Issachar Styrke’s Alcestis Burlesqued

Previously on this blog: “Sonia Greene’s Alcestis” (2022-10-22), “Notes on Sonia Greene’s Alcestis” (2022-10-23).

After finishing Greene’s and Kynaston’s Alcestis es (Alcesteis?), I next tackled Alcestis Burlesqued (1816), by one Issachar Styrke. It starts strong, in the mold of Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes; I laughed out loud at Apollo’s prologue:

[Jove, one day, by] malice led,
Made bold to knock my son o’ th’ head
With a stout broom-stick. I, on fire,
And glowing quite red-hot with ire,
Whipp’d it, quick as some men fly,
To th’ broom-stick manufactory…

For a relentlessly jocular yet one hundred percent shot-for-shot faithful interpretation of Euripides, it’s really impressive — not to mention that the jokes make it twice as long as the original. But I did feel that the writer started flagging by the end.

Both Styrke’s (1816) and Kynaston’s (1906) translations vary the meter: the Chorus’s strophes and antistrophes use generally shorter lines than the big speeches. Some of these meters remind me irresistibly of W.S. Gilbert’s (unsurprisingly, given that they’re all products of a classical British education). For example, here’s the Chorus’s strophe circa lines 903–910:

ἐμοί τις ἦν ἐν γένει,
  ᾧ κόρος ἀξιόθρηνος
ὤλετ᾽ ἐν δόμοισιν
μονόπαις: ἀλλ᾽ ἔμπας
ἔφερε κακὸν ἅλις, ἄeτεκνος ὤν,
πολιὰς ἐπὶ χαίτας
ἤδη προπετὴς ὢν
βιότου τε πόρσω.

I dare you to read Kynaston’s translation without thinking of peppery potentate King Hildebrand:

Of a kinsman I could tell
Whom a grievous loss befell
  Of an only son;
Yet he bore his childless state
With affliction moderate
  In the latter stage
  Of a hoary age
When his course was well-nigh run.

Or Styrke’s without thinking of the Duke of Plaza Toro or King Paramount:

Some ten years back, or thereabout,
  I had a near relation
With whom I’ve often supp’d sour-crout
  Till in a perspiration.
As Fortune will’d, he had one brat,—
  No rickets had he on him,
Nor huckle-back’d,— but spite of that,
  Old Death laid hands upon him.
Poor coz! it grieved him sore so soon
  To be bilk’d of his chicken;
But still he had sense not to swoon
  Although with age hard stricken.
Full fourscore years of solid time
  In telling he’d succeeded;
Then why should you, who’re in your prime,
  Bear these ills worse than he did?
[…]
But why give loose to tears and sobs,
  And look so monstrous paley?
Such awkward, dolorific jobs
  Are happ’ning almost daily.

(“They happen almost every day in England!”)

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