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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..37ce896 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #65381 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65381) diff --git a/old/65381-0.txt b/old/65381-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 82c06cd..0000000 --- a/old/65381-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7404 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, On Translating Homer, by Mathew Arnold - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - - -Title: On Translating Homer - - -Author: Mathew Arnold - - - -Release Date: May 19, 2021 [eBook #65381] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON TRANSLATING HOMER*** - - -E-text prepared by deaurider, David King, and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made -available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) - - - -Note: Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - https://archive.org/details/ontranslatingho00arno - - -Transcriber’s note: - - Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). - - Text that was in bold face is enclosed by equal signs (=bold=). - - - - - -ON TRANSLATING HOMER - -by - -MATTHEW ARNOLD - -With F. W. Newman’s ‘Homeric Translation’ -and Arnold’s ‘Last Words’ - - - - - - -London -George Routledge & Sons Limited -New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. - - - - - CONTENTS - -ON TRANSLATING HOMER— - -I. 1 - -II. 32 - -III. 68 - -HOMERIC TRANSLATION IN THEORY AND PRACTICE. A Reply to Matthew Arnold. -By Francis W. Newman 112 - -LAST WORDS ON TRANSLATING HOMER. - -A Reply to Francis W. Newman. By Matthew Arnold 217 - - - - -... Nunquamne reponam? - - - - - I - - -It has more than once been suggested to me that I should translate -Homer. That is a task for which I have neither the time nor the courage; -but the suggestion led me to regard yet more closely a poet whom I had -already long studied, and for one or two years the works of Homer were -seldom out of my hands. The study of classical literature is probably on -the decline; but, whatever may be the fate of this study in general, it -is certain that, as instruction spreads and the number of readers -increases, attention will be more and more directed to the poetry of -Homer, not indeed as part of a classical course, but as the most -important poetical monument existing. Even within the last ten years two -fresh translations of the _Iliad_ have appeared in England: one by a man -of great ability and genuine learning, Professor Newman; the other by Mr -Wright, the conscientious and painstaking translator of Dante. It may -safely be asserted that neither of these works will take rank as the -standard translation of Homer; that the task of rendering him will still -be attempted by other translators. It may perhaps be possible to render -to these some service, to save them some loss of labour, by pointing out -rocks on which their predecessors have split, and the right objects on -which a translator of Homer should fix his attention. - -It is disputed what aim a translator should propose to himself in -dealing with his original. Even this preliminary is not yet settled. On -one side it is said that the translation ought to be such ‘that the -reader should, if possible, forget that it is a translation at all, and -be lulled into the illusion that he is reading an original -work—something original’ (if the translation be English), ‘from an -English hand’. The real original is in this case, it is said, ‘taken as -a basis on which to rear a poem that shall affect our countrymen as the -original may be conceived to have affected its natural hearers’. On the -other hand, Mr Newman, who states the foregoing doctrine only to condemn -it, declares that he ‘aims at precisely the opposite: to retain every -peculiarity of the original, so far as he is able, _with the greater -care the more foreign it may happen to be_’; so that it may ‘never be -forgotten that he is imitating, and imitating in a different material’. -The translator’s ‘first duty’, says Mr Newman ‘is a historical one, to -be _faithful_’. Probably both sides would agree that the translator’s -‘first duty is to be faithful’; but the question at issue between them -is, in what faithfulness consists. - -My one object is to give practical advice to a translator; and I shall -not the least concern myself with theories of translation as such. But I -advise the translator not to try ‘to rear on the basis of the _Iliad_, a -poem that shall affect our countrymen as the original may be conceived -to have affected its natural hearers’; and for this simple reason, that -we cannot possibly tell _how_ the _Iliad_ ‘affected its natural -hearers’. It is probably meant merely that he should try to affect -Englishmen powerfully, as Homer affected Greeks powerfully; but this -direction is not enough, and can give no real guidance. For all great -poets affect their hearers powerfully, but the effect of one poet is one -thing, that of another poet another thing: it is our translator’s -business to reproduce the effect of Homer, and the most powerful emotion -of the unlearned English reader can never assure him whether he has -_re_produced this, or whether he has produced something else. So, again, -he may follow Mr Newman’s directions, he may try to be ‘faithful’, he -may ‘retain every peculiarity of his original’; but who is to assure -him, who is to assure Mr Newman himself, that, when he has done this, he -has done that for which Mr Newman enjoins this to be done, ‘adhered -closely to Homer’s manner and habit of thought’? Evidently the -translator needs some more practical directions than these. No one can -tell him how Homer affected the Greeks; but there are those who can tell -him how Homer affects _them_. These are scholars; who possess, at the -same time with knowledge of Greek, adequate poetical taste and feeling. -No translation will seem to them of much worth compared with the -original; but they alone can say whether the translation produces more -or less the same effect upon them as the original. They are the only -competent tribunal in this matter: the Greeks are dead; the unlearned -Englishman has not the data for judging; and no man can safely confide -in his own single judgment of his own work. Let not the translator, -then, trust to his notions of what the ancient Greeks would have thought -of him; he will lose himself in the vague. Let him not trust to what the -ordinary English reader thinks of him; he will be taking the blind for -his guide. Let him not trust to his own judgment of his own work; he may -be misled by individual caprices. Let him ask how his work affects those -who both know Greek and can appreciate poetry; whether to read it gives -the Provost of Eton, or Professor Thompson at Cambridge, or Professor -Jowett here in Oxford, at all the same feeling which to read the -original gives them. I consider that when Bentley said of Pope’s -translation, ‘It was a pretty poem, but must not be called Homer’, the -work, in spite of all its power and attractiveness, was judged. - -Ὡς ἂν ὁ φρόνιμος ὁρίσειεν, ‘as the judicious would determine’, that is a -test to which everyone professes himself willing to submit his works. -Unhappily, in most cases, no two persons agree as to who ‘the judicious’ -are. In the present case, the ambiguity is removed: I suppose the -translator at one with me as to the tribunal to which alone he should -look for judgment; and he has thus obtained a practical test by which to -estimate the real success of his work. How is he to proceed, in order -that his work, tried by this test, may be found most successful? - -First of all, there are certain negative counsels which I will give him. -Homer has occupied men’s minds so much, such a literature has arisen -about him, that every one who approaches him should resolve strictly to -limit himself to that which may directly serve the object for which he -approaches him. I advise the translator to have nothing to do with the -questions, whether Homer ever existed; whether the poet of the _Iliad_ -be one or many; whether the _Iliad_ be one poem or an _Achilleis_ and an -_Iliad_ stuck together; whether the Christian doctrine of the Atonement -is shadowed forth in the Homeric mythology; whether the Goddess Latona -in any way prefigures the Virgin Mary, and so on. These are questions -which have been discussed with learning, with ingenuity, nay, with -genius; but they have two inconveniences,—one general for all who -approach them, one particular for the translator. The general -inconvenience is that there really exist no data for determining them. -The particular inconvenience is that their solution by the translator, -even were it possible, could be of no benefit to his translation. - -I advise him, again, not to trouble himself with constructing a special -vocabulary for his use in translation; with excluding a certain class of -English words, and with confining himself to another class, in obedience -to any theory about the peculiar qualities of Homer’s style. Mr Newman -says that ‘the entire dialect of Homer being essentially archaic, that -of a translator ought to be as much Saxo-Norman as possible, and owe as -little as possible to the elements thrown into our language by classical -learning’. Mr Newman is unfortunate in the observance of his own theory; -for I continually find in his translation words of Latin origin, which -seem to me quite alien to the simplicity of Homer,—‘responsive’, for -instance, which is a favourite word of Mr Newman, to represent the -Homeric ἀμειβόμενος: - - Great Hector of the motley helm thus spake to her _responsive_. - But thus _responsively_ to him spake godlike Alexander. - -And the word ‘celestial’ again, in the grand address of Zeus to the -horses of Achilles, - - You, who are born _celestial_, from Eld and Death exempted! - -seems to me in that place exactly to jar upon the feeling as too -bookish. But, apart from the question of Mr Newman’s fidelity to his own -theory, such a theory seems to me both dangerous for a translator and -false in itself. Dangerous for a translator; because, wherever one finds -such a theory announced (and one finds it pretty often), it is generally -followed by an explosion of pedantry; and pedantry is of all things in -the world the most un-Homeric. False in itself; because, in fact, we owe -to the Latin element in our language most of that very rapidity and -clear decisiveness by which it is contradistinguished from the German, -and in sympathy with the languages of Greece and Rome: so that to limit -an English translator of Homer to words of Saxon origin is to deprive -him of one of his special advantages for translating Homer. In Voss’s -well-known translation of Homer, it is precisely the qualities of his -German language itself, something heavy and trailing both in the -structure of its sentences and in the words of which it is composed, -which prevent his translation, in spite of the hexameters, in spite of -the fidelity, from creating in us the impression created by the Greek. -Mr Newman’s prescription, if followed, would just strip the English -translator of the advantage which he has over Voss. - -The frame of mind in which we approach an author influences our -correctness of appreciation of him; and Homer should be approached by a -translator in the simplest frame of mind possible. Modern sentiment -tries to make the ancient not less than the modern world its own; but -against modern sentiment in its applications to Homer the translator, if -he would feel Homer truly—and unless he feels him truly, how can he -render him truly?—cannot be too much on his guard. For example: the -writer of an interesting article on English translations of Homer, in -the last number of the _National Review_, quotes, I see, with -admiration, a criticism of Mr Ruskin on the use of the epithet φυσίζοος, -‘life-giving’, in that beautiful passage in the third book of the -_Iliad_, which follows Helen’s mention of her brothers Castor and Pollux -as alive, though they were in truth dead: - - ὣς φάτο· τοὺς δ’ ἤδη κατέχεν φυσίζοος αἶα - ἐν Λακεδαίμονι αὖθι, φίλῃ ἐν πατρίδι γαίῃ.[1] - -‘The poet’, says Mr Ruskin, ‘has to speak of the earth in sadness; but -he will not let that sadness affect or change his thought of it. No; -though Castor and Pollux be dead, yet the earth is our mother -still,—fruitful, life-giving’. This is a just specimen of that sort of -application of modern sentiment to the ancients, against which a -student, who wishes to feel the ancients truly, cannot too resolutely -defend himself. It reminds one, as, alas! so much of Mr Ruskin’s writing -reminds one, of those words of the most delicate of living critics: -“Comme tout genre de composition a son écueil particulier, _celui du -genre romanesque, c’est le faux_”. The reader may feel moved as he reads -it; but it is not the less an example of ‘le faux’ in criticism; it is -false. It is not true, as to that particular passage, that Homer called -the earth φυσίζοος because, ‘though he had to speak of the earth in -sadness, he would not let that sadness change or affect his thought of -it’, but consoled himself by considering that ‘the earth is our mother -still,—fruitful, life-giving’. It is not true, as a matter of general -criticism, that this kind of sentimentality, eminently modern, inspires -Homer at all. ‘From Homer and Polygnotus I every day learn more -clearly’, says Goethe, ‘that in our life here above ground we have, -properly speaking, to enact Hell’[2]:—if the student must absolutely -have a keynote to the _Iliad_, let him take this of Goethe, and see what -he can do with it; it will not, at any rate, like the tender pantheism -of Mr Ruskin, falsify for him the whole strain of Homer. - -These are negative counsels; I come to the positive. When I say, the -translator of Homer should above all be penetrated by a sense of four -qualities of his author;—that he is eminently rapid; that he is -eminently plain and direct, both in the evolution of his thought and in -the expression of it, that is, both in his syntax and in his words; that -he is eminently plain and direct in the substance of his thought, that -is, in his matter and ideas; and, finally that he is eminently noble;—I -probably seem to be saying what is too general to be of much service to -anybody. Yet it is strictly true that, for want of duly penetrating -themselves with the first-named quality of Homer, his rapidity, Cowper -and Mr Wright have failed in rendering him; that, for want of duly -appreciating the second-named quality, his plainness and directness of -style and dictation, Pope and Mr Sotheby have failed in rendering him; -that for want of appreciating the third, his plainness and directness of -ideas, Chapman has failed in rendering him; while for want of -appreciating the fourth, his nobleness, Mr Newman, who has clearly seen -some of the faults of his predecessors, has yet failed more -conspicuously than any of them. - -Coleridge says, in his strange language, speaking of the union of the -human soul with the divine essence, that this takes place - - Whene’er the mist, which stands ’twixt God and thee, - Defecates to a pure transparency; - -and so, too, it may be said of that union of the translator with his -original, which alone can produce a good translation, that it takes -place when the mist which stands between them—the mist of alien modes of -thinking, speaking, and feeling on the translator’s part—‘defecates to a -pure transparency’, and disappears. But between Cowper and Homer—(Mr -Wright repeats in the main Cowper’s manner, as Mr Sotheby repeats Pope’s -manner, and neither Mr Wright’s translation nor Mr Sotheby’s has, I must -be forgiven for saying, any proper reason for existing)—between Cowper -and Homer there is interposed the mist of Cowper’s elaborate Miltonic -manner, entirely alien to the flowing rapidity of Homer; between Pope -and Homer there is interposed the mist of Pope’s literary artificial -manner, entirely alien to the plain naturalness of Homer’s manner; -between Chapman and Homer there is interposed the mist of the -fancifulness of the Elizabethan age, entirely alien to the plain -directness of Homer’s thought and feeling; while between Mr Newman and -Homer is interposed a cloud of more than Egyptian thickness,—namely, a -manner, in Mr Newman’s version, eminently ignoble, while Homer’s manner -is eminently noble. - -I do not despair of making all these propositions clear to a student who -approaches Homer with a free mind. First, Homer is eminently rapid, and -to this rapidity the elaborate movement of Miltonic blank verse is -alien. The reputation of Cowper, that most interesting man and excellent -poet, does not depend on his translation of Homer; and in his preface to -the second edition, he himself tells us that he felt,—he had too much -poetical taste not to feel,—on returning to his own version after six or -seven years, ‘more dissatisfied with it himself than the most difficult -to be pleased of all his judges’. And he was dissatisfied with it for -the right reason,—that ‘it seemed to him deficient _in the grace of -ease_’. Yet he seems to have originally misconceived the manner of Homer -so much, that it is no wonder he rendered him amiss. ‘The similitude of -Milton’s manner to that of Homer is such’, he says, ‘that no person -familiar with both can read either without being reminded of the other; -and it is in those breaks and pauses to which the numbers of the English -poet are so much indebted, both for their dignity and variety, that he -chiefly copies the Grecian’. It would be more true to say: ‘The -unlikeness of Milton’s manner to that of Homer is such, that no person -familiar with both can read either without being struck with his -difference from the other; and it is in his breaks and pauses that the -English poet is most unlike the Grecian’. - -The inversion and pregnant conciseness of Milton or Dante are, -doubtless, most impressive qualities of style; but they are the very -opposites of the directness and flowingness of Homer, which he keeps -alike in passages of the simplest narrative, and in those of the deepest -emotion. Not only, for example, are these lines of Cowper un-Homeric: - - So numerous seemed those fires the banks between - Of Xanthus, blazing, and the fleet of Greece - In prospect all of Troy; - -where the position of the word ‘blazing’ gives an entirely un-Homeric -movement to this simple passage, describing the fires of the Trojan camp -outside of Troy; but the following lines, in that very highly-wrought -passage where the horse of Achilles answers his master’s reproaches for -having left Patroclus on the field of battle, are equally un-Homeric: - - For not through sloth or tardiness on us - Aught chargeable, have Ilium’s sons thine arms - Stript from Patroclus’ shoulders; but a God - Matchless in battle, offspring of bright-haired - Latona, him contending in the van - Slew, for the glory of the chief of Troy. - -Here even the first inversion, ‘have Ilium’s sons thine arms Stript from -Patroclus’ shoulders’, gives the reader a sense of a movement not -Homeric; and the second inversion, ‘a God him contending in the van -Slew’, gives this sense ten times stronger. Instead of moving on without -check, as in reading the original, the reader twice finds himself, in -reading the translation, brought up and checked. Homer moves with the -same simplicity and rapidity in the highly-wrought as in the simple -passage. - -It is in vain that Cowper insists on his fidelity: ‘my chief boast is -that I have adhered closely to my original’:—‘the matter found in me, -whether the reader like it or not, is found also in Homer; and the -matter not found in me, how much soever the reader may admire it, is -found only in Mr Pope’. To suppose that it is _fidelity_ to an original -to give its matter, unless you at the same time give its manner; or, -rather, to suppose that you can really give its matter at all, unless -you can give its manner, is just the mistake of our pre-Raphaelite -school of painters, who do not understand that the peculiar effect of -nature resides in the whole and not in the parts. So the peculiar effect -of a poet resides in his manner and movement, not in his words taken -separately. It is well known how conscientiously literal is Cowper in -his translation of Homer. It is well known how extravagantly free is -Pope. - - So let it be! - Portents and prodigies are lost on me; - -that is Pope’s rendering of the words, - - Ξάνθε, τί μοι θάνατον μαντεύεαι; οὐδέ τί σε χρή·[3] - - Xanthus, why prophesiest thou my death to me? thou needest not at - all: - -yet, on the whole, Pope’s translation of the _Iliad_ is more Homeric -than Cowper’s, for it is more rapid. - -Pope’s movement, however, though rapid, is not of the same kind as -Homer’s; and here I come to the real objection to rhyme in a translation -of Homer. It is commonly said that rhyme is to be abandoned in a -translation of Homer, because ‘the exigencies of rhyme’, to quote Mr -Newman, ‘positively forbid faithfulness’; because ‘a just translation of -any ancient poet in rhyme’, to quote Cowper, ‘is impossible’. This, -however, is merely an accidental objection to rhyme. If this were all, -it might be supposed, that if rhymes were more abundant Homer could be -adequately translated in rhyme. But this is not so; there is a deeper, a -substantial objection to rhyme in a translation of Homer. It is, that -rhyme inevitably tends to pair lines which in the original are -independent, and thus the movement of the poem is changed. In these -lines of Chapman, for instance, from Sarpedon’s speech to Glaucus, in -the twelfth book of the _Iliad_: - - O friend, if keeping back - Would keep back age from us, and death, and that we might not wrack - In this life’s human sea at all, but that deferring now - We shunned death ever,—nor would I half this vain valor show, - Nor glorify a folly so, to wish thee to advance; - But since we _must_ go, though not here, and that besides the chance - Proposed now, there are infinite fates, etc. - -Here the necessity of making the line, - - Nor glorify a folly so, to wish thee to advance, - -rhyme with the line which follows it, entirely changes and spoils the -movement of the passage. - - οὔτε κεν αὐτὸς ἐνὶ πρώτοισι μαχοίμην, - οὔτε κέ σε στέλλοιμι μάχην ἐς κυδιάνειραν·[4] - - Neither would I myself go forth to fight with the foremost, - Nor would I urge thee on to enter the glorious battle, - -says Homer; there he stops, and begins an opposed movement: - - νῦν δ’—ἔμπης γὰρ Κῆρες ἐφεστᾶσιν θανάτοιο— - - But—for a thousand fates of death stand close to us always— - -This line, in which Homer wishes to go away with the most marked -rapidity from the line before, Chapman is forced, by the necessity of -rhyming, intimately to connect with the line before. - - But since we _must_ go, though not here, and that besides the - chance. - -The moment the word _chance_ strikes our ear, we are irresistibly -carried back to _advance_ and to the whole previous line, which, -according to Homer’s own feeling, we ought to have left behind us -entirely, and to be moving farther and farther away from. - -Rhyme certainly, by intensifying antithesis, can intensify separation, -and this is precisely what Pope does; but this balanced rhetorical -antithesis, though very effective, is entirely un-Homeric. And this is -what I mean by saying that Pope fails to render Homer, because he does -not render his plainness and directness of style and diction. Where -Homer marks separation by moving away, Pope marks it by antithesis. No -passage could show this better than the passage I have just quoted, on -which I will pause for a moment. - -Robert Wood, whose _Essay on the Genius of Homer_ is 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 of this -passage 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: - - ὦ πέπον, εἰ μὲν γὰρ, πόλεμον περὶ τόνδε φυγόντε, - αἰεὶ δὴ μέλλοιμεν ἀγήρω τ’ ἀθανάτω τε - ἔσσεσθ’, οὔτε κεν αὐτὸς ἐνὶ πρώτοισι μαχοίμην,[5] - οὔτε κέ σε στέλλοιμι μάχην ἐς κυδιάνειραν· - νῦν δ’—ἔμπης γὰρ Κῆρες ἐφεστᾶσιν θανάτοιο - μυρίαι, ἃς οὐκ ἔστι φυγεῖν βρότον, οὐδ’ ὑπαλύξαι— - ἴομεν. - -His Lordship repeated the last word several times with a calm and -determinate resignation; and, after a 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 a -dying statesman (I use his own words) “on the most glorious war, and -most honourable peace, this nation ever saw”’[6]. - -I quote this story, first, because it is interesting as exhibiting the -English aristocracy at its very height of culture, lofty spirit, and -greatness, towards the middle of the 18th century. I quote it, secondly, -because it seems to me to illustrate Goethe’s saying which I mentioned, -that our life, in Homer’s view of it, represents a conflict and a hell; -and it brings out, too, what there is tonic and fortifying in this -doctrine. I quote it, lastly, because it shows that the passage is just -one of those in translating which Pope will be at his best, a passage of -strong emotion and oratorical movement, not of simple narrative or -description. - -Pope translates the passage thus: - - Could all our care elude the gloomy grave - Which claims no less the fearful than the brave, - 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 intellectualised; 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 it, is suited to -the feeling or to the movement of the Homeric ἴομεν. - -A literary and intellectualised language is, however, in its own way -well suited to grand matters; and Pope, with a language of this kind and -his own admirable talent, comes off well enough as long as he has -passion, or oratory, or a great crisis to deal with. Even here, as I -have been pointing out, he does not render Homer; but he and his style -are in themselves strong. It is when he comes to level passages, -passages of narrative or description, that he and his style are sorely -tried, and prove themselves weak. A perfectly plain direct style can of -course convey the simplest matter as naturally as the grandest; indeed, -it must be harder for it, one would say, to convey a grand matter -worthily and nobly, than to convey a common matter, as alone such a -matter should be conveyed, plainly and simply. But the style of Rasselas -is incomparably better fitted to describe a sage philosophising than a -soldier lighting his camp-fire. The style of Pope is not the style of -Rasselas; but it is equally a literary style, equally unfitted to -describe a simple matter with the plain naturalness of Homer. - -Everyone 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 is -very far from my wish to hold Pope up to ridicule, so I shall not quote -the commencement of the passage, which in the original is of great and -celebrated beauty, and in translating which Pope has been singularly and -notoriously fortunate. 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 a 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[7]’. - -In Pope’s translation, this plain story becomes the following: - - 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. - A thousand piles the dusky horrors gild, - And shoot a shady lustre 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 passages he is -powerful, as Homer is powerful, though not in the same way; but in plain -narrative, where Homer is still powerful 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 -composes ‘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 conveys 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. - -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 line, which has been so much -commended, Homeric; but on this point I shall have more to say by and -by, when I come to speak of Mr Newman’s metrical exploits. 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 diction, 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 exigencies 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 vigour -and richness. This age, too, showed what it could do in translating, by -producing a master-piece, its version of the Bible. - -Chapman’s translation has often been praised as eminently Homeric. -Keats’s fine sonnet in its honour everyone 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 Hallum -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 unfaithfulness occasioned by the fetters of rhyme. - -I said that there were four things which eminently distinguished 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. Steeped in -humours 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 Mæcenas, - 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 themselves are -sufficient to indicate to us what a gulf divides Chapman 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 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 confirm -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 unrivalled -clearness and straightforwardness of his thinking; in the way in which -he keeps to one thought at a time, and puts that thought forth in its -complete 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 illustrate, from -Chapman’s version of the _Iliad_, what I mean when I speak of this vital -difference between Homer and an Elizabethan 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. - -In that tonic speech of Sarpedon, of which I have said so much, Homer, -you may remember, has: - - εἰ μὲν γὰρ, πόλεμον περὶ τόνδε φυγόντε, - αἰεὶ δὴ μέλλοιμεν ἀγήρω τ’ ἀθανάτω τε - ἔσσεσθ’— - - if indeed, but once _this_ battle avoided, - We were for ever to live without growing old and immortal— - -Chapman cannot be satisfied with this, but must add a fancy to it: - - if keeping back - Would keep back age from us, and death, and _that we might 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, - - τί σφῶϊ δόμεν Πηλῆϊ ἀνάκτι - θνητῷ; ὑμεῖς δ’ ἐστὸν ἀγήρω τ’ ἀθανάτω τε·[8] - - Why gave we you to royal Peleus, to a mortal? - but ye are without old age, and immortal. - -Chapman sophisticates this into: - - Why gave we you t’ a mortal king, when immortality - And _incapacity of age so dignifies your states_? - -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 Andromache, Homer -makes him say: ‘Nor does my own heart so bid me’ (to keep safe behind -the walls), ‘since I have learned to be staunch always, and to fight -among the foremost of the Trojans, busy on behalf of my father’s great -glory, and my own[9]’. In Chapman’s hands 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, - Whose 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’— - - ἔσσεται ἦμαρ, ὅτ’ ἄν ποτ’ ὀλώλῃ Ἴλιος ἱρή. - -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 for ever, but I could not give you a better illustration -than this last, of what I mean by saying that the Elizabethan poet fails -to render Homer because he cannot forbear to interpose a play of thought -between his object and its expression. Chapman translates his object -into Elizabethan, as Pope translates it into the Augustan of Queen Anne; -both convey 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 dressing, eating, drinking, harnessing, -travelling, 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. I have shown -you how translators of Homer fail by wanting rapidity, by wanting -simplicity of style, by wanting plainness of thought: in a second -lecture I will show you how a translator fails by wanting nobility. - -Footnote 1: - - _Iliad_, iii. 243. - -Footnote 2: - - _Briefwechsel zwischen Schiller und Goethe_, vi. 230. - -Footnote 3: - - _Iliad_, xix. 420. - -Footnote 4: - - _Iliad_, xii. 324. - -Footnote 5: - - These are the words on which Lord Granville ‘dwelled with particular - emphasis’. - -Footnote 6: - - Robert Wood, _Essay on the Original Genius and Writings of Homer_, - London, 1775, p. vii. - -Footnote 7: - - _Iliad_, viii. 560. - -Footnote 8: - - _Iliad_, xvii. 443. - -Footnote 9: - - _Iliad_, vi. 444. - - - - - II - - -I must repeat what I said in beginning, that the translator of Homer -ought steadily to keep in mind where lies the real test of the success -of his translation, what judges he is to try to satisfy. He is to try to -satisfy _scholars_, because scholars alone have the means of really -judging him. A scholar may be a pedant, it is true, and then his -judgment will be worthless; but a scholar may also have poetical -feeling, and then he can judge him truly; whereas all the poetical -feeling in the world will not enable a man who is not a scholar to judge -him truly. For the translator is to reproduce Homer, and the scholar -alone has the means of knowing that Homer who is to be reproduced. He -knows him but imperfectly, for he is separated from him by time, race, -and language; but he alone knows him at all. Yet people speak as if -there were two real tribunals in this matter,—the scholar’s tribunal, -and that of the general public. They speak as if the scholar’s judgment -was one thing, and the general public’s judgment another; both with -their shortcomings, both with their liability to error; but both to be -regarded by the translator. The translator who makes verbal literalness -his chief care ‘will’, says a writer in the _National Review_ whom I -have already quoted, ‘be appreciated by the scholar accustomed to test a -translation rigidly by comparison with the original, to look perhaps -with excessive care to finish in detail rather than boldness and general -effect, and find pardon even for a version that seems bare and bold, so -it be scholastic and faithful’. But, if the scholar in judging a -translation looks to detail rather than to general effect, he judges it -pedantically and ill. The appeal, however, lies not from the pedantic -scholar to the general public, which can only like or dislike Chapman’s -version, or Pope’s, or Mr Newman’s, but cannot _judge_ them; it lies -from the pedantic scholar to the scholar who is not pedantic, who knows -that Homer is Homer by his general effect, and not by his single words, -and who demands but one thing in a translation,—that it shall, as nearly -as possible, reproduce for him the _general effect_ of Homer. This, -then, remains the one proper aim of the translator: to reproduce on the -intelligent scholar, as nearly as possible, the general effect of Homer. -Except so far as he reproduces this, he loses his labour, even though he -may make a spirited _Iliad_ of his own, like Pope, or translate Homer’s -_Iliad_ word for word, like Mr Newman. If his proper aim were to -stimulate in any manner possible the general public, he might be right -in following Pope’s example; if his proper aim were to help schoolboys -to construe Homer, he might be right in following Mr Newman’s. But it is -not: his proper aim is, I repeat it yet once more, to reproduce on the -intelligent scholar, as nearly as he can, the general effect of Homer. - -When, therefore, Cowper says, ‘My chief boast is that I have adhered -closely to my original’; when Mr Newman says, ‘My aim is to retain every -peculiarity of the original, to be _faithful_, exactly as is the case -with the draughtsman of the Elgin marbles’; their real judge only -replies: ‘It may be so: reproduce then upon us, reproduce the effect of -Homer, as a good copy reproduces the effect of the Elgin marbles’. - -When, again, Mr Newman tells us that ‘by an exhaustive process of -argument and experiment’ he has found a metre which is at once the metre -of ‘the modern Greek epic’, and a metre ‘like in moral genius’ to -Homer’s metre, his judge has still but the same answer for him: ‘It may -be so: reproduce then on our ear something of the effect produced by the -movement of Homer’. - -But what is the general effect which Homer produces on Mr Newman -himself? because, when we know this, we shall know whether he and his -judges are agreed at the outset, whether we may expect him, if he can -reproduce the effect he feels, if his hand does not betray him in the -execution, to satisfy his judges and to succeed. If, however, Mr -Newman’s impression from Homer is something quite different from that of -his judges, then it can hardly be expected that any amount of labour or -talent will enable him to reproduce for them _their_ Homer. - -Mr Newman does not leave us in doubt as to the general effect which -Homer makes upon him. As I have told you what is the general effect -which Homer makes upon me,—that of a most rapidly moving poet, that of a -poet most plain and direct in his style, that of a poet most plain and -direct in his ideas, that of a poet eminently noble,—so Mr Newman tells -us his general impression of Homer. ‘Homer’s style’, he says, ‘is -direct, popular, forcible, quaint, flowing, garrulous’. Again: ‘Homer -rises and sinks with his subject, is prosaic when it is tame, is low -when it is mean’. - -I lay my finger on four words in these two sentences of Mr Newman, and I -say that the man who could apply those words to Homer can never render -Homer truly. The four words are these: _quaint_, _garrulous_, _prosaic_, -_low_. Search the English language for a word which does not apply to -Homer, and you could not fix on a better than _quaint_, unless perhaps -you fixed on one of the other three. - -Again; ‘to translate Homer suitably’, says Mr Newman, ‘we need a diction -sufficiently antiquated to obtain pardon of the reader for its frequent -homeliness’. ‘I am concerned’, he says again, ‘with the artistic problem -of attaining a plausible aspect of moderate antiquity, while remaining -easily intelligible’. And again, he speaks of ‘the more antiquated style -suited to this subject’. Quaint! antiquated!—but to whom? Sir Thomas -Browne is quaint, and the diction of Chaucer is antiquated: does Mr -Newman suppose that Homer seemed quaint to Sophocles, when he read him, -as Sir Thomas Browne seems quaint to us, when we read him? or that -Homer’s diction seemed antiquated to Sophocles, as Chaucer’s diction -seems antiquated to us? But we cannot really know, I confess, how Homer -seemed to Sophocles: well then, to those who can tell us how he seems to -them, to the living scholar, to our only present witness on this -matter,—does Homer make on the Provost of Eton, when he reads him, the -impression of a poet quaint and antiquated? does he make this impression -on Professor Thompson or Professor Jowett. When Shakspeare says, ‘The -princes _orgulous_’, meaning ‘the proud princes’, we say, ‘This is -antiquated’; when he says of the Trojan gates, that they - - With massy staples - And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts - _Sperr_ up the sons of Troy, - -we say, ‘This is both quaint and antiquated’. But does Homer ever -compose in a language which produces on the scholar at all the same -impression as this language which I have quoted from Shakspeare? Never -once. Shakspeare is quaint and antiquated in the lines which I have just -quoted; but Shakspeare—need I say it?