No More Learning

"
Hereon Achilles, awaked to a yearning remembrance of Peleus,
Rose up, took by the hand, and removed from him gently the old man.
Sadness possessing the twain — one, mindful of valorous Hector, Wept with o'erflowing tears, low laid at the feet of Achilles ;
He, sometime for his father, anon at the thought of Patroclus,
Wept, and aloft in the dwelling their long lamentation ascended.
But when the bursting of grief had contented the godlike Peleides, And from his heart and his limbs irresistible yearning departed, Then from his seat rose he, and with tenderness lifted the old man, Viewing the hoary head and the hoary beard with compassion ;
And he addressed him, and these were the air-winged words that he
uttered : —
"Ah unhappy ! thy spirit in truth has been burdened with evils. How could the daring be thine to come forth to the ships of Achaia Singly, to stand in the eyes of the man by whose weapon thy chil
dren,
Many and gallant, have died ? full surely thy heart is of iron.
But now seat thee in peace, old man, and let mourning entirely Pause for a space in our minds, although heavy on both be affliction ; For without profit and vain is the fullness of sad lamentation,
Since it was destined so of the gods for unfortunate mortals
Ever in trouble to live, but they only partake not of sorrow ;
For by the threshold of Zeus two urns have their station of old time, Whereof the one holds dolings of good, but the other of evil ;
136 PRIAM RECLAIMS HECTOR'S BODY.
And to whom mixt are the doles of the thunder-delighting Kronion, He sometime is of blessing partaker, of misery sometime ;
But if he gives him the ill, he has fixed him the mark of disaster, And over bountiful earth the devouring Necessity drives him, Wandering ever forlorn, unregarded of gods and of mortals.
Thus of a truth did the gods grant glorious gifts unto Peleus,
Even from the hour of his birth, for above compare was he favored, Whether in wealth or in power, in the land of the Myrmidons reign
ing;
And albeit a mortal, his spouse was a goddess appointed. —
Yet even to him, of the god there was evil apportioned, that
never
Lineage of sons should be born in his home, to inherit dominion. One son alone he begat, to untimely calamity foredoomed ;
Nor do I cherish his age, since afar from the land of my fathers Here in the Troas I sit, to the torment of thee and thy children.
And we have heard, old man, of thine ancient prosperity also,
Lord of whatever is held between Lesbos the seat of the Macar,
Up to the Phrygian bound and the measureless Hellespontos ; Ruling and blest above all, nor in wealth nor in progeny equaled : Yet from the hour that the gods brought this visitation upon
thee,
Day unto day is thy city surrounded with battles and bloodshed. Howso, bear what is sent, nor be grieved in thy soul without ceas
ing.
Nothing avails king to lament for the son that has fallen
Him thou canst raise up no more, but thyself may have new tribu
lation. "
So having said, he was answered by Priam the aged and god
" like:—
Seat not me on the chair, beloved of Olympus while Hector
Lies in the tent uninterred but pray thee deliver him swiftly, That may see with mine eyes and, accepting the gifts of redemp
tion,
Therein have joy to thy heart and return thou homeward in safety, Since of thy mercy live and shall look on the light of the morning. " " Darkly regarding the king, thus answered the rapid Achilles —
Stir me to anger no more, old man of myself am minded
To the release of the dead for messenger came from Kronion Hither, the mother that bore me, the child of the Ancient of
Ocean.
Thee, too, know in my mind, nor has aught of thy passage escaped
me;
How that some god was the guide of thy steps to the ships of
Achaia.
I
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PRIAM RECLAIMS HECTOR'S BODY.
137
For never mortal had dared to advance, were he blooming in man hood,
Here to the host by himself ; nor could sentinels all be avoided ; Nor by an imbecile push might the bar be dislodged at my bulwark. Therefore excite me no more, old man, when my soul is in sorrow, Lest to thyself peradventure forbearance continue not alway, Suppliant all that thou art — but I break the behest of the godhead. "
So did he speak ; but the old man feared, and obeyed his com mandment.
Forth of the door of his dwelling then leapt like a lion Peleides ; But not alone: of his household were twain that attended his
going,
Hero Automedon first, and young Alkimus, he that was honored Chief of the comrades around since the death of beloved Patroclus. These from the yoke straightway unharnessed the mules and the
horses,
And they conducted within the coeval attendant of Priam,
Bidding him sit in the tent ; then swiftly their hands from the mule-
wain,
Raise the uncountable wealth of the king's Hectorean head-gifts. But two mantles they leave, and a tunic of beautiful texture, Seemly for wrapping the dead as the ransomer carries him home
ward.
