No More Learning

And yet, in spite of this perfect plainness and directness of Homer's style, in spite of this perfect plainness and directness of his ideas, he is eminently noble ; he works as entirely in the grand style, he is as grandiose, as Phidias, or Dante, or Michael Angelo. This is what makes his translators despair. "To give relief," says Cowper, " to prosaic subjects " (such as dress ing, eating, drinking, harnessing, traveling, going to bed), — that is, to treat such subjects nobly, in the grand style,— " without seeming unreasonably tumid, is extremely difficult. " It is difficult, but Homer has done it. Homer is precisely the incomparable poet he is, because he has done it. His translator must not be tumid, must not be artificial, must not be literary ; true : but then also he must not be commonplace, must not be ignoble.
III. Ballad Verse.
" The most really and truly Homeric of all the creations of the English muse is," says Mr. Newman's critic in the National Review, " the ballad poetry of ancient times ; and the associa tion between meter and subject is one that it would be true wisdom to preserve. " " It is confessed," says Chapman's last editor, Mr. Hooper, " that the fourteen-syllable verse " (that is, a ballad verse) " is peculiarly fitting for Homeric translation. " And the"editor of Dr. Maginn's clever and popular " Homeric Ballads assumes it as one of his author's greatest and most undisputable merits, that he was "the first who consciously realized to himself the truth that Greek ballads can be really represented in English only by a similar measure. "
This proposition that Homer's poetry is ballad poetry, analo gous to the well-known ballad poetry of the English and other nations, has a certain small portion of truth in it, and at one time probably served a useful purpose, when it was employed to dis credit the artificial and literary manner in which Pope and his school rendered Homer. But it has been so extravagantly over-used, the mistake which it was useful in combating has so entirely lost the public favor, that it is now much more impor tant to insist on the large part of error contained in than to extol its small part of truth. It time to say plainly that, whatever the admirers of our old ballads may think, the su
is
it,
or in —
Now Christ thee save and see,
While the tinker did dine, he had plenty of wine.
PRINCIPLES OF HOMERIC TRANSLATION.
155
preme form of epic poetry, the genuine Homeric mold, is not the form of the Ballad of Lord Bateman. I have myself shown the broad difference between Milton's manner and Homer's; but after a course of Mr. Newman and Dr. Maginn, I turn round in desperation upon them and upon the balladists who have misled them, and I exclaim : Compared with you, Milton is Homer's double ; there is, whatever you may think, ten thousand times more of the real strain of Homer in—
Blind Thamyris, and blind Maeonides, And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old,
than in —
Now Christ thee save, thou proud porter,
For Homer is not only rapid in movement, simple in style, plain in language, natural in thought ; he is also, and above all, noble. I have advised the translator not to go into the vexed question of Homer's identity. Yet I will just remind him that the grand argument — or rather, not argument, for the matter affords no data for arguing, but the grand source from which conviction, as we read the Iliad, keeps pressing in upon us, that there is one poet of the Iliad, one Homer — is precisely this nobleness of the poet, this grand manner ; we feel that the analogy drawn from other joint compositions does not hold good here, because those works do not bear, like the Iliad, the magic stamp of a master : and the moment you have anything less than a master work, the cooperation or consolidation of several poets becomes possible, for talent is not uncommon ; the moment you have much less than a master work, they be come easy, for mediocrity is everywhere.
I can imagine fifty Bradys joined with as many Tates to make the New Version of the Psalms. I can imagine several poets having contributed to any one of the old English ballads in Percy's collection. I can imagine several poets, possessing, like Chapman, the Elizabethan vigor and the Elizabethan mannerism, united with Chapman to produce his version of the Iliad. I can imagine several poets, with the literary knack of the twelfth century, united to produce the Nibelungen Lay in the form in which we have it, — a work which the Germans, in their joy at discovering a national epic of their
156 PRINCIPLES OF HOMERIC TRANSLATION.
own, have rated vastly higher than it deserves. And lastly, though Mr. Newman's translation of Homer bears the strong mark of his own idiosyncrasy, yet I can imagine Mr. Newman and a school of adepts trained by him in his art of poetry, jointly producing that work, so that Aristarchus himself should have difficulty in pronouncing which line was the master's, and which a pupil's.
But I cannot imagine several poets, or one poet, joined with Dante in the composition of his " Inferno," though many poets have taken for their subject a descent into Hell. 1 Many artists, again, have represented Moses ; but there is only one Moses of Michael Angelo. So the insurmountable obstacle to believing the Iliad a consolidated work of several poets is this : that the work of great masters is unique ; and the Iliad has a great master's genuine stamp, and that stamp is the grand style.
Poets who cannot work in the grand style instinctively seek a style in which their comparative inferiority may feel itself at ease, a manner which may be, so to speak, indulgent to their inequalities. The ballad style offers to an epic poet, quite un able to fill the canvas of Homer, or Dante, or Milton, a canvas which he is capable of filling. The ballad measure is quite able to give due effect to the vigor and spirit which its employer, when at his very best, may be able to exhibit ; and when he is not at his best — when he is a little trivial or a little dull — it will not betray him, it will not bring out his weaknesses into broad relief. This is a convenience ; but it is a convenience which the ballad style purchases by resigning all pretensions to the highest, to the grand manner. It is true of its movement, as it is not true of Homer's, that it is " liable to degenerate into doggerel. " It is true of its "moral qualities," as it is not true of Homer's, that "quaintness" and "garrulity" are among them. It"is true of its employers, as it is not true of Homer, that they rise and sink with their subject, are prosaic when it is tame, are low when it is mean. " For this reason the ballad style and the ballad measure are eminently inappropriate to render Homer. Homer's manner and movement are always both noble and powerful : the ballad manner and movement are often either jaunty and smart, so not noble ; or jog-trot and
humdrum, so not powerful.
