Moody Review of Grandmaison's Les Amours Epiques
author: Elizabeth Moody
source date: 1804

Elizabeth Moody Art. IX. Les Amours Epiques, &c. i.e. Love Epics, an Heroic Poem, in six Cantos, containing a Translation of Episodes on Love, composed by the best Epic Poets. By Parseval Grandmaison. 12mo. pp. 250. Paris. 1804. London, De Boffe. Price 3s. 6d. sewed. [This review article appeared in the Foreign Appendix of The Monthly Review, vol. 45 (September-December 1804), pp. 511-515. This edition by Emma Wiley and Mary A. Waters. The poet and painter François-Auguste Parseval Grandmaison (1759-1834) was appointed to the French Academy in recognition of his poetry in honor of Napoleon Bonaparte.]

I n the preface to this small publication, we are informed that the author's avocations were at one period of his life of a nature so totally uncongenial with the muses, as entirely to preclude all intercourse with these celestial personages: but a change of unforeseen circumstances, turning up on the wheel of Fortune, brought him the desired leisure to enter the lists of Apollo, and to dedicate his services to the fascinating family of the Nine. The plan of this work is well conceived, ingenious, and interesting; being designed to form a combination of amatory episodes, with the narrative part of the most celebrated epic poets;—an union kindly intended, as the author tells us, to produce an acceptable variety to the reader, and to enable him, when he is chilled with horror at the ferocity of Achilles, to melt his ice in the parting milder scenes between Hector and Andromache.

With a stroke of his wand, the poet conjures up six of the most celebrated bards, whom he orders to the Elysian grove; and there seated, each with his lyre in his hand, they rehearse, by turns, one of their own favourite songs. This band is composed of Homer, Virgil, Tasso, Ariosto, Milton, and Camoens. Homer takes the precedency; which he justly claims both on account of seniority, as being a great, great, great, grandfather to the rest, and as also being super-excellent in the profession. His song illustrates the truth of the author's remark: for our wounded feelings, on seeing Hector dragged round the walls of Troy, induce us to turn our eyes impatiently to the love episode, which Tasso promises in the next song. It is the natural propensity of the human mind to grasp every idea of pleasure that presents itself; and though conscious of the impracticability of any version doing complete justice to a transcendently beautiful original, we unwarily participate in the enthusiasm of this poet:—who, like a true knight-errant in literature, shrinks from no enterprize, though he himself acknowledges its magnitude, and almost insurmountable difficulties. We, therefore, jump with him into the enchanting and enchanted scenery of Armida's [Character in Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata .] bower:—but we confess that we looked as blue as the bill of the Italian warbler, when we hear the pretty song which he sings in Tasso's grove imitated by the pert chirping of a little French cock-sparrow.—Here, however, the critic smooths his angry brow, and excuses the poet; convinced that it is impossible to do more than he has done: which is, to give a faithful translation of this charming morsel————

Deh mira (egli canto) spuntar la rosa
Dal verde suo modesta e verginella,
Che mezzo aperta encora, e mezzo ascosa
Quanto si mostra men, tanto è più bella
Ecco poi nudo il sen gia baldanzosa
Dispiega: ecco poi langue, e non par quella
Quella non par, che desiata innante
Fu da mille donzelle e mille amante.

Those who have never heard the Italian bard may not be displeased with the French songster:

Hélas! voyez, dit il, cette modeste rose,
Vierge encore, aux regards elle se cache, et n'ose
Dérober son trésor à sa verte prison;
Elle fait poindre à peine un timide bouton;
Bientôt, en soulevant son voile qu'elle entr'ouvre,
A moitié s'enveloppe, à moitié se découvre,
Et moins elle se montre, et plus elle d'attraits;
Mais déployant enfin tous ses charmes secrets,
Elle s'épanouit, et deja languissante
Cette rose n'est plus la rose éblouissante
Dont les jeunes beautés, dont les jeunes amants
Respiroient les parfums, goûtoient les agréments.

