The translation, though not literal in form, is literal in substance, and it is rendered into careful and expressive blank verse.  Owing to the scheme on which it is constructed, the choruses could not be rendered into lyrical verse; while, for the same reason, a few passages here and there are omitted, or only indicated by a word or so in passing.  The omitted passages are very few in number; but it is not always easy to see why they should have been omitted.[43] Browning’s canon of translation is “to be literal at every cost save that of absolute violence to our language,” and here, certainly, he has observed his rule.  Notwithstanding the greater difficulty of the metrical form, and the far greater temptation to “brighten up” a version by the use of paraphrastic but sonorous effects, it is improbable that any prose translation could be more faithful.  And not merely is Browning literal in the sense of following the original word for word, he gives the exact root-meaning of words which a literal translator would consider himself justified in taking in their general sense.  Occasionally a literality of this sort is less easily intelligible to the general reader than the more obvious word would have been; but, except in a very few instances, the whole translation is not less clear and forcible than it is exact.  Whether or not the Alkestis of Browning is quite the Alkestis of Euripides, there is no doubt that this literal, yet glorified and vivified translation of a Greek play has added a new poem to English literature.

The blank verse of Balaustion’s Adventure is somewhat different from that of its predecessor, The Ring and the Book:  to my own ear, at least, it is by no means so original or so fine.  It is indeed more restrained, but Browning seems to be himself working under a sort of restraint, or perhaps upon a theory of the sort of versification appropriate to classical themes.  Something of frank vigour, something of flexibility and natural expressiveness, is lost, but, on the other hand, there is often a rich colour in the verse, a lingering perfume and sweetness in the melody, which has a new and delicate charm of its own.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 42:  Note, for instance, the admirable exposition and defence of the famous and ill-famed altercation between Pheres and Admetos:  one of the keenest bits of explanatory analysis in Mr. Browning’s works.  Or observe how beautifully human the dying Alkestis becomes as he interprets for her, and how splendid a humanity the jovial Herakles puts on.]

[Footnote 43:  The two speeches of Eumelos, not without a note of pathos, are scarcely represented by—­

                      “The children’s tears ran fast
      Bidding their father note the eye-lids’ stare,
      Hands’-droop, each dreadful circumstance of death.”]

19.  PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY.