- Svētajam Hieronīmam par prieku
- 29.3.09 08:10
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"Lattimore had labored mightily — perhaps too mightily — in pursuit of grandeur, achieved chiefly through high diction and a studious English reconstitution of Greek meters. Here, in a typical passage [ 1953], the Chorus asks Clytemnestra about her husband’s possible return:
Is it some grace — or otherwise — that you have heard
to make you sacrifice at messages of good hope?
I should be glad to hear, but must not blame your silence.
And this is Carson’s rendering [2009] of the same passage:
So you got good news?
You’re optimistic?
Tell me, unless you don’t want to.
Confronting these two polar versions of Agamemnon, a reader may search out a middle terrain, like that presented by Robert Lowell, whose respectful streamlining of Lattimore appeared in 1978:
Have you heard good news, or is it only
hope that makes you light the altars?
We would gladly hear you, but accept your silence.