugly throng. Love on: who cares? Who cares? Love on.

Another remarkable translation from the same drama is that of the song beginning:

In the time of the civil broils Our swords are stubborn things. A fig for all the cities! A fig for all the kings!

and ending:

Right well we hold our own With the brand and the iron rod. A fig for Satan, Burgraves; Burgraves, a fig for God!

But even more wonderful Rossetti seems when we go back to the old French, as in the translation which has been called "My Father's Close."

Inside my father's close (Fly away O my heart away!) Sweet apple-blossom blows So sweet.

Three kings' daughters fair, (Fly away O my heart away!) They lie below it there So sweet!

Now the Old French of the first stanza will show you the astonishing faithfulness of the rendering:

Au jardin de mon père, (Vole, mon cœur, vole!) Il y a un pommier doux, Tout doux.

Besides the small exquisite things, there are long translations from mediæval writers, French and Italian, of wonderful beauty. Compare, for example, the celebrated episode of Francesca da Rimini in Dante (which Carlyle so beautifully called "a lily in the mouth of Hell"), as translated by Byron, and as translated by Rossetti, and observe the immeasurable superiority of the latter. It would be very pleasant, if we had time, to examine Rossetti's translations more in detail; but the year advances and we must turn to an even greater master of verse--Swinburne.