Two on Zenophila

 

In the Anthology these two poems are AP 5.174 and 171. Headlam invents his own numbering system, reordering the poems to imply a life-story in which Meleager moves on from one romantic prospect to the next, making a clean break each time. Zenophila is his first love; then Timarion, who is not a boy! honestly! Last comes the great and defining love of the poet's life as the Victorians liked to imagine it: Heliodora.

The translations are faithful enough, though padded. Some of the rhymes set my teeth on edge.

VII

Zenophile, my tender bloom,
thou sleepest. Oh the guise
of gliding slumber to assume
and enter on thine eyes!

That thereby might not even he
have unto thee access
who lulls the lids of Zeus, but thee
I only might possess. 

VII

The cup in bliss rejoiceth much
because, so boasteth he,
'tis his the prattling mouth to touch
of sweet Zenophile.

O happy cup, to be so quaffed!
would she her lips might strain
to my lips now, and at a draught
the soul within me drain!

Headlam limbers up

To set the scene for his own versions of the poems he considers decently Englishable -- 'half of them will hardly bear translation' -- Headlam offers a brief life of Meleager and then an excerpted rendition of the verse proem to that poet's Garland. I think it's rather lovely and I reproduce it here.

Sweet Muse, to whom this fruitage of singing hast thou brought?
who was it that the poets' garland wrought?
'twas Meleager made it, for noble Diocles
contriving a remembrance that might please;
of Moero many lilies enweaving in his posies,
and Anyte  of Sappho few, — but roses;
with daffodils hymn-teeming of Melanippides,
and young vine-tendril of Simonides…

With marjoram from fragrant Rhianus therewithal,
and sweet Erinna's crocus virginal.
The pansy, Damagetus, and of Callimachus
sweet myrtle, full of honey rigorous…


And, from the pasture, blossom from off that crisped thorn,
Archilochus, small drops from ocean borne…

With ever-golden branches of Plato the divine,
that everywhere do of their virtue shine…

And many shoots of others new-writ; and with them set
of his own muse white snowdrops early yet.

Headlam ends by assuring Greekless readers that they may trust his translation to be faithful to the Greek. With a final sign-off ('Florence, May 1890') we are under way...

... by way of yet another flourish of original and metrically various verse. 'Of every flower his garland did Meleager twine, | but he doth of the garland himself the garland shine...', and so on. With half of Meleager's 130-ish epigrams already written off as too hot to handle, even a slender volume may find itself in need of padding:

...

Sweet utterances we bring to thee
of Meleager's voice,
that are of all his poesy
the treasures of our choice.

Come, if thou canst, receive the gift;
but if thy learning fails
to rede the dulcet-sounding drift
of Grecian nightingales,

For thee the twitterings musical,
so hardly to be read,
in our outlandish phrases all
have we interpreted.

That last stanza... not great.

Headlam's classical precocity

Walter Headlam's extraordinary gift for classical language was recognised early. At Harrow he won a great many prizes for poetic versions from, and into, Latin and Greek. I know of these from the memoir compiled by his brother Cecil: it ends with a thorough catalogue of works compiled by the Cambridge-educated art historian, Lawrence Haward.

Walter's prizewinning poems appeared often in the school magazine and were reprinted in a volume titled Prolusiones Scholae Harroviensis (I regre that I've not yet laid eyes on either source). By Haward's report they include an 1883 translation into Latin from John Addington Symonds's Studies of the Greek Poets, of which Headlam was clearly an early adopter; versions of passages from tragedy; and original Latin Alcaics, repeatedly. Clearly Walter was a whizz with metre. There were also a number of original Greek epigrams. The headmaster, George Butler, singled out one such epigram inspired by General Gordon's deeds at Khartoum for special mention on Speech Day. The Symonds translation may carry significance, to which I may return in another post.

Once at Cambridge, where we know he also worked on his translation of Meleager, Headlam contributed to the university's own Prolusiones Academicae. Haward records Latin and Greek odes, and versions from Catullus. Again there were prizes: Sir William Browne's Medal, repeatedly (and again I have Haward to thank for all of this). One such victory was for a patriotic Latin ode felicitating Queen Victoria on the fiftieth year of her reign.

Jebb fans may wish to follow up the following curiosity:

'A Private Oration.' The Cambridge Review, vol. xi. pp. 228,  229 {Feb. 27).

A mock-Demosthenic oration put into the mouth of Professor Jebb, who opposes the Town Council’s proposal to convert a portion of his garden at Springfield into Sidgwick Avenue. Reprinted in 'The Book of the Cambridge Review,' pp. 225-229 (Cambridge, 1898); and v. supra, Part FE. p. 29.

Headlam's early contributions to the school magazine at Harrow appeared under the nom de plume 'Echo', the nymph who loved Narcissus.