Then were the handmaidens called, and commanded to wash and
anoint him,
Privately lifted aside, lest the son should be seen of the father,
Lest in the grief of his soul he restrain not his anger within him, Seeing the corse of his son, but enkindle the heart of Achilles,
And he smite him to death, and transgress the command of Kronion. But when the dead had been washed and anointed with oil by the
maidens,
And in the tunic arrayed and enwrapt in the beautiful mantle,
Then by Peleides himself was he raised and composed on the hand-
bier ;
Which when the comrades had lifted and borne to its place in the
mule-wain,
Then groaned he; and he called on the name of his friend, the " beloved: —
Be not wroth with me now, O Patroclus, if haply thou hearest, Though within Hades obscure, that I yield the illustrious Hector Back to his father dear. Not unworthy the gifts of redemption ; And unto thee will I render thereof whatsoever is seemly. "
THE SIRENS, SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS.
THE SIRENS, SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. (From the " Odyssey " ; translated by Philip S. Worsley. )
But when the Ocean river in our wake
Streamed afar off, borne through the wide-wayed deep
Straight from ^Eaea's isle our course we take,
To where the young-eyed Morning loves to keep Her pastime, and the Sun wakes up from sleep.
Thither arrived on the smooth shores we run The keel, and to the land our sailors leap,
And all night slumbering on the sands, each one Waits for the Dawn divine and the returning Sun.
But when the rosy-fingered Dawn was come, Child of the mist, my comrades forth I sent
To fetch the dead Elpenor from the home
Of Circe. Then to the utmost we went,
And cut wood, and with tears and sad lament
Paid the funeral rites. So when with all
His arms the dead was burned, a monument
Of earth, and gravestone to record his fall
We reared, and in the midst, the shapely oar sprang tall.
We then, reminded of our labors past,
Talked over all that we had seen and known ;
And Circe knew that through the billows vast From Hades' realms we had returned, and soon In shining raiment to the shore came down,
While in her train paced many a maiden fair,
Who corn and flesh, and sparkling wine, the crown
Of banquets, in white hands uplifted bare.
Then, standing in the midst, spake the divine one there :
" Ah ! desperate, who have trod with living feet The house of Hades and the sunless way,
Twice dead, while others die but once ! Haste, eat Both corn and flesh in plenty while ye may, And, sitting here, drink wine the livelong day !
Hence in the morning shall ye sail, and I Will point your path, nor any more delay
To warn you, and each danger signify, Lest or by land or wave you find adversity. "
THE SIRENS, SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 139
She ended, and our manly heart obeyed.
So through the livelong day on corn, flesh, wine,
We feasted, till the sun fell and the shade Descended. Then the mariners recline
Hard by the black ship ; but the queen divine
Led me apart from my companions dear,
And lay with me, and asked each word and sign
Of the late work ; which I unfolded clear ; And at the last spake Circe in my listening ear :
" These things are ended. Hearken now my word I Yea, God himself shall call it to thy mind.
First shalt thou reach the Sirens, who, once heard, Charm with their strains the souls of all mankind. If unawares come floating on the wind
That clear, sweet music, which the Sirens pour, He who hath quaffed it with his ears shall find
No voice, no welcome, on his native shore,
Shall on his dear wife gaze and lisping babes no more.
" For the shrill Sirens, couched among the flowers, Sing melodies that lure from the great deep
The heedless mariner to their fatal bowers,
Where round about them, piled in many a heap,
Lie the bleached bones of moldering men that sleep
Forever, and the dead skins waste away.
Thou through the waves thy course right onward keep,
And stop with wax thy comrades' ears, that they
Hear not the sweet death songs which through the wide air stray.
" But if thyself art fain to hear their song,
Let thy companions bind thee, hands and feet,
Upright against the mast with cordage strong. So mayst thou hearken to the voices sweet Of the twin Sirens, as thy white sails fleet
Along the perilous coast ; yet, though thou yearn To linger, and with tears thy friend entreat,
Let them remain hard-hearted, doubly stern
Yea, with more chains enwind thee, and thy anguish spurn.