—can compose, when he likes, when -he is at his best, in a language perfectly simple, perfectly -intelligible; in a language which, in spite of the two centuries and a -half which part its author from us, stops us or surprises us as little -as the language of a contemporary. And Homer has not Shakspeare’s -variations: Homer always composes as Shakspeare composes at his best; -Homer is always simple and intelligible, as Shakspeare is often; Homer -is never quaint and antiquated, as Shakspeare is sometimes. - -When Mr Newman says that Homer is garrulous, he seems, perhaps, to -depart less widely from the common opinion than when he calls him -quaint; for is there not Horace’s authority for asserting that ‘the good -Homer sometimes nods’, _bonus dormitat Homerus_? and a great many people -have come, from the currency of this well-known criticism, to represent -Homer to themselves as a diffuse old man, with the full-stocked mind, -but also with the occasional slips and weaknesses of old age. Horace has -said better things than his ‘bonus dormitat Homerus’; but he never meant -by this, as I need not remind anyone who knows the passage, that Homer -was garrulous, or anything of the kind. Instead, however, of either -discussing what Horace meant, or discussing Homer’s garrulity as a -general question, I prefer to bring to my mind some style which is -garrulous, and to ask myself, to ask you, whether anything at all of the -impression made by that style is ever made by the style of Homer. The -mediæval romancers, for instance, are garrulous; the following, to take -out of a thousand instances the first which comes to hand, is in a -garrulous manner. It is from the romance of Richard Cœur de Lion. - - Of my tale be not a-wondered! - The French says he slew an hundred - (Whereof is made this English saw) - Or he rested him any thraw. - Him followed many an English knight - That eagerly holp him for to fight - -and so on. Now the manner of that composition I call garrulous; everyone -will feel it to be garrulous; everyone will understand what is meant -when it is called garrulous. Then I ask the scholar,—does Homer’s manner -ever make upon you, I do not say, the same impression of its garrulity -as that passage, but does it make, ever for one moment, an impression in -the slightest way resembling, in the remotest degree akin to, the -impression made by that passage of the mediæval poet? I have no fear of -the answer. - -I follow the same method with Mr Newman’s two other epithets, _prosaic_ -and _low_. ‘Homer rises and sinks with his subject’, says Mr Newman; ‘is -prosaic when it is tame, is low when it is mean’. First I say, Homer is -never, in any sense, to be with truth called prosaic; he is never to be -called low. He does not rise and sink with his subject; on the contrary, -his manner invests his subject, whatever his subject be, with nobleness. -Then I look for an author of whom it may with truth be said, that he -‘rises and sinks with his subject, is prosaic when it is tame, is low -when it is mean’. Defoe is eminently such an author; of Defoe’s manner -it may with perfect precision be said, that it follows his matter; his -lifelike composition takes its character from the facts which it -conveys, not from the nobleness of the composer. In _Moll Flanders_ and -_Colonel Jack_, Defoe is undoubtedly prosaic when his subject is tame, -low when his subject is mean. Does Homer’s manner in the _Iliad_, I ask -the scholar, ever make upon him an impression at all like the impression -made by Defoe’s manner in _Moll Flanders_ and _Colonel Jack_? Does it -not, on the contrary, leave him with an impression of nobleness, even -when it deals with Thersites or with Irus? - -Well then, Homer is neither quaint, nor garrulous, nor prosaic, nor -mean: and Mr Newman, in seeing him so, sees him differently from those -who are to judge Mr Newman’s rendering of him. By pointing out how a -wrong conception of Homer affects Mr Newman’s translation, I hope to -place in still clearer light those four cardinal truths which I -pronounce essential for him who would have a right conception of Homer: -that Homer is rapid, that he is plain and direct in word and style, that -he is plain and direct in his ideas, and that he is noble. - -Mr Newman says that in fixing on a style for suitably rendering Homer, -as he conceives him, he ‘alights on the delicate line which separates -the _quaint_ from the _grotesque_’. ‘I ought to be quaint’, he says, ‘I -ought not to be grotesque’. This is a most unfortunate sentence. Mr -Newman is grotesque, which he himself says he ought not to be; and he -ought not to be quaint, which he himself says he ought to be. - -‘No two persons will agree’, says Mr Newman, ‘as to where the quaint -ends and the grotesque begins’; and perhaps this is true. But, in order -to avoid all ambiguity in the use of the two words, it is enough to say, -that most persons would call an expression which produced on them a very -strong sense of its incongruity, and which violently surprised them, -_grotesque_; and an expression, which produced on them a slighter sense -of its incongruity, and which more gently surprised them, _quaint_. -Using the two words in this manner, I say, that when Mr Newman -translates Helen’s words to Hector in the sixth book, - - Δᾶερ ἐμεῖο, κυνὸς κακομηχάνου, ὀκρυοέσσης[10], - - O, brother thou of me, who am a mischief-working vixen, - A numbing horror, - -he is grotesque; that is, he expresses himself in a manner which -produces on us a very strong sense of its incongruity, and which -violently surprises us. I say, again, that when Mr Newman translates the -common line, - - Τὴν δ’ ἠμείβετ’ ἔπειτα μέγας κορυθαίολος Ἕκτωρ, - - Great Hector of the motley helm then spake to her responsive, - -or the common expression, ἐϋκνήμιδες Ἀχαιοί, ‘dapper-greaved Achaians’, -he is quaint; that is, he expresses himself in a manner which produces -on us a slighter sense of incongruity, and which more gently surprises -us. But violent and gentle surprise are alike far from the scholar’s -spirit when he reads in Homer κυνὸς κακομηχάνου, or κορυθαίολος Ἕκτωρ, -or, ἐϋκνήμιδες Ἀχαιοί. These expressions no more seem odd to him than -the simplest expressions in English. He is not more checked by any -feeling of strangeness, strong or weak, when he reads them, than when he -reads in an English book ‘the painted savage’, or, ‘the phlegmatic -Dutchman’. Mr Newman’s renderings of them must, therefore, be wrong -expressions in a translation of Homer, because they excite in the -scholar, their only competent judge, a feeling quite alien to that -excited in him by what they profess to render. - -Mr Newman, by expressions of this kind, is false to his original in two -ways. He is false to him inasmuch as he is ignoble; for a noble air, and -a grotesque air, the air of the address, - - Δᾶερ ἐμεῖο, κυνὸς κακομηχάνου, ὀκρυοέσσης, - -and the air of the address, - - O, brother thou of me, who am a mischief-working vixen, - A numbing horror, - -are just contrary the one to the other: and he is false to him inasmuch -as he is odd; for an odd diction like Mr Newman’s, and a perfectly plain -natural diction like Homer’s,—‘dapper-greaved Achaians’ and ἐϋκνήμιδες -Ἀχαιοί,—are also just contrary the one to the other. Where, indeed, Mr -Newman got his diction, with whom he can have lived, what can be his -test of antiquity and rarity for words, are questions which I ask myself -with bewilderment. He has prefixed to his translation a list of what he -calls ‘the more antiquated or rarer words’ which he has used. In this -list appear, on the one hand, such words as _doughty_, _grisly_, -_lusty_, _noisome_, _ravin_, which are familiar, one would think, to all -the world; on the other hand such words as _bragly_, meaning, Mr Newman -tells us, ‘proudly fine’; _bulkin_, ‘a calf’; _plump_, a ‘mass’; and so -on. ‘I am concerned’, says Mr Newman, ‘with the artistic problem of -attaining a plausible aspect of moderate antiquity, while remaining -easily intelligible’. But it seems to me that _lusty_ is not antiquated: -and that _bragly_ is not a word readily understood. That this word, -indeed, and _bulkin_, may have ‘a plausible aspect of moderate -antiquity’, I admit; but that they are ‘easily intelligible’, I deny. - -Mr Newman’s syntax has, I say it with pleasure, a much more Homeric cast -than his vocabulary; his syntax, the mode in which his thought is -evolved, although not the actual words in which it is expressed, seems -to me right in its general character, and the best feature of his -version. It is not artificial or rhetorical like Cowper’s syntax or -Pope’s: it is simple, direct, and natural, and so far it is like -Homer’s. It fails, however, just where, from the inherent fault of Mr -Newman’s conception of Homer, one might expect it to fail,—it fails in -nobleness. It presents the thought in a way which is something more than -unconstrained,—over-familiar; something more than easy,—free and easy. -In this respect it is like the movement of Mr Newman’s version, like his -rhythm, for this, too, fails, in spite of some qualities, by not being -noble enough; this, while it avoids the faults of being slow and -elaborate, falls into a fault in the opposite direction, and is -slip-shod. Homer presents his thought naturally; but when Mr Newman has, - - A thousand fires along the plain, _I say_, that night were burning, - -he presents his thought familiarly; in a style which may be the genuine -style of ballad-poetry, but which is not the style of Homer. Homer moves -freely; but when Mr Newman has, - - Infatuate! O that thou wert lord to some other army[11], - -he gives himself too much freedom; he leaves us too much to do for his -rhythm ourselves, instead of giving to us a rhythm like Homer’s, easy -indeed, but mastering our ear with a fulness of power which is -irresistible. - -I said that a certain style might be the genuine style of ballad-poetry, -but yet not the style of Homer. The analogy of the ballad is ever -present to Mr Newman’s thoughts in considering Homer; and perhaps -nothing has more caused his faults than this analogy,—this popular, but, -it is time to say, this erroneous analogy. ‘The moral qualities of -Homer’s style’, says Mr Newman, ‘being like to those of the English -ballad, we need a metre of the same genius. Only those metres, which by -the very possession of these qualities are liable to degenerate into -_doggerel_, are suitable to reproduce the ancient epic’. ‘The style of -Homer’, he says, in a passage which I have before quoted, ‘is direct, -popular, forcible, quaint, flowing, garrulous: in all these respects it -is similar to the old English ballad’. Mr Newman, I need not say, is by -no means alone in this opinion. ‘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 -association between metre 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 realised 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_, analogous 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 discredit 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 favour, that it is now much -more important to insist on the large part of error contained in it, -than to extol its small part of truth. It is time to say plainly that, -whatever the admirers of our old ballads may think, the supreme form of -epic poetry, the genuine Homeric mould, 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 Mæonides, - And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old, - -than in - - Now Christ thee save, thou proud portèr, - Now Christ thee save and see[12], - -or in - - While the tinker did dine, he had plenty of wine[13]. - -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 masterwork, the -co-operation or consolidation of several poets becomes possible, for -talent is not uncommon; the moment you have _much_ less than a -masterwork, they become easy, for mediocrity is everywhere. I can -imagine fifty Bradies 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 vigour 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 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. 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 unable 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 vigour 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 weakness 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 _in_appropriate 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 hum-drum, so not powerful. - -The _Nibelungen Lay_ affords a good illustration of the qualities of the -ballad-manner. Based on grand traditions, which 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 Sheridan’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 Chapman’s conceits are -un-Homeric, and that his rhyme is un-Homeric; I will now show how his -manner and movement are 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, where -Homer has, - - ἆ δειλώ, τι σφῶϊ δόμεν Πηλῆϊ ἄνακτι - θνητῷ; ὑμεῖς δ’ ἐστὸν ἀγήρω τ’ ἀθανάτω τε! - ἦ ἵνα δυστήνοισι μετ’ ἀνδράσιν ἄλγε’ ἔχητον[14]; - -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[15] 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’ for ἆ δειλώ. This expression just illustrates the difference -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. Ἆ δειλώ is as -plain, as simple as ‘Poor wretched beasts’; but it is also noble, which -‘Poor wretched beasts’ is not. ‘Poor wretched beasts’ is, in truth, a -little over-familiar, but this is no objection 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 Newman’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[16]. - - 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 this, - - 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, - - ἦ ῥα, καὶ ἐν πρώτοις ἰάχων ἔχε μώνυχας ἵππο υς? - -To pass from Chapman to Dr Maginn. His _Homeric Ballads_ are vigorous -and genuine poems in their own way; they are not one continual falsetto, -like the pinch-beck _Roman Ballads_ of Lord Macaulay; but just because -they are ballads in their manner and movement, just because, to use the -words of his applauding editor, Dr Maginn has ‘consciously realised to -himself the truth that Greek ballads can be really represented in -English only by a similar manner’,—just for this very reason they are -not at all Homeric, they have not the least in the world the manner of -Homer. There is a celebrated incident in the nineteenth book of the -_Odyssey_, the recognition by the old nurse Eurycleia of a scar on the -leg of her master Ulysses, who has entered his own hall as an unknown -wanderer, and whose feet she has been set to wash. ‘Then she came near’, -says Homer, ‘and began to wash her master; and straightway she -recognised a scar which he had got in former days from the white tusk of -a wild boar, when he went to Parnassus unto Autolycus and the sons of -Autolycus, his mother’s father and brethren’[17]. This, ‘really -represented’ by Dr Maginn, in ‘a measure similar’ to Homer’s, becomes: - - And scarcely had she begun to wash - Ere she was aware of the grisly gash - Above his knee that lay. - It was a wound from a wild boar’s tooth, - All on Parnassus’ slope, - Where he went to hunt in the days of his youth - With his mother’s sire, - -and so on. That is the true ballad-manner, no one can deny; ‘all on -Parnassus’ slope’ is, I was going to say, the true ballad-slang; but -never again shall I be able to read - - νίζε δ’ ἄῤ ἆσσον ἴουσα ἄναχθ’ ἑόν· αὐτίκα δ’ ἔγνω - οὐλήν, - -without having the destestable dance of Dr Maginn’s - - And scarcely had she begun to wash - Ere she was aware of the grisly gash, - -jigging in my ears, to spoil the effect of Homer, and to torture me. To -apply that manner and that rhythm to Homer’s incidents, is not to -imitate Homer, but to travesty him. - -Lastly I come to Mr Newman. His rhythm, like Chapman’s and Dr Maginn’s, -is a ballad-rhythm, but with a modification of his own. ‘Holding it’, he -tells us, ‘as an axiom, that rhyme must be abandoned’, he found, on -abandoning it, ‘an unpleasant void until he gave a double ending to the -verse’. In short, instead of saying - - Good people all with one accord - Give ear unto my _tale_, - -Mr Newman would say - - Good people all with one accord - Give ear unto my _story_. - -A recent American writer[18] gravely observes that for his countrymen -this rhythm has a disadvantage in being like the rhythm of the American -national air _Yankee Doodle_, and thus provoking ludicrous associations. -_Yankee Doodle_ is not our national air: for us Mr Newman’s rhythm has -not this disadvantage. He himself gives us several plausible reasons why -this rhythm of his really ought to be successful: let us examine how far -it _is_ successful. - -Mr Newman joins to a bad rhythm so bad a diction that it is difficult to -distinguish exactly whether in any given passage it is his words or his -measure which produces a total impression of such an unpleasant kind. -But with a little attention we may analyse our total impression, and -find the share which each element has in producing it. To take the -passage which I have so often mentioned, Sarpedon’s speech to Glaucus. -Mr Newman translates this as follows: - - O gentle friend! if thou and I, from this encounter ’scaping, - Hereafter might for ever be from Eld and Death exempted - As heavenly gods, not I in sooth would fight among the foremost, - Nor liefly thee would I advance to man-ennobling battle. - Now,—sith ten thousand shapes of Death do any-gait pursue us - Which never mortal may evade, though sly of foot and nimble;— - Onward! and glory let us earn, or glory yield to someone. - - Could all our care elude the gloomy grave - Which claims no less the fearful than the brave. - -I am not going to quote Pope’s version over again, but I must remark in -passing, how much more, with all Pope’s radical difference of manner -from Homer, it gives us of the real effect of - - εἰ μὲν γὰρ, πόλεμον περὶ τόνδε φυγόντε - -than Mr Newman’s lines. And now, why are Mr Newman’s lines faulty? They -are faulty, first, because, as a matter of diction, the expressions ‘O -gentle friend’, ‘eld’, ‘in sooth’, ‘liefly’, ‘advance’, ‘man-ennobling’, -‘sith’, ‘any-gait’, and ‘sly of foot’, are all bad; some of them worse -than others, but all bad: that is, they all of them as here used excite -in the scholar, their sole judge,—excite, I will boldly affirm, in -Professor Thompson or Professor Jowett,—a feeling totally different from -that excited in them by the words of Homer which these expressions -profess to render. The lines are faulty, secondly, because, as a matter -of rhythm, any and every line among them has to the ear of the same -judges (I affirm it with equal boldness) a movement as unlike Homer’s -movement in the corresponding line as the single words are unlike -Homer’s words. Οὔτε κέ σε στέλλοιμαι μάχην ἐς κυδιάνειρν,—‘Nor liefly -thee would I advance to man-ennobling battle’;—for whose ears do those -two rhythms produce impressions of, to use Mr Newman’s own words, -‘similar moral genius’? - -I will by no means make search in Mr Newman’s version for passages -likely to raise a laugh; that search, alas! would be far too easy. I -will quote but one other passage from him, and that a passage where the -diction is comparatively inoffensive, in order that disapproval of the -words may not unfairly heighten disapproval of the rhythm. The end of -the nineteenth book, the answer of Achilles to his horse Xanthus, Mr -Newman gives thus: - - Chestnut! why bodest death to me? from thee this was not needed. - Myself right surely know alsó, that ’t is my doom to perish, - From mother and from father dear apart, in Troy; but never - Pause will I make of war, until the Trojans be glutted. - He spake, and yelling, held afront the single-hoofed horses. - -Here Mr Newman calls Xanthus _Chestnut_, indeed, as he calls Balius -_Spotted_, and Podarga _Spry-foot_; which is as if a Frenchman were to -call Miss Nightingale _Mdlle. Rossignol_, or Mr Bright _M. Clair_. And -several other expressions, too, ‘yelling’, ‘held afront’, -‘single-hoofed’,—leave, to say the very least, much to be desired. -Still, for Mr Newman, the diction of this passage is pure. All the more -clearly appears the profound vice of a rhythm, which, with comparatively -few faults of words, can leave a sense of such incurable alienation from -Homer’s manner as, ‘Myself right surely know also that ’tis my doom to -perish compared with the εὖ νύ τοι οἶδα καὶ αὐτὸς, ὅ μοι μόρος ἐνθάδ’ -ὀλέσθαι 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 vigour of spirit and of true genius—the Coryphæus 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 if _freedom_ 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 -translate Homer into the melodies of _Marmion_’. ‘The _truly_ classical -and _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. Human nature -under like circumstances is probably in all stages much the same; and so -far it may be said that ‘the truly classical and the truly romantic are -one’; but it is of little use to tell us this, because we know the human -nature of other ages only through the representations of them which have -come down to us, and the classical and the romantic modes of -representation are so far from being ‘one’, that they remain eternally -distinct, and have created for us a separation between the two worlds -which they respectively represent. Therefore to call Nestor the -‘moss-trooping Nestor’ is absurd, because, though Nestor may possibly -have been much the same sort of man as many a moss-trooper, he has yet -come to us through a mode of representation so unlike that of Percy’s -_Reliques_, that instead of ‘reappearing in the moss-trooping heroes’ of -these poems, he exists in our imagination as something utterly unlike -them, and as belonging to another world. So the Greeks in Shakspeare’s -_Troilus and Cressida_ are no longer the Greeks whom we have known in -Homer, because they come to us through a mode of representation of the -romantic world. But I must not forget Scott. - -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[19], - -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 life-blood 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[20]. - -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 _saccadé_, 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 particular 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 to put them side by side with this of Scott. For -example, when Homer says: - - άλλά, φίλος, θάνε καὶ σύ· τίη ὀλυφύρεαι οὕτως; - κάθανε καὶ Πάτροκλος, ὅπερ σέο πολλὸν ἀμείνων[21], - -that is in the grand style. When Virgil says: - - Disce, puer, virtutem ex me verumque laborem, - Fortunam ex aliis[22], - -that is in the grand style. When Dante says: - - Lascio lo fele, et vo pei dolci pomi - Promessi a me per lo verace Duca; - Ma fino al centro pria convien ch’ io tomi[23], - -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[24], - -that, finally, is in the grand style. Now let anyone after repeating 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 without; and this something is -precisely the grand manner. It is no disrespect to Scott to say that he -does not attain to this manner 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 succeeded. 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 -standard, 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 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 life-blood 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 English 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 _re_produce. - -I shall have to try your patience yet once more upon this subject, and -then my task will be completed. I have shown what the four axioms -respecting Homer which I have laid down, exclude, what they bid a -translator not to do; I have still to show what they supply, what -positive help they can give to the translator in his work. I will even, -with their aid, myself try my fortune with some of those passages of -Homer which I have already noticed; not indeed with any confidence that -I more than others can succeed in adequately rendering Homer, but in the -hope of satisfying competent judges, in the hope of making it clear to -the future translator, that I at any rate follow a right method, and -that, in coming short, I come short from weakness of execution, not from -original vice of design. This is why I have so long occupied myself with -Mr Newman’s version; that, apart from all faults of execution, his -original design was wrong, and that he has done us the good service of -declaring that design in its naked wrongness. To bad practice he has -prefixed the bad theory which made the practice bad; he has given us a -false theory in his preface, and he has exemplified the bad effects of -that false theory in his translation. It is because his starting-point -is so bad that he runs so badly; and to save others from taking so false -a starting-point, may be to save them from running so futile a course. - -Mr Newman, indeed, says in his preface, that if anyone dislikes his -translation, ‘he has his easy remedy; to keep aloof from it’. But Mr -Newman is a writer of considerable and deserved reputation; he is also a -Professor of the University of London, an institution which by its -position and by its merits acquires every year greater importance. It -would be a very grave thing if the authority of so eminent a Professor -led his students to misconceive entirely the chief work of the Greek -world; that work which, whatever the other works of classical antiquity -have to give us, gives it more abundantly than they all. The -eccentricity too, the arbitrariness, of which Mr Newman’s conception of -Homer offers so signal an example, are not a peculiar failing of Mr -Newman’s own; in varying degrees they are the great defect of English -intellect the great blemish of English literature. Our literature of the -eighteenth century, the literature of the school of Dryden, Addison, -Pope, Johnson, is a long reaction against this eccentricity, this -arbitrariness; that reaction perished by its own faults, and its enemies -are left once more masters of the field. It is much more likely that any -new English version of Homer will have Mr Newman’s faults than Pope’s. -Our present literature, which is very far, certainly, from having the -spirit and power of Elizabethan genius, yet has in its own way these -faults, eccentricity, and arbitrariness, quite as much as the -Elizabethan literature ever had. They are the cause that, while upon -none, perhaps, of the modern literatures has so great a sum of force -been expended as upon the English literature, at the present hour this -literature, regarded not as an object of mere literary interest but as a -living intellectual instrument, ranks only third in European effect and -importance among the literatures of Europe; it ranks after the -literatures of France and Germany. Of these two literatures, as of the -intellect of Europe in general, the main effort, for now many years, has -been a _critical_ effort; the endeavour, in all branches of knowledge, -theology, philosophy, history, art, science,—to see the object as in -itself it really is. But, owing to the presence in English literature of -this eccentric and arbitrary spirit, owing to the strong tendency of -English writers to bring to the consideration of their object some -individual fancy, almost the last thing for which one would come to -English literature is just that very thing which now Europe most -desires—_criticism_. It is useful to notice any signal manifestation of -those faults, which thus limit and impair the action of our literature. -And therefore I have pointed out how widely, in translating Homer, a man -even of real ability and learning may go astray, unless he brings to the -study of this clearest of poets one quality in which our English -authors, with all their great gifts, are apt to be somewhat -wanting—simple lucidity of mind. - -Footnote 10: - - _Iliad_, vi. 344. - -Footnote 11: - - From the reproachful answer of Ulysses to Agamemnon, who had proposed - an abandonment of their expedition. This is one of the ‘tonic’ - passages of the _Iliad_, so I quote it: - - Ah, unworthy king, some other inglorious army - Should’st thou command, not rule over _us_, whose portion for ever - Zeus hath made it, from youth right up to age, to be winding - Skeins of grievous wars, till every soul of us perish. - - _Iliad_, xiv. 84. - -Footnote 12: - - From the ballad of _King Estmere_, in Percy’s _Reliques of Ancient - English Poetry_, i. 69 (edit. of 1767). - -Footnote 13: - - _Reliques_, i. 241 - -Footnote 14: - - _Iliad_, xvii. 443. - -Footnote 15: - - All the editions which I have seen have ‘haste’, but the right reading - must certainly be ‘taste’. - -Footnote 16: - - _Iliad_, xix. 419. - -Footnote 17: - - _Odyssey_, xix. 392. - -Footnote 18: - - Mr Marsh, in his _Lectures on the English Language_, New York, 1860, - p. 520. - -Footnote 19: - - _Marmion_, canto vi. 38. - -Footnote 20: - - _Marmion_, canto vi. 29. - -Footnote 21: - - ‘Be content, good friend, die also thou! why lamentest thou thyself on - this wise? Patroclus, too, died, who was a far better than - thou.’—_Iliad_, xxi. 106. - -Footnote 22: - - ‘From me, young man, learn nobleness of soul and true effort: learn - success from others.’—_Æneid_, xii. 435. - -Footnote 23: - - ‘I leave the gall of bitterness, and I go for the apples of sweetness - promised unto me by my faithful Guide; but far as the centre it - behoves me first to fall.’—_Hell_, xvi. 61. - -Footnote 24: - - _Paradise Lost_, i. 591. - - - - - III - - -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 because he is artificial both in his style -and in his words; Chapman 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 -rapidity is not of the same sort as Homer’s rapidity, nor are his -plainness 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 movement, 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: ‘Cowper is noble, Pope -is rapid, Chapman has a good diction, Mr Newman has a good cast of -sentence; I will avoid Cowper’s slowness, Pope’s artificiality, -Chapman’s conceits, Mr Newman’s oddity; I will take Cowper’s dignified -manner, Pope’s impetuous 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. - -So the translator really has no good model before him for any part of -his work, and has to invent everything for himself. He is to be rapid in -movement, plain in speech, simple in thought, and noble; and _how_ he is -to be either rapid, or plain, or simple, or noble, no one yet has shown -him. I shall try to-day to establish some practical suggestions which -may help the translator of Homer’s poetry to comply with the four grand -requirements which we make of him. - -His version is to be rapid; and of course, to make a man’s poetry rapid, -as to make it noble, nothing can serve him so much as to have, in his -own nature, rapidity and nobleness. _It is the spirit that quickeneth_; -and no one will so well render Homer’s swift-flowing movement as he who -has himself something of the swift-moving spirit of Homer. Yet even this -is not quite enough. Pope certainly had a quick and darting spirit, as -he had, also, real nobleness; yet Pope does not render the movement of -Homer. To render this the translator must have, besides his natural -qualifications, an appropriate metre. - -I have sufficiently shown why I think all forms of our ballad-metre -unsuited to Homer. It seems to me to be beyond question that, for epic -poetry, only three metres can seriously claim to be accounted capable of -the grand style. Two of these will at once occur to everyone,—the -ten-syllable, or so-called _heroic_, couplet, and blank verse. I do not -add to these the Spenserian stanza, although Dr Maginn, whose metrical -eccentricities I have already criticised, pronounces this stanza the one -right measure for a translation of Homer. It is enough to observe that -if Pope’s couplet, with the simple system of correspondences that its -rhymes introduce, changes the movement of Homer, in which no such -correspondences are found, and is therefore a bad measure for a -translator of Homer to employ, Spenser’s stanza, with its far more -intricate system of correspondences, must change Homer’s movement far -more profoundly, and must therefore be for the translator a far worse -measure than the couplet of Pope. Yet I will say, at the same time, that -the verse of Spenser is more fluid, slips more easily and quickly along, -than the verse of almost any other English poet. - - By this the northern wagoner had set - His seven-fold team behind the steadfast star - That was in ocean waves yet never wet, - But firm is fixt, and sendeth light from far - To all that in the wide deep wandering are[25]. - -One cannot but feel that English verse has not often moved with the -fluidity and sweet ease of these lines. It is possible that it may have -been this quality of Spenser’s poetry which made Dr Maginn think that -the stanza of _The Faery Queen_ must be a good measure for rendering -Homer. This it is not: Spenser’s verse is fluid and rapid, no doubt, but -there are more ways than one of being fluid and rapid, and Homer is -fluid and rapid in quite another way than Spenser. Spenser’s manner is -no more Homeric than is the manner of the one modern inheritor of -Spenser’s beautiful gift,—the poet, who evidently caught from Spenser -his sweet and easy-slipping movement, and who has exquisitely employed -it; a Spenserian genius, nay, a genius by natural endowment richer -probably than even Spenser; that light which shines so unexpectedly and -without fellow in our century, an Elizabethan born too late, the early -lost and admirably gifted Keats. - -I say then that there are really but three metres,—the ten-syllable -couplet, blank verse, and a third metre which I will not yet name, -but which is neither the Spenserian stanza nor any form of -ballad-verse,—between which, as vehicles for Homer’s poetry, the -translator has to make his choice. Everyone will at once remember a -thousand passages in which both the ten-syllable couplet and blank -verse prove themselves to have nobleness. Undoubtedly the movement -and manner of this, - - Still raise for good the supplicating voice, - But leave to Heaven the measure and the choice, - -are noble. Undoubtedly, the movement and manner of this: - - High on a throne of royal state, which far - Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind, - -are noble also. But the first is in a rhymed metre; and the unfitness of -a rhymed metre for rendering Homer I have already shown. I will observe -too, that the fine couplet which I have quoted comes out of a satire, a -didactic poem; and that it is in didactic poetry that the ten-syllable -couplet has most successfully essayed the grand style. In narrative -poetry this metre has succeeded best when it essayed a sensibly lower -style, the style of Chaucer, for instance; whose narrative manner, -though a very good and sound manner, is certainly neither the grand -manner nor the manner of Homer. - -The rhymed ten-syllable couplet being thus excluded, blank verse offers -itself for the translator’s use. The first kind of blank verse which -naturally occurs to us is the blank verse of Milton, which has been -employed, with more or less modification, by Mr Cary in translating -Dante, by Cowper, and by Mr Wright in translating Homer. How noble this -metre is in Milton’s hands, how completely it shows itself capable of -the grand, nay, of the grandest, style, I need not say. To this metre, -as used in the _Paradise Lost_, our country owes the glory of having -produced one of the only two poetical works in the grand style which are -to be found in the modern languages; the _Divine Comedy_ of Dante is the -other. England and Italy here stand alone; Spain, France, and Germany, -have produced great poets, but neither Calderon, nor Corneille, nor -Schiller, nor even Goethe, has produced a body of poetry in the true -grand style, in the sense in which the style of the body of Homer’s -poetry, or Pindar’s, or Sophocles’s, is grand. But Dante has, and so has -Milton; and in this respect Milton possesses a distinction which even -Shakspeare, undoubtedly the supreme poetical power in our literature, -does not share with him. Not a tragedy of Shakspeare but contains -passages in the worst of all styles, the affected style; and the grand -style, although it may be harsh, or obscure, or cumbrous, or -over-laboured, is never affected. In spite, therefore, of objections -which may justly be urged against the plan and treatment of the -_Paradise Lost_, in spite of its possessing, certainly, a far less -enthralling force of interest to attract and to carry forward the reader -than the _Iliad_ or the _Divine Comedy_, it fully deserves, it can never -lose, its immense reputation; for, like the _Iliad_ and the _Divine -Comedy_, nay, in some respects to a higher degree than either of them, -it is in the grand style. - -But the grandeur of Milton is one thing, and the grandeur of Homer is -another. Homer’s movement, I have said again and again, is a flowing, a -rapid movement; Milton’s, on the other hand, is a laboured, a -self-retarding movement. In each case, the movement, the metrical cast, -corresponds with the mode of evolution of the thought, with the -syntactical cast, and is indeed determined by it. Milton charges himself -so full with thought, imagination, knowledge, that his style will hardly -contain them. He is too full-stored to show us in much detail one -conception, one piece of knowledge; he just shows it to us in a pregnant -allusive way, and then he presses on to another; and all this fulness, -this pressure, this condensation, this self-constraint, enters into his -movement, and makes it what it is,—noble, but difficult and austere. -Homer is quite different; he says a thing, and says it to the end, and -then begins another, while Milton is trying to press a thousand things -into one. So that whereas, in reading Milton, you never lose the sense -of laborious and condensed fulness, in reading Homer you never lose the -sense of flowing and abounding ease. With Milton line runs into line, -and all is straitly bound together: with Homer line runs off from line, -and all hurries away onward. Homer begins, Μῆνιν ἄειδε, Θεά,—at the -second word announcing the proposed action: Milton begins: - - Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit - Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste - Brought death into the world, and all our woe, - With loss of Eden, till one greater Man - Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, - Sing, heavenly muse. - -So chary of a sentence is he, so resolute not to let it escape him till -he has crowded into it all he can, that it is not till the thirty-ninth -word in the sentence that he will give us the key to it, the word of -action, the verb. Milton says: - - O for that warning voice, which he, who saw - The Apocalypse, heard cry in heaven aloud. - -He is not satisfied, unless he can tell us, all in one sentence, and -without permitting himself to actually mention the name, that the man -who had the warning voice was the same man who saw the Apocalypse. Homer -would have said, ‘O for that warning voice, which _John_ heard’—and if -it had suited him to say that John also saw the Apocalypse, he would -have given us that in another sentence. The effect of this allusive and -compressed manner of Milton is, I need not say, often very powerful; and -it is an effect which other great poets have often sought to obtain much -in the same way: Dante is full of it, Horace is full of it; but wherever -it exists, it is always an un-Homeric effect. ‘The losses of the -heavens’, says Horace, ‘fresh moons speedily repair; we, when we have -gone down where the pious Æneas, where the rich Tullus and Ancus -are,—_pulvis et umbra sumus_[26]’. He never actually says _where_ we go -to; he only indicates it by saying that it is that place where Æneas, -Tullus, and Ancus are. But Homer, when he has to speak of going down to -the grave, says, definitely, _ἐς Ἐλύσιοv πεδιον_—ἀθάνατοι -πέμψουσιν[27],—‘The immortals shall send thee _to the Elysian plain_’; -and it is not till after he has definitely said this, that he adds, that -it is there that the abode of departed worthies is placed: ὅθι ξανθὸς -Ῥαδάμανθυς—‘Where the yellow-haired Rhadamanthus is’. Again; Horace, -having to say that punishment sooner or later overtakes crime, says it -thus: - - Raro antecedentem scelestum - Deseruit pede Pœna claudo[28]. - -The thought itself of these lines is familiar enough to Homer and -Hesiod; but neither Homer nor Hesiod, in expressing it, could possibly -have so complicated its expression as Horace complicates it, and -purposely complicates it, by his use of the word _deseruit_. I say that -this complicated evolution of the thought necessarily complicates the -movement and rhythm of a poet; and that the Miltonic blank verse, of -course the first model of blank verse which suggests itself to an -English translator of Homer, bears the strongest marks of such -complication, and is therefore entirely unfit to render Homer. - -If blank verse is used in translating Homer, it must be a blank verse of -which English poetry, naturally swayed much by Milton’s treatment of -this metre, offers at present hardly any examples. It must not be -Cowper’s blank verse, who has studied Milton’s pregnant manner with such -effect, that, having to say of Mr Throckmorton that he spares his -avenue, although it is the fashion with other people to cut down theirs, -he says that Benevolus ‘reprieves the obsolete prolixity of shade’. It -must not be Mr Tennyson’s blank verse. - - For all experience is an arch, wherethrough - Gleams that untravelled world, whose distance fades - For ever and for ever, as we gaze. - -It is no blame to the thought of those lines, which belongs to another -order of ideas than Homer’s, but it is true, that Homer would certainly -have said of them, ‘It is to consider too curiously to consider so’. It -is no blame to their rhythm, which belongs to another order of movement -than Homer’s, but it is true that these three lines by themselves take -up nearly as much time as a whole book of the _Iliad_. No; the blank -verse used in rendering Homer must be a blank verse of which perhaps the -best specimens are to be found in some of the most rapid passages of -Shakspeare’s plays,—a blank verse which does not dovetail its lines into -one another, and which habitually ends its lines with monosyllables. -Such a blank verse might no doubt be very rapid in its movement, and -might perfectly adapt itself to a thought plainly and directly evolved; -and it would be interesting to see it well applied to Homer. But the -translator who determines to use it, must not conceal from himself that -in order to pour Homer into the mould of this metre, he will have -entirely to break him up and melt him down, with the hope of then -successfully composing him afresh; and this is a process which is full -of risks. It may, no doubt, be the real Homer that issues new from it; -it is not certain beforehand that it cannot be the real Homer, as it is -certain that from the mould of Pope’s couplet or Cowper’s Miltonic verse -it cannot be the real Homer that will issue; still, the chances of -disappointment are great. The result of such an attempt to renovate the -old poet may be an Æson; but it may also, and more probably will be a -Pelias. - -When I say this, I point to the metre which seems to me to give the -translator the best chance of preserving the general effect of -Homer,—that third metre which I have not yet expressly named, the -hexameter. I know all that is said against the use of hexameters in -English poetry; but it comes only to this, that, among us, they have not -yet been used on any considerable scale with success. _Solvitur -ambulando_: this is an objection which can best be met by _producing_ -good English hexameters. And there is no reason in the nature of the -English language why it should not adapt itself to hexameters as well as -the German language does; nay, the English language, from its greater -rapidity, is in itself better suited than the German for them. The -hexameter, whether alone or with the pentameter, possesses a movement, -an expression, which no metre hitherto in common use amongst us -possesses, and which I am convinced English poetry, as our mental wants -multiply, will not always be content to forgo. Applied to Homer, this -metre affords to the translator the immense support of keeping him more -nearly than any other metre to Homer’s movement; and, since a poet’s -movement makes so large a part of his general effect, and to reproduce -this general effect is at once the translator’s indispensable business -and so difficult for him, it is a great thing to have this part of your -model’s general effect already given you in your metre, instead of -having to get it entirely for yourself. - -These are general considerations; but 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 successful 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 that mention of -Castor and Pollux from which Mr Ruskin extracts the sentimental -consolation already noticed by me. 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 Thompson and Professor Jowett, whose connection with Greek -literature is official. The passage is short[29]; 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 version 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. - -This is one of the particular considerations that incline me to prefer -the hexameter, for translating Homer, to our established metres. There -is another. Most of you, probably, have some knowledge of a poem by Mr -Clough, _The Bothie of Toper-na-fuosich_, a long-vacation pastoral, in -hexameters. The general merits of that poem I am not going to discuss: -it is a serio-comic poem, and, therefore, of essentially different -nature from the _Iliad_. Still in two things it is, more than any other -English poem which I can call to mind, like the _Iliad_: in the rapidity -of its movement, and the plainness and directness of its style. The -thought of this poem is often curious and subtle, and that is not -Homeric; the diction is often grotesque, and that is not Homeric. Still -by its rapidity of movement, and plain and direct manner of presenting -the thought however curious in itself, this poem, which, being as I say -a serio-comic poem, has a right to be grotesque, is grotesque _truly_, -not, like Mr Newman’s version of the _Iliad_, _falsely_. Mr Clough’s odd -epithets, ‘The grave man nicknamed Adam’, ‘The hairy Aldrich’, and so -on, grow vitally and appear naturally in their place; while Mr Newman’s -‘dapper-greaved Achaians’, and ‘motley-helmed Hector’, have all the air -of being mechanically elaborated and artificially stuck in. Mr Clough’s -hexameters are excessively, needlessly rough; still owing to the native -rapidity of this measure, and to the directness of style which so well -allies itself with it, his composition produces a sense in the reader -which Homer’s composition also produces, and which Homer’s translator -ought to _re_-produce,—the sense of having, within short limits of time, -a large portion of human life presented to him, instead of a small -portion. - -Mr Clough’s hexameters are, as I have just said, too rough and -irregular; and indeed a good model, on any considerable scale, of this -metre, the English translator will nowhere find. He must not follow the -model offered by Mr Longfellow in his pleasing and popular poem of -_Evangeline_; for the merit of the manner and movement of _Evangeline_, -when they are at their best, is to be tenderly elegant; and their fault, -when they are at their worst, is to be lumbering; but Homer’s defect is -not lumberingness, neither is tender elegance his excellence. The -lumbering effect of most English hexameters is caused by their being -much too dactylic[30]; the translator must learn to use spondees freely. -Mr Clough has done this, but he has not sufficiently observed another -rule which the translator cannot follow too strictly; and that is, to -have no lines which will not, as it is familiarly said, _read -themselves_. This is of the last importance for rhythms with which the -ear of the English public is not thoroughly acquainted. Lord Redesdale, -in two papers on the subject of Greek and Roman metres, has some good -remarks on the outrageous disregard of quantity in which English verse, -trusting to its force of accent, is apt to indulge itself. The -predominance of accent in our language is so great, that it would be -pedantic not to avail oneself of it; and Lord Redesdale suggests rules -which might easily be pushed too far. Still, it is undeniable that in -English hexameters we generally force the quantity far too much; we rely -on justification by accent with a security which is excessive. But not -only do we abuse accent by shortening long syllables and lengthening -short ones; we perpetually commit a far worse fault, by requiring the -removal of the accent from its natural place to an unnatural one, in -order to make our line scan. This is a fault, even when our metre is one -which every English reader knows, and when we can see what we want and -can correct the rhythm according to our wish; although it is a fault -which a great master may sometimes commit knowingly to produce a desired -effect, as Milton changes the natural accent on the word _Tiresias_ in -the line: - - And Tíresias and Phineus, prophets old; - -and then it ceases to be a fault, and becomes a beauty. But it is a real -fault, when Chapman has: - - By him the golden-throned Queen slept, the Queen of Deities; - -for in this line, to make it scan, you have to take away the accent from -the word _Queen_, on which it naturally falls, and to place it on -_throned_, which would naturally be unaccented; and yet, after all, you -get no peculiar effect or beauty of cadence to reward you. It is a real -fault, when Mr Newman has: - - Infatuate! O that thou wert lord to some other army— - -for here again the reader is required, not for any special advantage to -himself, but simply to save Mr Newman trouble, to place the accent on -the insignificant word _wert_, where it has no business whatever. But it -is still a greater fault, when Spenser has (to take a striking -instance): - - Wot ye why his mother with a veil hath covered his face? - -for a hexameter; because here not only is the reader causelessly -required to make havoc with the natural accentuation of the line in -order to get it to run as a hexameter; but also he, in nine cases out of -ten, will be utterly at a loss how to perform the process required, and -the line will remain a mere monster for him. I repeat, it is advisable -to construct _all_ verses so that by reading them naturally—that is, -according to the sense and legitimate accent,—the reader gets the right -rhythm; but, for English hexameters, that they be so constructed is -indispensable. - -If the hexameter best helps the translator to the Homeric rapidity, what -style may best help him to the Homeric plainness and directness? It is -the merit of a metre appropriate to your subject, that it in some degree -suggests and carries with itself a style appropriate to the subject; the -elaborate and self-retarding style, which comes so naturally when your -metre is the Miltonic blank verse, does not come naturally with the -hexameter; is, indeed, alien to it. On the other hand, the hexameter has -a natural dignity which repels both the jaunty style and the jog-trot -style, to both of which the ballad-measure so easily lends itself. These -are great advantages; and, perhaps, it is nearly enough to say to the -translator who uses the hexameter that he cannot too religiously follow, -in style, the inspiration of his metre. He will find that a loose and -idiomatic grammar—a grammar which follows the essential rather than the -formal logic of the thought—allies itself excellently with the -hexameter; and that, while this sort of grammar ensures plainness and -naturalness, it by no means comes short in nobleness. It is difficult to -pronounce, certainly, what is idiomatic in the ancient literature of a -language which, though still spoken, has long since entirely adopted, as -modern Greek has adopted, modern idioms. Still one may, I think, clearly -perceive that Homer’s grammatical style is idiomatic,—that it may even -be called, not improperly, a loose grammatical style[31]. Examples, -however, of what I mean by a loose grammatical style, will be of more -use to the translator if taken from English poetry than if taken from -Homer. I call it, then, a loose and idiomatic grammar which Shakspeare -uses in the last line of the following three: - - He’s here in double trust: - First, as I am his kinsman and his subject, - _Strong both against the deed_; - -or in this:— - - Wit, _whither wilt_? - -What Shakspeare means is perfectly clear, clearer, probably, than if he -had said it in a more formal and regular manner; but his grammar is -loose and idiomatic, because he leaves out the subject of the verb -‘wilt’ in the second passage quoted, and because, in the first, a -prodigious addition to the sentence has to be, as we used to say in our -old Latin grammar days, _understood_, before the word ‘both’ can be -properly parsed. So, again, Chapman’s grammar is loose and idiomatic -where he says, - - Even share hath he that keeps his tent, and _he to field_ doth go, - -because he leaves out, in the second clause, the relative which in -formal writing would be required. But Chapman here does not lose dignity -by this idiomatic way of expressing himself, any more than Shakspeare -loses it by neglecting to confer on ‘both’ the blessings of a regular -government: neither loses dignity, but each gives that impression of a -plain, direct, and natural mode of speaking, which Homer, too, gives, -and which it is so important, as I say, that Homer’s translator should -succeed in giving. Cowper calls blank verse ‘a style further removed -than rhyme from the vernacular idiom, both in the language itself and in -the arrangement of it’; and just in proportion as blank verse is removed -from the vernacular idiom, from that idiomatic style which is of all -styles the plainest and most natural, blank verse is unsuited to render -Homer. - -Shakspeare is not only idiomatic in his grammar or style, he is also -idiomatic in his words or diction; and here too, his example is valuable -for the translator of Homer. The translator must not, indeed, allow -himself all the liberty that Shakspeare allows himself; for Shakspeare -sometimes uses expressions which pass perfectly well as he uses them, -because Shakspeare thinks so fast and so powerfully, that in reading him -we are borne over single words as by a mighty current; but, if our mind -were less excited,—and who may rely on exciting our mind like -Shakspeare?