The Nibelungen Lay affords a good illustration of the quali
ties of the ballad manner. Based on grand traditions, which
v
PRINCIPLES OF HOMERIC TRANSLATION. 157
had found expression in a grand lyric poetry, the German epic poem of the Nibelungen Lay, though it is interesting, and though it has good passages, is itself anything rather than a grand poem. It is a poem of which the composer is, to speak the truth, a very ordinary mortal, and often, therefore, like other ordinary mortals, very prosy. It is in a measure which eminently adapts itself to this commonplace personality of its composer, which has much the movement of the well-known measures of Tate and Brady, and can jog on, for hundreds of lines at a time, with a level ease which reminds one of Sheri dan's saying that easy writing may be often such hard reading. But, instead of occupying myself with the Nibelungen Lay, I prefer to look at the ballad style as directly applied to Homer, in Chapman's version and Mr. Newman's, and in the " Homeric Ballads " of Dr. Maginn.
First I take Chapman. I have already shown that Chap man's conceits are un-Homeric, and that his rhyme is un-
I will now show how his manner and movement are
Homeric ;
un-Homeric. Chapman's diction, I have said, is generally good ; but it must be called good with this reserve, that, though it has Homer's plainness and directness, it often offends him who knows Homer, by wanting Homer's nobleness. In a passage which I have already quoted, the address of Zeus to the horses of Achilles, Chapman has —
" Poor wretched beasts," said he,
" Why gave we you to a mortal king, when immortality
And incapacity of age so dignifies your states ?
Was it to haste [taste ? ] the miseries poured out on human
fates? "
There are many faults in this rendering of Chapman's, but what I particularly wish to notice in it is the expression " Poor wretched beasts. " This expression just illustrates the differ ence between the ballad manner and Homer's. The ballad manner — Chapman's manner — is, I say, pitched sensibly lower than Homer's. The ballad manner requires that an expression shall be plain and natural, and then it asks no more. Homer's manner requires that an expression shall be plain and natural, but it also requires that it shall be noble. 'A SctXto is as plain, as simple, as "Poor wretched beasts"; but it is also noble, which " " Poor wretched beasts " is not. " Poor wretched beasts in truth, little over-familiar, but this no objec
is,
a
is
158 PRINCIPLES OF HOMERIC TRANSLATION.
tion to it for the ballad manner : it is good enough for the old English ballad, good enough for the Nibelungen Lay, good
enough for Chapman's "Iliad," good enough for Mr. New man's "Iliad," good enough for Dr. Maginn's "Homeric Ballads"; but it is not good enough for Homer.
To feel that Chapman's measure, though natural, is not Homeric ; that though tolerably rapid, it has not Homer's rapidity ; that it has a jogging rapidity rather than a flowing rapidity; and a movement familiar rather than nobly easy, — one has only, I think, to read half a dozen lines in any part of his version. I prefer to keep as much as possible to passages which I have already noticed, so I will quote the conclusion of the nineteenth book, where Achilles answers his horse Xanthus, who has prophesied his death to him.
Achilles, far in rage,
Thus answered him : It fits not thee thus proudly to presage
My overthrow. I know myself it is my fate to fall
Thus far from Phthia; yet that fate shall fail to vent her gall Till mine vent thousands. — These words said, he fell to horrid
deeds,
Gave dreadful signal, and forthright made fly his one-hoofed
steeds.
For what regards the manner of this passage, the words " Achilles Thus answered him," and " I know myself it is my fate to fall Thus far from Phthia," are in Homer's manner, and all the rest is out of it. But for what regards its movement, who, after being jolted by Chapman through such verse as *^8'
These words said, he fell to horrid deeds, Gave dreadful signal, and forthright made fly his one-
hoofed steeds, —
who does not feel the vital difference of the movement of Homer ?
But so deeply seated is the difference between the ballad manner and Homer's, that even a man of the highest powers, even a man of the greatest vigor of spirit and of true genius, — the Coryphseus of balladists, Sir Walter Scott, — fails with a manner of this kind to produce an effect at all like the effect of Homer. " I am not so rash," declares Mr. Newman, " as to say that iffreedom be given to rhyme as in Walter Scott's poetry," —Walter Scott, "by far the most Homeric of our poets," as in another place he calls him, — "a genius may not arise who will
PRINCIPLES OF HOMERIC TRANSLATION. 159
translate Homer into the melodies of ' Marmion. ' " " The truly classical and the truly romantic," says Dr. Maginn, " are one ; the moss-trooping Nestor reappears in the moss-trooping heroes of Percy's ' Reliques ' ; " and a description by Scott, which he quotes, he calls "graphic, and therefore Homeric. " He forgets our fourth axiom, — that Homer is not only graphic ; he is also noble, and has the grand style.
I suppose that when Scott is in what may be called full ballad swing, no one will hesitate to pronounce his manner neither Homeric nor the grand manner. When he says, for instance,
I do not rhyme to that dull elf Who cannot image to himself,
and so on, any scholar will feel that this is not Homer's manner. But let us take Scott's poetry at its best ; and when it is at its best, it is undoubtedly very good indeed : —
Tunstall lies dead upon the field,
His lifeblood stains the spotless shield ; Edmund is down, — my life is reft, — The Admiral alone is left.
Let Stanley charge with spur of fire, — With Chester charge, and Lancashire, Full upon Scotland's central host,
Or victory and England's lost.
That is, no doubt, as vigorous as possible, as spirited as possible ; it is exceedingly fine poetry. And still I say, it is not in the grand manner, and therefore it is not like Homer's poetry. Now, how shall I make him who doubts this feel that I say true ; that these lines of Scott are essentially neither in Homer's style nor in the grand style ? I may point out to him that the movement of Scott's lines, while it is rapid, is also at the same time what the French call saccadS, its rapidity is " jerky " ; whereas Homer's rapidity is a flowing rapidity. But this is something external and material ; it is but the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual diversity. I may discuss what, in the abstract, constitutes the grand style ; but that sort of general discussion never much helps our judgment of par ticular instances. I may say that the presence or absence of the grand style can only be spiritually discerned ; and this is true, but to plead this looks like evading the difficulty. My best way is to take eminent specimens of the grand style, and
