DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51521#0093
<85)
within, unconsciously. Shelley did well to speak of the
unpremeditated song of the lark—his own songs were
unpremeditated; he could hardly have been aware of his
poetry while it was being written, and afterwards, when
he studied it, he must have wondered how it had come
into being.
I came down one morning with a letter in my hand
reminding me that my agreement with a certain publisher
contained a clause that I was to translate Daphnis and
Chloe. I came down trembling, frightened, unable to be-
lieve that I could ever accomplish such a thing. I read
many translations of this story, and all were absurd, and
now I was going to produce still one more absurdity.
But instead of an absurdity, it seemed to me that I was
writing more musical prose than I had ever written
before. Even the “Proemial,” that had floored so many
translators, rolled itself out, to use an ordinary simile,
like silk off a reel, and when I came to write the first
sentence, I wrote the best sentence that I have ever writ-
ten in my life, and here it is: “The sea flows round
Mitylene, a fair city of Lesbos, and channels filled by the
sea and adorned by bridges of polished white stone divide
it so frequently that the beholder, viewing it from a
distance, would perceive a group of small islands rather
than a city.’’ How beautiful, I said to myself, but this
city of Lesbos would have acquired new beauties under
Gooden’s graver. A great artist truly—the greatest among
within, unconsciously. Shelley did well to speak of the
unpremeditated song of the lark—his own songs were
unpremeditated; he could hardly have been aware of his
poetry while it was being written, and afterwards, when
he studied it, he must have wondered how it had come
into being.
I came down one morning with a letter in my hand
reminding me that my agreement with a certain publisher
contained a clause that I was to translate Daphnis and
Chloe. I came down trembling, frightened, unable to be-
lieve that I could ever accomplish such a thing. I read
many translations of this story, and all were absurd, and
now I was going to produce still one more absurdity.
But instead of an absurdity, it seemed to me that I was
writing more musical prose than I had ever written
before. Even the “Proemial,” that had floored so many
translators, rolled itself out, to use an ordinary simile,
like silk off a reel, and when I came to write the first
sentence, I wrote the best sentence that I have ever writ-
ten in my life, and here it is: “The sea flows round
Mitylene, a fair city of Lesbos, and channels filled by the
sea and adorned by bridges of polished white stone divide
it so frequently that the beholder, viewing it from a
distance, would perceive a group of small islands rather
than a city.’’ How beautiful, I said to myself, but this
city of Lesbos would have acquired new beauties under
Gooden’s graver. A great artist truly—the greatest among