—they would check us. ‘To grunt and sweat under a weary -load’;—that does perfectly well where it comes in Shakspeare; but if the -translator of Homer, who will hardly have wound our minds up to the -pitch at which these words of Hamlet find them, were to employ, when he -has to speak of one of Homer’s heroes under the load of calamity, this -figure of ‘grunting’ and ‘sweating’ we should say, _He Newmanises_, and -his diction would offend us. For he is to be noble; and no plea of -wishing to be plain and natural can get him excused from being this: -only, as he is to be also, like Homer, perfectly simple and free from -artificiality, and as the use of idiomatic expressions undoubtedly gives -this effect[32], he should be as idiomatic as he can be without ceasing -to be noble. Therefore the idiomatic language of Shakspeare—such -language as, ‘prate of his _whereabout_’; ‘_jump_ the life to come’; -‘the damnation of his _taking-off_’; ‘his _quietus make_ with a bare -_bodkin_’—should be carefully observed by the translator of Homer, -although in every case he will have to decide for himself whether the -use, by him, of Shakspeare’s liberty, will or will not clash with his -indispensable duty of nobleness. He will find one English book and one -only, where, as in the _Iliad_ itself, perfect plainness of speech is -allied with perfect nobleness; and that book is the Bible. No one could -see this more clearly than Pope saw it: ‘This pure and noble -simplicity’, he says, ‘is nowhere in such perfection as in the Scripture -and Homer’: yet even with Pope a woman is a ‘fair’, a father is a ‘sire’ -and an old man a ‘reverend sage’, and so on through all the phrases of -that pseudo-Augustan, and most unbiblical, vocabulary. The Bible, -however, is undoubtedly the grand mine of diction for the translator of -Homer; and, if he knows how to discriminate truly between what will suit -him and what will not, the Bible may afford him also invaluable lessons -of style. - -I said that Homer, besides being plain in style and diction, was plain -in the quality of his thought. It is possible that a thought may be -expressed with idiomatic plainness, and yet not be in itself a plain -thought. For example, in Mr Clough’s poem, already mentioned, the style -and diction is almost always idiomatic and plain, but the thought itself -is often of a quality which is not plain; it is _curious_. But the grand -instance of the union of idiomatic expression with curious or difficult -thought is in Shakspeare’s poetry. Such, indeed, is the force and power -of Shakspeare’s idiomatic expression, that it gives an effect of -clearness and vividness even to a thought which is imperfect and -incoherent; for instance, when Hamlet says, - - To take arms against a sea of troubles, - -the figure there is undoubtedly most faulty, it by no means runs on four -legs; but the thing is said so freely and idiomatically, that it passes. -This, however, is not a point to which I now want to call your -attention; I want you to remark, in Shakspeare and others, only that -which we may directly apply to Homer. I say, then, that in Shakspeare -the thought is often, while most idiomatically uttered, nay, while good -and sound in itself, yet of a quality which is curious and difficult; -and that this quality of thought is something entirely un-Homeric. For -example, when Lady Macbeth says: - - Memory, the warder of the brain, - Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason - A limbeck only, - -this figure is a perfectly sound and correct figure, no doubt; Mr Knight -even calls it a ‘happy’ figure; but it is a _difficult_ figure: Homer -would not have used it. Again, when Lady Macbeth says, - - When you durst do it, then you were a man; - And, to be more than what you were, you would - Be so much more the man, - -the thought in the two last of these lines is, when you seize it, a -perfectly clear thought, and a fine thought; but it is a _curious_ -thought: Homer would not have used it. These are favourable instances of -the union of plain style and words with a thought not plain in quality; -but take stronger instances of this union,—let the thought be not only -not plain in quality, but highly fanciful: and you have the Elizabethan -conceits; you have, in spite of idiomatic style and idiomatic diction, -everything which is most un-Homeric; you have such atrocities as this of -Chapman: - - Fate shall fail to vent her gall - Till mine vent thousands. - -I say, the poets of a nation which has produced such conceit as that, -must purify themselves seven times in the fire before they can hope to -render Homer. They must expel their nature with a fork, and keep crying -to one another night and day: ‘Homer not only moves rapidly, not only -speaks idiomatically; he is, also, _free from fancifulness_’. - -So essentially characteristic of Homer is his plainness and naturalness -of thought, that to the preservation of this in his own version the -translator must without scruple sacrifice, where it is necessary, verbal -fidelity to his original, rather than run any risk of producing, by -literalness, an odd and unnatural effect. The double epithets so -constantly occurring in Homer must be dealt with according to this rule; -these epithets come quite naturally in Homer’s poetry; in English poetry -they, in nine cases out of ten, come, when literally rendered, quite -unnaturally. I will not now discuss why this is so, I assume it as an -indisputable fact that it is so; that Homer’s μερόπων ἀνθρώπων comes to -the reader as something perfectly natural, while Mr Newman’s -‘voice-dividing mortals’ comes to him as something perfectly unnatural. -Well then, as it is Homer’s general effect which we are to reproduce, it -is to be false to Homer to be so verbally faithful to him as that we -lose this effect: and by the English translator Homer’s double epithets -must be, in many places, renounced altogether; in all places where they -are rendered, rendered by equivalents which come naturally. Instead of -rendering θέτι τανύπεπλε by Mr Newman’s ‘Thetis trailing-robed’, which -brings to one’s mind long petticoats sweeping a dirty pavement, the -translator must render the Greek by English words which come as -naturally to us as Milton’s words when he says, ‘Let gorgeous Tragedy -With sceptred pall come sweeping by’. Instead of rendering μώνυχας -ἵππους by Chapman’s ‘one-hoofed steeds’, or Mr Newman’s ‘single-hoofed -horses’, he must speak of horses in a way which surprises us as little -as Shakspeare surprises when he says, ‘Gallop apace, you fiery-footed -steeds’. Instead of rendering μελιηδέα θυμόν by ‘life as honey -pleasant’, he must characterise life with the simple pathos of Gray’s -‘warm precincts of the cheerful day’. Instead of converting ποῖόν σε -ἔπoς φύγεν ἔρκος ὀδόντων; into the portentous remonstrance, ‘Betwixt the -outwork of thy teeth what word hath split’? he must remonstrate in -English as straightforward as this of St Peter, ‘Be it far from thee, -Lord: this shall not be unto thee’; or as this of the disciples, ‘What -is this that he saith, a little while? we cannot tell what he saith’. -Homer’s Greek, in each of the places quoted, reads as naturally as any -of those English passages: the expression no more calls away the -attention from the sense in the Greek than in the English. But when, in -order to render literally in English one of Homer’s double epithets, a -strange unfamiliar adjective is invented,—such as ‘voice-dividing’ for -μέρψς,—an improper share of the reader’s attention is necessarily -diverted to this ancillary word, to this word which Homer never intended -should receive so much notice; and a total effect quite different from -Homer’s is thus produced. Therefore Mr Newman, though he does not -purposely import, like Chapman, conceits of his own into the _Iliad_, -does actually import them; for the result of his singular diction is to -raise ideas, and odd ideas, not raised by the corresponding diction in -Homer; and Chapman himself does no more. Cowper says: ‘I have cautiously -avoided all terms of new invention, with an abundance of which persons -of more ingenuity than judgment have not enriched our language but -encumbered it’; and this criticism so exactly hits the diction of Mr -Newman that one is irresistibly led to imagine his present appearance in -the flesh to be at least his second. - -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 proceed at -once to give you, in conclusion, one or two passages in which I have -tried to follow those principles of Homeric translation which I have -laid down. I give them, it must be remembered, not as specimens of -perfect translation, but as specimens of an attempt to translate Homer -on certain principles; specimens 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 simplicity 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. - 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 πυρά without -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 -endeavour 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 personal familiarity with war, and -with the war-horse as his master’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 Chapman 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! 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 artificial and -literary way of rendering Homer’s words and so is, ‘coursers of immortal -strain’. - - Μυρομένω δ’ ἄρα τώ γε ἰδὼν, ἐλέησε Κρονίων. - - 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 over-reliance on -accent, and too free disregard of quantity, which Lord Redesdale visits -with just reprehension[33]. - -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 Andromache. One astounding conceit will probably still be -in your remembrance, - - When sacred Troy shall _shed her tow’rs for tears of overthrow_, - -as a translation of ὅτ’ ἄν ποτ’ ὀλώλῃ Ἴλιος ἰρή. I will quote a few -lines which will give you, also, the key-note 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 sufficiently 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: - - ‘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 - - What moves thee, moves my mind, - -nor has he - - All these thy anxious cares are also mine. - - Ἦ καὶ ἐμοὶ τάδε πάντα μέλει, γύναι· ἀλλὰ μάλ’ αἰνῶς, - -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 Messeïs, 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 of Hector, that great pre-eminent captain - 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[34] 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 ἑλκεσιπέπλους, 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 clue to his thought, which makes a hint enough; -but in the English language this sense of nearness, this clue, is gone; -hints are insufficient, everything must be stated with full -distinctness. In the ninth line Homer’s epithet for Priam is -ἐυμμελίω,—‘armed with good ashen spear’, say the dictionaries; -‘ashen-speared’, translates Mr Newman, following his own rule to ‘retain -every peculiarity of his original’,—I say, on the other hand, that -ἐυμμελίω has not the effect of a ‘peculiarity’ in the original, while -‘ashen-speared’ has the effect of a ‘peculiarity’ in English; and -‘warlike’ is as marking an equivalent as I dare give for ἐυμμελίω, for -fear of disturbing the balance of expression in Homer’s sentence. In the -fourteenth line, again, I translate χαλκοχιτώνων by ‘brazen-coated’. Mr -Newman, meaning to be perfectly literal, translates it by -‘brazen-cloaked’, an expression which comes to the reader oddly and -unnaturally, while Homer’s word comes to him quite naturally; but I -venture to go as near to a literal rendering as ‘brazen-coated’, because -a ‘coat of brass’ is familiar to us all from the Bible, and familiar, -too, as distinctly specified in connection with the wearer. Finally, let -me further illustrate from the twentieth line the value which I attach, -in a question of diction, to the authority of the Bible. The word -‘pre-eminent’ occurs in that line; I was a little in doubt whether that -was not too bookish an expression to be used in rendering Homer, as I -can imagine Mr Newman to have been a little in doubt whether his -‘responsively accosted’ for ἀμειβόμενος προσέφη, was not too bookish an -expression. Let us both, I say, consult our Bibles: Mr Newman will -nowhere find it in his Bible that David, for instance, ‘_responsively -accosted_ Goliath’; but I do find in mine that ‘the right hand of the -Lord hath the _pre-eminence_’; and forthwith I use ‘pre-eminent’, -without scruple. My Bibliolatry is perhaps excessive; and no doubt a -true poetic feeling is the Homeric translator’s best guide in the use of -words; but where this feeling does not exist, or is at fault, I think he -cannot do better than take for a mechanical guide Cruden’s -_Concordance_. To be sure, here as elsewhere, the consulter must know -how to consult,—must know how very slight a variation of word or -circumstance makes the difference between an authority in his favour, -and an authority which gives him no countenance at all; for instance, -the ‘Great simpleton!’ (for μέγα νήπιος) of Mr Newman, and the ‘Thou -fool!’ of the Bible, are something alike; but ‘Thou fool!’ is very -grand, and ‘Great simpleton!’ is an atrocity. So, too, Chapman’s ‘Poor -wretched beasts’ is pitched many degrees too low; but Shakspeare’s ‘Poor -venomous fool, Be angry and despatch!’ is in the grand style. - -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 addressed - 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! - But thy day of death is at hand; nor shall _we_ be the reason— - 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. - -Here the only particular remark which I will make is, that in the fourth -and eighth line the grammar is what I call a loose and idiomatic -grammar. In writing a regular and literary style, one would in the -fourth line have to repeat before ‘leave’ the words ‘that ye’ from the -second line, and to insert the word ‘do’; and in the eighth line one -would not use such an expression as ‘he was given a voice’. But I will -make one general remark on the character of my own translations, as I -have made so many on that of the translations of others. It is, that -over the graver passages there is shed an air somewhat too strenuous and -severe, by comparison with that lovely ease and sweetness which Homer, -for all his noble and masculine way of thinking, never loses. - -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 translator is not likely to have the requisite gifts -for poetically rendering all of them. Such are the works of Shakspeare, -and Goethe’s _Faust_; and these it is best to attempt to render in prose -only. People praise Tieck and Schlegel’s version of Shakspeare. I, for -my part, would sooner read Shakspeare in the French prose translation, -and that is saying a great deal; but in the German poets’ hands -Shakspeare so often gets, especially where he is humorous, an air of -what the French call _niaiserie_! and can anything be more -un-Shakspearian than that? Again; Mr Hayward’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 vigour, 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 Professor Wilson—love to talk of Homer and his -poetry, one cannot 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 honour, 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 -horizon, the liquid clearness of an Ionian sky. - -Footnote 25: - - _The Faery Queen_, Canto ii. stanza I. - -Footnote 26: - - _Odes_, IV. vii. 13. - -Footnote 27: - - _Odyssey_ iv. 563. - -Footnote 28: - - _Odes_, III. ii. 31. - -Footnote 29: - - So short, that I quote it entire: - - 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,—Polydeukes 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 Lacedæmon, - 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, Lacedæmon. - - _English Hexameter Translations_, London, - 1847, p. 242. - - I have changed Dr Hawtrey’s ‘Kastor’, ‘Lakedaimon’, back to the - familiar ‘Castor’, ‘Lacedæmon’, in obedience to my own rule that - everything _odd_ is to be avoided in rendering Homer, the most natural - and least odd of poets. I see Mr Newman’s critic in the _National - Review_ urges our generation to bear with the unnatural effect of - these rewritten Greek names, in the hope that by this means the effect - of them may have to the next generation become natural. For my part, I - feel no disposition to pass all my own life in the wilderness of - pedantry, in order that a posterity which I shall never see may one - day enter an orthographical Canaan; and, after all, the real question - is this: whether our living apprehension of the Greek world is more - checked by meeting in an English book about the Greeks, names not - spelt letter for letter as in the original Greek, or by meeting names - which make us rub our eyes and call out, ‘How exceedingly odd!’ - - The Latin names of the Greek deities raise in most cases the idea of - quite distinct personages from the personages whose idea is raised by - the Greek names. Hera and Juno are actually, to every scholar’s - imagination, two different people. So in all these cases the Latin - names must, at any inconvenience, be abandoned when we are dealing - with the Greek world. But I think it can be in the sensitive - imagination of Mr Grote only, that ‘Thucydides’ raises the idea of a - different man from =Θουκυδίδης=. - -Footnote 30: - - For instance; in a version (I believe, by the late Mr Lockhart) of - Homer’s description of the parting of Hector and Andromache, there - occurs, in the first five lines, but one spondee besides the necessary - spondees in the sixth place; in the corresponding five lines of Homer - there occur ten. See _English Hexameter Translations_, 244. - -Footnote 31: - - See for instance, in the _Iliad_, the loose construction of =ὅστε=, - xvii. 658; that of =ἴδοιτο=, xvii. 681; that of =οἵτε=, xviii. 209; - and the elliptical construction at xix. 42, 43; also the idiomatic - construction of =ἐγὼν ὅδε παρασχεῖν=, xix. 140. These instances are - all taken within a range of a thousand lines; anyone may easily - multiply them for himself. - -Footnote 32: - - Our knowledge of Homer’s Greek is hardly such as to enable us to - pronounce quite confidently what is idiomatic in his diction, and what - is not, any more than in his grammar; but I seem to myself clearly to - recognise an idiomatic stamp in such expressions as =τολυπεύειν - πολέμους=, xiv. 86; =φάος ἐν νήεσσιν θήῃς=, xvi. 94; =τιν’ οἴω - ἀσπασίως αὐτῶν γόνυ κάμψειν=, xix. 71; =κλοτοπεύειν=, xix. 149; and - many others. The first-quoted expression, =τολυπεύειν ἀργαλέους - πολέμους=, seems to me to have just about the same degree of freedom - as the ‘_jump_ the life to come’, or the ‘_shuffle off_ this mortal - coil’, of Shakspeare. - -Footnote 33: - - It must be remembered, however, that, if we disregard quantity too - much in constructing English hexameters, we also disregard accent too - much in reading Greek hexameters. We read every Greek dactyl so as to - make a pure dactyl of it; but, to a Greek, the accent must have - hindered many dactyls from sounding as pure dactyls. When we read - =αἰόλος= ἵππος, for instance, or =αἰγιόχοιο=, the dactyl in each of - these cases is made by us as pure a dactyl as ‘Tityre’, or ‘dignity’; - but to a Greek it was not so. To him αἰόλος must have been nearly as - impure a dactyl as ‘death-destined’ is to us; and αἰγιόχ nearly as - impure as the ‘dressed his own’ of my text. Nor, I think, does this - right mode of pronouncing the two words at all spoil the run of the - line as a hexameter. The effect of =αἰόλλος= ἵππος (or something like - that), though not _our_ effect, is not a disagreeable one. On the - other hand, κορυθαιόλος as a paroxytonon, although it has the - respectable authority of Liddell and Scott’s _Lexicon_ (following - Heyne), is certainly wrong; for then the word cannot be pronounced - without throwing an accent on the first syllable as well as the third, - and μέγας =κοῤῥυθαιόλλος= Ἕκτωρ would have been to a Greek as - intolerable an ending for a hexameter line as ‘accurst - _orphanhood-destined_ houses’ would be to us. The best authorities, - accordingly, accent κορυθαίολος as a proparoxytonon. - -Footnote 34: - - Dr Hawtrey also has translated this passage; but here, he has not, I - think, been so successful as in his ‘Helen on the walls of Troy’. - - - - - Homeric Translation in Theory and Practice - A Reply to Matthew Arnold - By Francis W. Newman - - -It is so difficult, amid the press of literature, for a mere versifier -and translator to gain notice at all, that an assailant may even do one -a service, if he so conduct his assault as to enable the reader to sit -in intelligent judgment on the merits of the book assailed. But when the -critic deals out to the readers only so much knowledge as may propagate -his own contempt of the book, he has undoubtedly immense power to -dissuade them from wishing to open it. Mr Arnold writes as openly aiming -at this end. He begins by complimenting me, as ‘a man of great ability -and genuine learning’; but on questions of learning, as well as of -taste, he puts me down as bluntly, as if he had meant, ‘a man totally -void both of learning and of sagacity’. He again and again takes for -granted that he has ‘the scholar’ on his side, ‘the living scholar’, the -man who has learning and taste without pedantry. He bids me please ‘the -scholars’, and go to ‘the scholars’ tribunal’; and does not know that I -did this, to the extent of my opportunity, before committing myself to a -laborious, expensive and perhaps thankless task. Of course he cannot -guess, what is the fact, that scholars of fastidious refinement, but of -a judgment which I think far more masculine than Mr Arnold’s, have -passed a most encouraging sentence on large specimens of my -translations. I at this moment count eight such names, though of course -I must not here adduce them: nor will I further allude to it, than to -say, that I have no such sense either of pride or of despondency, as -those are liable to, who are consciously isolated in their taste. - -Scholars are the tribunal of Erudition, but of Taste the educated but -unlearned public is the only rightful judge; and to it I wish to appeal. -Even scholars collectively have no right, and much less have single -scholars, to pronounce a final sentence on questions of taste in their -court. Where I differ in Taste from Mr Arnold, it is very difficult to -find ‘the scholars’ tribunal even if I acknowledged its absolute -jurisdiction: but as regards Erudition, this difficulty does not occur, -and I shall fully reply to the numerous dogmatisms by which he settles -the case against me. - -But I must first avow to the reader my own moderate pretensions. Mr -Arnold begins by instilling two errors which he does not commit himself -to assert. He says that my work will _not_ take rank as _the_ standard -translation of Homer, but _other translations will be made_: as if I -thought otherwise! If I have set the example of the right direction in -which translators ought to aim, of course those who follow me will -improve upon me and supersede me. A man would be rash indeed to withhold -his version of a poem of fifteen thousand lines, until he had, to his -best ability, imparted to them all their final perfection. He might -spend the leisure of his life upon it. He would possibly be in his grave -before it could see the light. If it then were published, and it was -founded on any new principle, there would be no one to defend it from -the attacks of ignorance and prejudice. In the nature of the case, his -wisdom is to elaborate in the first instance all the high and noble -parts _carefully_, and get through the inferior parts _somehow_; leaving -of necessity very much to be done in successive editions, if possibly it -please general taste sufficiently to reach them. A generous and -intelligent critic will test such a work mainly or solely by the most -noble parts, and as to the rest, will consider whether the metre and -style adapts itself naturally to them also. - -Next, Mr Arnold asks, ‘Who is to assure Mr Newman, that when he has -tried to retain every peculiarity of his original, he has done that for -which Mr Newman enjoins this to be done—adhered closely to Homer’s -manner and habit of thought? Evidently the translator needs more -practical directions than these’. The tendency of this is, to suggest to -the reader that I am not aware of the difficulty of rightly applying -good principles; whereas I have in this very connection said expressly, -that even when a translator has got right principles, he is liable to go -wrong in the detail of their application. This is as true of all the -principles which Mr Arnold can possibly give, as of those which I have -given; nor do I for a moment assume, that in writing fifteen thousand -lines of verse I have not made hundreds of blots. - -At the same time Mr Arnold has overlooked the point of my remark. Nearly -every translator before me has _knowingly_, _purposely_, _habitually_ -shrunk from Homer’s thoughts and Homer’s manner. The reader will -afterwards see whether Mr Arnold does not justify them in their course. -It is not for those who are purposely unfaithful to taunt me with the -difficulty of being truly faithful. - -I have alleged, and, against Mr Arnold’s flat denial, I deliberately -repeat, that Homer rises and sinks with his subject, and is often homely -or prosaic. I have professed as my principle, to follow my original in -this matter. It is unfair to expect of me grandeur in trivial passages. -If in any place where Homer is _confessedly_ grand and noble, I have -marred and ruined his greatness, let me be reproved. But I shall have -occasion to protest, that Stateliness is not Grandeur, Picturesqueness -is not Stately, Wild Beauty is not to be confounded with Elegance: a -Forest has its swamps and brushwood, as well as its tall trees. - -The duty of one who _publishes_ his censures on me is, to select noble, -greatly admired passages, and confront me both with a prose translation -of the original (for the public cannot go to the Greek) and also with -that which he judges to be a more successful version than mine. -Translation being matter of compromise, and being certain to fall below -the original, when this is of the highest type of grandeur; the question -is not, What translator is perfect? but, Who is least imperfect? Hence -the only fair test is by comparison, when comparison is possible. But Mr -Arnold has not put me to this test. He has quoted two very short -passages, and various single lines, half lines and single words, from -me; and chooses to _tell_ his readers that I ruin Homer’s nobleness, -when (if his censure is just) he might make them _feel_ it by quoting me -upon the most admired pieces. Now with the warmest sincerity I say: If -any English reader, after perusing my version of four or five eminently -noble passages of sufficient length, side by side with those of other -translators, and (better still) with a prose version also, finds in them -high qualities which I have destroyed; I am foremost to advise him to -shut my book, or to consult it only (as Mr Arnold suggests) as a -schoolboy’s ‘help to construe’, if such it can be. My sole object is, to -bring Homer before the unlearned public: I seek no self-glorification: -the sooner I am superseded by a really better translation, the greater -will be my pleasure. - -It was not until I more closely read Mr Arnold’s own versions, that I -understood how necessary is his repugnance to mine. I am unwilling to -speak of his metrical efforts. I shall not say more than my argument -strictly demands. It here suffices to state the simple fact, that for -awhile I seriously doubted whether he meant his first specimen for metre -at all. He seems distinctly to say, he is going to give us English -Hexameters; but it was long before I could believe that he had written -the following for that metre: - - So shone forth, in front of Troy, by the bed of Xanthus, - Between that and the ships, the Trojans’ numerous fires. - In the plain there were kindled a thousand fires: by each one - There sate fifty men, in the ruddy light of the fire. - By their chariots stood the steeds, and champ’d the white barley, - While their masters sate by the fire, and waited for Morning. - -I sincerely thought, this was meant for prose; at length the two last -lines opened my eyes. He _does_ mean them for Hexameters! ‘Fire’ ( = -feuer) with him is a spondee or trochee. The first line, I now see, -begins with three (quantitative) spondees, and is meant to be spondaic -in the fifth foot. ‘Bed of, Between, In the’,—are meant for spondees! So -are ‘There sate’, ‘_By_ their’; though ‘Troy _by_ the’ was a dactyl. -‘Champ’d the white’ is a dactyl. My ‘metrical exploits’ amaze Mr Arnold -(p. 23); but my courage is timidity itself compared to his. - -His second specimen stands thus: - - And with pity the son of Saturn saw them bewailing, - And he shook his head, and thus address’d 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. - -Upon this he apologises for ‘To a’, intended as a spondee in the fourth -line, and ‘-dress’d his own’ for a dactyl in the second; liberties -which, he admits, go rather far, but ‘do not actually spoil the run of -the hexameter’. In a note, he attempts to palliate his deeds by -recriminating on Homer, though he will not allow to me the same excuse. -The accent (it seems) on the second syllable of αἰόλος makes it as -impure a dactyl to a Greek as ‘death-destin’d’ is to us! Mr Arnold’s -erudition in Greek metres is very curious, if he can establish that they -take any cognisance _at all_ of the prose accent, or that αἰολος is -quantitatively more or less of a dactyl, according as the prose accent -is on one or other syllable. His ear also must be of a very unusual -kind, if it makes out that ‘death-destin’d’ is anything but a downright -Molossus. Write it _dethdestind_, as it is pronounced, and the eye, -equally with the ear, decides it to be of the same type as the word -_persistunt_. In the lines just quoted, most readers will be slow to -believe, that they have to place an impetus of the voice (an ictus -metricus at least) on Bétween, In´ the, Thére sate, By´ their, A´nd -with, A´nd he, Tó a, Fór than, O´f all. Here, in the course of thirteen -lines, _composed as a specimen of style_, is found the same offence nine -times repeated, to say nothing here of other deformities. Now contrast -Mr Arnold’s severity against me[35], p. 87: ‘It is a real fault when Mr -Newman has: - - Infátuáte! óh that thou wért | lord to some other army— - -for here the reader is required, not for any special advantage to -himself, but _simply to save Mr Newman trouble_, to place the accent on -the insignificant word _wert_, where it has _no business whatever_’. -Thus to the flaw which Mr Arnold admits nine times in thirteen pattern -lines, he shows no mercy in me, who have toiled through fifteen -thousand. Besides, on _wert_ we are free at pleasure to place or not to -place the accent; but in Mr Arnold’s _Bétween_, _Tó a_, etc., it is -impossible or offensive. - -To avoid a needlessly personal argument, I enlarge on the general -question of hexameters. Others, scholars of repute, have given example -and authority to English hexameters. As matter of curiosity, as erudite -sport, such experiments may have their value. I do not mean to express -indiscriminate disapproval, much less contempt. I have myself privately -tried the same in Alcaics; and find the chief objection to be, not that -the task is impossible, but that to execute it _well_ is too difficult -for a language like ours, overladen with consonants, and abounding with -syllables neither distinctly long nor distinctly short, but of every -intermediate length. Singing to a tune was essential to keep even Greek -or Roman poetry to true _time_; to the English language it is of tenfold -necessity. But if _time_ is abandoned (as in fact it always is), and the -prose accent has to do duty for the ictus metricus, the moral genius of -the metre is fundamentally subverted. What previously was steady -duplicate time (‘march-time’, as Professor Blackie calls it) vacillates -between duplicate and triplicate. With Homer, a dactyl had nothing in it -_more tripping_ than a spondee: a crotchet followed by two quavers -belongs to as grave an anthem as two crotchets. But Mr Arnold himself -(p. 55) calls the introduction of anapæsts by Dr Maginn into our ballad -measure, ‘a detestable dance’: as in: - - And scarcely hád shĕ bĕgún to wash, - Ere shé wăs ăwáre ŏf thĕ grisly gash. - -I will not assert that this is everywhere improper in the Odyssey; but -no part of the Iliad occurs to me in which it is proper, and I have -totally excluded it in my own practice. I notice it but once in Mr -Gladstone’s specimens, and it certainly offends my taste as out of -harmony with the gravity of the rest, viz. - - My ships shall bound ĭn thĕ morning’s light. - -In Shakspeare we have _i’th’_ and _o’th’_ for monosyllables, but (so -scrupulous am I in the midst of my ‘atrocities’) I never dream of such a -liberty myself, much less of avowed ‘anapæsts’. So far do I go in the -opposite direction, as to prefer to make such words as _Danai_, -_victory_ three syllables, which even Mr Gladstone and Pope accept as -dissyllabic. Some reviewers have called my metre _lege solutum_; which -is as ridiculous a mistake as Horace made concerning Pindar. That, in -passing. But surely Mr Arnold’s severe blow at Dr Maginn rebounds with -double force upon himself. - - - To Péleus whý dĭd wĕ gíve you?— - Hécŭbă’s griéf nor Príăm my fáther’s— - Thoúsănds ŏf sórrows— - -cannot be a _less_ detestable jig than that of Dr Maginn. And this -objection holds against every accentual hexameter, even to those of -Longfellow or Lockhart, if applied to grand poetry. For bombast, in a -wild whimsical poem, Mr Clough has proved it to be highly appropriate; -and I think, the more ‘rollicking’ is Mr Clough (if only I understand -the word) the more successful his metre. Mr Arnold himself _feels_ what -I say against ‘dactyls’, for on this very ground he advises largely -superseding them by spondees; and since what he calls a spondee is any -pair of syllables of which the former is accentuable, his precept -amounts to this, that the hexameter be converted into a line of six -accentual trochees, with free liberty left of diversifying it, in any -foot except the last, by Dr Maginn’s ‘detestable dance’. What more -severe condemnation of the metre is imaginable than this mere -description gives? ‘Six trochees’ seems to me the worst possible -foundation for an English metre. I cannot imagine that Mr Arnold will -give the slightest weight to this, as a judgment from me; but I do -advise him to search in Samson Agonistes, Thalaba, Kehama, and Shelley’s -works, for the phenomenon. - -I have elsewhere insisted, but I here repeat, that for a long poem a -trochaic beginning of the verse is most unnatural and vexatious in -English, because so large a number of our sentences begin with -unaccented syllables, and the vigour of a trochaic line eminently -depends on the purity of its initial trochee. Mr Arnold’s feeble -trochees already quoted (from _Bétween_ to _Tó a_) are all the fatal -result of defying the tendencies of our language. - -If by a happy combination any scholar could compose fifty _such_ English -hexameters, as would convey a living likeness of the Virgilian metre, I -should applaud it as valuable for initiating schoolboys into that metre: -but there its utility would end. The method could not be profitably used -for translating Homer or Virgil, plainly because it is impossible to say -for whose service such a translation would be executed. Those who can -read the original will never care to read _through_ any translation; and -the unlearned look on all, even the best hexameters, whether from -Southey, Lockhart or Longfellow, as odd and disagreeable prose. Mr -Arnold deprecates appeal to popular taste: well he may! yet if the -unlearned are to be our audience, we cannot defy them. I myself, before -venturing to print, sought to ascertain how unlearned women and children -would accept my verses. I could boast how children and half-educated -women have extolled them; how greedily a working man has inquired for -them, without knowing who was the translator; but I well know that this -is quite insufficient to establish the merits of a translation. It is -nevertheless _one_ point. ‘Homer is popular’, is one of the very few -matters of fact in this controversy on which Mr Arnold and I are agreed. -‘English hexameters are not popular’, is a truth so obvious, that I do -not yet believe he will deny it. Therefore, ‘Hexameters are not the -metre for translating Homer’. Q. E. D. - -I cannot but think that the very respectable scholars who pertinaciously -adhere to the notion that English hexameters have something ‘epical’ in -them, have no vivid _feeling_ of the difference between Accent and -Quantity: and this is the less wonderful, since so very few persons have -ever actually _heard_ quantitative verse. I have; by listening to -Hungarian poems, read to me by my friend Mr Francis Pulszky, a native -Magyar. He had not finished a single page, before I complained gravely -of the monotony. He replied: ‘So do _we_ complain of it’: and then -showed me, by turning the pages, that the poet cut the knot which he -could not untie, by frequent changes of his metre. Whether it was a -change of mere length, as from Iambic senarian to Iambic dimeter; or -implied a fundamental change of time, as in music from _common_ to -_minuet_ time; I cannot say. But, to my ear, nothing but a tune can ever -save a quantitative metre from hideous monotony. It is like strumming a -piece of very simple music on a single note. Nor only so; but the most -beautiful of anthems, after it has been repeated a hundred times on a -hundred successive verses, begins to pall on the ear. How much more -would an entire book of Homer, if chanted at one sitting! I have the -conviction, though I will not undertake to impart it to another, that if -the living Homer could sing his lines to us, they would at first move in -us the same pleasing interest as an elegant and simple melody from an -African of the Gold Coast; but that, after hearing twenty lines, we -should complain of meagreness, sameness, and _loss of moral expression_; -and should judge the style to be _as_ inferior to our own oratorical -metres, as the music of Pindar to our third-rate modern music. But if -the poet, at our request, instead of singing the verses, read or spoke -them, then from the loss of well-marked time and the ascendency -reassumed by the prose-accent, we should be as helplessly unable to -_hear_ any metre in them, as are the modern Greeks. - -I expect that Mr Arnold will reply to this, that he _reads_ and does not -_sing_ Homer, and yet he finds his verses to be melodious and not -monotonous. To this, I retort, that he begins by wilfully pronouncing -Greek falsely, according to the laws of _Latin_ accent, and artificially -assimilating the Homeric to the Virgilian line. Virgil has compromised -between the ictus metricus and the prose accent, by exacting that the -two coincide in the two last feet and generally forbidding it in the -second and third foot. What is called the ‘feminine cæsura’ gives (in -the Latin language) coincidence on the third foot. Our extreme -familiarity with these laws of compromise enables us to anticipate -recurring sounds and satisfies our ear. But the Greek prose accent, by -reason of oxytons and paroxytons, and accent on the ante-penultima in -spite of a long penultima, totally resists all such compromise; and -proves that particular form of melody, which our scholars enjoy in -Homer, to be an unhistoric imitation of Virgil. - -I am aware, there is a bold theory, whispered if not published, that,—so -out-and-out _Æolian_ was Homer,—his laws of accent must have been almost -Latin. According to this, Erasmus, following the track of Virgil -blindly, has taught us to pronounce Euripides and Plato ridiculously -ill, but Homer, with an accuracy of accent which puts Aristarchus to -shame. This is no place for discussing so difficult a question. Suffice -it to say, _first_, that Mr Arnold cannot take refuge in such a theory, -since he does not admit that Homer was antiquated to Euripides; _next_, -that admitting the theory to him, still the loss of the Digamma destroys -to him the true rhythm of Homer. I shall recur to both questions below. -I here add, that our English pronunciation even of Virgil often so ruins -Virgil’s own _quantities_, that there is something either of delusion or -of pedantry in our scholars’ self-complacency in the rhythm which they -elicit. - -I think it fortunate for Mr Arnold, that he had _not_ ‘courage to -translate Homer’; for he must have failed to make it acceptable to the -unlearned. But if the public ear prefers ballad metres, still (Mr Arnold -assumes) ‘the scholar’ is with him in this whole controversy. -Nevertheless it gradually comes out that neither is this the case, but -he himself is in the minority. P. 110, he writes: ‘When one observes the -boistering, rollicking way in which Homer’s English admirers—even men of -genius, like the late Professor Wilson—love to talk of Homer and his -poetry, one cannot help feeling that there is no very deep community of -nature between them and the object of their enthusiasm.’ It does not -occur to Mr Arnold that the defect of perception lies with himself, and -that Homer has more sides than he has discovered. He deplores that Dr -Maginn, and others whom he names, err with me, in believing that our -ballad-style is the nearest approximation to that of Homer; and avows -that ‘_it is time to say plainly_’ (p. 46) that Homer is not of the -ballad-type. So in p. 45, ‘—this _popular_, but, _it is time to say_, -this erroneous analogy’ between the ballad and Homer. Since it is -reserved for Mr Arnold to turn the tide of opinion; since it is a task -not yet achieved, but remains to be achieved by his authoritative -enunciation; he confesses that hitherto I have with me the suffrage of -scholars. With this confession, a little more diffidence would be -becoming, if diffidence were possible to the fanaticism with which he -idolises hexameters. P. 88, he says: ‘The hexameter has a natural -dignity, which repels both the jaunty style and the jog-trot style, -etc.... _The translator who uses it cannot too religiously follow the_ -INSPIRATION OF HIS METRE’ etc. Inspiration from a metre which has no -recognised type? from a metre which the _heart_ and _soul_ of the nation -ignores? I believe, if the metre can inspire anything, it is to frolic -and gambol with Mr Clough. Mr Arnold’s English hexameter cannot be a -higher inspiration to him, than the true hexameter was to a Greek: yet -that metre inspired strains of totally different essential genius and -merit. - -But I claim Mr Arnold himself as confessing that our ballad _metre_ is -epical, when he says that Scott is ‘_bastard_-epic’. I do not admit that -his quotations from Scott are all Scott’s best, nor anything like it; -but if they were, it would only prove something against Scott’s genius -or talent, nothing about his metre. The Κύπρια ἔπη or Ἰλίου πέρσις were -probably very inferior to the Iliad; but no one would on that account -call them or the Frogs and Mice bastard-epic. No one would call a bad -tale of Dryden or of Crabbe bastard-epic. The application of the word to -Scott virtually concedes what I assert. Mr Arnold also calls Macaulay’s -ballads ‘pinchbeck’; but a man needs to produce something very noble -himself, before he can afford thus to sneer at Macaulay’s ‘Lars -Porsena’. - -Before I enter on my own ‘metrical exploits’, I must get rid of a -disagreeable topic. Mr Arnold’s repugnance to them has led him into -forms of attack, which I do not know how to characterize. I shall state -my complaints as concisely as I can, and so leave them. - -1. I do not seek for any similarity of _sound_ in an English accentual -metre to that of a Greek quantitative metre; besides that Homer writes -in a highly vocalized tongue, while ours is overfilled with consonants. -I have disowned this notion of similar rhythm in the strongest terms (p. -xvii of my Preface), expressly because some critics had imputed this aim -to me in the case of Horace. I summed up: ‘It is not audible sameness of -metre, but a likeness of moral genius which is to be aimed at’. I -contrast the audible to the moral. Mr Arnold suppresses this contrast, -and writes as follows, p. 34. Mr Newman tells us that he has found a -metre like in moral genius to Homer’s. His judge has still the same -answer: reproduce THEN _on our ear_ something of ‘the effect produced by -the _movement_ of Homer’. He recurs to the same fallacy in p. 57. ‘For -whose EAR do those two _rhythms_ produce impressions of (_to use Mr -Newman’s own words_) “similar moral genius”’? His reader will naturally -suppose that ‘like in moral genius’ is with me an eccentric phrase for -‘like in musical cadence’. The only likeness to the ear which I have -admitted, is, that the one and the other are primitively made _for -music_. That, Mr Arnold knows, is a matter of fact, whether a ballad be -well or ill written. If he pleases, he may hold the rhythm of our metre -to be necessarily inferior to Homer’s and to his own; but when I fully -explained in my preface what were my tests of ‘like moral genius’, I -cannot understand his suppressing them, and perverting the sense of my -words. - -2. In p. 52, Mr Arnold quotes Chapman’s translation of ἆ δείλω, ‘Poor -wretched _beasts_’ (of Achilles’ horses), on which he comments severely. -He does _not_ quote me. Yet in p. 100, after exhibiting Cowper’s -translation of the same passage, he adds: ‘There is no want of dignity -here, as in the versions of Chapman and of _Mr Newman, which I have -already quoted_’. Thus he leads the reader to believe that I have the -same phrase as Chapman! In fact, my translation is: - - Ha! why on Peleus, mortal prince, - Bestowed we _you_, unhappy! - -If he had done me the justice of quoting, it is possible that some -readers would not have thought my rendering intrinsically ‘wanting in -dignity’, or less noble than Mr Arnold’s own, which is: - - Ah! unhappy pair! to Peleus[36] why did we give you, - To a mortal? - -In p. 52, he with very gratuitous insult remarks, that ‘Poor wretched -beasts’ is a little over-familiar; but this is no objection to it for -the ballad-manner[37]: _it is good enough_ ... _for Mr Newman’s Iliad_, -... etc.’ Yet I myself have _not_ thought it good enough for my Iliad. - -3. In p. 107, Mr Arnold gives his own translation of the discourse -between Achilles and his horse; and prefaces it with the words, ‘I will -take the passage in which both Chapman and Mr Newman _have already so -much excited our astonishment_’. But he did not quote my translation of -the noble part of the passage, consisting of 19 lines; he has merely -quoted[38] the tail of it, 5 lines; which are altogether inferior. Of -this a sufficient indication is, that Mr Gladstone has translated the 19 -and omitted the 5. I shall below give my translation parallel to Mr -Gladstone’s. The curious reader may compare it with Mr Arnold’s, if he -choose. - -4. In p. 102, Mr Arnold quotes from Chapman as a translation of ὅταν -ποτ’ ὀλώλῃ Ιλιος ἱρὴ, - - ‘When sacred Troy shall _shed her tow’rs for tears of overthrow_’; - -and adds: ‘What Mr Newman’s manner of rendering would be, you can by -this time sufficiently imagine for yourselves’. _Would be!_ Why does he -set his readers to ‘imagine’, when in fewer words he could tell them -what my version _is_? It stands thus: - - A day, when sacred Ilium | for overthrow is destin’d,— - -which may have faults unperceived by me, but is in my opinion far better -than Mr Arnold’s, and certainly did not deserve to be censured side by -side with Chapman’s absurdity. I must say plainly; a critic has no right -to hide what I have written, and stimulate his readers to despise me by -these _indirect_ methods. - -I proceed to my own metre. It is exhibited in this stanza of Campbell: - - By this the storm grew loud apace: - The waterwraith was shrieking, - And in the scowl of heav’n each face - Grew dark as they were speaking. - -Whether I use this metre well or ill, I maintain that it is essentially -a noble metre, a popular metre, a metre of great capacity. _It is -essentially the national ballad metre_, for the double rhyme is an -accident. Of _course_ it can be applied to low, as well as to high -subjects; else it would _not_ be popular: it would _not_ be ‘of a like -moral genius’ to the Homeric metre, which was available equally for the -comic poem _Margites_, for the precepts of Pythagoras, for the pious -prosaic hymn of Cleanthes, for the driest prose of a naval -catalogue[39], in short, _for all early thought_. Mr Arnold appears to -forget, though he cannot be ignorant, that prose-composition is later -than Homer, and that in the epical days every initial effort at prose -history was carried on in _Homeric doggerel_ by the Cyclic poets, who -traced the history of Troy _ab ovo_ in consecutive chronology. I say, he -is merely inadvertent, he cannot be ignorant, that the Homeric _metre_, -like my metre, subserves prosaic thought with the utmost facility; but I -hold it to be, not indavertence, but blindness, when he does not see -that Homer’s τὸν δ’ ἀπαμειβόμενος is a line of as thoroughly unaffected -_oratio pedestris_ as any verse of Pythagoras or Horace’s Satires. But -on diction I defer to speak, till I have finished the topic of metre. - -I do not say that any measure is faultless. Every measure has its -foible: mine has that fault which every uniform line must have; it is -liable to monotony. This is evaded of course, as in the hexameter or -rather as in Milton’s line, first, by varying the cæsura, secondly, by -varying certain feet, within narrow and well understood limits, thirdly, -by irregularity in the strength of accents, fourthly, by varying the -weight of the unaccented syllables also. All these things are needed, -_for the mere sake of breaking uniformity_. I will not here assert that -Homer’s many marvellous freedoms, such as ἑκηβόλου Ἀπόλλωνος, were -dictated by this aim, like those in the _Paradise Lost_; but I do say, -that it is most unjust, most unintelligent, in critics, to produce -_single_ lines from me, and criticize them as rough or weak, instead of -examining them and presenting them as part of _a mass_. How would -Shakspeare stand this sort of test? nay, or Milton? The metrical laws of -a long poem cannot be the same as of a sonnet: single verses are organic -elements of a great whole. A crag must not be cut like a gem. Mr Arnold -should remember Aristotle’s maxim, that popular eloquence (and such is -Homer’s) should be broad, rough and highly coloured, like scene -painting, not polished into delicacy like miniature. But I speak now of -metre, not yet of diction. In _any_ long and popular poem it is a -mistake to wish every line to conform severely to a few types; but to -claim this of a translator of _Homer_ is a doubly unintelligent -exaction, when Homer’s own liberties transgress all bounds; many of them -being feebly disguised by later double spellings, as εἵως, εἷος, -invented for his special accommodation. - -The Homeric verse has a rhythmical advantage over mine in less rigidity -of cæsura. Though the Hexameter was made out of two Doric lines, yet no -division of sense, no pause of the voice or thought, is exacted between -them. The chasm between two English verses is deeper. Perhaps, on the -side of syntax, a _four + three_ English metre drives harder towards -monotony than Homer’s own verse. For other reasons, it lies under a like -disadvantage, compared with Milton’s metre. The secondary cæsuras -possible in the four feet are of course less numerous than those in the -five feet, and the three-foot verse has still less variety. To my taste, -it is far more pleasing that the short line recur less regularly; just -as the parœmiac of Greek anapæsts is less pleasant in the Aristophanic -tetrameter, than when it comes frequent but not expected. This is a main -reason why I prefer Scott’s free metre to my own; yet, without rhyme, I -have not found how to use his freedom. Mr Arnold wrongly supposes me to -have overlooked his main and just objections to rhyming Homer; viz. that -so many Homeric lines are intrinsically made for isolation. In p. ix of -my Preface I called it a fatal embarrassment. But the objection applies -in its full strength only against Pope’s rhymes, not against Walter -Scott’s. - -Mr Gladstone has now laid before the public his own specimens of Homeric -translation. Their dates range from 1836 to 1859. It is possible that he -has as strong a distaste as Mr Arnold for my version; for he totally -ignores the archaic, the rugged, the boisterous element in Homer. But as -to metre, he gives me his full suffrage. He has lines with four accents, -with three, and a few with two; not one with five. On the whole, his -metre, his cadences, his varying rhymes, are those of Scott. He has more -trochaic lines than I approve. He is truthful to Homer on many sides; -and (such is the delicate grace and variety admitted by the rhyme) his -verses are more pleasing than mine. I do not hesitate to say, that if -_all_ Homer could be put before the public in the same style equally -well with his best pieces, a translation executed on my principles could -not live in the market at its side; and certainly I should spare my -labour. I add, that I myself prefer the former piece which I quote to my -own, even while I see his defects: for I hold that his graces, at which -I cannot afford to aim, more than make up for his losses. After this -confession, I frankly contrast his rendering of the two noblest passages -with mine, that the reader may see, what Mr Arnold does not show, my -weak and strong sides. - - -GLADSTONE, Iliad 4, 422 - - As when the billow gathers fast - With slow and sullen roar - Beneath the keen northwestern blast - Against the sounding shore: - First far at sea it rears its crest, - Then bursts upon the beach, - Or[40] with proud arch and swelling breast, - Where headlands outward reach, - It smites their strength, and bellowing flings - Its silver foam afar; - So, stern and thick, the Danaan kings - And soldiers marched to war. - Each leader gave his men the word; - Each warrior deep in silence heard. - So mute they march’d, thou could’st not ken - They were a mass of speaking men: - And as they strode in martial might, - Their flickering arms shot back the light. - But as at even the folded sheep - Of some rich master stand, - Ten thousand thick their place they keep, - And bide the milkman’s hand, - And more and more they bleat, the more - They hear their lamblings cry; - So, from the Trojan host, uproar - And din rose loud and high. - They were a many-voicèd throng: - Discordant accents there, - That sound from many a differing tongue, - Their differing race declare. - These, Mars had kindled for the fight; - Those, starry-ey’d Athenè’s might, - And savage Terror and Affright, - And Strife, insatiate of wars, - The sister and the mate of Mars: - Strife, that, a pigmy at her birth, - By gathering rumour fed, - Soon plants her feet upon the earth, - And in the heav’n her head. - -I add my own rendering of the same; somewhat corrected, but only in the -direction of my own principles and against Arnold’s. - - As when the surges of the deep, by Western blore uphoven, - Against the ever-booming strand dash up in roll successive; - A head of waters swelleth first aloof; then under harried - By the rough bottom, roars aloud; till, hollow at the summit, - Sputtering the briny foam abroad, the huge crest tumbleth over: - So then the lines of Danaï, successive and unceasing, - In battle’s close array mov’d on. To his own troops each leader - Gave order: dumbly went the rest (nor mightèst thou discover, - So vast a train of people held a voice within their bosom), - In silence their commanders fearing: all the ranks - wellmarshall’d - Were clad in crafty panoply, which glitter’d on their bodies. - Meantime, as sheep within the yard of some great cattle-master, - While the white milk is drain’d from them, stand round in number - countless, - And, grievèd by their lambs’ complaint, respond with bleat - incessant; - So then along their ample host arose the Troian hurly. - For neither common words spake théy, nor kindred accent utter’d; - But mingled was the tongue of men from divers places summon’d. - By Arès these were urgèd on, those by grey-ey’d Athenè, - By Fear, by Panic, and by Strife immeasurably eager, - The sister and companion[41] of hero-slaying Arès, - Who truly doth at first her crest but humble rear; thereafter, - Planting upon the ground her feet, her head in heaven fixeth. - - -GLADSTONE, Iliad 19, 403 - - Hanging low his auburn head, - Sweeping with his mane the ground, - From beneath his collar shed, - Xanthus, hark! a voice hath found, - Xanthus of the flashing feet: - Whitearm’d Herè gave the sound. - ‘Lord Achilles, strong and fleet! - Trust us, we will bear thee home; - Yet cometh nigh thy day of doom: - No doom of ours, but doom that stands - By God and mighty Fate’s commands. - ’Twas not that we were slow or slack - Patroclus lay a corpse, his back - All stript of arms by Trojan hands. - The prince of gods, whom Leto bare, - Leto with the flowing hair, - He forward fighting did the deed, - And gave to Hector glory’s meed. - In toil for thee, we will not shun - Against e’en Zephyr’s breath to run, - Swiftest of winds: but all in vain: - By God and man shalt thou be slain.’ - He spake: and here, his words among, - Erinnys bound his faltering tongue. - -Beginning with Achilles’ speech, I render the passage parallel to -Gladstone thus. - - ‘_Chestnut_ and _Spotted_! noble pair! farfamous brood of - _Spry-foot_! - In other guise now ponder ye your charioteer to rescue - Back to the troop of Danaï, when we have done with battle: - Nor leave him dead upon the field, as late ye left Patroclus’. - But him the dapplefooted steed under the yoke accosted; - (And droop’d his auburn head aside straightway; and through the - collar, - His full mane, streaming to the ground, over the yoke was - scatter’d: - Him Juno, whitearm’d goddess, then with voice Of man endowèd): - ‘Now and again we verily will save and more than save thee, - Dreadful Achilles! yet for thee the deadly day approacheth. - Not ours the guilt; but mighty God and stubborn Fate are guilty. - Not by the slowness of our feet or dulness of our spirit - The Troians did thy armour strip from shoulders of Patroclus; - But the exalted god, for whom brighthair’d Latona travail’d, - Slew him amid the foremost rank and glory gave to Hector. - Now we, in coursing, pace would keep even with breeze of Zephyr, - Which speediest they say to be: but for thyself ’tis fated - By hand of hero and of God in mighty strife to perish - So much he spake: thereat his voice the Furies stopp’d for ever. - -Now if any fool ask, Why does not Mr Gladstone translate _all_ Homer? -any fool can reply with me, Because he is Chancellor of the Exchequer. A -man who has talents and acquirements adequate to translate Homer _well_ -into _rhyme_, is almost certain to have other far more urgent calls for -the exercise of such talents. - -So much of metre. At length I come to the topic of Diction, where Mr -Arnold and I are at variance not only as to taste, but as to the main -facts of Greek literature. I had called Homer’s style quaint and -garrulous; and said that he rises and falls with his subject, being -prosaic when it is tame, and low when it is mean. I added no proof; for -I did not dream that it was needed. Mr Arnold not only absolutely denies -all this, and denies it without proof; but adds, that these assertions -prove my incompetence, and account for my total and conspicuous failure. -His whole attack upon my diction is grounded on a passage which I must -quote at length; for it is so confused in logic, that I may otherwise be -thought to garble it, pp. 36, 37. - -‘Mr Newman speaks of the more antiquated style suited to this subject. -Quaint! Antiquated! but to whom? Sir Thomas Browne is quaint, and the -diction of Chaucer is antiquated: does Mr Newman suppose that Homer -seemed quaint to Sophocles, as Chaucer’s diction seems antiquated to us? -But we cannot really know, I confess (!!), how Homer seemed to -Sophocles. Well then, to those who can tell us how he seems to them, to -the living scholar, to our only present witness on this matter—does -Homer make on the Provost of Eton, when he reads him, the impression of -a poet quaint and antiquated! does he make this impression on Professor -Thompson or Professor Jowett? When Shakspeare says, “The Princes -orgulous”, meaning “the proud princes”, we say, “This is antiquated”. -When he says of the Trojan gates, that they, - - With massy staples - And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts - _Sperr_ up the sons of Troy, - -we say, “This is both quaint and antiquated”. But does Homer ever -compose in a language, which produces on the scholar at all the same -impression as this language which I have quoted from Shakspeare? Never -once. Shakspeare is quaint and antiquated in the lines I have just -quoted; but Shakspeare, need I say it? can compose, when he likes, when -he is at his best, in a language perfectly simple, perfectly -intelligible; in a language, which, in spite of the two centuries and a -half which part its author from us, stops or surprises us as little as -the language of a contemporary. And Homer has not Shakspeare’s -variations. Homer always composes, as Shakspeare composes at his best. -Homer is always simple and intelligible, as Shakspeare is often; Homer -is never quaint and antiquated, as Shakspeare is sometimes’. - -If Mr Arnold were to lay before none but Oxford students assertions -concerning Greek literature so startlingly erroneous as are here -contained, it would not concern me to refute or protest against them. -The young men who read Homer and Sophocles and Thucydides, nay, the boys -who read Homer and Xenophon, would know his statements to be against the -most notorious and elementary fact: and the Professors, whom he quotes, -would only lose credit, if they sanctioned the use he makes of their -names. But when he publishes the book for the unlearned in Greek, among -whom I must include a great number of editors of magazines, I find Mr -Arnold to do a public wrong to literature, and a private wrong to my -book. If I am silent, such editors may easily believe that I have made -an enormous blunder in treating the dialect of Homer as antiquated. If -those who are ostensibly scholars, thus assail my version, and the great -majority of magazines and reviews ignore it, its existence can never -become known to the public; or it will exist not to be read, but to be -despised without being opened; and it must perish as many meritorious -books perish. I but lately picked up, new, and for a fraction of its -price, at a second-hand stall, a translation of the Iliad by T. S. -Brandreth, Esq. (Pickering, London), into Cowper’s metre, which is, as I -judge, immensely superior to Cowper. Its date is 1846: I had never heard -of it. It seems to have perished uncriticized, unreproved, unwept, -unknown. I do not wish my progeny to die of neglect, though I am willing -that it should be slain in battle. However, just because I address -myself to the public _unlearned_ in Greek, and because Mr Arnold lays -before _them_ a new, paradoxical, monstrously erroneous representation -of facts, with the avowed object of staying the plague of my Homer; I am -forced to reply to him. - -Knowingly or unknowingly, he leads his readers to confuse four different -questions: 1. whether Homer is thoroughly intelligible to modern -scholars; 2. whether Homer was antiquated to the Athenians of -Themistocles and Pericles; 3. whether he was thoroughly understood by -them; 4. whether he is, absolutely, an antique poet. - -I feel it rather odd, that Mr Arnold begins by complimenting me with -‘genuine learning’, and proceeds to appeal from me to the ‘living -scholar’. (What if I were bluntly to reply: ‘Well! I am the living -scholar’?) After starting the question, how Homer’s style appeared to -Sophocles, he suddenly enters a plea, under form of a concession [‘I -confess’!], as a pretence for carrying the cause into a new court, that -of the Provost of Eton and two Professors, into which court I have no -admission; and then, of his own will, pronounces a sentence in the name -of these learned men. Whether they are pleased with this parading of -their name in behalf of paradoxical error, I may well doubt: and until -they indorse it themselves, I shall treat Mr Arnold’s process as a piece -of forgery. But, be this as it may, I cannot allow him to ‘confess’ for -me against me: let him confess for himself that he does not know, and -not for me, who know perfectly well, whether Homer seemed quaint or -antiquated to Sophocles. Of course he did, as every beginner must know. -Why, if I were to write _mon_ for _man_, _londis_ for _lands_, _nesties_ -for _nests_, _libbard_ for _leopard_, _muchel_ for _much_, _nap_ for -_snap_, _green-wood shaw_ for _greenwood shade_, Mr Arnold would call me -antiquated, although every word would be intelligible. Can he possibly -be ignorant, that this exhibits but the smallest part of the chasm which -separates the Homeric dialect not merely from the Attic prose, but from -Æschylus when he borrows most from Homer? Every sentence of Homer was -more or less antiquated to Sophocles, who could no more help feeling at -every instant the foreign and antiquated character of the poetry, than -an Englishman can help feeling the same in reading Burns’ poems. Would -_mon_, _londis_, _libbard_, _withouten_, _muchel_ be antiquated or -foreign, and are Πηληϊάδαο for Πηλείδου, ὁσσάτιος for ὅσος, ἤϋτε for ὡς, -στήῃ for στῇ, τεκέεσσι for τέκνοις, τοῖσδεσσι for τοῖσδε, πολέες for -πολλοὶ, μεσοηγὺς for μεταξὺ, αἶα for γῆ, εἴβω for λείβω, and five -hundred others, less antiquated or less foreign? Homer has archaisms in -every variety; some rather recent to the Athenians, and carrying their -minds back only to Solon, as βασιλῆος for βασίλεως; others harsher, yet -varying as dialect still, as ξεῖνος for ξένος, τίε for ἐτίμα, ἀνθεμόεις -for ἀνθηρὸς, κέκλυθι for κλύε or ἄκουσον, θαμὺς for θαμινὸς or συχνὸς, -ναιετάοντες for ναίοντες or οἰκοῦντες: others varying in the root, like -a new language, as ἄφενος for πλοῦτος, ἰότης for βούλημα, τῆ for δέξαι, -under which head are heaps of strange words, as ἀκὴν, χώομαι, βιὸς, -κῆλα, μέμβλωκε, γέντο, πέπον, etc. etc. Finally comes a goodly lot of -words which to this day are most uncertain in sense. My learned -colleague Mr Malden has printed a paper on Homeric words, misunderstood -by the later poets. Buttmann has written an octavo volume (I have the -English translation, _containing 548 pages_) to discuss 106 -ill-explained Homeric words. Some of these Sophocles may have -understood, though we do not; but even if so, they were not the less -antiquated to him. If there has been any perfect traditional -understanding of Homer, we should not need to deal with so many words by -elaborate argument. On the face of the Iliad alone every learner must -know how many difficult adjectives occur: I write down on the spur of -the moment and without reference, κρήγυον, ἀργὸς, ἀδινὸς, ἄητος, αἴητος, -νώροψ, ἦνοψ, εἰλίποδες, ἕλιξ, ἑλικῶπες, ἔλλοπες, μέροπες, ἠλίβατος, -ἠλέκτωρ, αἰγίλιψ, σιγαλόεις, ἰόμωρος, ἐγχεσίμωρος, πέπονες, ἠθεῖος. If -Mr Arnold thought himself wiser than all the world of Greek scholars, he -would not appeal to them, but would surely enlighten us all: he would -tell me, for instance, what ἔλλοπες means, which Liddell and Scott do -not pretend to understand; or ἠθεῖος, of which they give three different -explanations. But he does not write as claiming an independent opinion, -when he flatly opposes me and sets me down; he does but use -surreptitiously the name of the ‘living scholar’ against me. - -But I have only begun to describe the marked chasm often separating -Homer’s dialect from everything Attic. It has a wide diversity of -grammatical inflections, far beyond such vowel changes of dialect as -answer to our provincial pronunciations. This begins with new -case-endings to the nouns; in -θι, -θεν, -δε, -φι, proceeds to very -peculiar pronominal forms, and then to strange or irregular verbal -inflections, infinitives in -μεν, -μεναι, imperfects in -εσκε, presents -in -αθω, and an immensity of strange adverbs and conjunctions. In -Thiersch’s Greek Grammar, after the Accidence of common Greek is added -as supplement an Homeric Grammar: and in it the Homeric Noun and Verb -occupy (in the English Translation) 206 octavo pages. Who ever heard of -a Spenserian Grammar? How many pages could be needed to explain -Chaucer’s grammatical deviations from modern English? The bare fact of -Thiersch having written so copious a grammar will enable even the -unlearned to understand the monstrous misrepresentation of Homer’s -dialect, on which Mr Arnold has based his condemnation of my Homeric -diction. Not wishing to face the plain and undeniable facts which I have -here recounted, Mr Arnold makes a ‘confession’ that we know nothing -about them! and then appeals to three learned men whether Homer is -antiquated to _them_; and expounds this to mean, _intelligible to them_! -Well: if they have learned _modern_ Greek, of course they may understand -it; but Attic Greek alone will not teach it to them. Neither will it -teach them _Homer’s_ Greek. The difference of the two is in some -directions so vast, that they may deserve to be called two languages as -much as Portuguese and Spanish. - -Much as I have written, a large side of the argument remains still -untouched. The orthography of Homer was revolutionized in adapting it to -Hellenic use, and in the process not only were the grammatical forms -tampered with, but at least one consonant was suppressed. I am sure Mr -Arnold has heard of the Digamma, though he does not see it in the -current Homeric text. By the re-establishment of this letter, no small -addition would be made to the ‘oddity’ of the sound to the ears of -Sophocles. That the unlearned in Greek may understand this, I add, that -what with us is written _eoika_, _oikon_, _oinos_, _hekas_, _eorga_, -_eeipe_, _eleli_χθη, were with the poet _wewoika_, _wīkon_, _wīnos_, -_wekas_ (or _swekas_?), _weworga_, _eweipe_, _eweli_χθη[42]; and so with -very many other words, in which either the metre or the grammatical -formation helps us to detect a lost consonant, and the analogy of other -dialects or languages assures us that it is _w_ which has been lost. Nor -is this all; but in certain words _sw_ seems to have vanished. What in -our text is _hoi_, _heos_, _hekuros_, were probably _woi_ and _swoi_, -_weos_ and _sweos_, _swekuros_. Moreover the received spelling of many -other words is corrupt: for instance, _deos_, _deidoika_, _eddeisen_, -_periddeisas_, _addees_. The true root must have had the form _dwe_ or -_dre_ or _dhe_. That the consonant lost was really _w_, is asserted by -Benfey from the Sanscrit _dvish_. Hence the true forms are _dweos_, -_dedwoika_, _edweisen_, etc.... Next, the initial _l_ of Homer had in -some words a stronger pronunciation, whether λλ or χλ, as in λλιταὶ, -λλίσσομαι, λλωτὸς, λλιτανεύω. I have met with the opinion that the -consonant lost in _anax_ is not _w_ but _k_; and that Homer’s _kanax_ is -connected with English _king_. The relations of _wergon_, _weworga_, -_wrexai_, to English _work_ and _wrought_ must strike everyone; but I do -not here press the phenomena of the Homeric _r_ (although it became _br_ -in strong Æolism), because they do not differ from those in Attic. The -Attic forms εἴληφα, εἴλεγμαι for λέληφα, etc., point to a time when the -initial λ of the roots was a double letter. A root λλαβ would explain -Homer’s ἔλλαβε. If λλ[43] approached to its Welsh sound, that is, to χλ, -it is not wonderful that such a pronunciation as οφρᾰ λλαβωμεν was -possible: but it is singular that the ὕδατι χλιαρῷ of Attic is written -λιαρῷ in our Homeric text, though the metre needs a double consonant. -Such phenomena as χλιαρὸς and λιαρὸς, εἴβω and λειβω, ἴα and μία, -εἴμαρμαι and ἔμμορε, αἶα and γαῖα, γέντο for ἕλετο, ἰωκὴ and ἴωξις with -διώκω, need to be reconsidered in connection. The εἰς ἅλα ἇλτο of our -Homer was perhaps εἰς ἅλα σάλλτο: when λλ was changed into λ, they -compensated by circumflexing the vowel. I might add the query, Is it so -certain that his θεαων was θ_eāwōn_, and not θ_eārōn_, analogous to -Latin _dearum_? But dropping here everything that has the slightest -uncertainty, the mere restoration of the _w_ where it is most necessary, -makes a startling addition to the antiquated sound of the Homeric text. -The reciters of Homer in Athens must have dropped the _w_, since it is -never written. Nor indeed would Sophocles have introduced in his -_Trachiniæ_, ἁ δέ οἱ φίλα δάμαρ ... leaving a hiatus most offensive to -the Attics, in mere imitation of Homer, if he had been accustomed to -hear from the reciters, _de woi_ or _de swoi_. In other words also, as -in οὐλόμενος for ὀλόμενος, later poets have slavishly followed Homer -into irregularities suggested by his peculiar metre. Whether Homer’s -ᾱθανατος, αμμορος ... rose out of ανθάνατος, ἄνμορος ... is wholly -unimportant when we remember his Ᾱπόλλωνος. - -But this leads to remark on the acuteness of Mr Arnold’s ear. I need not -ask whether he recites the Α differently in Ἆρες, Ἄρες, and in, Ᾰπόλλων -Ᾱπολλωνος. He will not allow anything antiquated in Homer; and therefore -it is certain that he recites, - - αιδοιος τε μοι εσσι, φιλε εκυρε, δεινος τε - and—ουδε εοικε— - -as they are printed, and admires the rhythm. When he endures with -exemplary patience such hiatuses, such dactyls as ἑεκυ, ουδεε, such a -spondee as ρε δει, I can hardly wonder at his complacency in his own -spondees “Between,” “To a.” He finds nothing wrong in και πεδια λωτευντα -or πολλα λισσομενη. But Homer sang, - - φιλε swεκυρε δwεινος τε—ουδε wεwοικε— - και πεδια λλωτευντα ... πολλα λλισσομενη. - -Mr Arnold is not satisfied with destroying Quantity alone. After -theoretically substituting Accent for it in his hexameters, he robs us -of Accent also; and presents to us the syllables “to a,” _both short_ -and _both necessarily unaccented_, for a Spondee, in a pattern piece -seven lines long, and with an express and gratuitous remark, that in -using ‘to a’ for a Spondee, he has perhaps relied too much on accent. I -hold up these phenomena in Mr Arnold as a warning to all scholars, of -the pit of delusion into which they will fall, if they allow themselves -to talk fine about the ‘Homeric rhythm’ _as now heard_, and the duty of -a translator to reproduce something of it. - -It is not merely the sound and the metre of Homer, which are impaired by -the loss of his radical _w_; in extreme cases the sense also is -confused. Thus if a scholar be asked, what is the meaning of ἐείσατο in -the Iliad? he will have to reply: If it stands for _eweisato_, it means, -‘he was like’, and is related to the English root _wis_ and _wit_, Germ. -_wiss_, Lat. _vid_; but it may also mean ‘he went’—a very eccentric -Homerism,—in which case we should perhaps write it _eyeisato_, as in old -English we have _he yode_ or _yede_ instead of _he goed_, _gaed_, since -too the current root in Greek and Latin _i_ (go) may be accepted as -_ye_, answering to German _geh_, English _go_. Thus two words, -_eweisato_, ‘he was like’, _eyeisato_, ‘he went’, are confounded in our -text. I will add, that in the Homeric - - —ἤϋτε wέθνεα (_y_)εῖσι—(_Il._ 2, 87) - - —διὰ πρὸ δὲ (_y_)είσατο καὶ τῆς (_Il._ 4, 138) - -_my_ ear misses the consonant, though Mr Arnold’s (it seems) does not. -If we were ordered to read _dat ting_ in Chaucer for _that thing_, it -would at first ‘surprise’ us as ‘grotesque’, but after this objection -had vanished, we should still feel it ‘antiquated’. The confusion of -_thick_ and _tick_, _thread_ and _tread_, may illustrate the possible -effect of dropping the _w_ in Homer. I observe that Benfey’s Greek Root -Lexicon has a list of 454 digammated words, most of which are Homeric. -But it is quite needless to press the argument to its full. - -If as much learning had been spent on the double λ and on the _y_ and -_h_ of Homer, as on the digamma, it might perhaps now be conceded that -we have lost, not one, but three or four consonants from his text. That -λ in λύω or λούω was ever a complex sound in Greek, I see nothing to -indicate; hence _that_ λ, and the λ of λιταὶ, λιαρὸς, seem to have been -different consonants in Homer, as _l_ and _ll_ in Welsh. As to _h_ and -_y_ I assert nothing, except that critics appear too hastily to infer, -that if a consonant has disappeared, it must needs be _w_. It is -credible that the Greek _h_ was once strong enough to stop hiatus or -elision, as the English, and much more the Asiatic _h_. The later -Greeks, after turning the character H into a vowel, seem to have had no -idea of a consonant _h_ in the middle of a word, nor any means of -writing the consonant _y_. Since G passes through _gh_ into the sounds -_h_, _w_, _y_, _f_ (as in English and German is obvious), it is easy to -confound them all under the compendious word ‘digamma’. I should be glad -to know that Homer’s forms were as well understood by modern scholars as -Mr Arnold lays down. - -On his quotation from Shakspeare, I remark, 1. ‘Orgulous’, from French -‘orgueilleux’, is intelligible to all who know French, and is comparable -to Sicilian words in Æschylus. 2. It is contrary to fact to say, that -Homer has not words, and words in great plenty, as unintelligible to -later Greeks, as ‘orgulous’ to us. 3. _Sperr_, for _Bar_, as _Splash_ -for _Plash_, is much less than the diversity which separates Homer from -the spoken Attic. What is σμικρὸς for μικρὸς to compare with ἠβαιὸς for -μικρός? 4. Mr Arnold (as I understand him) blames Shakspeare for being -sometimes antiquated: I do not blame him, nor yet Homer for the same; -but neither can I admit the contrast which he asserts. He says: -‘Shakspeare can compose, when he is at his best, in a language perfectly -intelligible, in spite of the two centuries and a half which part him -from us. _Homer has not Shakspeare’s variations_: he is never -antiquated, as Shakspeare is sometimes’. I certainly find the very same -variations in Homer, as Mr Arnold finds in Shakspeare. My reader -unlearned in Greek might hastily infer from the facts just laid before -him, that Homer is always equally strange to a purely Attic ear: but is -not so. The dialects of Greece did indeed differ strongly, as broad -Scotch from English; yet as we know, Burns is sometimes perfectly -intelligible to an Englishman, sometimes quite unintelligible. In spite -of Homer’s occasional wide receding from Attic speech, he as often comes -close to it. For instance, in the first piece quoted above from -Gladstone, the simile occupying five (Homeric) lines would _almost_ go -down in Sophocles, if the Tragedian had chosen to use the metre. There -is but one out-and-out Homeric word in it (ἐπασσύτερος): and even that -is used once in an Æschylean chorus. There are no strange inflections, -and not a single digamma is sensibly lost. Its peculiarities are only --εϊ for ει, ἐὸν for ὂν, and δέ τε for δέ, which could not embarrass the -hearer as to the sense. I myself reproduce much the same result. Thus in -my translation of these five lines I have the antiquated words _blore_ -for _blast_, _harry_ for _harass_ (_harrow_, _worry_), and the -antiquated participle _hoven_ from _heave_, as _cloven_, _woven_ from -_cleave_, _weave_. The whole has thus just a tinge of antiquity, as had -the Homeric passage to the Attics, without any need of aid from a -Glossary. But at other times the aid is occasionally convenient, just as -in Homer or Shakspeare. - -Mr Arnold plays fallaciously on the words familiar and unfamiliar. -Homer’s words may have been _familiar_ to the Athenians (_i.e._ often -heard), even when they were _not_ understood, but, at most, were guessed -at; or when, being understood, they were still felt and known to be -utterly foreign. Of course, when thus ‘familiar’, they could not -‘surprise’ the Athenians, as Mr Arnold complains that my renderings -surprise the English. Let mine be heard as Pope or even Cowper has been -heard, and no one will be ‘surprised’. - -Antiquated words are understood well by some, ill by others, not at all -by a third class; hence it is difficult to decide the limits of a -glossary. Mr Arnold speaks scornfully of me (he wonders _with whom Mr -Newman can have lived_), that I use the words which I use, and explain -those which I explain. He censures my little Glossary, for containing -three words which he did not know, and some others, which, he says, are -‘familiar to all the world’. It is clear, he will never want a stone to -throw at me. I suppose I am often guilty of keeping low company. I have -found ladies whom no one would guess to be so ill-educated, who yet do -not distinctly know what _lusty_ means; but have an uncomfortable -feeling that it is very near to _lustful_; and understand _grisly_ only -in the sense of _grizzled_, _grey_. Great numbers mistake the sense of -Buxom, Imp, Dapper, deplorably. I no more wrote my Glossary than my -translation for persons so highly educated as Mr Arnold. - -But I must proceed to remark: Homer might have been as unintelligible to -Pericles, as was the court poet of king Crœsus, and yet it might be -highly improper to translate him into an old English dialect; namely, if -he had been the typical poet of a logical and refined age. _Here is the -real question_;—is he absolutely antique, or only antiquated relatively, -as Euripides is now antiquated? A modern Greek statesman, accomplished -for every purpose of modern business, might find himself quite perplexed -by the infinitives, the numerous participles, the optatives, the -datives, by the particle ἂν, and by the whole syntax of Euripides, as -also by many special words; but this would never justify us in -translating Euripides into any but a most refined style. Was Homer of -this class? I say, that he _not only was_ antiquated, relatively to -Pericles, but _is also_ absolutely antique, being the poet of a -barbarian age. Antiquity in poets is not (as Horace stupidly imagines in -the argument of the horse’s tail) a question of years, but of intrinsic -qualities. Homer sang to a wholly unfastidious audience, very -susceptible to the marvellous, very unalive to the ridiculous, capable -of swallowing with reverence the most grotesque conceptions. Hence -nothing is easier than to turn Homer to ridicule. The fun which Lucian -made of his mythology, a rhetorical critic like Mr Arnold could make of -his diction, if he understood it as he understands mine. He takes credit -to himself for _not_ ridiculing me; and is not aware, that I could not -be like Homer without being easy to ridicule. An intelligent child is -the second-best reader of Homer. The best of all is a scholar of highly -masculine taste; the worst of all is a fastidious and refined man, to -whom everything quaint seems ignoble and contemptible. - -I might have supposed that Mr Arnold thinks Homer to be a polished -drawing-room poet, like Pope, when I read in him this astonishing -sentence, p. 35. ‘Search the English language for a word which does -_not_ apply to Homer, and you could not fix on a better word than -_quaint_’. But I am taken aback at finding him praise the diction of -Chapman’s translation in contrast to mine. Now I never open Chapman, -without being offended at his pushing Homer’s quaintness most -unnecessarily into the grotesque. Thus in Mr Gladstone’s first passage -above, where Homer says that the sea ‘sputters out the foam’, Chapman -makes it, ‘_all her back in bristles set, spits_ every way _her_ foam’, -obtruding what may remind one of a cat or a stoat. I hold _sputter_ to -be epical[44], because it is strong; but _spit_ is feeble and mean. In -passing, I observe that the universal praise given to Chapman as -‘Homeric’ (a praise which I have too absolutely repeated, perhaps -through false shame of depreciating my only rival) is a testimony to me -that I rightly appreciate Homeric style; for my style is Chapman’s -softened, purged of conceits and made far more melodious. Mr Arnold -leaves me to wonder, how, with his disgust at me, he can avoid feeling -tenfold disgust at Chapman; and to wonder also what he _means_, by so -blankly contradicting my statement that Homer is quaint; and why he so -vehemently resents it. He does not vouchsafe to me or to his readers one -particle of disproof or of explanation. - -I regard it as quaint in Homer to call Juno _white-arm’d goddess_ and -_large-ey’d_. (I have not rendered βοῶπις _ox-ey’d_, because in a case -of doubt I shrank to obtrude anything so grotesque to us.) It is quaint -to say, ‘the lord of bright-haired Juno lightens’ for ‘it lightens’; or -‘my heart in my _shaggy_ bosom is divided’, for ‘I doubt’: quaint to -call waves _wet_, milk _white_, blood _dusky_, horses _singlehoofed_, a -hero’s hand _broad_, words _winged_, Vulcan _Lobfoot_ (Κυλλοποδίων), a -maiden _fair-ankled_, the Greeks _wellgreav’d_, a spear _longshadowy_, -battle and council _man-ennobling_, one’s knees _dear_, and many other -epithets. Mr Arnold most gratuitously asserts that the sense of these -had evaporated to the Athenians. If that were true, it would not signify -to this argument. Δαιμόνιος (possessed by an elf or dæmon) so lost its -sense in Attic talk, that although Æschylus has it in its true meaning, -some college tutors (I am told) render ὦ δαιμόνιε in Plato, ‘my very -good sir!’ This is surely no good reason for mistranslating the word in -Homer. If Mr Arnold could prove (what he certainly cannot) that -Sophocles had forgotten the derivation of ἐϋκνημῖδες and ἐϋμμελίης, and -understood by the former nothing but ‘full armed’ and by the latter (as -he says) nothing but ‘war-like’, this would not justify his blame of me -for rendering the words correctly. If the whole Greek nation by long -familiarity had become inobservant of Homer’s ‘oddities’ (conceding this -for the moment), that also would be no fault of mine. That Homer _is_ -extremely peculiar, even if the Greeks had become deadened to the sense -of it, the proof on all sides is overpowering. - -It is very quaint to say, ‘the outwork (or rampart) of the teeth’ -instead of ‘the lips’. If Mr Arnold will call it ‘portentous’ in my -English, let him produce some shadow of reason for denying it to be -portentous in Greek. Many phrases are so quaint as to be almost -untranslatable, as μήστωρ φόβοιο (deviser of fear?) μήστωρ ἀϋτῆς -(deviser of outcry?): others are quaint to the verge of being comical, -as to call a man an _equipoise_ (ἀτάλαντος) to a god, and to praise eyes -for having a _curl_ in them[45]. It is quaint to make Juno call Jupiter -αἰνότατε (grimmest? direst?), whether she is in good or bad humour with -him, and to call a Vision _ghastly_, when it is sent with a pleasant -message. It is astonishingly quaint to tell how many oxen every fringe -of Athene’s ægis was worth.—It is quaint to call Patroclus ‘a great -simpleton’, for not foreseeing that he would lose his life in rushing to -the rescue of his countrymen. (I cannot receive Mr Arnold’s suggested -Biblical correction ‘Thou fool’! which he thinks grander: first, because -grave moral rebuke is utterly out of place; secondly, because the Greek -cannot mean this;—it means infantine simplicity, and has precisely the -colour of the word which I have used.)—It is quaint to say: ‘Patroclus -kindled a great fire, _godlike man_’! or, ‘Automedon held up the meat, -_divine_ Achilles slic’d it’: quaint to address a young friend as -‘Oh[46] pippin’! or ‘Oh softheart’! or ‘Oh pet’! whichever is the true -translation. It is quaint to compare Ajax to an ass whom boys are -belabouring, Ulysses to a pet ram, Agamemnon in two lines to three gods, -and in the third line to a bull; the Myrmidons to wasps, Achilles to a -grampus chasing little fishes, Antilochus to a wolf which kills a dog -and runs away. Menelaus striding over Patroclus’s body to a heifer -defending her first-born. It is quaint to say that Menelaus was as brave -as a bloodsucking fly, that Agamemnon’s sobs came thick as flashes of -lightning; and that the Trojan mares, while running, groaned like -overflowing rivers. All such similes come from a mind quick to discern -similarities, but _very dull to feel incongruities_; unaware therefore -that it is on a verge where the sublime easily turns into the ludicrous; -a mind and heart inevitably quaint to the very core. What is it in -Vulcan, when he would comfort his mother under Jupiter’s threat, to make -jokes about the severe mauling which he himself formerly received, and -his terror lest she should be now beaten? Still more quaint (if -_rollicking_ is not the word), is the address by which Jupiter tries to -ingratiate himself with Juno: viz. he recounts to her all his unlawful -amours, declaring that in none of them was he so smitten as now. I have -not enough of the γενναῖος εὐηθεία, the barbarian simple-heartedness, -needed by a reader of Homer, to get through this speech with gravity. -What shall I call it, certainly much worse than quaint, that the poet -adds: Jupiter was more enamoured than at his _stolen_ embrace in their -first bed ‘secretly from their dear parents’? But to develop Homer’s -inexhaustible quaintnesses, of which Mr Arnold denies the existence, -seems to me to need a long treatise. It is not to be expected, that one -who is blind to superficial facts so very prominent as those which I -have recounted, should retain any delicate perception of the highly -coloured, intense, and very eccentric diction of Homer, even if he has -ever understood it, which he forces me to doubt. He sees nothing ‘odd’ -in κυνὸς κακομηχάνου, or in κυνόμυια, ‘thou dogfly’! He replaces to his -imagination the flesh and blood of the noble barbarian by a dim feeble -spiritless outline. - -I have not adduced, in proof of Homer’s quaintness, the monstrous simile -given to us in Iliad 13, 754; viz. Hector ‘darted forward screaming like -a snowy mountain, and flew through the Trojans and allies’: for I cannot -believe that the poet wrote anything so absurd. Rather than admit this, -I have suggested that the text is corrupt, and that for ὄρεϊ νιφόεντι we -should read ὀρνέῳ θύοντι, ‘darted forth screaming _like a raging bird_’. -Yet, as far as I know, I am the first man that has here impugned the -text. Mr Brandreth is faithful in his rendering, except that he says -_shouting_ for _screaming_: - - ‘He said; and like a snowy mountain, rush’d - Shouting; and flew through Trojans and allies.’ - -Chapman, Cowper, and Pope strain and twist the words to an impossible -sense, putting in something about _white plume_, which they fancy -suggested a snowy mountain; but they evidently accept the Greek as it -stands, unhesitatingly. I claim this phenomenon in proof that to all -commentators and interpreters hitherto Homer’s quaintness has been such -an _axiom_, that they have even acquiesced unsuspiciously in an -extravagance which goes far beyond oddity. Moreover the reader may augur -by my opposite treatment of the passage, with what discernment Mr Arnold -condemns me of obtruding upon Homer gratuitous oddities which equal the -conceits of Chapman. - -But, while thus vindicating _Quaintness_ as an essential quality of -Homer, do I regard it as a weakness to be apologized for? Certainly not; -for it is a condition of his cardinal excellences. He could not -otherwise be _Picturesque_ as he is. So volatile is his mind, that what -would be a Metaphor in a more logical and cultivated age, with him riots -in Simile which overflows its banks. His similes not merely go -beyond[47] the mark of likeness; in extreme cases they even turn into -contrariety. If he were not so carried away by his illustration, as to -forget what he is illustrating (which belongs to a quaint mind), he -would never paint for us such full and splendid pictures. Where a -logical later poet would have said that Menelaus - - With _eagle-eye_ survey’d the field, - -the mere metaphor contenting him; Homer says: - - Gazing around on every side, in fashion of an eagle, - Which, of all heaven’s fowl, they say, to scan the earth is - keenest: - Whose eye, when loftiest he hangs, not the swift hare escapeth, - Lurking amid a leaf-clad bush: but straight at it he souseth, - Unerring; and with crooked gripe doth quickly rieve its spirit. - -I feel this long simile to be a disturbance of the logical balance, such -as belongs to the lively eye of the savage, whose observation is -intense, his concentration of reasoning powers feeble. Without this, we -should never have got anything so picturesque. - -Homer never sees things _in the same proportions_ as we see them. To -omit his digressions, and what I may call his ‘impertinences’, in order -to give to his argument that which Mr Arnold is pleased to call the -proper ‘balance’, is to value our own logical minds, more than his -picturesque[48] but illogical mind. - -Mr Arnold says that I am not quaint, but grotesque, in my rendering of -κυνὸς κακομηχάνου. I do not hold the phrase to be quaint: to me it is -excessively coarse. When Jupiter calls Juno ‘a bitch’, of course he -means a snarling cur; hence my rendering, ‘vixen’ (or she-fox), is there -perfect, since we say _vixen_ of an irascible woman. But Helen had no -such evil tempers, and beyond a doubt she meant to ascribe impurity to -herself. I have twice committed a pious fraud by making her call herself -‘a vixen’, where ‘bitch’ is the only faithful rendering; and Mr Arnold, -instead of thanking me for throwing a thin veil over Homer’s deformity, -assails me for my phrase as intolerably grotesque. - -He further forbids me to invent new compound adjectives, as -fair-thron’d, rill-bestream’d; because they strike us as new, though -Homer’s epithets (he says) did not so strike the Greeks: hence they -derange attention from the main question. I hold this doctrine of his -(conceding his fact for a moment) to be destructive of all translation -whatever, into prose or poetry. When Homer tells us that Achilles’ -horses were munching lotus and parsley, Pope renders it by ‘the horses -grazed’, and does not say on what. Using Mr Arnold’s principles, he -might defend himself by arguing: ‘The Greeks, being familiar with such -horsefood, were not struck by it as new, as my reader would be. I was -afraid of telling him _what_ the horses were eating, lest it should -derange the balance of his mind, and injuriously divert him from the -main idea of the sentence’. But, I find, readers are indignant on -learning Pope’s suppression: they feel that he has defrauded them of a -piece of interesting information.—In short, how _can_ an Englishman read -any Greek composition and be affected by it as Greeks were? In a piece -of Euripides my imagination is caught by many things, which he never -intended or calculated for the prominence which they actually get in my -mind. This or that absurdity in mythology, which passed with him as -matter of course, may monopolize my main attention. Our minds are not -passive recipients of this or that poet’s influence; but the poet is the -material on which our minds actively work. If an unlearned reader thinks -it very ‘odd’ of Homer (the first time he hears it) to call Aurora -‘fair-thron’d’, so does a boy learning Greek think it odd to call her -εὔθρονος. Mr Arnold ought to blot every odd Homeric epithet out of his -_Greek_ Homer (or never lend the copy to a youthful learner) if he -desires me to expunge ‘fair-thron’d’ from the translation. Nay, I think -he should conceal that the Morning was esteemed as a goddess, though she -had no altars or sacrifice. It is _all_ odd. But that is just why people -want to read an English Homer,—to know all his oddities, exactly as -learned men do. He is the phenomenon to be studied. His peculiarities, -pleasant or unpleasant, are to be made known, precisely because of his -great eminence and his substantial deeply seated worth. Mr Arnold writes -like a timid biographer, fearful to let too much of his friend come out. -So much as to the substance. As to mere words, here also I hold the very -reverse of Mr Arnold’s doctrine. I do not feel free to translate -οὐρανομήκης by ‘heaven-kissing’, precisely _because_ Shakspeare has used -the last word. It is his property, as ἐϋκνημῖδες, ἐϋμμελίης, κυδιάνειρα, -etc., are Homer’s property. I could not use it without being felt to -_quote_ Shakspeare, which would be highly inappropriate in a Homeric -translation. But _if_ nobody had ever yet used the phrase -‘heaven-kissing’ (or if it were current without any proprietor) _then_ I -should be quite free to use it as a rendering of οὐρανομήκης. I cannot -assent to a critic killing the vital powers of our tongue. If Shakspeare -might invent the compound ‘heaven-kissing’, or ‘man-ennobling’, so might -William Wordsworth or Matthew Arnold; and so might I. Inspiration is not -dead, nor yet is the English language. - -Mr Arnold is slow to understand what I think very obvious. Let me then -put a case. What if I were to scold a missionary for rendering in Feejee -the phrase ‘kingdom of heaven’ and ‘Lamb of God’ accurately; also -‘saints’ and other words _characteristic of the New Testament_? I might -urge against him: ‘This and that sounds very _odd_ to the Feejees: that -cannot be right, for it did _not_ seem odd to the Nicene bishops. The -latter had forgotten that βασιλεία meant “kingdom”; they took the phrase -“kingdom of God” collectively to mean “the Church”. The phrase did not -surprise them. As to “Lambs”, the Feejees are not accustomed to -sacrifice, and cannot be expected to know of themselves what “Lamb of -God” means, as Hebrews did. The courtiers of Constantine thought it very -natural to be called ἅγιοι, for they were accustomed to think every -baptised person ἅγιος; but to the baptised courtiers of Feejee it really -seems very _odd_ to be called _saints_. You disturb the balance of their -judgment’. - -The missionary might reply: ‘You seemed to be ashamed of the oddities of -the Gospel. I am not. They grow out of its excellences and cannot be -separated. By avoiding a few eccentric phrases you will do little to -remove the deep-seated eccentricity of its very essence. Odd and -eccentric it will remain, unless you despoil it of its heart, and reduce -it to a fashionable philosophy’. And just so do I reply to Mr Arnold. -The Homeric style (whether it be that of an individual or of an age) is -peculiar, is ‘odd’, if Mr Arnold like the word, to the very core. Its -eccentricities in epithet are mere efflorescences of its essential -eccentricity. If Homer could cry out to us, I doubt not he would say, as -Oliver Cromwell to the painter, ‘Paint me just I am, _wart and all_’: -but if the true Homer could reappear, I am sure Mr Arnold would start -from him just as a bishop of Rome from a fisherman apostle. If a -translator of the Bible honours the book by his close rendering of its -characteristics, however ‘odd’, so do I honour Homer by the same. Those -characteristics, the moment I produce them, Mr Arnold calls _ignoble_. -Well: be it so; but I am not to blame for them. They exist whether Mr -Arnold likes them or not. - -I will here observe that he bids me paraphrase τανύπεπλος -(trailing-robed) into something like, ‘Let gorgeous Tragedy With -sceptred pall come sweeping by’. I deliberately judge, that to -paraphrase an otiose epithet is the very worst thing that can be done: -to omit it entirely would be better. I object even to Mr Gladstone’s - - ... whom Leto bare, - Leto with the flowing hair. - -For the repetition overdoes the prominence of the epithet. Still more -extravagant is Mr Arnold in wishing me to turn ‘single-hoofed horses’ in -to ‘something which _as little surprises us_ as “Gallop apace, you -fiery-footed steeds”’: p. 96. To reproduce Shakspeare would be in any -case a ‘surprising’ mode of translating Homer: but the principle which -changes ‘single-hoofed’ into a different epithet which the translator -thinks _better_, is precisely that which for more than two centuries has -made nearly all English translation worthless. To throw the poet into -your crucible, and bring out old Pelias young, is not a hopeful process. -I had thought, the manly taste of this day had outgrown the idea that a -translator’s business is to melt up the old coin and stamp it with a -modern image. I am wondering that I should have to write against such -notions: I would not take the trouble, only that they come against me -from an Oxford Professor of Poetry. - -At the same time, his doctrine, as I have said, goes far beyond compound -epithets. Whether I say ‘motley-helmèd Hector’ or ‘Hector of the motley -helm’, ‘silver-footed Thetis’ or ‘Thetis of the silver foot’, -‘man-ennobling combat’ or ‘combat which ennobles man’, the novelty is so -nearly on a par, that he cannot condemn one and justify the other on -this score. Even Pope falls far short of the false taste which would -plane down every Homeric prominence: for he prizes an elegant epithet -like ‘silver-footed’, however new and odd. - -From such a Homer as Mr Arnold’s specimens and principles would give us, -no one could _learn_ anything; no one could have any motive for reading -the translation. He smooths down the stamp of Homer’s coin, till nothing -is left even for microscopic examination. When he forbids me (p. 96) to -let my reader know that Homer calls horses ‘single-hoofed’, of course he -would suppress also the epithets ‘white milk’, ‘dusky blood’, ‘dear -knees’, ‘dear life’, etc. His process obliterates everything -characteristic, great or small. - -Mr Arnold condemns my translating certain names of horses. He says (p. -58): ‘Mr Newman calls Xanthus _Chesnut_; as he calls Balius _Spotted_ -and Podarga _Spry-foot_: which is as if a Frenchman were to call Miss -Nightingale _Mdelle. Rossignol_, or Mr Bright _M. Clair_’. He is very -wanting in discrimination. If I had translated Hector into _Possessor_ -or Agamemnon into _Highmind_, his censure would be just. A Miss White -may be a brunette, a Miss Brown may be a blonde: we utter the proper -names of men and women without any remembrance of their intrinsic -meaning. But it is different with many names of domestic animals. We -never call a dog _Spot_, unless he is spotted; nor without consciousness -that the name expresses his peculiarity. No one would give to a black -horse the name Chesnut; nor, if he had called a chesnut horse by the -name Chesnut, would he ever forget the meaning of the name while he used -it. The Greeks called a chesnut horse _xanthos_ and a spotted horse -_balios_; therefore, until Mr Arnold proves the contrary, I believe that -they never read the names of Achilles’ two horses without a sense of -their meaning. Hence the names ought to be translated; while Hector and -Laomedon ought not. The same reasoning applies to Podarga, though I do -not certainly understand ἀργός. I have taken it to mean _sprightly_. - -Mr Arnold further asserts, that Homer is never ‘garrulous’. Allowing -that too many others agree with me, he attributes our error to giving -too much weight to a sentence in Horace! I admire Horace as an -ode-writer, but I do not revere him as a critic, any more than as a -moral philosopher. I say that Homer is garrulous, because I see and feel -it. Mr Arnold puts me into a most unwelcome position. I have a right to -say, I have some enthusiasm for Homer. In the midst of numerous urgent -calls of duty and taste, I devoted every possible quarter of an hour for -two years and a half to translate the Iliad, toiling unremittingly in my -vacations and in my walks, and going to large expenses of money, in -order to put the book before the unlearned; and this, though I am not a -Professor of Poetry nor even of Greek. Yet now I am forced to appear as -Homer’s disparager and accuser! But if Homer were always a poet, he -could not be, what he is, so many other things beside poet. As the -Egyptians paint in their tombs processes of art, not because they are -beautiful or grand, but from a mere love of imitating; so Homer narrates -perpetually from a mere love of chatting. In how thoroughly Egyptian a -way does he tell the process of cutting up an ox and making _kebâb_; the -process of bringing a boat to anchor and carefully putting by the -tackle; the process of taking out a shawl from a chest, where it lies at -the very bottom! With what glee he repeats the secret talk of the gods; -and can tell all about the toilet of Juno. Every particular of trifling -actions comes out with him, as, the opening of a door or box with a key. -He tells who made Juno’s earrings or veil or the shield of Ajax, the -history of Agamemnon’s breast-plate, and in what detail a hero puts on -his pieces of armour. I would not press the chattiness of Pandarus, -Glaucus, Nestor, Æneas, in the midst of battle; I might press his -description of wounds. Indeed I have said enough, and more than enough, -against Mr Arnold’s novel, unsupported, paradoxical assertion.—But this -is connected with another subject. I called Homer’s manner ‘direct’: Mr -Arnold (if I understand) would supersede this by his own epithet -‘rapid’. But I cannot admit the exchange: Homer is often the opposite of -rapid. Amplification is his characteristic, as it must be of every -improvisatore, every popular orator: condensation indeed is improper for -anything but written style; written to be read privately. But I regard -as Homer’s worst defect, his lingering over scenes of endless carnage -and painful wounds. He knows to half an inch where one hero hits another -and how deep. They arm: they approach: they encounter: we have to listen -to stereotype details again and again. Such a style is anything but -‘rapid’. Homer’s garrulity often leads him into it; yet he can do far -better, as in a part of the fight over Patroclus’s body, and other -splendid passages. - -Garrulity often vents itself in expletives. Mr Arnold selects for -animadversion this line of mine (p. 41), - - ‘A thousand fires along the plain, _I say_, that night were - gleaming’. - -He says: ‘This may be the genuine style of ballad poetry, but it is -_not_ the style of Homer’. I reply; my use of expletives is moderate -indeed compared to Homer’s. Mr Arnold writes, as if quite unaware that -such words as the intensely prosaic ἄρα, and its abbreviations ἂρ, ῥα, -with τοι, τε, δὴ, μάλα, ἦ, ἦ ῥα νυ, περ, overflow in epic style; and -that a pupil who has mastered the very copious stock of Attic particles, -is taken quite aback by the extravagant number in Homer. Our expletives -are generally more offensive, because longer. My principle is, to admit -only such expletives as _add energy_, and savour of antiquity. To the -feeble expletives of mean ditties I am not prone. I once heard from an -eminent counsellor the first lesson of young lawyers, in the following -doggerel: - - He who holds his lands in fee, - Need neither quake nor quiver: - For I humbly conceive, look ye, do ye see? - He holds his lands for ever. - -The ‘humbly conceiving’ certainly outdoes Homer. Yet if the poet had -chosen (as he _might_ have chosen) to make Polydamas or Glaucus say: - - Ὅστις ἐπετράφθη τέμενος πίστει βασιλῆος, - φημί τοι, οὗτος ἀνὴρ οὔτ’ ἂρ τρέμει οὔτε φοβεῖται· - δὴ μάλα γάρ ῥα ἑὰς κρατέοι κεν ἐσαιὲν ἀρούρας: - -I rather think the following would be a fair prose rendering: ‘Whoso -hath been entrusted with a demesne under pledge with the king (I tell -you); this man neither trembleth (you see) nor feareth: for (look ye!) -he (verily) may hold (you see) his lands for ever’. - -Since Mr Arnold momentarily appeals to me on the chasm between Attic and -Homeric Greek, I turn the last piece into a style _far less_ widely -separated from modern English than Homer from Thucydides. - - Dat mon, quhich hauldeth Kyngis-af - Londis yn féo, niver - (I tell ’e) feereth aught; sith hee - Doth hauld hys londis yver. - -I certainly do _not_ recommend this style to a translator, yet it would -have its advantage. Even with a smaller change of dialect it would aid -us over Helen’s self-piercing denunciation, ‘approaching to Christian -penitence’, as some have judged it. - - Quoth she, I am a gramsome bitch, - If woman bitch may bee. - -But in behalf of the poet I must avow: when one considers how dramatic -he is, it is marvellous how little in him can offend. For this very -reason he is above needing tender treatment from a translator, but can -bear faithful rendering, not only better than Shakspeare but better than -Pindar or Sophocles. - -When Mr Arnold denies that Homer is ever prosaic or homely, his own -specimens of translation put me into despair of convincing him; for they -seem to me a very anthology of prosaic flatness. Phrases, which are not -in themselves bad, if they were elevated by something in the syntax or -rhythm distinguishing them from prose, become in him prose out-and-out. -‘To Peleus why did we give you, to a mortal’? ‘In the plain _there_ were -kindled a thousand fires; by each one _there_ sate fifty men’. [At least -he might have left out the expletive.] ‘By their chariots stood the -steeds, and champed the white barley; while their masters sate by the -fire and waited for morning’. ‘Us, whose portion for ever Zeus has made -it, from youth _right up_ to age, to be winding skeins of grievous wars, -till _every soul of us_ perish’. The words which I here italicize, seem -to me below noble ballad. What shall I say of ‘I bethink me what the -Trojan men and Trojan women might murmur’. ‘Sacred Troy shall _go to -destruction_’. ‘Or bear pails to the well of Messeϊs’. ‘See, the wife of -Hector, that great pre-eminent captain of the horsemen of Troy, _in the -day they fought_ for their city’, for, ‘_who was_ captain in the day _on -which_——’. ‘Let me be dead and the earth be mounded (?) above me, ere I -hear thy cries, and thy captivity[49] _told of_’. ‘By no slow pace or -want of swiftness _of ours_[50] did the Trojans _obtain to strip_ the -arms of Patroclus’. ‘Here I am destined to perish, far from my father -and mother dear; _for all that_, I will not’, etc. ‘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?’ One who regards all this -to be high poetry,—emphatically ‘noble’,—may well think τὸν δ’ -ἀπαμειβόμενος or ‘with him there came forty black galleys’, or the -broiling of the beef collops, to be such. When Mr Arnold regards ‘no -want of swiftness of _ours_’; ‘for all that’, in the sense of -nevertheless; ‘_all_ for fear’, _i.e._ because of the fear; _not_ to be -prosaic: my readers, however ignorant of Greek, will dispense with -further argument from me. Mr Arnold’s inability to discern prose in -Greek is not to be trusted. - -But I see something more in this phenomenon. Mr Arnold is an original -poet; and, as such, certainly uses a diction far more elevated than he -here puts forward to represent Homer. He calls his Homeric diction -_plain_ and _simple_. Interpreting these words from the contrast of Mr -Arnold’s own poems, I claim his suffrage as on my side, that Homer is -often in a style much lower than what the moderns esteem to be poetical. -But I protest, that he carries it _very much_ too far, and levels the -noblest down to the most negligent style of Homer. The poet is _not_ -always so ‘ignoble’, as the unlearned might infer from my critic’s -specimens. He never drops so low as Shakspeare; yet if he were as -sustained as Virgil or Milton, he would with it lose his vast -superiority over these, his rich variety. That the whole first book of -the Iliad is pitched lower than the rest, though it has vigorous -descriptions, is denoted by the total absence of simile in it: for -Homer’s kindling is always indicated by simile. The second book rises on -the first, until the catalogue of ships, which (as if to atone for its -flatness) is ushered in by five consecutive similes. In the third and -fourth books the poet continues to rise, and almost culminates in the -fifth; but then seems to restrain himself, lest nothing grander be left -for Achilles. Although I do not believe in a unity of authorship between -the Odyssey and the Iliad, yet in the Iliad itself I see such unity, -that I cannot doubt its negligences to be from art. (The monstrous -speech of Nestor in the 11th book is a case by itself. About 100 lines -have perhaps been added later, for reasons other than literary.) I -observe that just before the poet is about to bring out Achilles in his -utmost splendour, he has three-quarters of a book comparatively tame, -with a ridiculous legend told by Agamemnon in order to cast his own sins -upon Fate. If Shakspeare introduces coarse wrangling, buffoonery, or -mean superstition, no one claims or wishes this to be in a high diction -or tragic rhythm; and why should anyone wish such a thing from Homer or -Homer’s translator? I find nothing here in the poet to apologize for; -but much cause for indignation, when the unlearned public is misled by -translators or by critics to expect delicacy and elegance out of place. -But I beg the unlearned to judge for himself whether Homer _can_ have -intended such lines as the following for poetry, and whether I am bound -to make them any better than I do. - - Then visiting he urged each man with words, - Mesthles and Glaucus and Medon and Thersilochus - And Asteropæus and Deisenor and Hippothoüs - And Phorkys and Chromius and Ennomus the augur. - -He has lines in plenty as little elevated. If they came often in masses, -it would be best to translate them into avowed prose: but since gleams -of poetry break out amid what is flattest, I have no choice but to -imitate Homer in retaining a uniform, but easy and unpretending metre. -Mr Arnold calls my metre ‘slip-shod’: if it can rise into grandeur when -needful, the epithet is a praise. - -Of course I hold the Iliad to be _generally_ noble and grand. Very many -of the poet’s conceptions were grand to him, mean to us: especially is -he mean and absurd in scenes of conflict between the gods. Besides, he -is disgusting and horrible occasionally in word and thought; as when -Hecuba wishes to ‘cling on Achilles and eat up his liver’; when (as -Jupiter says) Juno would gladly eat Priam’s children raw; when Jupiter -hanged Juno up and fastened a pair of anvils to her feet; also in the -description of dreadful wounds, and the treatment which (Priam says) -dogs give to an old man’s corpse. The descriptions of Vulcan and -Thersites are ignoble; so is the mode of mourning for Hector adopted by -Priam; so is the treatment of the populace by Ulysses, which does but -reflect the manners of the day. I am not now blaming Homer for these -things; but I say no treatment can elevate the subject; the translator -must not be expected to make noble what is not so intrinsically. - -If anyone think that I am disparaging Homer, let me remind him of the -horrid grossnesses of Shakspeare, which yet are not allowed to lessen -our admiration of Shakspeare’s grandeur. The Homer of the Iliad is -morally pure and often very tender; but to expect refinement and -universal delicacy of expression in that stage of civilization is quite -anachronistic and unreasonable. As in earlier England, so in Homeric -Greece, even high poetry partook of the coarseness of society. This was -probably inevitable, precisely because Greek epic poetry was so -_natural_. - -Mr Arnold says that I make Homer’s nobleness _eminently ignoble_. This -suggests to me to quote a passage, not because I think myself -particularly successful in it, but because the poet is evidently aiming -to be grand, when his mightiest hero puts forth mighty boastings, -offensive to some of the gods. It is the speech of Achilles over the -dead body of Asteropæus (Iliad 21, 184). Whether I make it ignoble, by -my diction or my metre, the reader must judge. - - Lie as thou art. ’Tis hard for thee to strive against the - children - Of overmatching Saturn’s son, tho’ offspring of a River. - Thou boastest, that thy origin is from a Stream broad-flówing; - I boast, from mighty Jupiter to trace my first beginning. - A man who o’er the Myrmidons holdeth wide rule, begat me, - Peleus; whose father Æacus by Jupiter was gotten. - Rivers, that trickle to the sea, than Jupiter are weaker; - So, than the progeny of Jove, weaker a River’s offspring. - Yea, if he aught avail’d to help, behold! a mighty River - Beside thee here: but none can fight with Jove, the child of - Saturn. - Not royal Acheloïus with him may play the equal. - Nor e’en the amplebosom’d strength of deeply-flowing Ocean: - Tho’ from his fulness every Sea and every River welleth, - And all the ever-bubbling springs and eke their vasty sources. - Yet at the lightning-bolt of Jove doth even Ocean shudder, - And at the direful thunder-clap, when from the sky it crasheth. - -Mr Arnold has in some respects attacked me discreetly; I mean, where he -has said that which damages me with his readers, and yet leaves me no -possible reply. What is easier than for one to call another ignoble? -what more damaging? what harder to refute? Then when he speaks of my -‘metrical exploits’ how can I be offended? to what have I to reply? His -words are expressive either of compliment or of contempt; but in either -case are untangible. Again: when he would show how tender he has been of -my honour, and how unwilling to expose my enormities, he says: p. 57: ‘I -will by no means search in Mr Newman’s version for passages likely to -raise a laugh: that search, _alas!_ would be far too easy’; I find the -pity which the word _alas!_ expresses, to be very clever, and very -effective against me. But, I think, he was not discreet, but very -unwise, in making dogmatic statements on the ground of erudition, many -of which I have exposed; and about which much more remains to be said -than space will allow me. - -In his denial that Homer is ‘garrulous’, he complains that so many think -him to be ‘diffuse’. Mr Arnold, it seems, is unaware of that very -prominent peculiarity; which suits ill even to Mr Gladstone’s style. -Thus, where Homer said (and I said) in a passage quoted above, ‘people -that have _a voice in their bosom_’, Mr Gladstone has only ‘_speaking_ -men’. I have noticed the epithet _shaggy_ as quaint, in ‘His heart in -his shaggy bosom was divided’, where, in a moral thought, a physical -epithet is obtruded. But even if ‘shaggy’ be dropped, it remains diffuse -(and characteristically so) to say ‘my _heart in my bosom_ is divided’, -for ‘I doubt’. So—‘I will speak what _my heart in my bosom_ bids me’. -So, Homer makes men think κατὰ φρένα καὶ κατὰ θυμὸν, ‘in their heart -_and mind_’; and deprives them of ‘mind and soul’. Also: ‘this appeared -to him _in his mind_ to be the best counsel’. Mr Arnold assumes tones of -great superiority; but every school-boy knows that diffuseness is a -distinguishing characteristic of Homer. Again, the poet’s epithets are -often selected by their convenience for his metre; sometimes perhaps -even appropriated for no other cause. No one has ever given any better -reason why Diomedes and Menelaus are almost exclusively called βοὴν -ἀγαθὸς, except that it suits the metre. This belongs to the -improvisatore, the negligent, the ballad style. The word ἐϋμμελίης, -which I with others render ‘ashen-speared’, is said of Priam, of -Panthus, and of sons of Panthus. Mr Arnold rebukes me, p. 106, for -violating my own principles. ‘I say, on the other hand, that εὐμμελίω -has _not_ the effect[51] of a peculiarity in the original, while -“ashen-speared” _has_ the effect of a peculiarity in the English: and -“warlike” is as marking an equivalent as I dare give for ἐϋμμελίω, _for -fear of disturbing the balance of expression_ in Homer’s sentence’. Mr -Arnold cannot write a sentence on Greek, without showing an ignorance -hard to excuse in one who thus comes forward as a vituperating censor. -_Warlike_ is a word current in the lips and books of all Englishmen: -ἐϋμμελίης is a word _never_ used, never, I believe, in all Greek -literature, by anyone but Homer. If he does but turn to Liddell and -Scott, he will see their statement, that the Attic form εὐμελίας is only -to be found in grammars. He is here, as always, wrong in his facts. The -word is most singular in Greek; more singular by far than -‘ashen-spear’d’ in English, because it is more obscure, as is its -special application to one or two persons: and in truth I have doubted -whether we any better understand Eumelian Priam than Gerenian Nestor.—Mr -Arnold presently imputes to me the opinion that χιτὼν means ‘a cloak’, -_which he does not dispute_; but if I had thought it necessary to be -literal, I must have rendered χαλκοχίτωνες brazen-shirted. He suggests -to me the rendering ‘brazen-coated’, which I have used in Il. 4, 285 and -elsewhere. I have also used ‘brazen-clad’, and I now prefer -‘brazen-mail’d’. I here wish only to press that Mr Arnold’s criticism -proceeds on a false fact. Homer’s epithet was _not_ a familiar word at -Athens (in any other sense than as Burns or Virgil may be familiar to Mr -Arnold), but was strange, unknown even to their poets; hence his demand -that I shall use a word already familiar in English poetry is doubly -baseless. The later poets of Greece have plenty of words beginning with -χαλκο-; but this one word is exclusively Homer’s.—Everything that I have -now said, may be repeated still more pointedly concerning ἐϋκνημῖδες, -inasmuch as directing attention to leg-armour is peculiarly quaint. No -one in all Greek literature (as far as I know) names the word but Homer; -and yet Mr Arnold turns on me with his ever reiterated, ever -unsupported, assertions and censures, of course assuming that ‘the -scholar’ is with him. (I have no theory at hand, to explain why he -regards his own word to suffice without attempt at proof.) The epithet -is intensely peculiar; and I observe that Mr Arnold has not dared to -suggest a translation. It is clear to me that he is ashamed of my poet’s -oddities; and has no mode of escaping from them but by bluntly denying -facts. Equally peculiar to Homer are the words κυδιάνειρα, τανύπεπλος -and twenty others, equally unknown to Attic the peculiar compound -μελιήδης (adopted from Homer by Pindar), about all which he carps at me -on false grounds. But I pass these, and speak a little more at length -about μέροπες. - -Will the reader allow me to vary these tedious details, by imagining a -conversation between the Aristophanic Socrates and his clownish pupil -Strepsiades. I suppose the philosopher to be instructing him in the -higher Greek, Homer being the text. - -_Soc._ Now Streppy, tell me what μέροπες ἄνθρωποι means? - -_Strep._ Let me see: μέροπες? that must mean ‘half-faced’. - -_Soc._ Nonsense, silly fellow: think again. - -_Strep._ Well then: μέροπες, half-eyed, squinting. - -_Soc._ No; you are playing the fool: it is not our ὀπ in ὄψις, ὄψομαι, -κάτοπτρον, but another sort of ὀπ. - -_Strep._ Why, you yesterday told me that οἴνοπα was ‘wine-faced’, and -αἴθοπα ‘blazing-faced’, something like our αἰθίοψ. - -_Soc._ Ah! well: it is not so wonderful that you go wrong. It is true, -there is also νῶροψ, στέροψ, ἦνοψ. Those might mislead you: μέροψ is -rather peculiar. Now cannot you think of any characteristic of mankind, -which μέροπες will express. How do men differ from other animals? - -_Strep._ I have it! I heard it from your young friend Euclid. Μέροψ -ἐστὶν ἄνθρωπος, ‘man is a cooking animal’. - -_Soc._ You stupid lout! what are you at? what do you mean? - -_Strep._ Why, μέροψ, from μείρω, I distribute, ὄψον sauce. - -_Soc._ No, no: ὄψον has the ὀψ, with radical immovable ς in it; but here -ὀπ is the root, and ς is movable. - -_Strep._ Now I have got it; μείρω, I distribute, ὀπὸν, juice, rennet. - -_Soc._ Wretched man! you must forget your larder and your dairy, if ever -you are to learn grammar.—Come Streppy: leave rustic words, and think of -the language of the gods. Did you ever hear of the brilliant goddess -Circe and of her ὄπα καλὴν? - -_Strep._ Oh yes; Circe and her beautiful face. - -_Soc._ I told you, _no_! you forgetful fellow. It is ANOTHER ὀπ. Now I -will ask you in a different way. Do you know why we call fishes ἔλλοπες? - -_Strep._ I suppose, because they are cased in scales. - -_Soc._ That is not it. (And yet I am not sure. Perhaps the fellow is -right, after all.) Well, we will not speak any more of ἔλλοπες. But did -you never hear in Euripides, οὐκ ἔχω γεγωνεῖν ὄπα? What does that mean? - -_Strep._ ‘I am not able to shout out, ὦ πόποι’. - -_Soc._ No, no, Streppy: but Euripides often uses ὄπα. He takes it from -Homer, and it is akin to ἐπ, not to _our_ ὀπ and much less to πόποι. -What does ἔπη mean? - -_Strep._ It means such lines as the diviners sing. - -_Soc._ So it does in Attic, but Homer uses it for ῥήματα, words; indeed -we also sometimes. - -_Strep._ Yes, yes, I do know it. All is right. - -_Soc._ I think you do: well, and ὂψ means a voice, φωνὴ. - -_Strep._ How you learned men like to puzzle us! I often have heard ὀπι, -ὄπα in the Tragedies, but never quite understood it. What a pity they do -not say φωνὴ when they mean φωνή. - -_Soc._ We have at last made one step. Now what is μέροψ? μέροπες -ἄνθρωποι. - -_Strep._ Μείρω, I divide, ὄπα, φωνὴν, voice; ‘voice-dividing’: what -_can_ that mean? - -_Soc._ You have heard a wild dog howl, and a tame dog bark: tell me how -they differ. - -_Strep._ The wild dog gives a long long _oo-oo_, which changes like a -trumpet if you push your hand up and down it; and the tame dog says -_bow, wow, wow_, like two or three panpipes blown one after another. - -_Soc._ Exactly; you see the tame dog is humanized: he _divides his -voice_ into syllables, as men do. ‘Voice-dividing’ means ‘speaking in -syllables’. - -_Strep._ Oh, how clever you are! - -_Soc._ Well then, you understand; ‘Voice-dividing’ means _articulating_. - -Mr Arnold will see in the Scholiast on Iliad 1, 250, precisely this -order of analysis for μέροπες. It seems to me to give not a traditional -but a grammatical explanation. Be that as it may, it indicates that a -Greek had to pass through _exactly the same process_ in order to expound -μέροπες, as an Englishman to get sense out of ‘voice-dividing’. The word -is twice used by Æschylus, who affects Homeric words, and once by -Euripides (Iph. T.) in the connection πολέσιν μερόπων, where the very -unusual Ionism πολέσιν shows in how Homeric a region is the poet’s -fancy. No other word ending in οψ except μέροψ can be confidently -assigned to the root ὂψ, a voice. Ἦνοψ in Homer (itself of most -uncertain sense and derivation) is generally referred to the other ὄψ. -The sense of ἔλλοψ again[52] is very uncertain. Every way therefore -μέροψ is ‘odd’ and obscure. The phrase ‘articulating’ is utterly prosaic -and inadmissible. _Vocal_ is rather too Latinized for my style, and -besides, is apt to mean _melodious_. The phrase ‘voice-dividing’ is -indeed easier to us than μέροπες can have been to the Athenians, because -we all know what _voice_ means, but they had to be taught scholastically -what ὄπα meant; nor would easily guess that ὂψ in μέροψ had a sense, -differing from ὂψ in (ἀ)στέροψ οἶνοψ, αἶθοψ, αἶθίοψ, νῶροψ (ἦνοψ), -χάροψ. Finally, since μέροπες is only found in the plural, it remains an -open question, whether it does not mean ‘speaking various languages’. Mr -Arnold will find that Stephanus and Scapula treat it as doubtful, though -Liddell and Scott do not name the second interpretation. I desired to -leave in the English all the uncertainty of the Greek: but my critic is -unencumbered with such cares. - -Hitherto I have been unwillingly thrown into nothing but antagonism to -Mr Arnold, who thereby at least adds tenfold value to his praise, and -makes me proud when he declares that the _structure_ of my sentences is -good and Homeric. For this I give the credit to my metre, which alone -confers on me this cardinal advantage. But in turn I will compliment Mr -Arnold at the expense of some other critics. He does know, and they do -not, the difference of _flowing_ and _smooth_. A mountain torrent is -flowing, but often very rough; such is Homer. The ‘staircases of -Neptune’ on the canal of Languedoc are smooth, but do not flow: you have -to descend abruptly from each level to the next. It would be unjust to -say absolutely, that such is Pope’s smoothness; yet often, I feel, this -censure would not be too severe. The rhyme forces him to so frequent a -change of the nominative, that he becomes painfully discontinuous, where -Homer is what Aristotle calls ‘long-linked’. At the same time, in our -language, in order to impart a flowing style, good structure does not -suffice. A principle is needed, unknown to the Greeks; viz. the natural -divisions of the sentence oratorically, must coincide with the divisions -of the verse musically. To attain this _always_ in a long poem, is very -difficult to a translator who is scrupulous as to tampering with the -sense. I have not always been successful in this. But before any critic -passes on me the general sentence that I am ‘deficient in flow’, let him -count up the proportion of instances in which he can justly make the -complaint, and mark whether they occur in elevated passages. - -I shall now speak of the peculiarities of my diction, under three heads: -1. old or antiquated words; 2. coarse words expressive of outward -actions, but having no moral colour; 3. words of which the sense has -degenerated in modern days. - -1. Mr Arnold appears to regard what is _antiquated_ as _ignoble_. I -think him, as usual, in fundamental error. In general the nobler words -come from ancient style, and in no case can it be said that old words -(as such) are ignoble. To introduce such terms as _whereat_, -_therefrom_, _quoth_, _beholden_, _steed_, _erst_, _anon_, _anent_, into -the midst of style which in all other respects is modern and prosaic, -would be like to that which we often hear from half-educated people. The -want of harmony makes us regard it as low-minded and uncouth. From this -cause (as I suspect) has stolen into Mr Arnold’s mind the fallacy, that -the words themselves are uncouth[53]. But the words are excellent, if -only they are in proper keeping with the general style.