160 PRINCIPLES OF HOMERIC TRANSLATION.
to put them side by side with this of Scott. For example, when Homer says, —
Be content, good friend, die also thou ! why lamentest thou thy self on this wise ? Patroclus too died, who was a far better than thou, —
that is in the grand style. When Virgil says, —
From me, young man, learn nobleness of soul and true effort : learn success from others, —
that is in the grand style. When Dante says, —
I leave the gall of bitterness, and I go for the apples of sweet ness promised unto me by my faithful Guide ; but far as the center it behooves me first to fall, —
that is in the grand style. When Milton says, —
His form had yet not lost
All her original brightness, nor appeared
Less than archangel ruined, and the excess Of glory obscured, —
that, finally, is in the grand style. Now let any one, after re peating to himself these four passages, repeat again the passage of Scott, and he will perceive that there is something in style which the four first have in common, and which the last is with out ; and this something is precisely the grand manner. It is no disrespect to Scott to say that he does not attain to this man ner in his poetry ; to say so, is merely to say that he is not among the five or six supreme poets of the world. Among these he is not ; but being a man of far greater powers than the ballad poets, he has tried to give to their instrument a compass and an elevation which it does not naturally possess, in order to enable him to come nearer to the effect of the instrument used by the great epic poets, — an instrument which he felt he could not truly use, — and in this attempt he has but imperfectly suc ceeded. The poetic style of Scott is — (it becomes necessary to say so when it is proposed to " translate Homer into the melodies of 'Marmion'") — it is, tried by the highest standards, a bastard epic style ; and that is why, out of his own powerful hands, it has had so little success. It is a less natural, and therefore a
PRINCIPLES OF HOMERIC TRANSLATION. 161
less good style, than the original ballad style ; while it shares with the ballad style the inherent incapacity of rising into the grand style, of adequately rendering Homer. Scott is certainly at his best in his battles. Of Homer you could not say this : he is not better in his battles than elsewhere ; but even between the battle pieces of the two there exists all the difference which there is between an able work and a masterpiece.
Tunstall lies dead upon the field,
His lifeblood stains the spotless shield : Edmund is down, — my life is reft, — The Admiral alone is left.
— " For not in the hands of Diomede the son of Tydeus rages the spear, to ward off destruction from the Danaans ; neither as yet have I heard the voice of the son of Atreus, shouting out of his hated mouth : but the voice of Hector the slayer of men bursts round me, as he cheers on the Trojans ; and they with their yellings fill all the plain, overcoming the Achaians in the battle. " — I protest that to my feeling, Homer's performance, even through that pale and far-off shadow of a prose translation, still has a hundred times more of the grand manner about it than the original poetry of Scott.
Well, then, the ballad manner and the ballad measure, whether in the hands of the old ballad poets, or arranged by Chapman, or arranged by Mr. Newman, or even arranged by Sir Walter Scott, cannot worthily render Homer. And for one reason : Homer is plain, so are they ; Homer is natural, so are they ; Homer is spirited, so are they : but Homer is sustainedly noble, and they are not. Homer and they are both of them natural, and therefore touching and stirring : but the grand style, which is Homer's, is something more than touching and stirring : it can form the character, it is edifying. The old Eng lish balladist may stir Sir Philip Sidney's heart like a trumpet, and this is much : but Homer, but the few artists in the grand style, can do more ; they can refine the raw natural man, they can transmute him. So it is not without" cause that I say, and say again, to the translator of Homer : Never for a moment suffer yourself to forget our fourth fundamental proposition, Homer is noble. " For it is seen how large a share this nobleness has in producing that general effect of his, which it is the main business of a translator to reproduce.
VOL. II. — 11
162 PRINCIPLES OF HOMERIC TRANSLATION. IV. The Tkue Principles.
Homer is rapid in his movement, Homer is plain in his words and style, Homer is simple in his ideas, Homer is noble in his manner. Cowper renders him ill because he is slow in his movement, and elaborate in his style ; Pope renders him ill be cause he is artificial both in his style and in his words ; Chap man renders him ill because he is fantastic in his ideas ; Mr. Newman renders him ill because he is odd in his words and ignoble in his manner. All four translators diverge from their original at other points besides those named ; but it is at the points thus named that their divergence is greatest. For instance, Cowper's diction is not as Homer's diction, nor his nobleness as Homer's nobleness ; but it is in movement and grammatical style that he is most unlike Homer. Pope's rapid ity is not of the same sort as Homer's rapidity, nor are his plain ness of ideas and his nobleness as Homer's plainness of ideas and nobleness ; but it is in the artificial character of his style and diction that he is most unlike Homer. Chapman's move ment, words, style, and manner are often far enough from resembling Homer's movement, words, style, and manner ; but it is the fantasticality of his ideas which puts him farthest from resembling Homer. Mr. Newman's movement, grammatical style, and ideas are a thousand times in strong contrast with Homer's ; still it is by the oddness of his diction and the ignobleness of his manner that he contrasts with Homer the most violently. "
Therefore the translator must not say to himself:
is noble, Pope is rapid, Chapman has a good diction, Mr. New man has a good cast of sentence; I will avoid Cowper's slow ness, Pope's artificiality, Chapman's conceits, Mr. Newman's oddity; I will take Cowper's dignified manner, Pope's impetu ous movement, Chapman's vocabulary, Mr. Newman's syntax, and so make a perfect translation of Homer. " Undoubtedly in certain points the versions of Chapman, Cowper, Pope, and Mr. Newman, all of them have merit ; some of them very high merit, others a lower merit : but even in these points they have none of them precisely the same kind of merit as Homer ; and therefore the new translator, even if he can imitate them in their good points, will still not satisfy his judge, the scholar, who asks him for Homer and Homer's kind of merit, or, at least, for as much of them as it is possible to give.
Cowper
PRINCIPLES OF HOMERIC TRANSLATION. 163
A translator cannot well have a Homeric rapidity, style, diction, and quality of thought, without at the same time having what is the result of these in Homer, — nobleness. Therefore I do not attempt to lay down any rules for obtaining this effect of nobleness, — the effect, too, of all others the most impalpable, the most irreducible to rule, and which most depends on the individual personality of the artist. So I pro ceed at once to give you, in conclusion, one or two passages in which I have tried to follow those principles of Homeric transla tion which I have laid down. I give them, it must be remem bered, not as specimens of perfect translation, but as specimens of an attempt to translate Homer on certain principles ; speci mens which may very aptly illustrate those principles by falling short as well as by succeeding.