"These once escaped, no more I plainly tell Which way be safer ; thou shalt think ; but I
Both will proclaim ; for there wild rocks upswell Vast, overshadowing, round whose bases cry Dark Amphitrite's billows. Gods on high
THE SIRENS, SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS.
These rocks call Wanderers ; and no winged thing — That place hath passed, or can pass, harmless by
No, not the doves, those tremblers, wont to bring Ambrosia, heavenly food, to Father Zeus, their king.
" One of their number the fell rock doth slay, But aye another doth the Father send
His convoy to complete. Nor by that way Ever did bark of mortal oarage wend,
For waves and fiery storms the timbers rend,
And the men murder. Of all ships that sail Argo, beloved one, did alone transcend
That ruin. She too had been brought to bale, But that queen Hera's love for Jason did prevail.
" Guarding a narrow gulf two rocks there are, Whereof the one, sky threatening, a black cloud
Not pierceable by power of sun, moon, star, Doth everlastingly with gloom enshroud. Summer nor autumn to that pile dark-browed
Lend a clear ether, nor could mortal wight, Albeit with twenty hands and feet endowed,
Climb or descend that sheer and perilous height,
Which, smooth as burnished stone, darts heavenward out of sight
" Deep in the mid rock lies a murky cave,
Whose mouth yawns westward to the sullen dark
Of Erebus ; and thou, Odysseus brave, Must by this way direct the hollow bark. Nor yet could any archer taking mark,
No, not a strong man in his life's full bloom,
A swift-winged shaft from that same hollow bark
Shoot to the vault, within whose hideous womb Scylla in secret lurks, dread-howling through the gloom.
" Her voice is like the voice of whelps new-born, Yet she such monster as no eyes can meet
Rejoicing, or with glance of careless scorn,
Not though a god should pass her dire retreat. Twelve feet she has, twelve huge misshapen feet,
And six long necks, wherefrom she quivereth Six heads of terror, and her prey doth eat
With grim jaws, armed with triple ranks of teeth, Frequent and thickly sown and teeming with black death.
THE SIRENS, SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS.
" Her waist is hidden in the hollow cave, But all her heads from the infernal lair
She thrusts, to fish with, in the whirling wave, And, feeling round the rock with eager care, For dolphins dips and sea dogs, or if there
Perchance some larger weightier bulk she catch, Such as the deep in myriads feeds — and ne'er
Have mariners eluded her dire watch,
Who for each head one victim from the ship doth snatch.
" The other rock, a little space remote
(Yea with an arrow thou couldst reach it well),
More flat by far, Odysseus, shalt thou note Crowned with a fig tree wild. Charybdis fell Sucks the black water in her throat's deep hell
Beneath it; thrice disgorges in the day,
And thrice again sucks up the eddying swell. Heaven from that suction keep thee far away !
Not the Earthshaker's self could then thy doom delay.
" Rather to Scylla's rock, whate'er befall, Cleave in thy steering, when thou passest by,
Since it is better to lose six than all. "
Therewith she ended, and I made reply:
" This one thing more, kind goddess, signify —
If I may yet take counsel not in vain
Whirling Charybdis to evade or fly, "
And ward off Scylla, ere my friends be slain ?
I ceased, and the divine one answering spake again :
" Ah ! desperate heart ! and wilt thou never turn From weariest toil and feats of warlike fame,
Nor even to the gods submission learn ?
She is no mortal whom thou fain wouldst tame, This mischief, but of race immortal came ;
Fierce and unconquerable and wild and strong, No force compels her and no steel can maim.
There is no remedy against this wrong —
Flight is your help ; one moment's tarrying were too long.
" For by the rock but linger to equip
Thy limbs for battle, and in sooth I fear
Lest she again forth issuing on the ship
Find thee with all her ravenous heads, and bear Six more aloft of thy companions dear.
THE SIRENS, SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS.
Thou rather drive impetuous through the main, And on Krataiis call, that she may hear,
Mother of Scylla, who brought forth this bane
Of mortals : she her child forth-issuing will restrain.
" Soon shall thy bark Thrinacia's island reach, Where feed the Sun's sleek oxen and fat sheep ;
Seven are the herds and fifty kine in each,
And of the flocks like reckoning he doth keep. Seed have they none ; nor do the seasons reap
Aught of their vigor. Nymphs with flowing hair Attend them in their pastures by the deep,
Bright Phaethusa and Lampetia fair,
Whom to the heavenly Sun divine Neaera bare.