—Now it is very -possible, that in some passages, few or many, I am open to the charge of -having mixed old and new style unskilfully; but I cannot admit that the -old words (as such) are ignoble. No one speaks of Spenser’s dialect, -nay, nor of Thomson’s; although with Thomson it was assumed, exactly as -by me, but to a far greater extent, and without any such necessity as -urges me. As I have stated in my preface, a broad tinge of antiquity in -the style is essential, to make Homer’s barbaric puerilities and -eccentricities less offensive. (Even Mr Arnold would admit this, if he -admitted my _facts_: but he denies that there is anything eccentric, -antique, quaint, barbaric in Homer: that is his _only_ way of resisting -my conclusion.) If Mr Gladstone were able to give his valuable time to -work out an entire Iliad in his refined modern style, I feel confident -that he would find it impossible to deal faithfully with the eccentric -phraseology and with the negligent parts of the poem. I have the -testimony of an unfriendly reviewer, that I am the first and _only_ -translator that has dared to give Homer’s constant epithets and not -conceal his forms of thought: of course I could not have done this in -modern style. The lisping of a child is well enough from a child, but is -disgusting in a full-grown man. Cowper and Pope systematically cut out -from Homer whatever they cannot make _stately_, and harmonize with -modern style: even Mr Brandreth often shrinks, though he is brave enough -to say _ox-eyed Juno_. Who then can doubt the extreme unfitness of their -metre and of their modern diction? My opposers never fairly meet the -argument. Mr Arnold, when most gratuitously censuring my mild rendering -of κυνὸς κακομηχάνου ὀκρυοέσσης, _does not dare to suggest any English -for it himself_. Even Mr Brandreth skips it. It is not merely offensive -words; but the purest and simplest phrases, as a man’s ‘dear life’, -‘dear knees’, or his ‘tightly-built house’, are a stumbling-block to -translators. No stronger proof is necessary, or perhaps is possible, -than these phenomena give, that to shed an antique hue over Homer is of -first necessity to a translator: without it, _injustice_ is done both to -the reader and to the poet. Whether I have managed the style well, is a -separate question, and is matter of detail. I may have sometimes done -well, sometimes ill; but I claim that my critics shall judge me from a -broader ground, and shall not pertinaciously go on comparing my version -with modern style, and condemning me as (what they are pleased to call) -_inelegant_ because it is not like refined modern poetry, when it -specially avoids to be such. They never deal thus with Thomson or -Chatterton, any more than with Shakspeare or Spenser. - -There is no sharp distinction possible between the foreign and the -antiquated in language. What is obsolete with us, may still live -somewhere: as, what in Greek is called Poetic or Homeric, may at the -same time be living Æolic. So, whether I take a word from Spenser or -from Scotland, is generally unimportant. I do not remember more than -four Scotch words, which I have occasionally adopted for convenience; -viz. Callant, young man; Canny, right-minded; Bonny, handsome; to Skirl, -to cry shrilly. A trochaic word, which I cannot get in English, is -sometimes urgently needed. It is astonishing to me that those who ought -to know both what a large mass of antique and foreign-sounding words an -Athenian found in Homer, and how many Doric or Sicilian forms as well as -Homeric words the Greek tragedians _on principle_ brought into their -songs, should make the outcry that they do against my very limited use -of that which has an antique or Scotch sound. Classical scholars ought -to set their faces against the double heresy, of trying to enforce, that -foreign poetry, however various, shall be all rendered into one English -dialect, and that this shall, in order of words and in diction, closely -approximate to polished prose. From an Oxford Professor I should have -expected the very opposite spirit to that which Mr Arnold shows. He -ought to know and feel that one glory of Greek poetry is its great -internal variety. He admits the principle that old words are a source of -ennoblement for diction, when he extols the Bible as his standard: for -surely he claims no rhetorical inspiration for the translators. Words -which have come to us in a sacred connection, no doubt, gain a sacred -hue, but they must not be allowed to desecrate other old and excellent -words. Mr Arnold informs his Oxford hearers that ‘his Bibliolatry is -perhaps excessive’. So the public will judge, if he say that _wench_, -_whore_, _pate_, _pot_, _gin_, _damn_, _busybody_, _audience_, -_principality_, _generation_, are epical noble words because they are in -the Bible, and that _lief_, _ken_, _in sooth_, _grim_, _stalwart_, -_gait_, _guise_, _eld_, _hie_, _erst_, are bad, because they are not -there. Nine times out of ten, what are called ‘poetical’ words, are -nothing but antique words, and are made ignoble by Mr Arnold’s doctrine. -His very arbitrary condemnation of _eld_, _lief_, _in sooth_, _gait_, -_gentle friend_ in one passage of mine as ‘bad words’, is probably due -to his monomaniac fancy that there is nothing quaint and nothing antique -in Homer. Excellent and noble as are these words which he rebukes, -excellent even for Æschylus, I should doubt the propriety of using them -in the dialogue of Euripides; on the level of which he seems to think -Homer to be. - -2. Our language, especially the Saxon part of it, abounds with vigorous -monosyllabic verbs, and dissyllabic frequentatives derived from them, -indicative of strong physical action. For these words (which, I make no -doubt, Mr Arnold regards as ignoble plebeians), I claim Quiritarian -rights: but I do not wish them to displace patricians from high service. -Such verbs as _sweat_, _haul_, _plump_, _maul_, _yell_, _bang_, -_splash_, _smash_, _thump_, _tug_, _scud_, _sprawl_, _spank_, etc., I -hold (in their purely physical sense) to be eminently epical: for the -epic revels in descriptions of violent action to which they are suited. -Intense muscular exertion in every form, intense physical action of the -surrounding elements, with intense ascription or description of size or -colour;—together make up an immense fraction of the poem. To cut out -these words is to emasculate the epic. Even Pope admits such words. My -eye in turning his pages was just now caught by: ‘They tug, they sweat’. -Who will say that ‘tug’, ‘sweat’ are admissible, but ‘bang’, ‘smash’, -‘sputter’ are inadmissible? Mr Arnold resents my saying that Homer is -often homely. He is homely expressly because he is natural. The epical -diction admits both the gigantesque and the homely: it inexorably -refuses the conventional, under which is comprised a vast mass of what -some wrongly call elegant. But while I justify the use of homely words -in a primary physical, I depreciate them in a secondary moral sense. Mr -Arnold clearly is dull to this distinction, or he would not utter -against me the following taunt, p. 91: - -‘_To grunt and sweat under a weary load_ does perfectly well where it -comes in Shakspeare: but if the translator of Homer, who will hardly -have wound up our minds to the pitch at which these words of Hamlet find -them, were to employ, when he has to speak of Homer’s heroes under the -load of calamity, this figure of “grunting” and “sweating”, we should -say, _He Newmanizes_’. - -Mr Arnold here not only makes a mistake, he propagates a slander; as if -I had ever used such words as _grunt_ and _sweat_ morally. If Homer in -the Iliad spoke of grunting swine, as he does of sweating steeds, so -should I. As the coarse metaphors here quoted from Shakspeare are -utterly opposed to Homer’s style, to obtrude them on him would be a -gross offence. Mr Arnold sends his readers away with the belief that -this is my practice, though he has not dared to assert it. I _bear_ such -coarseness in Shakspeare, not because I am ‘wound up to a high pitch’ by -him, ‘borne away by a mighty current’ (which Mr Arnold, with ingenious -unfairness to me, assumes to be certain in a reader of Shakspeare and -all but impossible in a reader of Homer), but because I know, that in -Shakspeare’s time all literature was coarse, as was the speech of -courtiers and of the queen herself. Mr Arnold imputes to me Shakspeare’s -coarseness, from which I instinctively shrink; and when his logic leads -to the conclusion, ‘he Shakspearizes’, he with gratuitous rancour turns -it into ‘he Newmanizes’. - -Some words which with the Biblical translators seem to have been noble, -I should not now dare to use in the primitive sense. For instance, ‘His -iniquity shall fall upon his own _pate_’. Yet I think _pate_ a good -metaphorical word and have used it of the sea-waves, in a bold passage, -Il. 13, 795: - - Then ón rush’d théy, with weight and mass like to a troublous - whirlwind, - Which from the thundercloud of Jove down on the campaign - plumpeth, - And doth the briny flood bestir with an unearthly uproar: - Then in the everbrawling sea full many a billow splasheth, - Hollow, and bald with hoary _pate_, one racing after other. - -Is there really no ‘mighty current’ here, to sweep off petty criticism? - -I have a remark on the strong physical word ‘plumpeth’ here used. It is -fundamentally Milton’s, ‘plump down he drops ten thousand fathom deep’; -_plumb_ and _plump_ in this sense are clearly the same root. I confess I -have not been able to find the _verb_ in an old writer, though it is so -common now. Old writers do not say ‘to plumb down’, but ‘to _drop_ plumb -down’. Perhaps in a second edition (if I reach to it), I may alter the -words to ‘plumb ... droppeth’, on this ground; but I do turn sick at the -mawkishness of critics, one of whom, who ought to know better, tells me -that the word _plump_ reminds him ‘of the crinolined hoyden of a -boarding-school’!! If he had said, ‘It is too like the phrase of a -sailor, of a peasant, of a schoolboy’, this objection would be at least -intelligible. However: the word is intended to express the _violent -impact of a body descending from aloft_, and it _does_ express it. - -Mr Arnold censures me for representing Achilles as _yelling_. He is -depicted by the poet as in the most violent physical rage, boiling over -with passion and wholly uncontrouled. He smacks his two thighs at once; -he rolls on the ground, μέγας μεγαλωστὶ; he defiles his hair with dust; -he rends it; he grinds his teeth; fire flashes from his eyes; but—he may -not ‘yell’, that would not be _comme il faut_! We shall agree, that in -peace nothing so becomes a hero as modest stillness; but that ‘Peleus’ -son, insatiate of combat’, full of the fiercest pent-up passion, should -vent a little of it in a _yell_, seems to me quite in place. That the -Greek ἰάχων is not necessarily to be so rendered, I am aware; but it is -a very vigorous word, like _peal_ and _shriek_; neither of which would -here suit. I sometimes render it _skirl_: but ‘battle-yell’ is a -received rightful phrase. Achilles is not a stately Virgilian _pius -Æneas_, but is a far wilder barbarian. - -After Mr Arnold has laid upon me the sins of Shakspeare, he amazes me by -adding, p. 92: ‘The idiomatic language of Shakspeare, such language as -“prate of his _whereabout_”, “_jump_ the life to come”, “the damnation -of his _taking-off_”, “_quietus make_ with a bare bodkin”, should be -carefully observed by the translator of Homer; although in every case he -will have to decide for himself, whether the use, by him, of -Shakspeare’s liberty, will or will not clash with his indispensable duty -of nobleness’. - -Of the Shakspearianisms here italicized by Mr Arnold, there is not one -which I could endure to adopt. ‘His whereabout’, I regard as the -flattest prose. (The word _prate_ is a plebeian which I admit in its own -low places; but how Mr Arnold can approve of it, consistently with his -attacks on me, I do not understand.) Damnation and Taking-off (for Guilt -and Murder), and Jump, I absolutely reject; and ‘quietus make’ would be -nothing but an utterly inadmissible _quotation_ from Shakspeare. _Jump_ -as an active verb is to me monstrous, but _Jump_ is just the sort of -modern prose word which is not noble. _Leap_, _Bound_, for great action, -_Skip_, _Frisk_, _Gambol_ for smaller, are all good. - -I have shown against Mr Arnold—(1) that Homer was out-and-out antiquated -to the Athenians, even when perfectly understood by them; (2) that his -conceptions, similes, phraseology and epithets are habitually quaint, -strange, unparalleled in Greek literature; and pardonable only to -semibarbarism; (3) that they are intimately related to his noblest -excellences; (4) that many words are so peculiar as to be still doubtful -to us; (5) I have indicated that some of his descriptions and -conceptions are horrible to us, though they are not so to his barbaric -auditors; (6) that considerable portions of the poem are not poetry, but -rhythmical prose like Horace’s Satires, and are interesting to us not as -poetry but as portraying the manners or sentiments of the day. I now add -(7) what is inevitable in all high and barbaric poetry, perhaps in all -high poetry, many of his energetic descriptions are expressed in _coarse -physical words_. I do not here attempt proof, for it might need a -treatise: but I give one illustration; Il. 13, 136, Τρῶες προὒτυψαν -ἀολλέες. Cowper, misled by the _ignis fatuus_ of ‘stateliness’, renders -it absurdly - - _The pow’rs of Ilium_ gave the first assault, - _Embattled_ close; - -but it is strictly, ‘The Trojans _knocked-forward_ (or, thumped, -_butted_, forward) in close pack’. The verb is too coarse for later -polished prose, and even the adjective is very strong (_packed -together_). I believe, that ‘Forward in _pack_ the Troians _pitch’d_’, -would not be really unfaithful to the Homeric colour; and I maintain -that ‘Forward in mass the Troians pitch’d’, would be an irreprovable -rendering. - -Dryden in this respect is in entire harmony with Homeric style. No -critic deals fairly with me in isolating any of these strong words, and -then appealing to his readers whether I am not ignoble. Hereby he -deprives me of the ἀγὼν, the ‘mighty current’ of Mr Arnold, and he -misstates the problem; which is, whether the word is suitable, _then_ -and _there_, for the work required of it, as the coalman at the pit, the -clown in the furrow, the huntsman in the open field. - -3. There is a small number of words not natural plebeians, but -patricians on which a most unjust bill of attainder has been passed, -which I seek to reverse. On the first which I name, Mr Arnold will side -with me, because it is a Biblical word, _wench_. In Lancashire I believe -that at the age of about sixteen a ‘girl’ turns into ‘a wench’, or as we -say ‘a young woman’. In Homer, ‘girl’ and ‘young woman’ are alike -inadmissible; ‘maid’ or ‘maiden’ will not always suit, and ‘wench’ is -the natural word. I do not know that I have used it three times, but I -claim a right of using it, and protest against allowing the heroes of -slang to deprive us of excellent words by their perverse misuse. If the -imaginations of some men are always in satire and in low slang, so much -the worse for them: but the more we yield to such demands, the more will -be exacted. I expect, before long, to be told that _brick_ is an ignoble -word, meaning a jolly fellow, and that _sell_, _cut_ are out of place in -Homer. My metre, it seems, is inadmissible with some, because it is the -metre of Yankee Doodle! as if Homer’s metre were not that of the -Margites. Every noble poem is liable to be travestied, as the Iliad and -Æschylus and Shakspeare have been. Every burlesque writer uses the noble -metre, and caricatures the noble style. Mr Arnold says, I must not -render τανύπεπλος ‘trailing-rob’d’, because it reminds him of ‘long -petticoats sweeping a dirty pavement’. What a confession as to the state -of his imagination! Why not, of ‘a queen’s robe trailing on a marble -pavement’? Did he never read - - πέπλον μὲν κατέχευεν ἑανὸν πατρὸς ἐτ’ οὔδει? - -I have digressed: I return to words which have been misunderstood. A -second word is of more importance, _Imp_; which properly means a Graft. -The best translation of ὦ Λήδας ἔρνος to my mind, is, ‘O Imp of Leda’! -for neither ‘bud of Leda’, nor ‘scion of Leda’ satisfy me: much less -‘sprig’ or ‘shoot of Leda’. The theological writers so often used the -phrase ‘imp of Satan’ for ‘child of the devil’, that (since Bunyan?) the -vulgar no longer understand that _imp_ means _scion_, _child_, and -suppose it to mean ‘little devil’. A Reviewer has omitted to give his -unlearned readers any explanation of the word (though I carefully -explained it) and calls down their indignation upon me by his censures, -which I hope proceeded from carelessness and ignorance. - -Even in Spenser’s Fairy Queen the word retains its rightful and noble -sense: - - Well worthy _imp_! then said the lady, etc., - -and in North’s Plutarch, - -‘He took upon him to protect him from them all, and not to suffer so -goodly an _imp_ [Alcibiades] to lose the good fruit of his youth’. - -Dryden uses the verb, To imp; to graft, insert. - -I was quite aware that I claimed of my readers a certain strength of -mind, when I bid them to forget the defilements which vulgarity has shed -over the noble word Imp, and carry their imaginations back two or three -centuries: but I did not calculate that any critic would call Dainty -grotesque. This word is equivalent in meaning to Delicate and Nice, but -has precisely the epical character in which both those words are -deficient. For instance, I say, that after the death of Patroclus, the -coursers ‘stood motionless’, - - Drooping tōwārd the ground their heads, and down their plaintive - eyelids - Did warm tears trickle to the ground, their charioteer - bewailing. - Defilèd were their _dainty_ manes, over the yoke-strap dropping. - -A critic who objects to this, has to learn English from my translation. -Does he imagine that Dainty can mean nothing but ‘over-particular as to -food’? - -In the compound Dainty-cheek’d, Homer shows his own epic peculiarity. It -is imitated in the similar word εὐπάρᾳος applied to the Gorgon Medusa by -Pindar: but not in the Attics. I have somewhere read, that the rudest -conception of female beauty is that of a brilliant red _plump_ cheek; -such as an English clown admires (was this what Pindar meant?); the -second stage looks to the delicacy of tint in the cheek (this is Homer’s -καλλιπάρῃος:) the third looks to shape (this is the εὒμορφος of the -Attics, the _formosus_ of the Latins, and is seen in the Greek -sculpture); the fourth and highest looks to moral expression: this is -the idea of Christian Europe. That Homer rests exclusively in the second -or semibarbaric stage, it is not for me to say, but, as far as I am -able, to give to the readers of my translation materials for their own -judgment. From the vague word εἶδος, _species_, _appearance_, it cannot -be positively inferred whether the poet had an eye for Shape. The -epithets curl-eyed and fine-ankled decidedly suggest that he had; except -that his application of the former to the entire nation of the Greeks -makes it seem to be of foreign tradition, and as unreal as -brazen-_mailed_. - -Another word which has been ill-understood and ill-used, is _dapper_. Of -the epithet dappergreav’d for ἐϋκνημὶς I certainly am not enamoured, but -I have not yet found a better rendering. It is easier to carp at my -phrase, than to suggest a better. The word _dapper_ in Dutch = German -_tapfer_; and like the Scotch _braw_ or _brave_ means with us _fine_, -_gallant_, _elegant_. I have read the line of an old poet, - - The dapper words which lovers use, - -for _elegant_, I suppose; and so ‘the dapper does’ and ‘dapper elves’ of -Milton must refer to elegance or refined beauty. What is there[54] -ignoble in such a word? ‘Elegant’ and ‘pretty’ are inadmissible in epic -poetry: ‘dapper’ is logically equivalent, and _has the epic colour_. -Neither ‘fair’ nor ‘comely’ here suit. As to the school translation of -‘wellgreav’d’, every common Englishman on hearing the sound receives it -as ‘wellgrieved’, and to me it is very unpleasing. A part of the -mischief, a large part of it, is in the word _greave_; for -_dapper-girdled_ is on the whole well-received. But what else can we say -for _greave_? leggings? gambados? - -Much perhaps remains to be learnt concerning Homer’s perpetual epithets. -My very learned colleague Goldstücke, Professor of Sanscrit, is -convinced that the epithet _cow-eyed_ of the Homeric Juno is an echo of -the notion of Hindoo poets, that (if I remember his statement) ‘the -sun-beams are the _cows_ of heaven’. The sacred qualities of the Hindoo -cow are perhaps not to be forgotten. I have myself been struck by the -phrase διϊπετέος ποτάμοιο as akin to the idea that the Ganges falls from -Mount Meru, the Hindoo Olympus. Also the meaning of two other epithets -has been revealed to me from the pictures of Hindoo ladies. First, -_curl-eyed_, to which I have referred above; secondly, _rosy-fingered -Aurora_. For Aurora is an ‘Eastern lady’; and, as such, has the tips of -her fingers dyed rosy-red, whether by henna or by some more brilliant -drug. Who shall say that the kings and warriors of Homer do not derive -from the East their epithet ‘Jove-nurtured’? or that this or that -goddess is not called ‘golden-throned’ or ‘fair-throned’ in allusion to -Assyrian sculptures or painting, as Rivers probably drew their later -poetical attribute ‘bull-headed’ from the sculpture of fountains? It is -a familiar remark, that Homer’s poetry presupposes a vast pre-existing -art and material. Much in him was traditional. Many of his wild legends -came from Asia. He is to us much beside a poet; and that a translator -should assume to cut him down to the standard of modern taste, is a -thought which all the higher minds of this age have outgrown. How much -better is that reverential Docility, which with simple and innocent -wonder, receives the oddest notions of antiquity as material of -instruction yet to be revealed, than the self-complacent Criticism, -which pronouncing everything against modern taste to be grotesque[55] -and contemptible, squares the facts to its own ‘Axioms’! _Homer is -noble: but this or that epithet is not noble: therefore we must explode -it from Homer!_ I value, I maintain, I struggle for the ‘high a priori -road’ in its own place; but certainly not in historical literature. To -read Homer’s own thoughts is to wander in a world abounding with -freshness: but if we insist on treading round and round in our own -footsteps, we shall never ascend those heights whence the strange region -is to be seen. Surely an intelligent learned critic ought to inculcate -on the unlearned, that if they would get instruction from Homer, they -must not expect to have their ears tickled by a musical sound as of a -namby-pamby poetaster; but must look on a metre as doing its duty, when -it ‘strings the mind up to the necessary pitch’ in elevated passages; -and that instead of demanding of a translator everywhere a rhythmical -perfection which perhaps can only be attained by a great sacrifice of -higher qualities, they should be willing to submit to a small part of -that ruggedness, which Mr Arnold cheerfully bears in Homer himself -through the loss of the Digamma. And now, for a final protest. To be -_stately_ is not to be _grand_. Nicolas of Russia may have been stately -like Cowper, Garibaldi is grand like the true Homer. A diplomatic -address is stately; it is not grand, nor often noble. To expect a -translation of Homer to be _pervadingly elegant_, is absurd; Homer is -not such, any more than is the side of an Alpine mountain. The elegant -and the picturesque are seldom identical, however much of delicate -beauty may be interstudded in the picturesque; but this has always got -plenty of what is shaggy and uncouth, without which contrast the full -delight of beauty would not be attained. I think Moore in his -characteristic way tells of a beauty - - Shining on, shining on, by no shadow made tender, - Till love falls asleep in the sameness of splendour. - -Such certainly is not Homer’s. His beauty, when at its height, is _wild_ -beauty: it smells of the mountain and of the sea. If he be compared to a -noble animal, it is not to such a spruce rubbed-down Newmarket racer as -our smooth translators would pretend, but to a wild horse of the Don -Cossacks: and if I, instead of this, present to the reader nothing but a -Dandie Dinmont’s pony, this, as a first approximation, is a valuable -step towards the true solution. - -Before the best translation of the Iliad of which our language is -capable can be produced, the English public has to unlearn the false -notion of Homer which his _deliberately faithless_ versifiers have -infused. Chapman’s conceits unfit his translation for instructing the -public, even if his rhythm ‘jolted’ less, if his structure were simpler, -and his dialect more intelligible. My version, if allowed to be read, -will prepare the public to receive a version better than mine. I regard -it as a question about to open hereafter, whether a translator of Homer -ought not to adopt the old dissyllabic _landis_, _houndis_, _hartis_, -etc., instead of our modern unmelodious _lands_, _hounds_, _harts_; -whether the _ye_ or _y_ before the past participle may not be restored; -the want of which confounds that participle with the past tense. Even -the final -en of the plural of verbs (we dancen, they singen, etc.) -still subsists in Lancashire. It deserves consideration whether by a -_few_ such slight grammatical retrogressions into antiquity a translator -of Homer might not add much melody to his poem and do good service to -the language. - -Footnote 35: - - He attacks the same line also in p. 44; but I do not claim this as a - mark, how free I am from the fault. - -Footnote 36: - - If I had used such a double dative, as ‘to Peleus to a mortal’, what - would he have said of my syntax? - -Footnote 37: - - Ballad-_manner_! The prevalent ballad-_metre_ is the Common Metre of - our Psalm tunes: and yet he assumes that whatever is in this metre - must be on the same level. I have professed (Pref. p. x) that our - _existing_ old ballads are ‘poor and mean’, and are not my pattern. - -Footnote 38: - - He has also overlooked the misprint _Trojans_, where I wrote _Troïans_ - (in three syllables), and has thus spoiled one verse out of the five. - -Footnote 39: - - As a literary curiosity I append the sentence of a learned reviewer - concerning this metre of Campbell. ‘It is a metre fit for introducing - anything or translating anything; a metre that _nothing can elevate, - or degrade, or improve, or spoil_; in which all subjects will sound - alike. A theorem of Euclid, a leading article from the _Times_, a - dialogue from the last new novel, could all be reduced to it with the - slightest possible verbal alteration’. [Quite true of Greek hexameter - or Shakspeare’s line. It is a _virtue_ in the metres]. ‘To such a mill - all would be grist that came near it, and _in no grain that had once - passed through it would human ingenuity ever detect again a - characteristic quality_’. This writer is a stout maintainer that - English ballad metre is the right one for translating Homer: only, - somehow, he shuts his eyes to the fact that Campbell’s _is_ ballad - metre! Sad to say, extravagant and absurd assertions, like these, - though anonymous, can, by a parade of learning, do much damage to the - sale of a book in verse. - -Footnote 40: - - I think he has mistaken the _summit_ of the wave for a _headland_, and - has made a single description into two, by the word _Or_: but I now - confine my regard to the metre and general effect of the style. - -Footnote 41: - - _Companion_, in four syllables, is in Shakspeare’s style; with whom - habitually the termination _-tion_ is two. - -Footnote 42: - - By corrupting the past tenses of _welisso_ into a false similarity to - the past tenses of _elelizo_, the old editors superimposed a new and - false sense on the latter verb; which still holds its place in our - dictionaries, as it deceived the Greeks themselves. - -Footnote 43: - - That λλ _in Attic_ was sounded like French _l mouillée_, is judged - probable by the learned writer of the article L (Penny Cyclop.), who - urges that μᾶλλον is for μάλιον, and compares φυλλο with _folio_, αλλο - with _alio_, ἁλλ with _sali_. - -Footnote 44: - - Men who can bear ‘belch’ in poetry, nowadays pretend that ‘sputter’ is - indelicate. They find Homer’s ἀποπτύει to be ‘elegant’, but - _sputter_—not! ‘No one would guess from Mr Newman’s coarse phrases how - _elegant_ is Homer’!! - -Footnote 45: - - In a Note to my translation (overlooked by more than one critic) I - have explained _curl-ey’d_, carefully, but not very accurately - perhaps; as I had not before me the picture of the Hindoo lady to - which I referred. The whole _upper eyelid_, when _open_, may be called - the curl; for it is shaped like a buffalo’s horns. This accounts for - ἑλικοβλέφαρος, ‘having a curly eye_lid_’. - -Footnote 46: - - I thought I had toned it down pretty well, in rendering it ‘O gentle - friend’! Mr Arnold rebukes me for this, without telling me what I - ought to say, or what is my fault. One thing is certain, that the - Greek is most _odd_ and peculiar. - -Footnote 47: - - In the noble simile of the sea-tide, quoted p. 138 above, only the two - first of its five lines are to the purpose. Mr Gladstone, seduced by - rhyme, has so tapered off the point of the similitude, that only a - microscopic reader will see it. - -Footnote 48: - - It is very singular that Mr Gladstone should imagine such a poet to - have no eye for colour. I totally protest against his turning Homer’s - paintings into leadpencil drawings. I believe that γλαυκὸς is grey - (silvergreen), χάροψ blue; and that πρασινὸς, ‘leek-colour’, was too - mean a word for any poets, early or late, to use for ‘green’, - therefore χλωρὸς does duty for it. Κῦμα πορφύρεον is surely ‘the - purple wave’, and ἰοειδέα πόντον ‘the violet sea’. - -Footnote 49: - - He pares down ἑλκηθμοῖο (the dragging away of a woman by the hair) - into ‘captivity’! Better surely is my ‘ignoble’ version: ‘Ere-that I - see thee _dragg’d away_, and hear thy shriek of anguish’. - -Footnote 50: - - He means _ours_ for two syllables. ‘Swiftness of ours’ is surely - ungrammatical. ‘A galley of my own’ = one of my own galleys; but ‘a - father of mine’, is absurd, since each has but one father. I confess I - have myself been seduced into writing ‘those two eyes of his’, to - avoid ‘_those his_ two eyes’: but I have since condemned and altered - it. - -Footnote 51: - - Of course no peculiarity of phrase has _the effect_ of peculiarity on - a man who has imperfect acquaintance with the delicacies of a - language; who, for instance, thinks that ἑλκηθμὸς means δουλεία. - -Footnote 52: - - Ἐλλὸς needs light and gives none. Benfey suggests that it is for - ἐνεὸς, as ἄλλος, _alius_, for Sanscrit _anya_. He with me refers ἔλλοψ - to λέπω. Cf. _squamigeri_ in Lucretius. - -Footnote 53: - - I do not see that Mr Arnold has any right to reproach _me_, because - _he_ does not know Spenser’s word ‘bragly’ (which I may have used - twice in the Iliad), or Dryden’s word ‘plump’, for a mass. The former - is so near in sound to _brag_ and _braw_, that an Englishman who is - once told that it means ‘proudly fine’, ought thenceforward to find it - very intelligible: the latter is a noble modification of the vulgar - _lump_. That he can carp as he does against these words and against - _bulkin_ (= young bullock) as unintelligible, is a testimony how - little I have imposed of difficulty on my readers. Those who know - _lambkin_ cannot find _bulkin_ very hard. Since writing the above, I - see a learned writer in the Philological Museum illustrates ἴλη by the - old English phrase ‘a plump of spears’. - -Footnote 54: - - I observe that Lord Lyttelton renders Milton’s _dapper elf_ by ῥαδινὰ, - ‘softly moving’. - -Footnote 55: - - Mr Arnold calls it an unfortunate sentence of mine: ‘I ought to be - quaint; I ought not to be grotesque’. I am disposed to think him - right, but for reasons very opposite to those which he assigns. I have - ‘unfortunately’ given to querulous critics a cue for attacking me - unjustly. I should rather have said: ‘We ought to be _quaint_, and not - to shrink from that which the fastidious modern will be sure to call - _grotesque_ in English, when he is too blunted by habit, or too poor a - scholar to discern it in the Greek’. - - - - - Last Words on Translating Homer - A Reply to Francis W. Newman - By Matthew Arnold - - - ‘Multi, qui persequuntur me, et tribulant me: a testimoniis non - declinavi.’ - - -Buffon, the great French naturalist, imposed on himself the rule of -steadily abstaining from all answer to attacks made upon him. ‘Je n’ai -jamais répondu à aucune critique’, he said to one of his friends who, on -the occasion of a certain criticism, was eager to take up arms in his -behalf; ‘je n’ai jamais répondu à aucune critique, et je garderai le -même silence sur celle-ci’. On another occasion, when accused of -plagiarism, and pressed by his friends to answer, ‘Il vaut mieux’, he -said, ‘laisser ces mauvaises gens dans l’incertitude’. Even when reply -to an attack was made successfully, he disapproved of it, he regretted -that those he esteemed should make it. Montesquieu, more sensitive to -criticism than Buffon, had answered, and successfully answered, an -attack made upon his great work, the _Esprit des Lois_, by the _Gazetier -Janséniste_. This Jansenist Gazetteer was a periodical of those times, a -periodical such as other times, also, have occasionally seen, very -pretentious, very aggressive, and, when the point to be seized was at -all a delicate one, very apt to miss it. ‘Notwithstanding this example’, -said Buffon, who, as well as Montesquieu, had been attacked by the -Jansenist Gazetteer, ‘notwithstanding this example, I think I may -promise my course will be different. I shall not answer a single word’. - -And to anyone who has noticed the baneful effects of the controversy, -with all its train of personal rivalries and hatreds, on men of letters -or men of science; to anyone who has observed how it tends to impair, -not only their dignity and repose, but their productive force, their -genuine activity; how it always checks the free play of the spirit, and -often ends by stopping it altogether; it can hardly seem doubtful that -the rule thus imposed on himself by Buffon was a wise one. His own -career, indeed, admirably shows the wisdom of it. That career was as -glorious as it was serene; but it owed to its serenity no small part of -its glory. The regularity and completeness with which he gradually built -up the great work which he had designed, the air of equable majesty -which he shed over it, struck powerfully the imagination of his -contemporaries, and surrounded Buffon’s fame with a peculiar respect and -dignity. ‘He is’, said Frederick the Great of him, ‘the man who has best -deserved the great celebrity which he has acquired’. And this regularity -of production, this equableness of temper, he maintained by his resolute -disdain of personal controversy. - -Buffon’s example seems to me worthy of all imitation, and in my humble -way I mean always to follow it. I never have replied, I never will -reply, to any literary assailant; in such encounters tempers are lost, -the world laughs, and truth is not served. Least of all should I think -of using this Chair as a place from which to carry on such a conflict. -But when a learned and estimable man thinks he has reason to complain of -language used by me in this Chair, when he attributes to me intentions -and feelings towards him which are far from my heart, I owe him some -explanation, and I am bound, too, to make the explanation as public as -the words which gave offence. This is the reason why I revert once more -to the subject of translating Homer. But being thus brought back to that -subject, and not wishing to occupy you solely with an explanation which, -after all, is Mr Newman’s affair and mine, not the public’s, I shall -take the opportunity, not certainly to enter into any conflict with -anyone, but to try to establish our old friend, the coming translator of -Homer, yet a little firmer in the positions which I hope we have now -secured for him; to protect him against the danger of relaxing, in the -confusion of dispute, his attention to those matters which alone I -consider important for him; to save him from losing sight, in the dust -of the attacks delivered over it, of the real body of Patroclus. He -will, probably, when he arrives, requite my solicitude very ill, and be -in haste to disown his benefactor: but my interest in him is so sincere -that I can disregard his probable ingratitude. - -First, however, for the explanation. Mr Newman has published a reply to -the remarks which I made on his translation of the _Iliad_. He seems to -think that the respect which at the outset of those remarks I professed -for him must have been professed ironically; he says that I use ‘forms -of attack against him which he does not know how to characterize’; that -I ‘speak scornfully’ of him, treat him with ‘gratuitous insult, -gratuitous rancour’; that I ‘propagate slanders’ against him, that I -wish to ‘damage him with my readers’, to ‘stimulate my readers to -despise’ him. He is entirely mistaken. I respect Mr Newman sincerely; I -respect him as one of the few learned men we have, one of the few who -love learning for its own sake; this respect for him I had before I read -his translation of the _Iliad_, I retained it while I was commenting on -that translation, I have not lost it after reading his reply. Any -vivacities of expression which may have given him pain I sincerely -regret, and can only assure him that I used them without a thought of -insult or rancour. When I took the liberty of creating the verb _to -Newmanize_, my intentions were no more rancorous than if I had said to -_Miltonize_; when I exclaimed, in my astonishment at his vocabulary, -‘With whom can Mr Newman have lived’? I meant merely to convey, in a -familiar form of speech, the sense of bewilderment one has at finding a -person to whom words one thought all the world knew seem strange, and -words one thought entirely strange, intelligible. Yet this simple -expression of my bewilderment Mr Newman construes into an accusation -that he is ‘often guilty of keeping low company’, and says that I shall -‘never want a stone to throw at him’. And what is stranger still, one of -his friends gravely tells me that Mr Newman ‘lived with the fellows of -Balliol’. As if that made Mr Newman’s glossary less inexplicable to me! -As if he could have got his glossary from the fellows of Balliol! As if -I could believe that the members of that distinguished society, of whose -discourse, not so many years afterwards, I myself was an unworthy -hearer, were in Mr Newman’s time so far removed from the Attic purity of -speech which we all of us admired, that when one of them called a calf a -_bulkin_, the rest ‘easily understood’ him; or, when he wanted to say -that a newspaper-article was ‘proudly fine’, it mattered little whether -he said it was that or _bragly_! No; his having lived with the fellows -of Balliol does not explain Mr Newman’s glossary to me. I will no longer -ask ‘with whom he can have lived’, since that gives him offence; but I -must still declare that where he got his test of rarity or -intelligibility for words is a mystery to me. - -That, however, does not prevent me from entertaining a very sincere -respect for Mr Newman, and since he doubts it, I am glad to reiterate my -expression of it. But the truth of the matter is this: I unfeignedly -admire Mr Newman’s ability and learning; but I think in his translation -of Homer he has employed that ability and learning quite amiss. I think -he has chosen quite the wrong field for turning his ability and learning -to account. I think that in England, partly from the want of an Academy, -partly from a national habit of intellect to which that want of an -Academy is itself due, there exists too little of what I may call a -public force of correct literary opinion, possessing within certain -limits a clear sense of what is right and wrong, sound and unsound, and -sharply recalling men of ability and learning from any flagrant -misdirection of these their advantages. I think, even, that in our -country a powerful misdirection of this kind is often more likely to -subjugate and pervert opinion than to be checked and corrected by -it[56]. Hence a chaos of false tendencies, wasted efforts, impotent -conclusions, works which ought never to have been undertaken. Anyone who -can introduce a little order into this chaos by establishing in any -quarter a single sound rule of criticism, a single rule which clearly -marks what is right as right, and what is wrong as wrong, does a good -deed; and his deed is so much the better the greater force he -counteracts of learning and ability applied to thicken the chaos. Of -course no one can be sure that he has fixed any such rules; he can only -do his best to fix them; but somewhere or other, in the literary opinion -of Europe, if not in the literary opinion of one nation, in fifty years, -if not in five, there is a final judgment on these matters, and the -critic’s work will at last stand or fall by its true merits. - -Meanwhile, the charge of having in one instance misapplied his powers, -of having once followed a false tendency, is no such grievous charge to -bring against a man; it does not exclude a great respect for himself -personally, or for his powers in the happiest manifestations of them. -False tendency is, I have said, an evil to which the artist or the man -of letters in England is peculiarly prone; but everywhere in our time he -is liable to it,—the greatest as well as the humblest. ‘The first -beginnings of my _Wilhelm Meister_’, says Goethe, ‘arose out of an -obscure sense of the great truth that man will often attempt something -of which nature has denied him the proper powers, will undertake and -practise something in which he cannot become skilled. An inward feeling -warns him to desist’ (yes, but there are, unhappily, cases of absolute -judicial blindness!), ‘nevertheless he cannot get clear in himself about -it, and is driven along a false road to a false goal, without knowing -how it is with him. To this we may refer everything which goes by the -name of false tendency, dilettanteism, and so on. A great many men waste -in this way the fairest portion of their lives, and fall at last into -wonderful delusion’. Yet after all, Goethe adds, it sometimes happens -that even on this false road a man finds, not indeed that which he -sought, but something which is good and useful for him; ‘like Saul, the -son of Kish, who went forth to look for his father’s asses, and found a -kingdom’. And thus false tendency as well as true, vain effort as well -as fruitful, go together to produce that great movement of life, to -present that immense and magic spectacle of human affairs, which from -boyhood to old age fascinates the gaze of every man of imagination, and -which would be his terror, if it were not at the same time his delight. - -So Mr Newman may see how wide-spread a danger it is, to which he has, as -I think, in setting himself to translate Homer, fallen a prey. He may be -well satisfied if he can escape from it by paying it the tribute of a -single work only. He may judge how unlikely it is that I should -‘despise’ him for once falling a prey to it. I know far too well how -exposed to it we all are; how exposed to it I myself am. At this very -moment, for example, I am fresh from reading Mr Newman’s Reply to my -Lectures, a reply full of that erudition in which (as I am so often and -so good-naturedly reminded, but indeed I know it without being reminded) -Mr Newman is immeasurably my superior. Well, the demon that pushes us -all to our ruin is even now prompting me to follow Mr Newman into a -discussion about the digamma, and I know not what providence holds me -back. And some day, I have no doubt, I shall lecture on the language of -the Berbers, and give him his entire revenge. - -But Mr Newman does not confine himself to complaints on his own behalf, -he complains on Homer’s behalf too. He says that my ‘statements about -Greek literature are against the most notorious and elementary fact’; -that I ‘do a public wrong to literature by publishing them’; and that -the Professors to whom I appealed in my three Lectures, ‘would