The same critical remarks apply equally to Ariosto; namely, that it is impossible to give an adequate idea of the beauty of his episodes by a French translation. Hitherto, we keep our temper, and are rather pleased than angry at the hardihood of our literary knight: but when he sets his foot on the hallowed ground of the most sublime of our English bards, Milton, we could be indignant:—still, however, we forbear. M. Grandmaison, from not understanding the majestic march of our blank verse, is unable to perceive the ludicrous effect produced by the change into paltry diminutive rhiming couplets: but to us the scene exhibits a dwarf supporting the train of a giant. Under this consideration of the work before us, it may appear invidious to comment on the beautiful passages which are here metamorphosed: but we must perform our task. We do not wish to put fetters on genius, yet we require the judgment should be its vigilant superintendant, and keep it within its prescribed boundary.—Let us now attend to Milton; who, we are told, has taken his lyre in his hand:

Alors Milton, prenant sa lyre entre ses mains,
Se prépare à chanter le premier des humains:
La soule avidement et l'entoure et le presse:
Il exhale en ces mots sa poetique ivresse.

We must first listen to Milton's song, in his own language, and afterward ask ourselves whether it be possible for us to recollect it in its masquerade dress.— We give the description of the garden of Eden, and the discovery of the happy pair by Satan: Paradise Lost, vol. i. book iv. Page 262.

So on he fares, and to the border comes
Of Eden, where delicious Paradise,
Now nearer, crowns with her inclosure green,
As with a rural mound, the champain head
Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides
With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild,
Access deny'd, and over head up grew
Insuperable height of loftiest shade,
Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm,
A sylvan scene; and as the ranks ascend
Shade above shade, a woody theatre
Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops,
The verd'rous wall of Paradise up sprung:—

Thus sang the English Poet, and thus sings the French:—

Le mont d'Eden s'éleve en des champs fortunés,
Ses pieds sont de buissons par tout environnés
Et, par tout l'entourant, d'inaccessibles roches
De ces flancs escarpés défendent les approches;
Sur ces flancs s'élevoient de longs et [Milton does not give the epithet of black to the fir [Moody's note].] noirs sapins,
Des cedres, des palmiers, de vénérables pins,
Qui montant par degrés formoient de verds étages,
Levoient pompeusement ombrages sur ombrages,
Superbe amphithéâtre, et champêtres atours,
Qui paroient de ce mont les immenses contours.
Plus haut sur les sommets de ces arbres augustes,
S'arrondissoit en circle une chaine d'arbustes,
Formant du paradis les agrestes remparts,
D'où l'œil dans les vallons plongeoit de toutes parts.'

———————————
————————Now gentle gales,
Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense
Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
Those balmy spoils.

Là, mille frais zéphyrs sur leur aile embaumée,
Faisoient voler des fleurs l'essence parfumée.

These are harmless platitudes, when compared with the daring attempt to translate poetically (as the author pretends) the description given by the English poet of our first parents in their celestial grove:— Milton, vol. i. book iv. Page 279.

Two, of far nobler shape, erect and tall,
God-like erect, with native honor clad,
In naked majesty seem'd lords of all,
And worthy seem'd; for in their looks divine,
The image of their glorious maker shone,
Truth, wisdom, sanctitude, severe and pure,
(Severe, but in true filial freedom plac'd,)
Whence true authority in men; though both
Not equal, as their sex not equal seem'd;
For contemplation he and valour form'd,
For softeness she and sweet attractive grace,
He for God only, she for God in him:

Au milieu des beautés qu'offroient ces lieux champétres,
Parmi ses habitants se promenoient deux êtres,
Debout, levant au ciel leurs fronts nobles, sereins,
Et de ce lieu superbe augustes souverains;
Nus, ils etoient couverts d'un voile de decence;
Ils brilloient de fierté, d'honneur, et d'innocence;
Rois paisibles du monde, en leur regard altier,
En leurs sublimes traits, Dieu s'est peint tout entier;
Tout ce qu'on doit aimer, et tout ce qu'on revere,
Raison, vertu, sagesse, et piété severe,——
——Dans leurs formes pourtant quelque inégalité
De leurs sexes divers distinguoit la beauté:

L'un superbe annoncoit, et la force et l'audace:
L'autre d'attraits plus doux développoit la grace;
Le premier pour Dieu seul vivoit en ce beau lieu
Le second y vivoit, et pour l'homme et pour Dieu.

Here we finish our extracts;—and having endeavoured, with becoming temperance, to sprinkle cool patience over the heat and rage of our critical anger, we take our leave of Mons. Grandmaison:—but not without admonishing him, and most of the Gallic sons of Apollo, to respect and venerate the immortal shades of our English poets. Let them be considered as reposing under the sanction of consecrated laurels; one branch of which, it is even something like sacrilege to endeavor to appropriate by any but kindred hands.