" She to Thrinacia sent them, there to dwell,
Tending their father's flocks and herds. These leave
Unscathed, and all may in the end be well, Though to your land returning sore ye grieve ; But scathe them, and the gods, I well perceive,
Shall break your bark up and your sailors kill ;
And though thine own life they may chance reprieve,
Yet to thy country, at a stranger's will,
Shalt thou come lone and late and overwhelmed with ill. "
She ceasing, came the golden-throned Morn. Then passed the goddess inland ; but I went
And bade the men embark. They outward borne, Winnow with oars the foaming element.
Soon in our lee the fair-haired Circe sent
A helpmate good, a canvas-swelling breeze. We, on the tackling of our bark intent,
All things arranged ; then sitting at our ease
Steersman and prosperous wind impelled us through the seas.
Then sorely grieving I the tidings break :
" Friends, it is fitting that not one nor two
Should know the oracles which Circe spake, Divine one, in these ears ; but all my crew Shall hear them, that together we may rue
Death not unknowingly, if death should chance, Or haply, should we yet pass safely through
These perils, then in no blind ignorance We may awhile escape Fate's evil ordinance.
THE SIRENS, SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 143
" First of the Sirens, couched among the flowers, She warns us fly from the delusive song.
I only, as we pass the fatal bowers,
Have leave to listen ; yet with many a thong Need is ye bind me, and with cordage strong,
Against the socket of the mast upright,
Lest I should move ; and though I urge you long
To loose me, and implore with all my might,
Still bind me with more cords and strain them yet more tight. "
Thus were my comrades of each several charge Admonished ; and the well-built ship meanwhile
Cut lightly through the waves, and neared the marge Of that fell coast, the sister Sirens' isle.
Anon the wind slept, and for many a mile
Some god in silence hushed the marble mere. Forthwith our men the canvas furl, and pile
Safe in the hollow ship their naval gear,
Lean to their oars, and whiten the blue waters clear.
Then did I haste to sever with iron keen
In morsels a great roll of wax, which lay
Stored in the hollow ship, and in between
My strong palms pressed and chafed it every way. Soon the wax warmed, for the great Lord of Day,
Hyperion's offspring, the imperial Sun, Came to my succor with his burning ray.
So when the mass with heat was nigh to run, I filled my comrades' ears, in order one by one.
Then did they bind me by the hands and feet Upright against the mast with cordage strong,
And each again retiring to his seat
Smote the calm sea with furrows white and long. We, lightly drifting the blue waves among,
Soon in our course such interval attain
As that the ear might catch the Sirens' song.
Nor did the swift ship moving through the main
Escape them, while they sang this sweet soul-piercing strain :
" Hither, Odysseus, great Achaian name, Turn thy swift keel and listen to our lay; Since never pilgrim near these regions came
In black ship, on the azure fields astray,
THE SIRENS, SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS.
But heard our sweet voice ere he sailed away, And in his joy passed on with ampler mind.
We know what labors were in ancient day Wrought in wide Troia, as the gods assigned ;
We know from land to land all toils of mankind. "
While their sweet music took my spirit thus.
I with drawn brows made signal for release ;
But Perimedes and Eurylochus
Bind me yet faster and the cords increase, Nor for my passion would the seamen cease
Their rowing. When no more the Sirens' song Thrilled the deep air, and on my soul came peace,
My trusty mariners unsealed ere long
Their ears, and from my limbs unwound the cordage strong.
When we had left the island in our lee,
I looked, and straight in front toward heaven uprolled
Smoke, and the noises of a roaring sea,
So that with terror every heart sank cold, And from the feeble fingers' trembling hold
Each oar dropt, whirring in the downward flood. Dead paused the ship, no longer now controlled
By slantless oar-blades ; and I passed and stood Near each, and thus essayed to calm his fearful mood :
" Friends, we are not in dangers all unlearned, Nor have we lighted on a vaster woe
Than when the Cyclops, who all justice spurned, Held us immured, disdaining to let go
His captive guests. Yet verily even so
This mind and arm a great deliverance wrought. And surely at this hour I feel, I know,
That we shall yet live to recount in thought
These labors. Come, take heart, obey me as ye ought,
" Lean to your oars and the wild breakers sweep, If haply Zeus vouchsafe our souls to spare.
Thou, steersman, in thy breast this mandate keep, Since of the hollow ship thou hast chief care — And at thy will dost wield her here and there :
Hold her well clear of this smoke-clouded sea, And hug the adverse rock, lest unaware
We to the whirling gulf drift violently,
And thou o'erwhelm us all in dire calamity. " . . .
