The translators have had a hard problem in Bernard’s poem, and but few have attempted to “bend the bow of Ulysses.” Dr. Neale has achieved the most popular and useful result, in the version from which “Jerusalem the Golden” has been extracted, but he does not pretend to literalness. “My own translation,” he says, “is so free as to be little more than an imitation.” Dr. Coles has gone straight away from the dactyls and made a version in anapests—a metre which does not do justice to Bernard. Archbishop Trench has rendered a few lines in the same measure as the original. I have myself followed (in 1867) the exact metre and rhyme of the original poem; but such a version is rather curious than useful. The translation signed by “O. A. M., Cherry Valley,” is in its typography, while fine and clear, affectedly antique. The metrical power of this version is inferior. It is dactylic but not fluent, and does not at all represent the original. That by Mr. Gerard Moultrie is praised by Dr. Trench as metrically close and poetically beautiful. I have no hesitation in saying it is the best version which has appeared in English. It seems to keep both to the spirit and the letter of the original, and is in all respects a remarkable achievement. It, however, omits the double rhyme, and thus avoids the chief difficulty of a reproduction of the form of the original. That by Rev. Jackson Mason (1880) will not stand a comparison with Mr. Moultrie’s, as it halts and breaks in its measure and produces an effect on the ear far from pleasant. The difficulty of translation is due entirely to the character of the verse. Bernard himself declares “unless that spirit of wisdom and understanding had been with me, and flowed in upon so difficult a metre, I could not have composed so long a work.” Not that this form of verse was original with him. Peter Damiani has used it in one of his hymns to our Lord’s mother: “O miseratrix, O dominatrix, praecipe dictu Ne devastemur, ne lapidemur, grandinis ictu.” And, to go farther back still, a certain Theodulus, who lived in the reign of the Emperor Zeno (474-91) wrote a poem of nine hundred lines on Bernard’s own theme, _De Contemptu Mundi_, in the same metre: “Pauper amabalis et venerabilis est benedictus Dives inutilis insatiabilis, est maledictus. Qui bona negligit et mala diligit intrat abyssum; Nulla pecunia, nulla potentia liberat ipsum.” A glance will show the nature of this trouble which the patient Bernard encountered. Take the two lines: “Hora _novíssima_, tempora _péssima_ sunt, _vigilémus!_ Ecce _minaciter_, imminet _árbiter_, ille _suprémus_.” That is: “These are the _látter_ times, These are not _bétter_ times, Let us stand _waiting!_ Lo, how with _áwfulness_, He, first in _láwfulness_, Comes, _arbitrating!_”