I take first a passage of which I have already spoken, the comparison of the Trojan fires to the stars. The first part of that passage is, I have said, of splendid beauty; and to begin with a lame version of that would be the height of imprudence in me. It is the last and more level part with which I shall concern myself. I have already quoted Cowper's version of this part in order to show you how unlike his stiff and Miltonic manner of telling a plain story is to Homer's easy and rapid
manner : —
So numerous seemed those fires the bank between Of Xanthus, blazing, and the fleet of Greece,
In prospect all of Troy, —
I need not continue to the end. I have also quoted Pope's version of it, to show you how unlike his ornate and artificial manner is to Homer's plain and natural manner : —
So many flames before proud Ilion blaze,
And brighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays ; The long reflections of the distant fires — Gleam on the walls, and tremble on the spires,
and much more of the same kind. I want to show you that it is possible, in a plain passage of this sort, to keep Homer's sim plicity without being heavy and dull ; and to keep his dignity without bringing in pomp and ornament. "As numerous as are the stars on a clear night," says Homer,
So shone forth, in front of Troy, by the bed of Xanthus, Between that and the ships, the Trojans' numerous fires.
164 PRINCIPLES OF HOMERIC TRANSLATION.
In the plain there were kindled a thousand fires ; by each one There sat fifty men, in the ruddy light of the fire :
By their chariots stood the steeds, and champed the white barley While their masters sat by the fire, and waited for Morning.
Here, in order to keep Homer's effect of perfect plainness and directness, I repeat the word " fires " as he repeats irvpd, with out scruple ; although in a more elaborate and literary style of poetry this recurrence of the same word would be a fault to be avoided. I omit the epithet of Morning ; and, whereas Homer says that the steeds " waited for Morning," I prefer to attribute this expectation of Morning to the master and not to the horse. Very likely in this particular, as in any other single particular, I may be wrong : what I wish you to remark is my endeavor after absolute plainness of speech, my care to avoid anything which may the least check or surprise the reader, whom Homer does not check or surprise. Homer's lively per sonal familiarity with war, and with the war horse as his mas ter's companion, is such that, as it seems to me, his attributing to the one the other's feelings comes to us quite naturally: but from a poet without this familiarity, the attribution strikes as a little unnatural; and therefore, as everything the least unnatural is un-Homeric, I avoid it.
Again, in the address of Zeus to the horses of Achilles, Cowper has : —
Jove saw their grief with pity, and his brows Shaking, within himself thus, pensive, said.
" Ah, hapless pair ! wherefore by gift divine Were ye to Peleus given, a mortal king, " Yourselves immortal and from age exempt ?
There is no want of dignity here, as in the versions of Chap man and Mr. Newman, which I have already quoted ; but the whole effect is much too slow. Take Pope : —
Nor Jove disdained to cast a pitying look While thus relenting to the steeds he spoke.
" Unhappy coursers of immortal strain ! Exempt from age and deathless now in vain ; Did we your race on mortal man bestow
Only, alas I to share in mortal woe ? "
Here there is no want either of dignity or rapidity, but all is too artificial. "Nor Jove disdained," for instance, is a very
PRINCIPLES OF HOMERIC TRANSLATION.
165
artificial and literary way of rendering Homer's words, and so is "coursers of immortal strain. "
And with pity the son of Saturn saw them bewailing,
And he shook his head, and thus addressed his own bosom : —
" Ah, unhappy pair, to Peleus why did we give you,
To a mortal ? but ye are without old age and immortal.
Was it that ye, with man, might have your thousands of
sorrows ?
For than man, indeed, there breathes no wretcheder creature, Of all living things, that on earth are breathing and moving. "
Here I will observe that the use of " own," in the second line, for the last syllable of a dactyl, and the use of " To a," in the fourth, for a complete spondee, though they do not, I think, actually spoil the run of the hexameter, are yet undoubtedly instances of that overreliance on accent, and too free disregard of quantity, which Lord Redesdale visits with just reprehension.
I now take two longer passages in order to try my method more fully ; but I still keep to passages which have already come under our notice. I quoted Chapman's version of some passages in the speech of Hector at his parting with Androm ache. One astounding conceit will probably still be in your remembrance, —
When sacred Troy shall shed her towers for tears of overthrow.
I will quote a few lines which may give you also the keynote to the Anglo-Augustan manner of rendering this passage, and to the Miltonic manner of rendering it. What Mr. Newman's manner of rendering it would be, you can by this time suffi ciently imagine for yourselves. Mr. Wright — to quote for once from his meritorious version instead of Cowper's, whose strong and weak points are those of Mr. Wright also — Mr. Wright begins his version of this passage thus : —
All these thy anxious cares are also mine,
Partner beloved ; but how could I endure
The scorn of Trojans and their long-robed wives, Should they behold their Hector shrink from war, And act the coward's part ? Nor doth my soul Prompt the base thought.
Ex pede Herculem : you see just what the manner is. Mr. Sotheby, on the other hand (to take a disciple of Pope instead of Pope himself), begins thus : —
166
PRINCIPLES OF HOMERIC TRANSLATION.
" What moves thee, moves my mind," brave Hector said, " Yet Troy's upbraiding scorn I deeply dread,
If, like a slave, where chiefs with chiefs engage
The warrior Hector fears the war to wage.
Not thus my heart inclines. "
From that specimen, too, you can easily divine what, with such a manner, will become of the whole passage. But Homer has
neither nor has he
What moves thee, moves my mind, — All these thy anxious cares are also mine.
'H kcu t/xoi to&c rravra fuXo, yvvca ' dAAa fxaX ohms, —
that is what Homer has, that is his style and movement, if one could but catch it. Andromache, as you know, has been entreating Hector to defend Troy from within the walls, instead of exposing his life, and with his own life, the safety of all those dearest to him, by fighting in the open plain. Hector replies : —
Woman, I too take thought for this ; but then I bethink me What the Trojan men and Trojan women might murmur,
If like a coward I skulked behind, apart from the battle. Nor would my own heart let me ; my heart, which has bid
me be valiant
Always, and always fighting among the first of the Trojans, Busy for Priam's fame and my own, in spite of the future. For that day will come, my soul is assured of its coming,
It will come, when sacred Troy shall go to destruction,
Troy, and warlike Priam too, and the people of Priam.