THE SIRENS, SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS.
I my illustrious mail assuming now,
Holding in each hand a long-shafted spear,
Move to the black ship's bulwark near the prow, First on that side expecting to appear Rock-lurking Scylla, destined soon to bear
Such dread disaster to my comrades brave. Nor yet could I discern her anywhere,
Though still my tired eyes straining glances gave, And pored both far and deep to pierce her murky cave.
We groaning sailed the strait. Here Scylla lay, And there divine Charybdis, with huge throat
Gorging salt waves, which when she cast away
She spurned with hisses (as when fire makes hot Some caldron) and the steamy froth upshot
Wide o'er both rocks. But when she gorged again, Drunk with abysmal gurglings, one might note
The dark sands of the immeasurable main
Gleam iron-blue. The rocks loud-bellowing roared amain.
We pale with dread stared at her, fearing death. But ravenous Scylla from the hollow bark
Six of our bravest comrades at a breath
Seized with her six necks. Turning round I mark Their forms quick vanishing toward the cavern dark,
And feet and fingers dangling in mid air ;
Yea, and my ear each several voice could mark
Which for the last time shrieked, with no one there To help them — on my name they called in wild despair.
As when some fisher, angling in the deep, Casts with a long rod for the smaller fry
Baits and a bull's horn, from some jutting steep, And hurls the snared prey to the land close by Gasping, so these were to the rocks on high
Drawn gasping, and the monster gorged them down, Stretching their hands with a loud bitter cry
Toward me their captain. This was my grief's crown. Never in all my toils like anguish have I known.
vol. n. — 10
146 PRINCIPLES OF HOMERIC TRANSLATION.
PRINCIPLES OF HOMERIC TRANSLATION. By MATTHEW ARNOLD.
[Matthew Arnold: English poet, essayist, and critic; born at Laleham, December 24, 1822; died at Liverpool, April 15, 1888. He was professor of poetry at Oxford, 1857-1867. He was government inspector of schools for nearly forty years. His earliest published works were his prize poems, " Alaric at Rome," written at Rugby, and "Cromwell," written at Oxford. His poeti cal works include " The Strayed Reveler, and Other Poems " (1848) ; " Emped- ocles on Etna" (1853); "Merope," a tragedy (1857); "New Poems" (1868). His prose essays include "Lectures on Celtic Literature," and "Lectures on Translating Homer," "Culture and Anarchy," "Literature and Dogma," and " Discourses on America. "]
I. Pope's Translation.
Homer's verses were some of the first words which a young Athenian heard. He heard them from his mother or his nurse before he went to school ; and at school, when he went there, he was constantly occupied with them. So much did he hear of them that Socrates proposes, in the interests of morality, to have selections from Homer made, and placed in the hands of mothers and nurses, in his model republic ; in order that, of an author with whom they were sure to be so perpetually conver sant, the young might learn only those parts which might do them good. His language was as familiar to Sophocles, we may be quite sure, as the language of the Bible is to us.
Nay, more. Homer's language was not, of course, in the time of Sophocles, the spoken or written language of ordinary life, any more than the language of the Bible, any more than the language of poetry, is with us : but for one great species of composition — epic poetry — it was still the current language ; it was the language in which every one who made that sort of poetry composed. Every one at Athens who dabbled in epic poetry, not only understood Homer's language, — he possessed it. He possessed it as every one who dabbles in poetry with us pos sesses what may be called the poetical vocabulary, as distin guished from the vocabulary of common speech and of modern prose :
for spoke, aye for ever, don for put on, charmed for charmed, and thousands of others. "
I mean, such expressions as perchance for perhaps, spake
Robert Wood, whose
Essay on the Genius of Homer
"
is
words)
PRINCIPLES OF HOMERIC TRANSLATION.
147
mentioned by Goethe as one of the books which fell into his hands when his powers were first developing themselves, and strongly interested him, relates a striking story. He says that in 1762, at the end of the Seven Years' War, being then Under- Secretary of State, he was directed to wait upon the President of the Council, Lord Granville, a few days before he died, with the preliminary articles of the Treaty of Paris.
" I found him," he continues, " so languid, that I proposed postponing my business for another time; but he insisted that I should stay, saying, it could not prolong his life to neglect his duty ; and repeating the following passage out of Sarpedon's speech, he dwelled with particular emphasis on the third line, which recalled to his mind the distinguishing part he had taken in public affairs.
