Construed correctly, this clause of
the sentence would mean--'_I, sorrowfully leaving all places gracious to
the Maenalian god_:' but _that_ is not what Lord Wellesley designed: '_I
leaving the woods of Cyllene, and the snowy summits of Pholoe, places that
are all of them dear to Pan_'--_that_ is what was meant: that is to say,
not _leaving all places dear to Pan_, far from it; but _leaving a few
places, every one of which is dear to Pan_. In the line beginning
[Greek: _Kan eth uph aelikias_]
where the meaning is--_and if as yet, by reason of my immature age_,
there is a metrical error; and [Greek: _aelikia_] will not express
immaturity of age. I doubt whether in the next line,
[Greek: _Maed alkae thalloi gounasin aeitheos_]
[Greek: _gounasin_] could convey the meaning without the preposition
[Greek: _eth_]. And in
[Greek: _Spherchomai ou kaleousi theoi._]
_I hasten whither the gods summon me_--[Greek: _ou_] is not the right
word. It is, however, almost impossible to write Greek verses which
shall be liable to no verbal objections; and the fluent movement of these
verses sufficiently argues the off-hand ease with which Lord Wellesley
must have _read_ Greek, writing it so elegantly and with so little of
apparent constraint.
Meantime the most interesting (from its circumstances) of Lord Wellesley's
verses, is one to which his own English interpretation of it has done less
than justice.
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