only lose -credit if they sanctioned the use I make of their names’. He does these -eminent men the kindness of adding, however, that ‘whether they are -pleased with this parading of their names in behalf of paradoxical -error, he may well doubt’, and that ‘until they endorse it themselves, -he shall treat my process as a piece of forgery’. He proceeds to discuss -my statements at great length, and with an erudition and ingenuity which -nobody can admire more than I do. And he ends by saying that my -ignorance is great. - -Alas! that is very true. Much as Mr Newman was mistaken when he talked -of my rancour, he is entirely right when he talks of my ignorance. And -yet, perverse as it seems to say so, I sometimes find myself wishing, -when dealing with these matters of poetical criticism, that my ignorance -were even greater than it is. To handle these matters properly there is -needed a poise so perfect that the least overweight in any direction -tends to destroy the balance. Temper destroys it, a crotchet destroys -it, even erudition may destroy it. To press to the sense of the thing -itself with which one is dealing, not to go off on some collateral issue -about the thing, is the hardest matter in the world. The ‘thing itself’ -with which one is here dealing, the critical perception of poetic truth, -is of all things the most volatile, elusive, and evanescent; by even -pressing too impetuously after it, one runs the risk of losing it. The -critic of poetry should have the finest tact, the nicest moderation, the -most free, flexible, and elastic spirit imaginable; he should be indeed -the ‘ondoyant et divers’, the _undulating and diverse_ being of -Montaigne. The less he can deal with his object simply and freely, the -more things he has to take into account in dealing with it, the more, in -short, he has to encumber himself, so much the greater force of spirit -he needs to retain his elasticity. But one cannot exactly have this -greater force by wishing for it; so, for the force of spirit one has, -the load put upon it is often heavier than it will well bear. The late -Duke of Wellington said of a certain peer that ‘it was a great pity his -education had been so far too much for his abilities’. In like manner, -one often sees erudition out of all proportion to its owner’s critical -faculty. Little as I know, therefore, I am always apprehensive, in -dealing with poetry, lest even that little should prove ‘too much for my -abilities’. - -With this consciousness of my own lack of learning, nay, with this sort -of acquiescence in it, with this belief that for the labourer in the -field of poetical criticism learning has its disadvantages, I am not -likely to dispute with Mr Newman about matters of erudition. All that he -says on these matters in his Reply I read with great interest; in -general I agree with him; but only, I am sorry to say, up to a certain -point. Like all learned men, accustomed to desire definite rules, he -draws his conclusions too absolutely; he wants to include too much under -his rules; he does not quite perceive that in poetical criticism the -shade, the fine distinction, is everything; and that, when he has once -missed this, in all he says he is in truth but beating the air. For -instance: because I think Homer noble, he imagines I must think him -elegant; and in fact he says in plain words that I do think him so, that -to me Homer seems ‘pervadingly elegant’. But he does not. Virgil is -elegant, ‘pervadingly elegant’, even in passages of the highest emotion: - - O, ubi campi, - Spercheosque, et virginibus bacchata Lacænis - Taygeta[57]! - -Even there Virgil, though of a divine elegance, is still elegant, but -Homer is not elegant; the word is quite a wrong one to apply to him, and -Mr Newman is quite right in blaming anyone he finds so applying it. -Again; arguing against my assertion that Homer is not quaint, he says: -‘It is quaint to call waves _wet_, milk _white_, blood _dusky_, horses -_single-hoofed_, words winged, Vulcan _Lobfoot_ (Κυλλοποδίων), a spear -_longshadowy_‘, and so on. I find I know not how many distinctions to -draw here. I do not think it quaint to call waves _wet_, or milk -_white_, or words _winged_; but I do think it quaint to call horses -_single-hoofed_, or Vulcan _Lobfoot_, or a spear _longshadowy_. As to -calling blood _dusky_, I do not feel quite sure; I will tell Mr Newman -my opinion when I see the passage in which he calls it so. But then, -again, because it is quaint to call Vulcan _Lobfoot_, I cannot admit -that it was quaint to call him Κυλλοποδίων; nor that, because it is -quaint to call a spear _longshadowy_, it was quaint to call it -δολιχόσκιον. Here Mr Newman’s erudition misleads him: he knows the -literal value of the Greek so well, that he thinks his literal rendering -identical with the Greek, and that the Greek must stand or fall along -with his rendering. But the real question is, not whether he has given -us, so to speak, full change for the Greek, but _how_ he gives us our -change: we want it in gold, and he gives it us in copper. Again: ‘It is -quaint’, says Mr Newman, ‘to address a young friend as “O Pippin”! it is -quaint to compare Ajax to an ass whom boys are belabouring’. Here, too, -Mr Newman goes much too fast, and his category of quaintness is too -comprehensive. To address a young friend as ‘O Pippin’! is, I cordially -agree with him, very quaint; although I do not think it was quaint in -Sarpedon to address Glaucus as ὦ πέπον: but in comparing, whether in -Greek or in English, Ajax to an ass whom boys are belabouring, I do not -see that there is of necessity anything quaint at all. Again; because I -said that _eld_, _lief_, _in sooth_, and other words, are, as Mr Newman -uses them in certain places, bad words, he imagines that I must mean to -stamp these words with an absolute reprobation; and because I said that -‘my Bibliolatry is excessive’, he imagines that I brand all words as -ignoble which are not in the Bible. Nothing of the kind: there are no -such absolute rules to be laid down in these matters. The Bible -vocabulary is to be used as an assistance, not as an authority. Of the -words which, placed where Mr Newman places them, I have called bad -words, everyone may be excellent in some other place. Take _eld_, for -instance: when Shakspeare, reproaching man with the dependence in which -his youth is passed, says: - - all thy blessed youth - Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms - Of palsied _eld_, ... - -it seems to me that _eld_ comes in excellently there, in a passage of -curious meditation; but when Mr Newman renders ἀγήρω τ’ ἀθανάτω τε by -‘from _Eld_ and Death exempted’, it seems to me he infuses a tinge of -quaintness into the transparent simplicity of Homer’s expression, and so -I call _eld_ a bad word in that place. - -Once more. Mr Newman lays it down as a general rule that ‘many of -Homer’s energetic descriptions are expressed in coarse physical words’. -He goes on: ‘I give one illustration,—Τρῶες προὔτυψαν ἀολλέες. Cowper, -misled by the _ignis fatuus_ of “stateliness” renders it absurdly: - - The powers of Ilium gave the first assault - Embattled close; - -but it is, strictly, “The Trojans _knocked forward_ (or, thumped, butted -forward) _in close pack_”. The verb is too coarse for later polished -prose, and even the adjective is very strong (_packed together_). I -believe that “forward in pack the Trojans pitched”, would not be really -unfaithful to the Homeric colour; and I maintain that “forward in mass -the Trojans pitched”, would be an irreprovable rendering’. He actually -gives us all that as if it were a piece of scientific deduction; and as -if, at the end, he had arrived at an incontrovertible conclusion. But, -in truth, one cannot settle these matters quite in this way. Mr Newman’s -general rule may be true or false (I dislike to meddle with general -rules), but every part in what follows must stand or fall by itself, and -its soundness or unsoundness has nothing at all to do with the truth or -falsehood of Mr Newman’s general rule. He first gives, as a strict -rendering of the Greek, ‘The Trojans knocked forward (or, thumped, -butted forward), in close pack’. I need not say that, as a ‘strict -rendering of the Greek’, this is good; all Mr Newman’s ‘strict -renderings of the Greek’ are sure to be, as such, good; but ‘in close -pack’, for ἀολλέες, seems to me to be what Mr Newman’s renderings are -not always,—an excellent _poetical rendering_ of the Greek; a thousand -times better, certainly, than Cowper’s ‘embattled close’. Well, but Mr -Newman goes on: ‘I believe that, “forward in pack the Trojans pitched”, -would not be really unfaithful to the Homeric colour’. Here, I say, the -Homeric colour is half washed out of Mr Newman’s happy rendering of -ἀολλέες; while in ‘pitched’ for προὔτυψαν, the literal fidelity of the -first rendering is gone, while certainly no Homeric colour has come in -its place. Finally, Mr Newman concludes: ‘I maintain that “forward in -mass the Trojans pitched”, would be an irreprovable rendering’. Here, in -what Mr Newman fancies his final moment of triumph, Homeric colour and -literal fidelity have alike abandoned him altogether; the last stage of -his translation is much worse than the second, and immeasurably worse -than the first. - -All this to show that a looser, easier method than Mr Newman’s must be -taken, if we are to arrive at any good result in these questions. I now -go on to follow Mr Newman a little further, not at all as wishing to -dispute with him, but as seeking (and this is the true fruit we may -gather from criticisms upon us) to gain hints from him for the -establishment of some useful truth about our subject, even when I think -him wrong. I still retain, I confess, my conviction that Homer’s -characteristic qualities are rapidity of movement, plainness of words -and style, simplicity and directness of ideas, and, above all, -nobleness, the grand manner. Whenever Mr Newman drops a word, awakens a -train of thought, which leads me to see any of these characteristics -more clearly, I am grateful to him; and one or two suggestions of this -kind which he affords, are all that now, having expressed my sorrow that -he should have misconceived my feelings towards him, and pointed out -what I think the vice of his method of criticism, I have to notice in -his Reply. - -Such a suggestion I find in Mr Newman’s remarks on my assertion that the -translator of Homer must not adopt a quaint and antiquated style in -rendering him, because the impression which Homer makes upon the living -scholar is not that of a poet quaint and antiquated, but that of a poet -perfectly simple, perfectly intelligible. I added that we cannot, I -confess, really know how Homer seemed to Sophocles, but that it is -impossible to me to believe that he seemed to him quaint and antiquated. -Mr Newman asserts, on the other hand, that I am absurdly wrong here; -that Homer seemed ‘out and out’ quaint and antiquated to the Athenians; -that ‘every sentence of him was more or less antiquated to Sophocles, -who could no more help feeling at every instant the foreign and -antiquated character of the poetry than an Englishman can help feeling -the same in reading Burns’ poems’. And not only does Mr Newman say this, -but he has managed thoroughly to convince some of his readers of it. -‘Homer’s Greek’, says one of them, ‘certainly seemed antiquated to the -historical times of Greece. Mr Newman, taking a far broader historical -and philological view than Mr Arnold, stoutly maintains that it did seem -so.’ And another says: ‘Doubtless Homer’s dialect and diction were as -hard and obscure to a later Attic Greek as Chaucer to an Englishman of -our day.’ - -Mr Newman goes on to say, that not only was Homer antiquated relatively -to Pericles, but he is antiquated to the living scholar; and, indeed, is -in himself ‘absolutely antique, being the poet of a barbarian age’. He -tells us of his ‘inexhaustible quaintnesses’, of his ‘very eccentric -diction’; and he infers, of course, that he is perfectly right in -rendering him in a quaint and antiquated style. - -Now this question, whether or no Homer seemed quaint and antiquated to -Sophocles, I call a delightful question to raise. It is not a barren -verbal dispute; it is a question ‘drenched in matter’, to use an -expression of Bacon; a question full of flesh and blood, and of which -the scrutiny, though I still think we cannot settle absolutely, may yet -give us a directly useful result. To scrutinize it may lead us to see -more clearly what sort of a style a modern translator of Homer ought to -adopt. - -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 conversant, -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 everyone who -made that sort of poetry composed. Everyone at Athens who dabbled in -epic poetry, not only understood Homer’s language, he possessed it. He -possessed it as everyone who dabbles in poetry with us, possesses what -may be called the poetical vocabulary, as distinguished from the -vocabulary of common speech and of modern prose: I mean, such -expressions as _perchance_ for _perhaps_, _spake_ for _spoke_, _aye_ for -_ever_, _don_ for _put on_, _charméd_ for _charm’d_, and thousands of -others. - -I might go to Burns and Chaucer, and, taking words and passages from -them, ask if they afforded any parallel to a language so familiar and so -possessed. But this I will not do, for Mr Newman himself supplies me -with what he thinks a fair parallel, in its effect upon us, to the -language of Homer in its effect upon Sophocles. He says that such words -as _mon_, _londis_, _libbard_, _withouten_, _muchel_, give us a -tolerable but incomplete notion of this parallel; and he finally -exhibits the parallel in all its clearness, by this poetical specimen: - - Dat mon, quhich hauldeth Kyngis af - Londis yn féo, niver - (I tell ’e) feereth aught; sith hee - Doth hauld hys londis yver. - -Now, does Mr Newman really think that Sophocles could, as he says, ‘no -more help feeling at every instant the foreign and antiquated character -of Homer, than an Englishman can help feeling the same in hearing these -lines’? Is he quite sure of it? He says he is; he will not allow of any -doubt or hesitation in the matter. I had confessed we could not really -know how Homer seemed to Sophocles; ‘Let Mr Arnold confess for himself’, -cries Mr Newman, ‘and not for me, who know perfectly well’. And this is -what he knows! - -Mr Newman says, however, that I ‘play fallaciously on the words familiar -and unfamiliar’; that ‘Homer’s words may have been familiar to the -Athenians (_i.e._ often heard) even when they were either not understood -by them or else, being understood, were yet felt and known to be utterly -foreign. Let my renderings’, he continues, ‘be heard, as Pope or even -Cowper has been heard, and no one will be “surprised”’. - -But the whole question is here. The translator must not assume that to -have taken place which has not taken place, although, perhaps, he may -wish it to have taken place, namely, that his diction is become an -established possession of the minds of men, and therefore is, in its -proper place, familiar to them, will not ‘surprise’ them. If Homer’s -language was familiar, that is, often heard, then to his language words -like _londis_ and _libbard_, which are not familiar, offer, for the -translator’s purpose, no parallel. For some purpose of the philologer -they may offer a parallel to it; for the translator’s purpose they offer -none. The question is not, whether a diction is antiquated for current -speech, but whether it is antiquated for that particular purpose for -which it is employed. A diction that is antiquated for common speech and -common prose, may very well not be antiquated for poetry or certain -special kinds of prose. ‘Peradventure there shall be ten found there’, -is not antiquated for Biblical prose, though for conversation or for a -newspaper it is antiquated. ‘The trumpet spake not to the arméd throng’, -is not antiquated for poetry, although we should not write in a letter, -‘he _spake_ to me’, or say, ‘the British soldier is _arméd_ with the -Enfield rifle’. But when language is antiquated for that particular -purpose for which it is employed, as numbers of Chaucer’s words, for -instance, are antiquated for poetry, such language is a bad -representative of language which, like Homer’s, was never antiquated for -that particular purpose for which it was employed. I imagine that -Πηληϊάδεω for Πηλείδου, in Homer, no more sounded antiquated to -Sophocles, than _arméd_ for _arm’d_, in Milton, sounds antiquated to us; -but Mr Newman’s _withouten_ and _muchel_ do sound to us antiquated, even -for poetry, and therefore they do not correspond in their effect upon us -with Homer’s words in their effect upon Sophocles. When Chaucer, who -uses such words, is to pass current amongst us, to be familiar to us, as -Homer was familiar to the Athenians, he has to be modernized, as -Wordsworth and others set to work to modernize him; but an Athenian no -more needed to have Homer modernized, than we need to have the Bible -modernized, or Wordsworth himself. - -Therefore, when Mr Newman’s words _bragly_, _bulkin_, and the rest, are -an established possession of our minds, as Homer’s words were an -established possession of an Athenian’s mind, he may use them; but not -till then. Chaucer’s words, the words of Burns, great poets as these -were, are yet not thus an established possession of an Englishman’s -mind, and therefore they must not be used in rendering Homer into -English. - -Mr Newman has been misled just by doing that which his admirer praises -him for doing, by taking a ‘far broader historical and philological view -than mine’. Precisely because he has done this, and has applied the -‘philological view’ where it was not applicable, but where the ‘poetical -view’ alone was rightly applicable, he has fallen into error. - -It is the same with him in his remarks on the difficulty and obscurity -of Homer. Homer, I say, is perfectly plain in speech, simple, and -intelligible. And I infer from this that his translator, too, ought to -be perfectly plain in speech, simple, and intelligible; ought not to -say, for instance, in rendering - - Οὔτε κέ σε στέλλοιμι μάχην ἐς κυδιάνειραν ... - -‘Nor liefly thee would I advance to man-ennobling battle’,—and things of -that kind. Mr Newman hands me a list of some twenty hard words, invokes -Buttmann, Mr Malden, and M. Benfey, and asks me if I think myself wiser -than all the world of Greek scholars, and if I am ready to supply the -deficiencies of Liddell and Scott’s _Lexicon_! But here, again, Mr -Newman errs by not perceiving that the question is not one of -scholarship, but of a poetical translation of Homer. This, I say, should -be perfectly simple and intelligible. He replies by telling me that -ἀδινὸς, εἰλίποδες, and σιγαλόεις are hard words. Well, but what does he -infer from that? That the poetical translation, in his rendering of -them, is to give us a sense of the difficulties of the scholar, and so -is to make his translation obscure? If he does not mean that, how, by -bringing forward these hard words, does he touch the question whether an -English version of Homer should be plain or not plain? If Homer’s -poetry, as poetry, is in its general effect on the poetical reader -perfectly simple and intelligible, the uncertainty of the scholar about -the true meaning of certain words can never change this general effect. -Rather will the poetry of Homer make us forget his philology, than his -philology make us forget his poetry. It may even be affirmed that -everyone who reads Homer perpetually for the sake of enjoying his poetry -(and no one who does not so read him will ever translate him well), -comes at last to form a perfectly clear sense in his own mind for every -important word in Homer, such as ἀδινὸς, or ἠλίβατος, whatever the -scholar’s doubts about the word may be. And this sense is present to his -mind with perfect clearness and fulness, whenever the word recurs, -although as a scholar he may know that he cannot be sure whether this -sense is the right one or not. But poetically he feels clearly about the -word, although philologically he may not. The scholar in him may -hesitate, like the father in Sheridan’s play; but the reader of poetry -in him is, like the governor, fixed. The same thing happens to us with -our own language. How many words occur in the Bible, for instance, to -which thousands of hearers do not feel sure they attach the precise real -meaning; but they make out _a_ meaning for them out of what materials -they have at hand; and the words, heard over and over again, come to -convey this meaning with a certainty which poetically is adequate, -though not philologically. How many have attached a clear and poetically -adequate sense to ‘_the beam_’ and ‘_the mote_’, though not precisely -the right one! How clearly, again, have readers got a sense from -Milton’s words, ‘grate on their _scrannel_ pipes’, who yet might have -been puzzled to write a commentary on the word _scrannel_ for the -dictionary! So we get a clear sense from ἀδινὸs as an epithet for grief, -after often meeting with it and finding out all we can about it, even -though that all be philologically insufficient; so we get a clear sense -from εἰλίποδες as an epithet for cows. And this his clear poetical sense -about the words, not his philological uncertainties about them, is what -the translator has to convey. Words like _bragly_ and _bulkin_ offer no -parallel to these words; because the reader, from his entire want of -familiarity with the words bragly and bulkin, has no clear sense of them -poetically. - -Perplexed by his knowledge of the philological aspect of Homer’s -language, encumbered by his own learning, Mr Newman, I say, misses the -poetical aspect, misses that with which alone we are here concerned. -‘Homer _is_ odd’, he persists, fixing his eyes on his own philological -analysis of μώνυξ, and μέροψς, and Κυλλοποδίων, and not on these words -in their synthetic character;—just as Professor Max Müller, going a -little farther back, and fixing his attention on the elementary value of -the word θυγάτηρ, might say Homer was ‘odd’ for using _that_ word;—‘if -the whole Greek nation, by long familiarity, had become inobservant of -Homer’s oddities’, of the oddities of this ‘noble barbarian’, as Mr -Newman elsewhere calls him, this ‘noble barbarian’ with the ‘lively eye -of the savage’, ‘that would be no fault of mine. That would not justify -Mr Arnold’s blame of me for rendering the words correctly’. -_Correctly_,—ah, but what _is_ correctness in this case? This -correctness of his is the very rock on which Mr Newman has split. He is -so correct that at last he finds peculiarity everywhere. The true -knowledge of Homer becomes at last, in his eyes, a knowledge of Homer’s -‘peculiarities, pleasant and unpleasant’. Learned men know these -‘peculiarities’, and Homer is to be translated because the unlearned are -impatient to know them too. ‘That’, he exclaims, ‘is just why people -want to read an English Homer, _to know all his oddities, just as -learned men do_’. Here I am obliged to shake my head, and to declare -that, in spite of all my respect for Mr Newman, I cannot go these -lengths with him. He talks of my ‘monomaniac fancy that there is nothing -quaint or antique in Homer’. Terrible learning, I cannot help in my turn -exclaiming, terrible learning, which discovers so much! - -Here, then, I take my leave of Mr Newman, retaining my opinion that his -version of Homer is spoiled by his making Homer odd and ignoble; but -having, I hope, sufficient love for literature to be able to canvass -works without thinking of persons, and to hold this or that production -cheap, while retaining a sincere respect, on other grounds, for its -author. - -In fulfilment of my promise to take this opportunity for giving the -translator of Homer a little further advice, I proceed to notice one or -two other criticisms which I find, in like manner, _suggestive_; which -give us an opportunity, that is, of seeing more clearly, as we look into -them, the true principles on which translation of Homer should rest. -This is all I seek in criticisms; and, perhaps (as I have already said) -it is only as one seeks a positive result of this kind, that one can get -any fruit from them. Seeking a negative result from them, personal -altercation and wrangling, one gets no fruit; seeking a positive result, -the elucidation and establishment of one’s ideas, one may get much. Even -bad criticisms may thus be made suggestive and fruitful. I declared, in -a former lecture on this subject, my conviction that criticism is not -the strong point of our national literature. Well, even the bad -criticisms on our present topic which I meet with, serve to illustrate -this conviction for me. And thus one is enabled, even in reading remarks -which for Homeric criticism, for their immediate subject, have no value, -which are far too personal in spirit, far too immoderate in temper, and -far too heavy-handed in style, for the delicate matter they have to -treat, still to gain light and confirmation for a serious idea, and to -follow the Baconian injunction, _semper aliquid addiscere_, always to be -adding to one’s stock of observation and knowledge. Yes, even when we -have to do with writers who, to quote the words of an exquisite critic, -the master of us all in criticism, M. Sainte-Beuve, remind us, when they -handle such subjects as our present, of ‘Romans of the fourth or fifth -century, coming to hold forth, all at random, in African style, on -papers found in the desk of Augustus, Mæcenas, or Pollio’, even then we -may instruct ourselves if we may regard ideas and not persons; even then -we may enable ourselves to say, with the same critic describing the -effect made upon him by D’Argenson’s _Memoirs_: ‘My taste is revolted, -but I learn something; _Je suis choqué mais je suis instruit_’. - -But let us pass to criticisms which are suggestive directly and not thus -indirectly only, criticisms by examining which we may be brought nearer -to what immediately interests us, the right way of translating Homer. - -I said that Homer did not rise and sink with his subject, was never to -be called prosaic and low. This gives surprise to many persons, who -object that parts of the _Iliad_ are certainly pitched lower than -others, and who remind me of a number of absolutely level passages in -Homer. But I never denied that a _subject_ must rise and sink, that it -must have its elevated and its level regions; all I deny is, that a poet -can be said to rise and sink when all that he, as a poet, can do, is -perfectly well done; when he is perfectly sound and good, that is, -perfect as a poet, in the level regions of his subject as well as in its -elevated regions. Indeed, what distinguishes the greatest masters of -poetry from all others is, that they are perfectly sound and poetical in -these level regions of their subject, in these regions which are the -great difficulty of all poets but the very greatest, which they never -quite know what to do with. A poet may sink in these regions by being -falsely grand as well as by being low; he sinks, in short, whenever he -does not treat his matter, whatever it is, in a perfectly good and -poetic way. But, so long as he treats it in this way, he cannot be said -to _sink_, whatever his matter may do. A passage of the simplest -narrative is quoted to me from Homer:— - - ὤτρυνεν δὲ ἕκαστον ἐποιχόμενος ἐπέεσσιν, - Μέσθλην τε, Γλαῦκόν τε, Μέδοντά τε, θερσιλοχόν τε ...[58] - -and I am asked, whether Homer does not sink _there_; whether he ‘_can_ -have intended such lines as those for poetry’? My answer is: Those lines -are very good poetry indeed, poetry of the best class, _in that place_. -But when Wordsworth, having to narrate a very plain matter, tries _not_ -to sink in narrating it, tries, in short, to be what is falsely called -poetical, he does sink, although he sinks by being pompous, not by being -low. - - Onward we drove beneath the Castle; caught, - While crossing Magdalen Bridge, a glimpse of Cam, - And at the Hoop alighted, famous inn. - -That last line shows excellently how a poet may sink with his subject by -resolving not to sink with it. A page or two farther on, the subject -rises to grandeur, and then Wordsworth is nobly worthy of it: - - The antechapel, where the statue stood - Of Newton with his prism and silent face, - The marble index of a mind for ever - Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone. - -But the supreme poet is he who is thoroughly sound and poetical, alike -when his subject is grand, and when it is plain: with him the subject -may sink, but never the poet. But a Dutch painter does not rise and sink -with his subject; Defoe, in _Moll Flanders_, does not rise and sink with -his subject, in so far as an artist cannot be said to sink who is sound -in his treatment of his subject, however plain it is: yet Defoe, yet a -Dutch painter, may in one sense be said to sink with their subject, -because though sound in their treatment of it, they are not _poetical_, -poetical in the true, not the false sense of the word; because, in fact, -they are not in the grand style. Homer can in no sense be said to sink -with his subject, because his soundness has something more than literal -naturalness about it; because his soundness is the soundness of Homer, -of a great epic poet; because, in fact, he is in the grand style. So he -sheds over the simplest matter he touches the charm of his grand manner; -he makes everything noble. Nothing has raised more questioning among my -critics than these words, _noble_, _the grand style_. People complain -that I do not define these words sufficiently, that I do not tell them -enough about them. ‘The grand style, but what _is_ the grand style’? -they cry; some with an inclination to believe in it, but puzzled; others -mockingly and with incredulity. Alas! the grand style is the last matter -in the world for verbal definition to deal with adequately. One may say -of it as is said of faith: ‘One must feel it in order to know what it -is’. But, as of faith, so too one may say of nobleness, of the grand -style: ‘Woe to those who know it not’! Yet this expression, though -indefinable, has a charm; one is the better for considering it; _bonum -est, nos hic esse_; nay, one loves to try to explain it, though one -knows that one must speak imperfectly. For those, then, who ask the -question, What is the grand style? with sincerity, I will try to make -some answer, inadequate as it must be. For those who ask it mockingly I -have no answer, except to repeat to them, with compassionate sorrow, the -Gospel words: _Moriemini in peccatis vestris_, Ye shall die in your -sins. - -But let me, at any rate, have the pleasure of again giving, before I -begin to try and define the grand style, a specimen of what it _is_. - - Standing on earth, not wrapt above the pole, - More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged - To hoarse or mute, though fall’n on evil days, - On evil days though fall’n, and evil tongues.... - -There is the grand style in perfection; and anyone who has a sense for -it, will feel it a thousand times better from repeating those lines than -from hearing anything I can say about it. - -Let us try, however, what _can_ be said, controlling what we say by -examples. I think it will be found that the grand style arises in -poetry, _when a noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity -or with severity a serious subject_. I think this definition will be -found to cover all instances of the grand style in poetry which present -themselves. I think it will be found to exclude all poetry which is not -in the grand style. And I think it contains no terms which are obscure, -which themselves need defining. Even those who do not understand what is -meant by calling poetry noble, will understand, I imagine, what is meant -by speaking of a noble nature in a man. But the noble or powerful -nature—the _bedeutendes Individuum_ of Goethe—is not enough. For -instance, Mr Newman has zeal for learning, zeal for thinking, zeal for -liberty, and all these things are noble, they ennoble a man; but he has -not the poetical gift: there must be the poetical gift, the ‘divine -faculty’, also. And, besides all this, the subject must be a serious one -(for it is only by a kind of licence that we can speak of the grand -style in comedy); and it must be treated _with simplicity or severity_. -Here is the great difficulty: the poets of the world have been many; -there has been wanting neither abundance of poetical gift nor abundance -of noble natures; but a poetical gift so happy, in a noble nature so -circumstanced and trained, that the result is a continuous style, -perfect in simplicity or perfect in severity, has been extremely rare. -One poet has had the gifts of nature and faculty in unequalled fulness, -without the circumstances and training which make this sustained -perfection of style possible. Of other poets, some have caught this -perfect strain now and then, in short pieces or single lines, but have -not been able to maintain it through considerable works; others have -composed all their productions in a style which, by comparison with the -best, one must call secondary. - -The best model of the grand style simple is Homer; perhaps the best -model of the grand style severe is Milton. But Dante is remarkable for -affording admirable examples of both styles; he has the grand style -which arises from simplicity, and he has the grand style which arises -from severity; and from him I will illustrate them both. In a former -lecture I pointed out what that severity of poetical style is, which -comes from saying a thing with a kind of intense compression, or in an -illusive, brief, almost haughty way, as if the poet’s mind were charged -with so many and such grave matters, that he would not deign to treat -any one of them explicitly. Of this severity the last line of the -following stanza of the _Purgatory_ is a good example. Dante has been -telling Forese that Virgil had guided him through Hell, and he goes on: - - Indi m’ han tratto su gli suoi conforti, - Salendo e rigirando la Montagna - _Che drizza voi che il mondo fece torti_[59]. - -‘Thence hath his comforting aid led me up, climbing and circling the -Mountain, _which straightens you whom the world made crooked_’. These -last words, ‘la Montagna _che drizza voi che il mondo fece torti_’, ‘the -Mountain _which straightens you whom the world made crooked_’, for the -Mountain of Purgatory, I call an excellent specimen of the grand style -in severity, where the poet’s mind is too full charged to suffer him to -speak more explicitly. But the very next stanza is a beautiful specimen -of the grand style in simplicity, where a noble nature and a poetical -gift unite to utter a thing with the most limpid plainness and -clearness: - - Tanto dice di farmi sua compagna - Ch’ io sarὸ là dove fia Beatrice; - Quivi convien che senza lui rimagna[60]. - -‘So long’, Dante continues, ‘so long he (Virgil) saith he will bear me -company, until I shall be there where Beatrice is; there it behoves that -without him I remain’. But the noble simplicity of that in the Italian -no words of mine can render. - -Both these styles, the simple and the severe, are truly grand; the -severe seems, perhaps, the grandest, so long as we attend most to the -great personality, to the noble nature, in the poet its author; the -simple seems the grandest when we attend most to the exquisite faculty, -to the poetical gift. But the simple is no doubt to be preferred. It is -the more _magical_: in the other there is something intellectual, -something which gives scope for a play of thought which may exist where -the poetical gift is either wanting or present in only inferior degree: -the severe is much more imitable, and this a little spoils its charm. A -kind of semblance of this style keeps Young going, one may say, through -all the nine parts of that most indifferent production, the _Night -Thoughts_. But the grand style in simplicity is inimitable: - - αἰὼν ἀσφαλὴς - οὐκ ἔγεντ’ οὔτ’ Αἰακίδᾳ παρὰ Πηλεῖ, - οὔτε παρ’ ἀντιθέῳ Κάδμῳ· λέγονται μὰν βροτῶν - ὄλβον ὑπέρτατον οἱ σχεῖν, οἵ τε καὶ χρυσαμπύκων - μελπομενᾶν ἐν ὄρει Μοισᾶν, καὶ ἐν ἑπταπύλοις - ἄϊον Θήβαις ..[61].. - -There is a limpidness in that, a want of salient points to seize and -transfer, which makes imitation impossible, except by a genius akin to -the genius which produced it. - -Greek simplicity and Greek grace are inimitable; but it is said that the -_Iliad_ may still be ballad-poetry while infinitely superior to all -other ballads, and that, in my specimens of English ballad-poetry, I -have been unfair. Well, no doubt there are better things in English -ballad-poetry than - - Now Christ thee save, thou proud portér, ... - -but the real strength of a chain, they say, is the strength of its -weakest link; and what I was trying to show you was, that the English -ballad-style is not an instrument of enough compass and force to -correspond to the Greek hexameter; that, owing to an inherent weakness -in it as an epic style, it easily runs into one or two faults, either it -is prosaic and humdrum, or, trying to avoid that fault, and to make -itself lively (_se faire vif_), it becomes pert and jaunty. To show -that, the passage about King Adland’s porter serves very well. But these -degradations are not proper to a true epic instrument, such as the Greek -hexameter. - -You may say, if you like, when you find Homer’s verse, even in -describing the plainest matter, neither humdrum nor jaunty, that this is -because he is so incomparably better a poet than other balladists, -because he is Homer. But take the whole range of Greek epic poetry, take -the later poets, the poets of the last ages of this poetry, many of them -most indifferent, Coluthus, Tryphiodorus, Quintus of Smyrna, Nonnus. -Never will you find in this instrument of the hexameter, even in their -hands, the vices of the ballad-style in the weak moments of this last: -everywhere the hexameter, a noble, a truly epical instrument, rather -resists the weakness of its employer than lends itself to it. Quintus of -Smyrna is a poet of merit, but certainly not a poet of a high order: -with him, too, epic poetry, whether in the character of its prosody or -in that of its diction, is no longer the epic poetry of earlier and -better times, nor epic poetry as again restored by Nonnus: but even in -Quintus of Smyrna, I say, the hexameter is still the hexameter; it is a -style which the ballad-style, even in the hands of better poets, cannot -rival. And in the hands of inferior poets, the ballad-style sinks to -vices of which the hexameter, even in the hands of a Tryphiodorus, never -can become guilty. - -But a critic, whom it is impossible to read without pleasure, and the -disguise of whose initials I am sure I may be allowed to penetrate, Mr -Spedding says that he ‘denies altogether that the metrical movement of -the English hexameter has any resemblance to that of the Greek’. Of -course, in that case, if the two metres in no respect correspond, praise -accorded to the Greek hexameter as an epical instrument will not extend -to the English. Mr Spedding seeks to establish his proposition by -pointing out that the system of accentuation differs in the English and -in the Virgilian hexameter; that in the first, the accent and the long -syllable (or what has to do duty as such) coincide, in the second they -do not. He says that we cannot be so sure of the accent with which Greek -verse should be read as of that with which Latin should; but that the -lines of Homer in which the accent and the long syllable coincide, as in -the English hexameter, are certainly very rare. He suggests a type of -English hexameter in agreement with the Virgilian model, and formed on -the supposition that ‘quantity is as distinguishable in English as in -Latin or Greek by any ear that will attend to it’. Of the truth of this -supposition he entertains no doubt. The new hexameter will, Mr Spedding -thinks, at least have the merit of resembling, in its metrical movement, -the classical hexameter, which merit the ordinary English hexameter has -not. But even with this improved hexameter he is not satisfied; and he -goes on, first to suggest other metres for rendering Homer, and finally -to suggest that rendering Homer is impossible. - -A scholar to whom all who admire Lucretius owe a large debt of -gratitude, Mr Munro, has replied to Mr Spedding. Mr Munro declares that -‘the accent of the old Greeks and Romans resembled our accent only in -name, in reality was essentially different’; that ‘our English reading -of Homer and Virgil has in itself no meaning’; and that ‘accent has -nothing to do with the Virgilian hexameter’. If this be so, of course -the merit which Mr Spedding attributes to his own hexameter, of really -corresponding with the Virgilian hexameter, has no existence. Again; in -contradiction to Mr Spedding’s assertion that lines in which (in our -reading of them) the accent and the long syllable coincide[62], as in -the ordinary English hexameter, are ‘rare even in Homer’, Mr Munro -declares that such lines, ‘instead of being rare, are among the very -commonest types of Homeric rhythm’. Mr Spedding asserts that ‘quantity -is as distinguishable in English as in Latin or Greek by any ear that -will attend to it’; but Mr Munro replies, that in English ‘neither his -ear nor his reason recognises any real distinction of quantity except -that which is produced by accentuated and unaccentuated syllables’. He -therefore arrives at the conclusion that in constructing English -hexameters, ‘quantity must be utterly discarded; and longer or shorter -unaccentuated syllables can have no meaning, except so far as they may -be made to produce sweeter or harsher sounds in the hands of a master’. - -It is not for me to interpose between two such combatants; and indeed my -way lies, not up the highroad where they are contending, but along a -bypath. With the absolute truth of their general propositions respecting -accent and quantity, I have nothing to do; it is most interesting and -instructive to me to hear such propositions discussed, when it is Mr -Munro or Mr Spedding who discusses them; but I have strictly limited -myself in these Lectures to the humble function of giving practical -advice to the translator of Homer. He, I still think, must not follow so -confidently, as makers of English hexameters have hitherto followed, Mr -Munro’s maxim, _quantity may be utterly discarded_. He must not, like Mr -Longfellow, make _seventeen_ a dactyl in spite of all the length of its -last syllable, even though he can plead that in counting we lay the -accent on the first syllable of this word. He may be far from attaining -Mr Spedding’s nicety of ear; may be unable to feel that ‘while -_quantity_ is a dactyl, _quiddity_ is a tribrach’, and that ‘_rapidly_ -is a word to which we find no parallel in Latin’; but I think he must -bring himself to distinguish, with Mr Spedding, between ‘_th’ -o’er_-wearied eyelid’, and ‘_the_ wearied eyelid’, as being, the one a -correct ending for a hexameter, the other an ending with a false -quantity in it; instead of finding, with Mr Munro, that this distinction -‘conveys to his mind no intelligible idea’. He must temper his belief in -Mr Munro’s dictum, _quantity must be utterly discarded_, by mixing with -it a belief in this other dictum of the same author, _two or more -consonants take longer time in enunciating than one_[63]. - -Criticism is so apt in general to be vague and impalpable, that when it -gives us a solid and definite possession, such as is Mr Spedding’s -parallel of the Virgilian and the English hexameter with their -difference of accentuation distinctly marked, we cannot be too grateful -to it. It is in the way in which Mr Spedding proceeds to press his -conclusions from the parallel which he has drawn out, that his criticism -seems to me to come a little short. Here even he, I think, shows (if he -will allow me to say so) a little of that want of pliancy and suppleness -so common among critics, but so dangerous to their criticism; he is a -little too absolute in imposing his metrical laws; he too much forgets -the excellent maxim of Menander, so applicable to literary criticism:— - - Καλὸν οἱ νόμοι σφόδρ’ εἰσίν· ὁ δ’ ὁρῶν τοὺς νόμους - λίαν ἀκριβῶς, συκοφάντης φαίνεται· - -‘Laws are admirable things; but he who keeps his eye too closely fixed -upon them, runs the risk of becoming’, let us say, a purist. Mr Spedding -is probably mistaken in supposing that Virgil pronounced his hexameters -as Mr Spedding pronounces them. He is almost certainly mistaken in -supposing that Homer pronounced his hexameters as Mr