" <3iriirov, tt pjtv yap TroXtfiov irtpl rovSe <pvy6vrc,
alti p-eXXoi/iev ayqput r adavaru> re
iaataff ovre kcv avros ivl irpiiroiat p. a\oip. r)V, ovtc <t <rt ortAAotjiu pAyyyv KvBidvupav
vvv — ip-mis yap Krjpv; i<pctrra<riv Oavdroio — fivpuu, as ovk fori tftvyiiv f3porov, ova' vira\v£ai lo/uy.
His lordship repeated the last words several times with calm and determinate resignation and after serious pause of some minutes, he desired to hear the Treaty read, to which he listened with great attention, and recovered spirits enough to declare the approbation of dying statesman use his own
on the most glorious war, and most honorable peace, this nation ever saw. '"
quote this story, first, because interesting as exhibit ing the English aristocracy at its very height of culture, lofty spirit, and greatness, towards the middle of the last century.
quote it, secondly, because seems to me to illustrate Goethe's saying, that our life, in Homer's view of it, represents conflict and hell and brings out, too, what there tonic and forti fying in this doctrine. quote it, lastly, because shows that the passage just one of those in translating which Pope will be at his best, passage of strong emotion and oratorical move ment, not of simple narrative or description.
Could all our care elude the gloomy grave Which claims no less the fearful than the brave,
Pope translates the passage thus —
:
it is
is a
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148 PRINCIPLES OF HOMERIC TRANSLATION.
For lust of fame I should not vainly dare In fighting fields, nor urge thy soul to war : But since, alas ! ignoble age must come, Disease, and death's inexorable doom ;
The life which others pay, let us bestow, And give to fame what we to nature owe.
Nothing could better exhibit Pope's prodigious talent, and nothing, too, could be better in its own way. But, as Bentley said, "You must not call it Homer. " One feels that Homer's thought has passed through a literary and rhetorical crucible, and come out highly intellectualized ; come out in a form which strongly impresses us, indeed, but which no longer impresses us in the same way as when it was uttered by Homer. The antithesis of the last two lines —
The life which others pay, let us bestow, And give to fame what we to nature owe —
is excellent, and is just suited to Pope's heroic couplet ; but neither the antithesis itself, nor the couplet which conveys
suited to the feeling or to the movement of Homer.
Every one knows the passage at the end of the eighth book of the Iliad, where the fires of the Trojan encampment are
likened to the stars. It very far from my wish to hold Pope up to ridicule, so shall not quote the commencement of the pas sage, which in the original of great and celebrated beauty, and in translating which Pope has been singularly and notori ously unfortunate. But the latter part of the passage, where Homer leaves the stars, and comes to the Trojan fires, treats of the plainest, most matter-of-fact subject possible, and deals with this, as Homer always deals with every subject, in the plainest and most straightforward style. " So many in number, between the ships and the streams of Xanthus, shone forth in front of Troy the fires kindled by the Trojans. There were kindled thousand fires in the plain and by each one there sat fifty men in the light of the blazing fire. And the horses, munching white barley and rye, and standing by the chariots, waited for the bright-throned Morning. "
In Pope's translation, this plain story becomes the follow ing —
So many flames before proud Ilion blaze,
And brighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays
;
:
;
is is
a
it,
I
is
PRINCIPLES OF HOMERIC TRANSLATION. 149
The long reflections of the distant fires
Gleam on the walls, and tremble on the spires.
A thousand piles the dusky horrors gild,
And shoot a shady luster o'er the field.
Full fifty guards each flaming pile attend,
Whose umbered arms, by fits, thick flashes send ; Loud neigh the coursers o'er their heaps of corn, And ardent warriors wait the rising morn.
It is for passages of this sort, which, after all, form the bulk of a narrative poem, that Pope's style is so bad. In elevated pas sages he is powerful, as Homer is powerful, though not in the same way ; but in plain narrative, where Homer is still power ful and delightful, Pope, by the inherent fault of his style, is ineffective and out of taste. Wordsworth " says somewhere, that wherever Virgil seems to have composed with his eye on the object," Dryden fails to render him. Homer invariably com poses "with his eye on the object," whether the object be a moral or a material one : Pope composes with his eye on his style, into which he translates his object, whatever it is. That, therefore, which Homer conveys to us immediately, Pope con veys to us through a medium. He aims at turning Homer's sentiments pointedly and rhetorically ; at investing Homer's description with ornament and dignity. A sentiment may be changed by being put into a pointed and oratorical form, yet may still be very effective in that form ; but a description, the moment it takes its eyes off that which it is to describe, and begins to think of ornamenting itself, is worthless.