And yet not that grief, which then will be, of the Trojans, Moves me so much — not Hecuba's grief, nor Priam my
father's,
Nor my brethren's, many and brave, who then will be lying In the bloody dust, beneath the feet of their foemen —
As thy grief, when, in tears, some brazen-coated Achaian Shall transport thee away, and the day of thy freedom be
ended.
Then, perhaps, thou shalt work at the loom of another, in
Argos,
Or bear pails to the well of Messeis, or Hypereia,
Sorely against thy will, by strong Necessity's order.
And some man may say, as he looks and sees thy tears falling : See, the wife ofHector, that great preeminent captain
PRINCIPLES OF HOMERIC TRANSLATION. 167
Of the horsemen of Troy, in the day they fought for their city.
So some man will say ; and then thy grief will redouble At thy want of a man like me, to save thee from bondage. But let me be dead, and the earth be mounded above me, Ere I hear thy cries, and thy captivity told of.
The main question, whether or no this version reproduces for him the movement and general effect of Homer better than other versions of the same passage, I leave for the judgment of the scholar. But the particular points, in which the operation of my own rules is manifested, are as follows. In the second line I leave out the epithet of the Trojan women, i\iceo-nreir\ov<;, altogether. In the sixth line I put in five words, " in spite of the future," which are in the original by implication only, and are not there actually expressed. This I do, because Homer, as I have before said, is so remote from one who reads him in English, that the English translator must be even plainer, if possible, and more unambiguous than Homer himself ; the connection of meaning must be even more distinctly marked in the translation than in the original. For in the Greek language itself there is something which brings one nearer to Homer, which gives one a clew to his thought, which makes a hint enough : but in the English language this sense of nearness, this clew, is gone ; hints are insufficient, everything must be stated with full distinctness.
One more piece of translation and I have done. I will take the passage in which both Chapman and Mr. Newman have already so much excited our astonishment, the passage at the end of the nineteenth book of the Iliad, the dialogue between Achilles and his horse Xanthus, after the death of Patroclus. Achilles begins : —
"Xanthus and Balius both, ye far-famed seed of Podarga!
See that ye bring your master home to the host of the Argives In some other sort than your last, when the battle is ended ; And not leave him behind, a corpse on the plain, like Patroclus. "
Then, from beneath the yoke, the fleet horse Xanthus ad dressed him :
Sudden he bowed his head, and all his mane, as he bowed it, Streamed to the ground by the yoke, escaping from under the
collar ;
And he was given a voice by the white-armed Goddess Hera.
"Truly, yet this time will we save thee, mighty Achilles t But thy day of death is at hand ; nor shall we be the reason —
168 PRINCIPLES OF HOMERIC TRANSLATION.
No, but the will of heaven, and Fate's invincible power.
For by no slow pace or want of swiftness of ours
Did the Trojans obtain to strip the arms from Patroclus ;
But that prince among Gods, the son of the lovely-haired Leto, Slew him fighting in front of the fray, and glorified Hector.
But, for us, we vie in speed with the breath of the West Wind, Which, men say, is the fleetest of winds ; 'tis thou who art fated To lie low in death, by the hand of a God and a Mortal. "
Thus far he ; and here his voice was stopped by the Furies. Then, with a troubled heart, the swift Achilles addressed him :
" Why dost thou prophesy so my death to me, Xanthus ? It needs not.
I of myself know well, that here I am destined to perish,
Far from my father and mother dear : for all that I will not Stay this hand from fight, till the Trojans are utterly routed. "
So he spake, and drove with a cry his steeds into battle.
There are also one or two particular considerations which confirm me in the opinion that for translating Homer into English verse the hexameter should be used. The most suc cessful attempt hitherto made at rendering Homer into English, the attempt in which Homer's general effect has been best retained, is an attempt made in the hexameter measure. It is a version of the famous lines in the third book of the Iliad, which end with the mention of Castor and Pollux. The author is the accomplished Provost of Eton, Dr. Hawtrey ; and this performance of his must be my excuse for having taken the liberty to single him out for mention, as one of the natural judges of a translation of Homer, along with Professor Thomp son and Professor Jowett, whose connection with Greek litera ture is official. The passage is short : 1 and Dr. Hawtrey's version of it is suffused with a pensive grace which is perhaps rather more Virgilian than Homeric; still it is the one ver
1 " Clearly the rest I behold of the dark-eyed sons of Achaia ;
Known to me well are the faces of all ; their names I remember ;
Two, two only remain, whom I see not among the commanders,
Castor fleet in the car, — Polydeuces brave with the cestus, —
Own dear brethren of mine, — one parent loved us as infants.
Are they not here in the host, from the shores of loved LacedEemon,
Or, though they came with the rest in ships that bound through the waters, Dare they not enter the fight or stand in the council of Heroes, "
All for fear of the shame and the taunts my crime has awakened ?
So said she : — they long since in Earth's soft arms were reposing, There, in their own dear land, their Fatherland, Lacedaemon.
English Hexameter Translations; London, 1847; p. 212.
PRINCIPLES OF HOMERIC TRANSLATION. 169
sion of any part of the Iliad which in some degree reproduces for me the original effect of Homer, — it is the best, and it is in hexameters.
Here I stop. I have said so much, because I think that the task of translating Homer into English verse both will be reattempted, and may be reattempted successfully. There are great works composed of parts so disparate that one trans lator is not likely to have the requisite gifts for poetically rendering all of them. Such are the works of Shakespeare, and Goethe's " Faust " ; and these it is best to attempt to ren der in prose only. People praise Tieck and Schlegel's version of Shakespeare : I, for my part, would sooner read Shakespeare in the French prose translation, and that is saying a great deal ; but in the German poets' hands Shakespeare so often gets, especially where he is humorous, an air of what the French call niaiserie! and can anything be more un-Shakespearean than that ? Again : Mr. Hay ward's prose translation of the first part of " Faust " — so good that it makes one regret Mr. Hayward should have abandoned the line of translation for a kind of literature which is, to say the least, somewhat slight — is not likely to be surpassed by any translation in verse. But poems like the Iliad, which in the main are in one manner, may hope to find a poetical translator so gifted and so trained as to be able to learn that one manner, and to reproduce it. Only, the poet who would reproduce this must cultivate in himself a Greek virtue by no means common among the moderns in general, and the English in particular, — moderation. For Homer has not only the English vigor, he has the Greek grace ; and when one observes the bolstering, rollicking way in which his English admirers — even men of genius, like the late Pro fessor Wilson — love to talk of Homer and his poetry, one can not help feeling that there is no very deep community of nature between them and the object of their enthusiasm. " It is very well, my good friends," I always imagine Homer saying to them, if he could hear them : " you do me a great deal of honor, but somehow or other you praise me too like barbarians. " For Homer's grandeur is not the mixed and turbid grandeur of the great poets of the north, of the authors of " Othello " and " Faust " ; it is a perfect, a lovely grandeur. Certainly his poetry has all the energy and power of the poetry of our ruder climates ; but it has, besides, the pure lines of an Ionian hori zon, the liquid clearness of an Ionian sky.
