The Germans render our poetry better than we render theirs, for their language, as slow and unwieldy as their own post-horses in prose, becomes in poetry graceful and strong and flexible as an Arabian war-horse. Besides, translation among them is more often undertaken by men of genius. We remember, for example, some translations of Burns, by Freiligrath, which would have arrested us by their beauty if we had seen the poems for the first time, in this language. It is true the Germans think a little too highly of their translations, and especially are under the illusion, encouraged by some silly English people, that Shakspeare according to Schlegel is better than Shakspeare himself – not simply better to a German as being easier for him to understand, but absolutely better as poetry. A very close and admirable rendering Schlegel’s assuredly is, and it is a high pleasure to track it in its faithful adherence to the original, just as it is to examine a fine engraving of a favourite picture. Sometimes the German is as good as the English – the same music played on another but as good an instrument. But more frequently the German is a feeble echo, and here and there it breaks down in a supremely fine passage. An instance of this kind occurs in the famous speech of Lorenzo to Jessica. Shakspeare says –

Soft stillness and the night

Become the touches of sweet harmony.

This Schlegel renders –

Sanfte Still und Nacht

Sie werden Tasten süsser Harmonie.

That is to say, ‘Soft stillness and the night are the finger-board of sweet harmony.’ A still worse blunder is made by Tieck (whose translation is the rival of Schlegel’s) in the monologue of Macbeth. In the lines –

That but this blow

Might be the be-all and the end-all here –

But here upon this bank and shoal of time,

I’d jump the life to come –

Tieck renders, ‘Upon this bank and shoal of time’, ‘Auf dieser Schülerbank der Gegenwart’, that is, ‘On this school-bench of the present!’ These are cases of gross inaccuracy arising from an imperfect understanding of the original. Here is an instance of feebleness. Coriolanus says –

And like an eagle in the dovecote, I

Flutter’d the Volscians in Corioli.

For the admirably descriptive word ‘fluttered’, Schlegel gives schlug, which simply means ‘slew’. Weak renderings of this kind are abundant.