Therefore, I say, the translator of Homer should penetrate himself with a sense of the plainness and directness of Homer's style ; of the simplicity with which Homer's thought is evolved and expressed. He has Pope's fate before his eyes, to show him what a divorce may be created even between the most gifted translator and Homer by an artificial evolution of thought and a literary cast of style.
II. Chapman's Version.
Chapman's style is not artificial and literary like Pope's, nor his movement elaborate and self-retarding like the Miltonic movement of Cowper. He is plain-spoken, fresh, vigorous, and to a certain degree rapid ; and all these are Homeric qualities. I cannot say that I think the movement of his fourteen-syllable
150 PRINCIPLES OF HOMERIC TRANSLATION.
line, which has been so much commended, Homeric : but it is not distinctly anti-Homeric, like the movement of Milton's blank verse ; and it has a rapidity of its own. Chapman's dic tion, too, is generally good, — that is, appropriate to Homer ; above all, the syntactical character of his style is appropriate. With these merits, what prevents his translation from being a satisfactory version of Homer ? Is it merely the want of literal faithfulness to his original, imposed upon him, it is said, by the exigences of rhyme? Has this celebrated version, which has so many advantages, no other and deeper defect than that ?
Its author is a poet, and a poet, too, of the Elizabethan age : the golden age of English literature, as it is called — and on the whole truly called ; for whatever be the defects of Elizabethan literature (and they are great), we have no development of our literature to compare with it for vigor and richness. This age, too, showed what it could do in translating, by producing a masterpiece, its version of the Bible.
Chapman's translation has often been praised as eminently Homeric. Keats' fine sonnet in its honor every one knows ; but Keats could not read the original, and therefore could not really judge the translation. Coleridge, in praising Chapman's version, says at the same time, " It will give you small idea of Homer. " But the grave authority of Mr. Hallam pronounces this translation to be " often exceedingly Homeric " ; and its latest editor boldly declares that by what, with a deplorable style, he calls "his own innative Homeric genius," Chapman " has thoroughly identified himself with Homer " ; and that " we pardon him even for his digressions, for they are such as we feel Homer himself would have written. "
I confess that I can never read twenty lines of Chapman's version without recurring to Bentley's cry, "This is not Homer ! " and that from a deeper cause than any unfaithful ness occasioned by the fetters of rhyme.
I said that there were four things which eminently distin guished Homer, and with a sense of which Homer's translator should penetrate himself as fully as possible. One of these four things was the plainness and directness of Homer's ideas. I have just been speaking of the plainness and directness of his style ; but the plainness and directness of the contents of his style, of his ideas themselves, is not less remarkable. But as eminently as Homer is plain, so eminently is the Elizabethan literature in general, and Chapman in particular, fanciful.
PRINCIPLES OF HOMERIC TRANSLATION. 151
Steeped in humors and fantasticality up to its very lips, the Elizabethan age, newly arrived at the free use of the human faculties after their long term of bondage, and delighting to exercise them freely, suffers from its own extravagance in this first exercise of them, can hardly bring itself to see an object quietly or to describe it temperately. Happily, in the translation of the Bible, the sacred character of their original inspired the translators with such respect that they did not dare to give the rein to their own fancies in dealing with it. But in dealing with works of profane literature, in dealing with poetical works above all, which highly stimulated them, one may say that the minds of the Elizabethan translators were too active ; that they could not forbear importing so much of their own, and this of a most peculiar and Elizabethan character, into their original, that they effaced the character of the original itself.
Take merely the opening pages to Chapman's translation, the introductory verses, and the dedications. You will find —
An Anagram of the name of our Dread Prince, My most gracious and sacred Maecenas,
Henry, Prince of Wales, —
Our Sunn, Heyr, Peace, Life,
Henry, son of James the First, to whom the work is dedicated. Then comes an address —
To the sacred Fountain of Princes,
Sole Empress of Beauty and Virtue, Anne, Queen
Of England, etc.