170 HECTOR, PARIS, HELEN, ANDROMACHE.
HECTOR, PARIS, HELEN, ANDROMACHE. By GEORGE CHAPMAN.
[Geobgb Chapman, English poet of the age of Elizabeth, James I. , and Charles I. , was born in 1559, and graduated at Cambridge. He was very slow in development: his first poem, "The Shadow of Night," was published at thirty-five, and his first play, "The Blind Beggar of Alexandria," at thirty-nine, when also appeared the first part (remodeled later) of his translation of the Hiad, his one living work. He translated also the Odyssey, the Homeric Hymns, Hesiod, Musabus' "Hero and Leander," and Juvenal's Fifth Satire. Among his plays were "Bussy d'Ambois," " Ceesar and Pompey," "All Fools," "Monsieur d'Olive," "The Gentleman Usher," and "The Widow's Tears. " He died in 1634. ]
The loved of heaven's chief Power, Hector, here entered. In his hand a goodly lance he bore,
Ten cubits long ; the brazen head went shining in before,
Helped with a burnished ring of gold. He found his brother then Amongst the women, yet prepared to go amongst the men,
For in their chamber he was set, trimming his arms, his shield,
His curets, and was trying how his crooked bow would yield
To his straight arms. Amongst her maids was set the Argive Queen, Commanding them in choicest works. When Hector's eye had seen His brother thus accompanied, and that he could not bear
The very touching of his arms but where the women were,
And when the time so needed men, right cunningly he chid.
That he might do it bitterly, his cowardice he hid,
That simply made him so retired, beneath an anger, feigned
In him by Hector, for the hate the citizens sustained
Against him, for the foil he took in their cause ; and again,
For all their gen'ral foils in his. So Hector seems to plain
Of his wrath to them, for their hate, and not his cowardice ;
As that were it that sheltered him in his effeminacies,
And kept him, in that dang'rous time, from their fit aid in fight ; For which he chid thus : " Wretched man ! so timeless is thy spite That 'tis not honest ; and their hate is just, 'gainst which it bends. War burns about the town for thee ; for thee our slaughtered friends Besiege Troy with their carcasses, on whose heaps our high walls
Are overlooked by enemies ; the sad sounds of their falls
Without, are echoed with the cries of wives and babes within ;
And all for thee ; and yet for them thy honor cannot win
Head of thine anger. Thou shouldst need no spirit to stir up thine, But thine should set the rest on fire, and with a rage divine
Chastise impartially the best, that impiously forbears.
Come forth, lest thy fair towers and Troy be burned about thine ears. "
HECTOR, PARIS, HELEN, ANDROMACHE. 171
Paris acknowledged, as before, all just that Hector spake, Allowing justice, though it were for his injustice' sake ;
And where his brother put a wrath upon him by his art,
He takes for his honor's sake, as sprung out of his heart,
And rather would have anger seem his fault than cowardice
And thus he answered " Since, with right, you joined check with And hear you, give equal ear It not any spleen [advice, Against the town, as you conceive, that makes me so unseen,
But sorrow for which to ease, and by discourse digest
Within myself, live so close and yet, since men might wrest
My sad retreat, like you, my wife with her advice inclined
This my addression to the field which was mine own free mind,
As well as th' instance of her words for though the foil were mine, Conquest brings forth her wreaths by turns. Stay then this haste of
thine
But till arm, and am made a consort for thee straight; —
Or go, I'll overtake thy haste. " Helen stood at receipt,
And took up all great Hector's powers, attend her heavy words, By which had Paris no reply. This vent her grief affords
" Brother (if may call you so, that had been better born
A dog, than such horrid dame, as all men curse and scorn,
A mischief-maker, a man plague) would to God, the day,
That first gave light to me, had been a whirlwind in my way,
And borne me to some desert hill, or hid me in the rage
Of earth's most far-resounding seas, ere should thus engage
The dear lives of so many friends Yet since the Gods have been Helpless foreseers of my plagues, they might have likewise seen That he they put in yoke with me, to bear out their award,
Had been a man of much more spirit, and, or had noblier dared
To shield mine honor with this deed, or with his mind had known Much better the upbraids of men, that so he might have shown (More like man) some sense of grief for both my shame and his. But he senseless, nor conceives what any manhood is,
Nor now, nor ever after will and therefore hangs, fear,
A plague above him. But come near, good brother rest you here, Who, of the world of men, stands charged with most unrest for me, (Vile wretch) and for my lover's wrong on whom destiny
So bitter imposed by Jove, that all succeeding times
Will put, to our unended shames, in all men's mouths our crimes. "
He answered " Helen, do not seek to make me sit with thee must not stay, though well know thy honored love of me.
My mind calls forth to aid our friends, in whom my absence breeds Longings to see me for whose sakes, importune thou to deeds
This man by all means, that your care may make his own make hast, And meet me in the open town, that all may see at last
: ;
I a
I
I it ;
I
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;
;
is
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:
;
is I a
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!
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;
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172 HECTOR, PARIS, HELEN, ANDROMACHE.
He minds his lover. I myself 'will now go home, and see
My household, my dear wife, and son, that little hope of me ;
For, sister, 'tis without my skill, if I shall evermore
Return, and see them, or to earth, her right in me, restore.
The Gods may stoop me by the Greeks. " This said, he went to see The virtuous princess, his true wife, white-armed Andromache. . . . She ran to Hector, and with her, tender of heart and hand,
Her son, borne in his nurse's arms ; when, like a heavenly sign, Compact of many golden stars, the princely child did shine,
Whom Hector called Scamandrius, but whom the town did name Astyanax, because his sire did only prop the same.
