[Greek:  kai gar ai pheugei, tacheos dioxei,
    ai de dora me deket’, alla dosei,
    ai de me philei, tacheos philesei
                        kouk etheloisa.]

So great a master of verse as Mr. Headlam translated thus: 

    The pursued shall soon be the pursuer! 
      Gifts, though now refusing, yet shall bring
    Love the lover yet, and woo the wooer,
      Though heart it wring!

Many of Mr. Headlam’s translations are, however, excellent, more especially those from English into Greek.  He says in his preface:  “Greek, in my experience, is easier to write than English.”  He has admirably reproduced the pathetic simplicity of Herrick’s lines: 

    Here a pretty baby lies,
    Sung to sleep with Lullabies;
    Pray be silent and not stir
    The easy earth that covers her.

    [Greek:  meter baukaloosa m’ ekoimisen; atrema baine
        me ‘geires kouphen gen m’ epiessomenon.]

Many singularly happy attempts to render English into Latin or Greek verse are given in Mr. Kennedy’s fascinating little volume Between Whiles, of which the following example may be quoted: 

    Few the words that I have spoken;
      True love’s words are ever few;
    Yet by many a speechless token
      Hath my heart discoursed to you.

    [Greek:  oida paur’ epe lalesas; paur’ eros lalein philei;
    xymbolois d’ homos anaudois soi to pan enixamen.]

The extent to which it is necessary to resort to paraphrase will, of course, vary greatly, and will largely depend upon whether the language into which the translation is made happens to furnish epithets and expressions which are rhythmical and at the same time correspond accurately to those of the original.  Take, for instance, a case such as the following fragment of Euripides: 

    [Greek:  ta men didakta manthano, ta d’ eureta
    zeto, ta d’ eukta para theon etesamen.]

There is but little difficulty in turning this into English verse with but slight resort to paraphrase: 

    I learn what may be taught;
    I seek what may be sought;
    My other wants I dare
    To ask from Heaven in prayer,

But in a large majority of cases paraphrase is almost imposed on the translator by the necessities of the case.  Mr. William Cory’s rendering of the famous verses of Callimachus on his friend Heraclitus, which is too well known to need quotation, has been justly admired as one of the best and most poetic translations ever made from Greek, but it can scarcely be called a translation in the sense in which that term is employed by purists.  It is a paraphrase.