HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

Bard of Democracy
been full, if he had lived to read Mr. Martin's translation."
''
William Ernest Henley was no less bitter about
Heine translations. He too attacked Theodore Martin's
version as a horrible example. In an article,
entitled "Heine, the Villainy of Translation," he
analyzed the original text and explained the pitfalls
that beset the best-intentioned disciples of Heine.
He characterized the German's lyrical form as follows:
"His verses dance and sway like the nixies
he loved. Their every motion seems informed with
the perfect suavity and spontaneity of pure nature.
They tinkle dow^n the air like sunset bells, they float
like clouds, they wave like flowers, they twitter
hke skylarks, they have in them something of the
swiftness and the certainty of exquisite physical
sensations. In such a transcript as Sir Theodore's all
this is lost; Heine becomes a mere prentice-metrist;
he sets the teeth on edge as surely as Browning
himself; the verse that recalled a dance of naiads
suggests a springless cart on a highland road; Terpsichore
is made to prance a hobnailed breakdown.
The poem disappears, and in its place you have an
indifferent copy of verse."^"^ No wonder, therefore,
that Lafcadio Hearn, who had a fine taste for
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