Hector, though grief bereft his speech, yet smiled upon his joy. Andromache cried out, mixed hands, and to the strength of Troy Thus wept forth her affection : " O noblest in desire I
Thy mind, inflamed with others' good, will set thyself on fire.
Nor pitiest thou thy son, nor wife, who must thy widow be,
If now thou issue ; all the field will only run on thee.
Better my shoulders underwent the earth, than thy decease ;
For then would earth bear joys no more ; then comes the black increase Of griefs (like Greeks on Ilion). Alas ! What one survives
To be my refuge ? One black day bereft seven brothers' lives,
By stern Achilles ; by his hand my father breathed his last,
His high-walled rich Cilician Thebes sacked by him, and laid wast ; The royal body yet he left unspoiled ; religion charmed
That act of spoil ; and all in fire he burned him cdmplete armed ; Built over him a royal tomb ; and to the monument
He left of him, th' Oreades (that are the high descent
Of ^Egis-bearing Jupiter) another of their own
Did add to and set round with elms; by which shown,
In theirs, the barrenness of death yet might serve beside
To shelter the sad monument from all the ruffinous pride
Of storms and tempests, used to hurt things of that noble kind.
The short life yet my mother lived he saved, and served his mind With all the riches of the realm which not enough esteemed,
He kept her pris'ner whom small time, but much more wealth, re- And she, in sylvan Hypoplace, Cilicia ruled again, [deemed, But soon was overruled by death Diana's chaste disdain
Gave her lance, and took her life. Yet, all these gone from me, Thou amply render'st all thy life makes still my father be,
My mother, brothers and besides thou art my husband too,
Most loved, most worthy. Pity then, dear love, and do not go, For thou gone, all these go again pity our common joy,
Lest, of father's patronage, the bulwark of all Troy, [tower, Thou leav'st him a poor widow's charge. Stay, stay then, in this And call up to the wild fig tree all thy retired power
;
it
is
a
a
;
;
;
it
;;
;
;
it,
HECTOR, PARIS, HELEN, ANDROMACHE. 173
For there the wall is easiest scaled, and fittest for surprise, And there, th' Ajaces, Idomen, th' Atrides, Diomed, thrice
I know not if induced By some wise augury, or the fact was naturally infused
Have both surveyed and made attempt ;
Into their wits, or courages. " To this, great Hector said :
" Be well assured, wife, all these things in my kind cares are weighed. But what a shame, and fear, it is to think how Troy would scorn (Both in her husbands, and her wives, whom long-trained gowns adorn) That I should cowardly fly off ! The spirit I first did breath
Did never teach me that ; much less, since the contempt of death Was settled in me, and my mind knew what a worthy was,
Whose office is to lead in fight, and give no danger pass
Without improvement. In this fire must Hector's trial shine ;
Here must my country, father, friends, be, in him, made divine.
And such a stormy day shall come (in mind and soul I know)
When sacred Troy shall shed her towers, for tears of overthrow j When Priam, all his birth and power, shall in those tears be drowned. But neither Troy's posterity so much my soul doth wound,
Priam, nor Hecuba herself, nor all my brothers' woes
(Who though so many, and so good, must all be food for foes)
As thy sad state ; when some rude Greek shall lead thee weeping hence, These free days clouded, and a night of captive violence
Loading thy temples, out of which thine eyes must never see,
But spin the Greek wives' webs of task, and their fetch-water be
To Argos, from Messeides, or clear Hyperia's spring ;
Which howsoever thou abhorr'st, Fate's such a shrewish thing
She will be mistress ; whose cursed hands, when they shall crush out cries
From thy oppressions (being beheld by other enemies)
Thus they will nourish thy extremes : ' This dame was Hector's wife, A man that, at the wars of Troy, did breathe the worthiest life
Of all their army. ' This again will rub thy fruitful wounds,
To miss the man that to thy bands could give such narrow bounds. But that day shall not wound mine eyes ; the solid heap of night Shall interpose, and stop mine ears against thy plaints, and plight. "
This said, he reached to take his son ; who, of his arms afraid, And then the horsehair plume, with which he was so overlaid, Nodded so horribly, he clinged back to his nurse, and cried. Laughter affected his great sire, who doffed, and laid aside
His fearful helm, that on the earth cast round about it light ; Then took and kissed his loving son, and (balancing his weight In dancing him) these loving vows to living Jove he used,
And all the other bench of Gods : " O you that have infused Soul to this infant, now set down this blessing on his star ;
Let his renown be clear as mine ; equal his strength in war ;
174 HECTOR, PARIS, HELEN, ANDROMACHE.
And make his reign so strong in Troy, that years to come may yield His facts this fame, when, rich in spoils, he leaves the conquered field Sown with his slaughters: 'These high deeds exceed his father's
worth. '
And let this echoed praise supply the comforts to come forth
Of his kind mother with my life. " This said, th' heroic sire
Gave him his mother ; whose fair eyes fresh streams of love's salt fire Billowed on her soft cheeks, to hear the last of Hector's speech,
In which his vows comprised the sum of all he did beseech
In her wished comfort. So she took into her od'rous breast
Her husband's gift ; who, moved to see her heart so much oppressed, He dried her tears, and thus desired : " Afflict me not, dear wife, With these vain griefs. He doth not live, that can disjoin my life And this firm bosom, but my fate ; and fate, whose wings can fly ? Noble, ignoble, fate controls. Once born, the best must die.
Go home, and set thy housewifry on these extremes of thought ; And drive war from them with thy maids ; keep them from doing
naught.