All the Middle Age, with its grotesqueness, its conceits, its irrationality, is still in these opening pages : they by them selves are sufficient to indicate to us what a gulf divides Chap man from the " clearest-souled " of poets, from Homer ; almost as great a gulf as that which divides him from Voltaire. Pope has been sneered at for saying that Chapman writes " somewhat as one might imagine Homer himself to have written before he arrived at years of discretion. " But the remark is excellent : Homer expresses himself like a man of adult reason, Chapman like a man whose reason has not yet cleared itself. For instance, if Homer had had to say of a poet, that he hoped his merit was now about to be fully established in the opinion of good judges, he was as incapable of saying this as Chapman
152 PRINCIPLES OF HOMERIC TRANSLATION.
says it, — " Though truth in her very nakedness sits in so deep a pit, that from Gades to Aurora, and Ganges, few eyes can sound her, I hope yet those few here will so discover and con firm that the date being out of her darkness in this morning of our poet, he shall now gird his temples with the sun," — I say, Homer was as incapable of saying this in that manner, as Voltaire himself would have been. Homer, indeed, has actually an affinity with Voltaire in the unrivaled clearness and straight forwardness of his thinking ; in the way in which he keeps to one thought at a time, and puts that thought forth in its com plete natural plainness, instead of being led away from it by some fancy striking him in connection with it, and being beguiled to wander off with this fancy till his original thought, in its natural reality, knows him no more. What could better show us how gifted a race was this Greek race? The same member of it has not only the power of profoundly touching that natural heart of humanity which it is Voltaire's weakness that he cannot reach, but can also address the understanding with all Voltaire's admirable simplicity and rationality.
My limits will not allow me to do more than shortly illus trate, from Chapman's version of the Iliad, what I mean when I speak of this vital difference between Homer and an Eliza bethan poet in the quality of their thought ; between the plain simplicity of the thought of the one, and the curious complexity of the thought of the other. As in Pope's case, I carefully abstain from choosing passages for the express purpose of making Chapman appear ridiculous ; Chapman, like Pope, merits in himself all respect, though he too, like Pope, fails to render Homer.
if indeed, but once this battle avoided, We were forever to live without growing old and immortal.
Chapman cannot be satisfied with this, but must add a fancy
to it
not wrack
In this life's human sea at all;
and so on. Again : in another passage which I have before quoted, where Zeus says to the horses of Peleus,
In that tonic speech of Sarpedon, of which I have said so much, Homer, you may remember, has —
y; keeping back
Would keep back age from us, and death, and that we might
PRINCIPLES OF HOMERIC TRANSLATION. 153
Why gave we you to royal Peleus, to a mortal ? but ye are with out old age, and immortal.
Chapman sophisticates this into —
Why gave we you t' a mortal king, when immortality And incapacity ofage so dignifies your states 9
Again ; in the speech of Achilles to his horses, where Achilles, according to Homer, says simply, "Take heed that ye bring your master safe back to the host of the Danaans, in some other sort than the last time, when the battle is ended," Chapman sophisticates this into —
When with blood, for this day's fast observed, revenge shall yield Our heart satiety, bring us off.
In Hector's famous speech, again, at his parting from Androm ache, Homer makes him say : " Nor does my own heart so bid me " (to keep safe behind the walls), " since I have learned to be stanch always, and to fight among the foremost of the Trojans, busy on behalf of my father's great glory, and my own. " In Chapman's hand this becomes —
The spirit I first did breathe
Did never teach me that ; much less, since the contempt of death
Was settled in me, and my mind knew what a worthy was, Wfiose office is to lead in fight, and give no danger pass Without improvement. In this fire must Hector's trial shine : Here must his country, father, friends, be in him made divine.
You see how ingeniously Homer's plain thought is tormented, as the French would say, here. Homer goes on : " For well I know this in my mind and in my heart, the day will be, when sacred Troy shall perish. " Chapman makes this —
And such a stormy day shall come, in mind and soul I know, When sacred Troy shall shed her towers, for tears of overthrow.
I might go on forever, but I could not give you a better illus tration than this last, of what I mean by saying that the Eliza bethan poet fails to render Homer because he cannot forbear to interpose a play of thought between his object and its expres sion. Chapman translates his object into Elizabethan, as Pope translates it into the Augustan of Queen Anne ; both convey
154 PRINCIPLES OF HOMERIC TRANSLATION.
it to us through a medium. Homer, on the other hand, sees his object and conveys it to us immediately.
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.