These will be nothing ; leave the cares of war to men, and me In whom, of all the Ilion race, they take their high'st degree. "
On went his helm ; his princess home, half cold with kindly fears ; When ev'ry fear turned back her looks, and ev'ry look shed tears. Foe-slaught'ring Hector's house soon reached, her many women there Wept all to see her : in his life great Hector's fun'rals were ;
Never looked any eye of theirs to see their lord safe home,
'Scaped from the gripes and powers of Greece. And now was Paris
come
From his high towers ; who made no stay, when once he had put on His richest armor, but flew forth ; the flints he trod upon
Sparkled with luster of his arms ; his long-ebbed spirits now flowed The higher for their lower ebb. And as a fair steed, proud
With full-given mangers, long tied up, and now, his head stall broke, He breaks from stable, runs the field, and with an ample stroke Measures the center, neighs, and lifts aloft his wanton head,
About his shoulders shakes his crest, and where he hath been fed, Or in some calm flood washed, or, stung with his high plight, he flies Amongst his females, strength put forth, his beauty beautifies,
And, like life's mirror, bears his gait ; so Paris from the tower
Of lofty Pergamus came forth ; he showed a sunlike power
In carriage of his goodly parts, addressed now to the strife ;
And found his noble brother near the place he left his wife.
Him thus respected he salutes : " Right worthy, I have fear
That your so serious haste to field, my stay hath made forbear,
And that I
" Be confident, for not myself nor any others, can
come not as you wish. " He answered :
Honored man,
Cassandra
From the painting by George Romney, in the Boydell Gallery
CASSANDRA. 175
Reprove in thee the work of fight, at least, not any such
As is an equal judge of things ; for thou hast strength as much
As serves to execute a mind very important, but
Thy strength too readily flies off, enough will is not put
To thy ability. My heart is in my mind's strife sad,
When Troy (out of her much distress, she and her friends have had By thy procurement) doth deprave thy noblesse in mine ears.
But come, hereafter we shall calm these hard conceits of theirs, When, from their ports the foe expulsed, high Jove to them hath given Wished peace, and us free sacrifice to all the Powers of heaven. "
ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER. By JOHN KEATS.
Much have I traveled in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen ; Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold : Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken ; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific —and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise —
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
CASSANDRA.
(For a drawing where Helen arms Paris, and Cassandra prophesies, leaves them for his last fight)
as Hector
By DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.
[English poet and preraphaelite artist, born of Italian parents, 1828 ; died 1882. ]
L
Rend, rend thine hair, Cassandra : he will go.
Yea, rend thy garments, wring thine hands, and cry From Troy still towered to the unreddened sky.
176
ACHILLES AND HELENA.
See, all but she who bore thee mock thy woe ;
He most whom that fair woman arms, with show
Of wrath on her bent brows ; for in this place, This hour thou bad'st all men in Helen's place
The ravished ravishing prize of Death to know.
What eyes, what ears hath fair Andromache, Save for her Hector's form and step, as tear On tear make salt the warm last kiss he gave ?
He goes. Cassandra's words beat heavily
Like crows upon his crest, and at his ear King hollow in the shield that shall not save.
ii.
" O Hector, gone, gone, gone ! O Hector, thee, Two chariots wait, in Troy long blest and curst ; And Grecian spear and Phrygian sand athirst
Crave from thy veins the blood of victory. Lo ! long upon our hearth the brand had we,
Lit for the roof tree's ruin ; and to-day
The ground stone quits the wall — the wind hath way — And higher and higher the wings of fire are free.
" O Paris, Paris I O thou burning brand, Thou beacon of the sea whence Venus rose,
Lighting thy race to shipwreck ! Even that hand Wherewith she took thine apple let her close Within thy curls at last, and while Troy glows
Lift thee her trophy to the sea and land. "
ACHILLES AND HELENA. By WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.
[Walteb Savage Landor : English poet and miscellaneous writer ; born at Ipsley Court, Warwickshire, January 30, 1775 ; died at Florence, Italy, Sep tember 17,"1864, where he had lived chiefly since 1821. His "Imaginary Con versations fill six large volumes. His first volume of poems was published in 1795 ; his last, entitled " Heroic Idylls," in 1863. The list of his writings in prose and verse is very long. ]
ACHILLES AND HELENA.
177
Achilles, during the siege of Troy, having prayed to his mother Thetis and to Aphrodite that he might see Helen face to face, is transported by those god desses to a place ofmeeting with her on Mount Ida.
Helena — Where am I ? Desert me not, O ye blessed from above ! ye twain who brought me hither !
Was it a dream ?
Stranger ! thou seemest thoughtful ; couldst thou answer me ? Why so silent ? I beseech and implore thee, speak.
Achilles — Neither thy feet nor the feet of mules have borne thee where thou standest. Whether in the hour of departing sleep, or at what hour of the morning, I know not, O Helena, but Aphrodite and Thetis, inclining to my prayer, have, as thou art conscious, led thee into these solitudes. To me also have they shown the way ; that I might behold the pride of Sparta, the marvel of the Earth, and — how my heart swells and ago nizes at the thought ! — the cause of innumerable woes to Hellas.
Helena — Stranger ! thou art indeed one whom the goddesses or gods might lead, and glory in ; such is thy stature, thy voice, and thy demeanor ; but who, if earthly, art thou ?
Achilles — Before thee, O Helena, stands Achilles, son of Peleus. Tremble not, turn not pale, bend not thy knees, O Helena.
Helena — Spare me, thou goddess-born ! thou cherished and only son of silver-footed Thetis ! Chryseis and Briseis ought to soften and content thy heart. Lead not me also into captivity. Woes too surely have I brought down on Hellas; but woes have been mine alike, and will forever be.
Achilles — Daughter of Zeus ! what word hast thou spoken ! Chryseis, child of the aged priest who performs in this land due sacrifices to Apollo, fell to the lot of another ; an insolent and unworthy man, who hath already brought more sorrows upon our people than thou hast ; so that dogs and vultures prey on the brave who sank without a wound. Briseis is indeed mine; the lovely and dutiful Briseis. He, unjust and con tumelious, proud at once and base, would tear her from me. But gods above ! in what region has the wolf with impunity dared to seize upon the kid which the lion hath taken ?
Talk not of being led into servitude. Could mortal be guilty of such impiety? Hath it never thundered on these mountain heads ? Doth Zeus, the wide-seeing, see all the Earth but Ida ? doth he watch over all but his own ? Capaneus and
VOL. II. — 12
178 ACHILLES AND HELENA.
Typhoeus less offended him, than would the wretch whose grasp should violate the golden hair of Helena. And dost thou still tremble ? irresolute and distrustful !
Helena — I must tremble ; and more and more.
Achilles — Take my hand : be confident : be comforted.
I am comforted.