Spedding pronounces -Virgil’s. But this, as I have said, is not a question for us to treat; -all we are here concerned with is the imitation, by the English -hexameter, of the ancient hexameter _in its effect upon us moderns_. -Suppose we concede to Mr Spedding that his parallel proves our -accentuation of the English and of the Virgilian hexameter to be -different: what are we to conclude from that; how will a criticism, not -a formal, but a substantial criticism, deal with such a fact as that? -Will it infer, as Mr Spedding infers, that the English hexameter, -therefore, must not pretend to reproduce better than other rhythms the -movement of Homer’s hexameter for us, that there can be no -correspondence at all between the movement of these two hexameters, that -if we want to have such a correspondence, we must abandon the current -English hexameter altogether, and adopt in its place a new hexameter of -Mr Spedding’s Anglo-Latin type, substitute for lines like the - - Clearly the rest I behold of the dark-eyed sons of Achaia ... - -of Dr Hawtrey, lines like the - - Procession, complex melodies, pause, quantity, accent, - After Virgilian precedent and practice, in order ... - -of Mr Spedding? To infer this, is to go, as I have complained of Mr -Newman for sometimes going, a great deal too fast. I think prudent -criticism must certainly recognise, in the current English hexameter, a -fact which cannot so lightly be set aside; it must acknowledge that by -this hexameter the English ear, the genius of the English language, -have, in their own way, adopted, have _translated_ for themselves the -Homeric hexameter; and that a rhythm which has thus grown up, which is -thus, in a manner, the production of nature, has in its general type -something necessary and inevitable, something which admits change only -within narrow limits, which precludes change that is sweeping and -essential. I think, therefore, the prudent critic will regard Mr -Spedding’s proposed revolution as simply impracticable. He will feel -that in English poetry the hexameter, if used at all, must be, in the -main, the English hexameter now current. He will perceive that its -having come into existence as the representative of the Homeric -hexameter, proves it to have, for the English ear, a certain -correspondence with the Homeric hexameter, although this correspondence -may be, from the difference of the Greek and English languages, -necessarily incomplete. This incompleteness he will endeavour[64], as he -may find or fancy himself able, gradually somewhat to lessen through -minor changes, suggested by the ancient hexameter, but respecting the -general constitution of the modern: the notion of making it disappear -altogether by the critic’s inventing in his closet a new constitution of -his own for the English hexameter, he will judge to be a chimerical -dream. - -When, therefore, Mr Spedding objects to the English hexameter, that it -imperfectly represents the movement of the ancient hexameters, I answer: -We must work with the tools we have. The received English type, in its -general outlines, is, for England, the necessary given type of this -metre; it is by rendering the metrical beat of its pattern, not by -rendering the accentual beat of it, that the English language has -adapted the Greek hexameter. To render the metrical beat of its pattern -is something; by effecting so much as this the English hexameter puts -itself in closer relations with its original, it comes nearer to its -movement than any other metre which does not even effect so much as -this; but Mr Spedding is dissatisfied with it for not effecting more -still, for not rendering the accentual beat too. If he asks me _why_ the -English hexameter has not tried to render this too, _why_ it has -confined itself to rendering the metrical beat, _why_, in short, it is -itself, and not Mr Spedding’s new hexameter, that is a question which I, -whose only business is to give practical advice to a translator, am not -bound to answer; but I will not decline to answer it nevertheless. I -will suggest to Mr Spedding that, as I have already said, the modern -hexameter is merely an attempt to imitate the effect of the ancient -hexameter, as read by us moderns; that the great object of its imitation -has been the hexameter of Homer; that of this hexameter such lines as -those which Mr Spedding declares to be so rare, even in Homer, but which -are in truth so common, lines in which the quantity and the reader’s -accent coincide, are, for the English reader, just from that simplicity -(for him) of rhythm which they owe to this very coincidence, the -master-type; that so much is this the case that one may again and again -notice an English reader of Homer, in reading lines where his Virgilian -accent would not coincide with the quantity, abandoning this accent, and -reading the lines (as we say) _by quantity_, reading them as if he were -scanning them; while foreigners neglect our Virgilian accent even in -reading Virgil, read even Virgil by quantity, making the accents -coincide with the long syllables. And no doubt the hexameter of a -kindred language, the German, based on this mode of reading the ancient -hexameter, has had a powerful influence upon the type of its English -fellow. But all this shows how extremely powerful accent is for us -moderns, since we find not even Greek and Latin quantity perceptible -enough without it. Yet in these languages, where we have been accustomed -always to look for it, it is far more perceptible to us Englishmen than -in our own language, where we have not been accustomed to look for it. -And here is the true reason why Mr Spedding’s hexameter is not and -cannot be the current English hexameter, even though it is based on the -accentuation which Englishmen give to all Virgil’s lines, and to many of -Homer’s,—that the quantity which in Greek or Latin words we feel, or -imagine we feel, even though it be unsupported by accent, we do not feel -or imagine we feel in English words when it is thus unsupported. For -example, in repeating the Latin line - - Ipsa tibi blandos _fundent_ cunabula flores, - -an Englishman feels the length of the second syllable of _fundent_, -although he lays the accent on the first; but in repeating Mr Spedding’s -line, - - Softly cometh slumber _closing_ th’ o’erwearied eyelid, - -the English ear, full of the accent on the first syllable of _closing_, -has really no sense at all of any length in its second. The metrical -beat of the line is thus quite destroyed. - -So when Mr Spedding proposes a new Anglo-Virgilian hexameter he proposes -an impossibility; when he ‘denies altogether that the metrical movement -of the English hexameter has _any_ resemblance to that of the Greek’, he -denies too much; when he declares that, ‘were every other metre -impossible, an attempt to translate Homer into English hexameters might -be permitted, _but that such an attempt he himself would never read_’, -he exhibits, it seems to me, a little of that obduracy and -over-vehemence in liking and disliking,—a remnant, I suppose, of our -insular ferocity,—to which English criticism is so prone. He ought to be -enchanted to meet with a good attempt in any metre, even though he would -never have advised it, even though its success be contrary to all his -expectations; for it is the critic’s first duty—prior even to his duty -of stigmatizing what is bad—_to welcome everything that is good_. In -welcoming this, he must at all times be ready, like the Christian -convert, even to burn what he used to worship, and to worship what he -used to burn. Nay, but he need not be thus inconsistent in welcoming it; -he may retain all his principles: principles endure, circumstances -change; absolute success is one thing, relative success another. -Relative success may take place under the most diverse conditions; and -it is in appreciating the good in even relative success, it is in taking -into account the change of circumstances, that the critic’s judgment is -tested, that his versatility must display itself. He is to keep his idea -of the best, of perfection, and at the same time to be willingly -accessible to every second best which offers itself. So I enjoy the ease -and beauty of Mr Spedding’s stanza, - - Therewith to all the gods in order due ... - -I welcome it, in the absence of equally good poetry in another -metre[65], although I still think the stanza unfit to render Homer -thoroughly well, although I still think other metres fit to render him -better. So I concede to Mr Spedding that every form of translation, -prose or verse, must more or less break up Homer in order to reproduce -him; but then I urge that that form which needs to break him up least is -to be preferred. So I concede to him that the test proposed by me for -the translator—a competent scholar’s judgment whether the translation -more or less reproduces for him the effect of the original—is not -perfectly satisfactory; but I adopt it as the best we can get, as the -only test capable of being really applied; for Mr Spedding’s proposed -substitute, the translations making the same effect, more or less, upon -the unlearned which the original makes upon the scholar, is a test which -can never really be applied at all. These two impressions, that of the -scholar, and that of the unlearned reader, can, practically, never be -accurately compared; they are, and must remain, like those lines we read -of in Euclid, which, though produced ever so far, can never meet. So, -again, I concede that a good verse-translation of Homer, or, indeed, of -any poet, is very difficult, and that a good prose-translation is much -easier; but then I urge that a verse-translation, while giving the -pleasure which Pope’s has given, might at the same time render Homer -more faithfully than Pope’s; and that this being possible, we ought not -to cease wishing for a source of pleasure which no prose-translation can -ever hope to rival. - -Wishing for such a verse-translation of Homer, believing that rhythms -have natural tendencies which, within certain limits, inevitably govern -them; having little faith, therefore, that rhythms which have manifested -tendencies utterly un-Homeric can so change themselves as to become well -adapted for rendering Homer, I have looked about for the rhythm which -seems to depart least from the tendencies of Homer’s rhythm. Such a -rhythm I think may be found in the English hexameter, somewhat modified. -I look with hope towards continued attempts at perfecting and employing -this rhythm; but my belief in the immediate success of such attempts is -far less confident than has been supposed. Between the recognition of -this rhythm as ideally the best, and the recommendation of it to the -translator for instant practical use, there must come all that -consideration of circumstances, all that pliancy in foregoing, under the -pressure of certain difficulties, the absolute best, which I have said -is so indispensable to the critic. The hexameter is, comparatively, -still unfamiliar in England; many people have a great dislike to it. A -certain degree of unfamiliarity, a certain degree of dislike, are -obstacles with which it is not wise to contend. It is difficult to say -at present whether the dislike to this rhythm is so strong and so -wide-spread that it will prevent its ever becoming thoroughly familiar. -I think not, but it is too soon to decide. I am inclined to think that -the dislike of it is rather among the professional critics than among -the general public; I think the reception which Mr Longfellow’s -_Evangeline_ has met with indicates this. I think that even now, if a -version of the _Iliad_ in English hexameters were made by a poet who, -like Mr Longfellow, has that indefinable quality which renders him -popular, something _attractive_ in his talent, which communicates itself -to his verses, it would have a great success among the general public. -Yet a version of Homer in hexameters of the _Evangeline_ type would not -satisfy the judicious, nor is the definite establishment of this type to -be desired; and one would regret that Mr Longfellow should, even to -popularise the hexameter, give the immense labour required for a -translation of Homer when one could not wish his work to stand. Rather -it is to be wished that by the efforts of poets like Mr Longfellow in -original poetry, and the efforts of less distinguished poets in the task -of translation, the hexameter may gradually be made familiar to the ear -of the English public; at the same time that there gradually arises, out -of all these efforts, an improved type of this rhythm; a type which some -man of genius may sign with the final stamp, and employ in rendering -Homer; a hexameter which may be as superior to Vosse’s as Shakspeare’s -blank verse is superior to Schiller’s. I am inclined to believe that all -this travail will actually take place, because I believe that modern -poetry is actually in want of such an instrument as the hexameter. - -In the meantime, whether this rhythm be destined to success or not, let -us steadily keep in mind what originally made us turn to it. We turned -to it because we required certain Homeric characteristics in a -translation of Homer, and because all other rhythms seemed to find, from -different causes, great difficulties in satisfying this our requirement. -If the hexameter is impossible, if one of these other rhythms must be -used, let us keep this rhythm always in mind of our requirements and of -its own faults, let us compel it to get rid of these latter as much as -possible. It may be necessary to have recourse to blank verse; but then -blank verse must _de-Cowperize_ itself, must get rid of the habits of -stiff self-retardation which make it say ‘_Not fewer_ shone’, for ‘_So -many shone_’. Homer moves swiftly: blank verse _can_ move swiftly if it -likes, but it must remember that the movement of such lines as - - A thousand fires were burning, and by each ... - -is just the slow movement which makes us despair of it. Homer moves with -noble ease: blank verse must not be suffered to forget that the movement -of - - Came they not over from sweet Lacedæmon ... - -is ungainly. Homer’s expression of his thought is simple as light: we -know how blank verse affects such locutions as - - While the steeds _mouthed their corn aloof_ ... - -and such models of expressing one’s thought are sophisticated and -artificial. - -One sees how needful it is to direct incessantly the English -translator’s attention to the essential characteristics of Homer’s -poetry, when so accomplished a person as Mr Spedding, recognising these -characteristics as indeed Homer’s, admitting them to be essential, is -led by the ingrained habits and tendencies of English blank verse thus -repeatedly to lose sight of them in translating even a few lines. One -sees this yet more clearly, when Mr Spedding, taking me to task for -saying that the blank verse used for rendering Homer ‘must not be Mr -Tennyson’s blank verse’, declares that in most of Mr Tennyson’s blank -verse all Homer’s essential characteristics, ‘rapidity of movement, -_plainness of words and style_, _simplicity and directness of ideas_, -and, above all, nobleness of manner, are as conspicuous as in Homer -himself’. This shows, it seems to me, how hard it is for English readers -of poetry, even the most accomplished, to feel deeply and permanently -what Greek plainness of thought and Greek simplicity of expression -really are: they admit the importance of these qualities in a general -way, but they have no ever-present sense of them; and they easily -attribute them to any poetry which has other excellent qualities, and -which they very much admire. No doubt there are plainer things in Mr -Tennyson’s poetry than the three lines I quoted; in choosing them, as in -choosing a specimen of ballad-poetry, I wished to bring out clearly, by -a strong instance, the qualities of thought and style to which I was -calling attention; but when Mr Spedding talks of a plainness of thought -_like Homer’s_, of a plainness of speech _like Homer’s_, and says that -he finds these constantly in Mr Tennyson’s poetry, I answer that these I -do not find there at all. Mr Tennyson is a most distinguished and -charming poet; but the very essential characteristic of his poetry is, -it seems to me, an extreme subtlety and curious elaborateness of -thought, an extreme subtlety and curious elaborateness of expression. In -the best and most characteristic productions of his genius, these -characteristics are most prominent. They are marked characteristics, as -we have seen, of the Elizabethan poets; they are marked, though not the -essential, characteristics of Shakspeare himself. Under the influences -of the nineteenth century, under wholly new conditions of thought and -culture, they manifest themselves in Mr Tennyson’s poetry in a wholly -new way. But they are still there. The essential bent of his poetry is -towards such expressions as - - Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars; - - O’er the sun’s bright eye - Drew the vast eyelid of an inky cloud; - - When the cairned mountain was a shadow, sunned - The world to peace again; - - The fresh young captains flashed their glittering teeth, - The huge bush-bearded barons heaved and blew; - - He bared the knotted column of his throat, - The massive square of his heroic breast, - And arms on which the standing muscle sloped - As slopes a wild brook o’er a little stone, - Running too vehemently to break upon it. - -And this way of speaking is the least _plain_, the most _un-Homeric_, -which can possibly be conceived. Homer presents his thought to you just -as it wells from the source of his mind: Mr Tennyson carefully distils -his thought before he will part with it. Hence comes, in the expression -of the thought, a heightened and elaborate air. In Homer’s poetry it is -all natural thoughts in natural words; in Mr Tennyson’s poetry it is all -distilled thoughts in distilled words. Exactly this heightening and -elaboration may be observed in Mr Spedding’s - - While the steeds _mouthed their corn aloof_ - -(an expression which might have been Mr Tennyson’s), on which I have -already commented; and to one who is penetrated with a sense of the real -simplicity of Homer, this subtle sophistication of the thought is, I -think, very perceptible even in such lines as these, - - And drunk delight of battle with my peers, - Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy, - -which I have seen quoted as perfectly Homeric. Perfect simplicity can be -obtained only by a genius of which perfect simplicity is an essential -characteristic. - -So true is this, that when a genius essentially subtle, or a genius -which, from whatever cause, is in its essence not truly and broadly -simple, determines to be perfectly plain, determines not to admit a -shade of subtlety or curiosity into its expression, it cannot ever then -attain real simplicity; it can only attain a semblance of -simplicity[66]. French criticism, richer in its vocabulary than ours, -has invented a useful word to distinguish this semblance (often very -beautiful and valuable) from the real quality. The real quality it calls -_simplicité_, the semblance _simplesse_. The one is natural simplicity, -the other is artificial simplicity. What is called simplicity in the -productions of a genius essentially not simple, is, in truth, -_simplesse_. The two are distinguishable from one another the moment -they appear in company. For instance, let us take the opening of the -narrative in Wordsworth’s _Michael_: - - Upon the forest-side in Grasmere Vale - There dwelt a shepherd, Michael was his name; - An old man, stout of heart, and strong of limb. - His bodily frame had been from youth to age - Of an unusual strength; his mind was keen, - Intense, and frugal, apt for all affairs; - And in his shepherd’s calling he was prompt - And watchful more than ordinary men. - -Now let us take the opening of the narrative in Mr Tennyson’s _Dora_: - - With Farmer Allan at the farm abode - William and Dora. William was his son, - And she his niece. He often looked at them, - And often thought, ‘I’ll make them man and wife’. - -The simplicity of the first of these passages is _simplicité_; that of -the second, _simplesse_. Let us take the end of the same two poems: -first, of _Michael_: - - The cottage which was named the Evening Star - Is gone, the ploughshare has been through the ground - On which it stood; great changes have been wrought - In all the neighbourhood: yet the oak is left - That grew beside their door: and the remains - Of the unfinished sheepfold may be seen - Beside the boisterous brook of Green-head Ghyll. - -And now, of _Dora_: - - So those four abode - Within one house together; and as years - Went forward, Mary took another mate: - But Dora lived unmarried till her death. - -A heedless critic may call both of these passages simple if he will. -Simple, in a certain sense, they both are; but between the simplicity of -the two there is all the difference that there is between the simplicity -of Homer and the simplicity of Moschus. - -But, whether the hexameter establish itself or not, whether a truly -simple and rapid blank verse be obtained or not, as the vehicle for a -standard English translation of Homer, I feel sure that this vehicle -will not be furnished by the ballad-form. On this question about the -ballad-character of Homer’s poetry, I see that Professor Blackie -proposes a compromise: he suggests that those who say Homer’s poetry is -pure ballad-poetry, and those who deny that it is ballad-poetry at all, -should split the difference between them; that it should be agreed that -Homer’s poems are ballads _a little_, but not so much as some have said. -I am very sensible to the courtesy of the terms in which Mr Blackie -invites me to this compromise; but I cannot, I am sorry to say, accept -it; I cannot allow that Homer’s poetry is ballad-poetry at all. A want -of capacity for sustained nobleness seems to me inherent in the -ballad-form when employed for epic poetry. The more we examine this -proposition, the more certain, I think, will it become to us. Let us but -observe how a great poet, having to deliver a narrative very weighty and -serious, instinctively shrinks from the ballad-form as from a form not -commensurate with his subject-matter, a form too narrow and shallow for -it, and seeks for a form which has more amplitude and impressiveness. -Everyone knows the _Lucy Gray_ and the _Ruth_ of Wordsworth. Both poems -are excellent; but the subject-matter of the narrative of _Ruth_ is much -more weighty and impressive to the poet’s own feeling than that of the -narrative of _Lucy Gray_, for which latter, in its unpretending -simplicity, the ballad-form is quite adequate. Wordsworth, at the time -he composed _Ruth_, his great time, his _annus mirabilis_, about 1800, -strove to be simple; it was his mission to be simple; he loved the -ballad-form, he clung to it, because it was simple. Even in _Ruth_ he -tried, one may say, to use it; he would have used it if he could: but -the gravity of his matter is too much for this somewhat slight form; he -is obliged to give to his form more amplitude, more augustness, to shake -out its folds. - - The wretched parents all that night - Went shouting far and wide; - But there was neither sound nor sight - To serve them for a guide. - -That is beautiful, no doubt, and the form is adequate to the -subject-matter. But take this, on the other hand: - - I, too, have passed her on the hills, - Setting her little water-mills - By spouts and fountains wild; - Such small machinery as she turned, - Ere she had wept, ere she had mourned, - A young and happy child. - -Who does not perceive how the greater fulness and weight of his matter -has here compelled the true and feeling poet to adopt a form of more -_volume_ than the simple ballad-form? - -It is of narrative poetry that I am speaking; the question is about the -use of the ballad-form for _this_. I say that for this poetry (when in -the grand style, as Homer’s is) the ballad-form is entirely inadequate; -and that Homer’s translator must not adopt it, because it even leads -him, by its own weakness, away from the grand style rather than towards -it. We must remember that the matter of narrative poetry stands in a -different relation to the vehicle which conveys it, is not so -independent of this vehicle, so absorbing and powerful in itself, as the -matter of purely emotional poetry. When there comes in poetry what I may -call the _lyrical cry_, this transfigures everything, makes everything -grand; the simplest form may be here even an advantage, because the -flame of the emotion glows through and through it more easily. To go -again for an illustration to Wordsworth; our great poet, since Milton, -by his performance, as Keats, I think, is our great poet by his gift and -promise; in one of his stanzas to the Cuckoo, we have: - - And I can listen to thee yet; - Can lie upon the plain - And listen, till I do beget - That golden time again. - -Here the lyrical cry, though taking the simple ballad-form, is as grand -as the lyrical cry coming in poetry of an ampler form, as grand as the - - An innocent life, yet far astray! - -of _Ruth_; as the - - There is a comfort in the strength of love - -of _Michael_. In this way, by the occurrence of this lyrical cry, the -ballad-poets themselves rise sometimes, though not so often as one might -perhaps have hoped, to the grand style. - - O lang, lang may their ladies sit, - Wi’ their fans into their hand, - Or ere they see Sir Patrick Spence - Come sailing to the land. - - O lang, lang may the ladies stand, - Wi’ their gold combs in their hair, - Waiting for their ain dear lords, - For they’ll see them nae mair. - -But from this impressiveness of the ballad-form, when its subject-matter -fills it over and over again, is, indeed, in itself, all in all, one -must not infer its effectiveness when its subject-matter is not thus -overpowering, in the great body of a narrative. - -But, after all, Homer is not a better poet than the balladists, because -he has taken in the hexameter a better instrument; he took this -instrument because he was a _different_ poet from them; so different, -not only so much better, but so essentially different, that he has not -to be classed with them at all. Poets receive their distinctive -character, not from their subject, but from their application to that -subject of the ideas (to quote the _Excursion_) - - On God, on Nature, and on human life, - -which they have acquired for themselves. In the ballad-poets in general, -as in men of a rude and early stage of the world, in whom their humanity -is not yet variously and fully developed, the stock of these ideas is -scanty, and the ideas themselves not very effective or profound. From -them the narrative itself is the great matter, not the spirit and -significance which underlies the narrative. Even in later times of -richly developed life and thought, poets appear who have what may be -called a _balladist’s mind_; in whom a fresh and lively curiosity for -the outward spectacle of the world is much more strong than their sense -of the inward significance of that spectacle. When they apply ideas to -their narrative of human events, you feel that they are, so to speak, -travelling out of their own province: in the best of them you feel this -perceptibly, but in those of a lower order you feel it very strongly. -Even Sir Walter Scott’s efforts of this kind, even, for instance, the - - Breathes there the man with soul so dead, - -or the - - O woman! in our hours of ease, - -even these leave, I think, as high poetry, much to be desired; far more -than the same poet’s descriptions of a hunt or a battle. But Lord -Macaulay’s - - Then out spake brave Horatius, - The captain of the gate: - ‘To all the men upon this earth - Death cometh soon or late’. - -(and here, since I have been reproached with undervaluing Lord -Macaulay’s _Lays of Ancient Rome_, let me frankly say that, to my mind, -a man’s power to detect the ring of false metal in those Lays is a good -measure of his fitness to give an opinion about poetical matters at -all), I say, Lord Macaulay’s - - To all the men upon this earth - Death cometh soon or late, - -it is hard to read without a cry of pain. But with Homer it is very -different. This ‘noble barbarian’, this ‘savage with the lively eye’, -whose verse, Mr Newman thinks, would affect us, if we could hear the -living Homer, ‘like an elegant and simple melody from an African of the -Gold Coast’, is never more at home, never more nobly himself, than in -applying profound ideas to his narrative. As a poet he belongs, -narrative as is his poetry, and early as is his date, to an incomparably -more developed spiritual and intellectual order than the balladists, or -than Scott and Macaulay; he is here as much to be distinguished from -them, and in the same way, as Milton is to be distinguished from them. -He is, indeed, rather to be classed with Milton than with the balladists -and Scott; for what he has in common with Milton, the noble and profound -application of ideas to life is the most essential part of poetic -greatness. The most essentially grand and characteristic things of Homer -are such things as - - ἔτλην δ’, οἷ’ οὔπω τις ἐπιχθόνιος βροτὸς ἂλλος, - ἀνδρὸς παιδοφόνοιο ποτὶ στόμα χεῖρ’ ὀρέγεσθαι[67], - -or as - - καὶ σὲ, γέρον, τὸ πρὶν μὲν ἀκούομεν ὄλβιον εἶναι[68], - -or as - - ὥς γὰρ ἐπεκλώσαντο θεοὶ δειλοῖσι βροτοῖσιν, - ζώειν ἀχνυμένους· αὐτοὶ δὲ τ’ ἀκηδέες εἰσίν[69], - -and of these the tone is given, far better than by anything of the -balladists, by such things as the - - Io no piangeva: sì dentro impietrai: - Piangevan elli ...[70] - -of Dante; or the - - Fall’n Cherub! to be weak is miserable - -of Milton. - -I suppose I must, before I conclude, say a word or two about my own -hexameters; and yet really, on such a topic, I am almost ashamed to -trouble you. From those perishable objects I feel, I can truly say, a -most Oriental detachment. You yourselves are witnesses how little -importance, when I offered them to you, I claimed for them, how humble a -function I designed them to fill. I offered them, not as specimens of a -competing translation of Homer, but as illustrations of certain canons -which I had been trying to establish for Homer’s poetry. I said that -these canons they might very well illustrate by failing as well as by -succeeding: if they illustrate them in any manner, I am satisfied. I was -thinking of the future translator of Homer, and trying to let him see as -clearly as possible what I meant by the combination of characteristics -which I assigned to Homer’s poetry, by saying that this poetry was at -once rapid in movement, plain in words and style, simple and direct in -its ideas, and noble in manner. I do not suppose that my own hexameters -are rapid in movement, plain in words and style, simple and direct in -their ideas, and noble in manner; but I am in hopes that a translator, -reading them with a genuine interest in his subject, and without the -slightest grain of personal feeling, may see more clearly, as he reads -them, what I meant by saying that Homer’s poetry is all these. I am in -hopes that he may be able to seize more distinctly, when he has before -him my - - So shone forth, in front of Troy, by the bed of the Xanthus, - -or my - - Ah, unhappy pair, to Peleus why did we give you? - -or my - - So he spake, and drove with a cry his steeds into battle, - -the exact points which I wish him to avoid in Cowper’s - - So numerous seemed those fires the banks between, - -or in Pope’s - - Unhappy coursers of immortal strain, - -or in Mr Newman’s - - He spake, and, yelling, held a-front his single-hoofed horses. - -At the same time there may be innumerable points in mine which he ought -to avoid also. Of the merit of his own compositions no composer can be -admitted the judge. - -But thus humbly useful to the future translator I still hope my -hexameters may prove; and he it is, above all, whom one has to regard. -The general public carries away little from discussions of this kind, -except some vague notion that one advocates English hexameters, or that -one has attacked Mr Newman. On the mind of an adversary one never makes -the faintest impression. Mr Newman reads all one can say about diction, -and his last word on the subject is, that he ‘regards it as a question -about to open hereafter, whether a translator of Homer ought not to -adopt the old dissyllabic _landis_, _houndis_, _hartis_’ (for lands, -hounds, harts), and also ‘the final _en_ of the plural of verbs (we -_dancen_, they _singen_, etc.), which still subsists in Lancashire’. A -certain critic reads all one can say about style, and at the end of it -arrives at the inference that, ‘after all, there is some style grander -than the grand style itself, since Shakspeare has not the grand manner, -and yet has the supremacy over Milton’; another critic reads all one can -say about rhythm, and the result is, that he thinks Scott’s rhythm, in -the description of the death of Marmion, all the better for being -_saccadé_, because the dying ejaculations of Marmion were likely to be -‘jerky’. How vain to rise up early, and to take rest late, from any zeal -for proving to Mr Newman that he must not, in translating Homer, say -_houndis_ and _dancen_; or to the first of the two critics above quoted, -that one poet may be a greater poetical force than another, and yet have -a more unequal style; or to the second, that the best art, having to -represent the death of a hero, does not set about imitating his dying -noises! Such critics, however, provide for an opponent’s vivacity the -charming excuse offered by Rivarol for his, when he was reproached with -giving offence by it: ‘Ah’! he exclaimed, ‘no one considers how much -pain every man of taste has had to _suffer_, before he ever inflicts -any’. - -It is for the future translator that one must work. The successful -translator of Homer will have (or he cannot succeed) that true sense for -his subject, and that disinterested love for it, which are, both of -them, so rare in literature, and so precious; he will not be led off by -any false scent; he will have an eye for the real matter, and where he -thinks he may find any indication of this, no hint will be too slight -for him, no shade will be too fine, no imperfections will turn him -aside, he will go before his adviser’s thought, and help it out with his -own. This is the sort of student that a critic of Homer should always -have in his thoughts; but students of this sort are indeed rare. - -And how, then, can I help being reminded what a student of this sort we -have just lost in Mr Clough, whose name I have already mentioned in -these lectures? He, too, was busy with Homer; but it is not on that -account that I now speak of him. Nor do I speak of him in order to call -attention to his qualities and powers in general, admirable as these -were. I mention him because, in so eminent a degree, he possessed these -two invaluable literary qualities, a true sense for his object of study, -and a single-hearted care for it. He had both; but he had the second -even more eminently than the first. He greatly developed the first -through means of the second. In the study of art, poetry, or philosophy, -he had the most undivided and disinterested love for his object in -itself, the greatest aversion to mixing up with it anything accidental -or personal. His interest was in literature itself; and it was this -which gave so rare a stamp to his character, which kept him so free from -all taint of littleness. In the saturnalia of ignoble personal passions, -of which the struggle for literary success, in old and crowded -communities, offers so sad a spectacle, he never mingled. He had not yet -traduced his friends, nor flattered his enemies, nor disparaged what he -admired, nor praised what he despised. Those who knew him well had the -conviction that, even with time, these literary arts would never be his. -His poem, of which I before spoke, has some admirable Homeric -qualities;—out-of-doors freshness, life, naturalness, buoyant rapidity. -Some of the expressions in that poem, ‘_Dangerous Corrievreckan ... -Where roads are unknown to Loch Nevish_’, come back now to my ear with -the true Homeric ring. But that in him of which I think oftenest is the -Homeric simplicity of his literary life. - -Footnote 56: - - ‘It is the fact, that scholars of fastidious refinement, but of a - judgment which I think far more masculine than Mr Arnold’s, have - passed a most encouraging sentence on large specimens of my - translation. I at present count eight such names’.—‘Before venturing - to print, I sought to ascertain how unlearned women and children would - accept my verses. I could boast how children and half-educated women - have extolled them, how greedily a working man has inquired for them, - without knowing who was the translator’.—MR NEWMAN’S Reply, pp. 113, - 124, _supra_. - -Footnote 57: - - ‘O for the fields of Thessaly and the streams of Spercheios! O for the - hills alive with the dances of the Laconian maidens, the hills of - Taygetus’!—_Georgics_, ii. 486. - -Footnote 58: - - _Iliad_, xvii, 216. - -Footnote 59: - - _Purgatory_, xxiii, 124. - -Footnote 60: - - _Purgatory_, xxiii, 127. - -Footnote 61: - - ‘A secure time fell to the lot neither of Peleus the son of Æacus, nor - of the godlike Cadmus; howbeit these are said to have had, of all - mortals, the supreme of happiness, who heard the golden-snooded Muses - sing, one of them on the mountain (Pelion), the other in seven-gated - Thebus’. - -Footnote 62: - - Lines such as the first of the _Odyssey_ - - Ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὅς μάλα πολλὰ.... - -Footnote 63: - - Substantially, however, in the question at issue between Mr Munro and - Mr Spedding, I agree with Mr Munro. By the italicized words in the - following sentence, ‘The rhythm of the Virgilian hexameter depends - entirely on _cæsura_, _pause_, and a due arrangement of words’, he has - touched, it seems to me, in the constitution of this hexameter, the - central point which Mr Spedding misses. The accent, or _heightened - tone_, of Virgil in reading his own hexameters, was probably far from - being the same thing as the accent or _stress_ with which we read - them. The general effect of each line, in Virgil’s mouth, was probably - therefore something widely different from what Mr Spedding assumes it - to have been: an ancient’s accentual reading was something which - allowed the metrical beat of the Latin line to be far more perceptible - than our accentual reading allows it to be. - - On the question as to the _real_ rhythm of the ancient hexameter, Mr - Newman has in his _Reply_ a page quite admirable for force and - precision. Here he is in his element, and his ability and acuteness - have their proper scope. But it is true that the _modern_ reading of - the ancient hexameter is what the modern hexameter has to imitate, and - that the English reading of the Virgilian hexameter is as Mr Spedding - describes it. Why this reading has not been imitated by the English - hexameter, I have tried to point out in the text. - -Footnote 64: - - Such a minor change I have attempted by occasionally shifting, in the - first foot of the hexameter, the accent from the first syllable to the - second. In the current English hexameter, it is on the first. Mr - Spedding, who proposes radically to subvert the constitution of this - hexameter, seems not to understand that anyone can propose to modify - it partially; he can comprehend revolution in this metre, but not - reform. Accordingly he asks me how I can bring myself to say, - ‘_Bé_tween that and the ships’, or ‘_Thére_ sat fifty men’; or how I - can reconcile such forcing of the accent with my own rule, that - ‘hexameters must _read themselves_’. Presently he says that he cannot - believe I do pronounce these words so, but that he thinks I leave out - the accent in the first foot altogether, and thus get a hexameter with - only five accents. He will pardon me: I pronounce, as I suppose he - himself does, if he reads the words naturally, ‘Be_tween_ that and the - ships’, and ‘There _sát_ fifty men’. Mr Spedding is familiar enough - with this accent on the second syllable in Virgil’s hexameters; in ‘et - _té_ montosæ’, or ‘Ve_ló_ces jaculo’. Such a change is an attempt to - relieve the monotony of the current English hexameter by occasionally - altering the position of one of its accents; it is not an attempt to - make a wholly new English hexameter by habitually altering the - position of four of them. Very likely it is an unsuccessful attempt; - but at any-rate it does not violate what I think is the fundamental - rule for English hexameters, that may be such as to _read themselves_ - without necessitating, on the reader’s part, any non-natural - putting-on or taking-off accent. Hexameters like these of Mr - Longfellow, - - ‘In that delightful land which is washed by the Delaware’s - waters’, - - and, - - ‘As if they fain would appease the Dryads, whose haunts they - molested’, - - violate this rule; and they are very common. I think the blemish of Mr - Dart’s recent meritorious version of the _Iliad_ is that it contains - too many of them. - -Footnote 65: - - As I welcome another more recent attempt in stanza,—Mr Worsley’s - version of the _Odyssey_ in Spenser’s measure. Mr Worsley does me the - honour to notice some remarks of mine on this measure: I had said that - its greater intricacy made it a worse measure than even the - ten-syllable couplet to employ for rendering Homer. He points out, in - answer, that ‘the more complicated the correspondences in a poetical - measure, the less obtrusive and absolute are the rhymes’. This is - true, and subtly remarked; but I never denied that the single shocks - of rhyme in the couplet were more _strongly felt_ than those in the - stanza; I said that the more frequent recurrence of the same rhyme, in - the stanza, necessarily made this measure more _intricate_. The stanza - repacks Homer’s matter yet more arbitrarily, and therefore changes his - movement yet more radically, than the couplet. Accordingly, I imagine - a nearer approach to a perfect translation of Homer is possible in the - couplet, well managed, than in the stanza, however well managed. But - meanwhile Mr Worsley, applying the Spenserian stanza, that beautiful - romantic measure, to the most romantic poem of the ancient world; - making this stanza yield him, too (what it never yielded to Byron), - its treasures of fluidity and sweet ease; above all, bringing to his - task a truly poetical sense and skill, has produced a version of the - _Odyssey_ much the most pleasing of those hitherto produced, and which - is delightful to read. - - For the public this may well be enough, nay, more than enough; but for - the critic even this is not yet quite enough. - -Footnote 66: - - I speak of poetic genius as employing itself upon narrative or - dramatic poetry,—poetry in which the poet has to go out of himself and - to create. In lyrical poetry, in the direct expression of personal - feeling, the most subtle genius may, under the momentary pressure of - passion, express itself simply. Even here, however, the native - tendency will generally be discernible. - -Footnote 67: - - ‘And I have endured—the like whereof no soul upon the earth hath yet - endured—to carry to my lips the hand of him who slew my - child’.—_Iliad_, xxiv. 505. - -Footnote 68: - - ‘Nay and thou too, old man, in times past wert, as we hear, - happy’.—_Iliad_, xxiv. 543. In the original this line, for mingled - pathos and dignity, is perhaps without a rival even in Homer. - -Footnote 69: - - ’For so have the gods spun our destiny to us wretched mortals,—that we - should live in sorrow; but they themselves are without - trouble’.—_Iliad_, xxiv. 525. - -Footnote 70: - - ‘_I_ wept not: so of stone grew I within:—_they_ wept’.—_Hell_, - xxxiii. 49 (Carlyle’s Translation, slightly altered). - - -THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH - - - - - * * * * * * - - - - -Transcriber’s note: - - ○ Footnotes have been moved to follow the chapters in which they are - referenced. - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON TRANSLATING HOMER*** - - -******* This file should be named 65381-0.txt or 65381-0.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/5/3/8/65381 - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it -under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this -eBook or online at <a -href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you are not -located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this ebook.</p> -<p>Title: On Translating Homer</p> -<p>Author: Mathew Arnold</p> -<p>Release Date: May 19, 2021 [eBook #65381]</p> -<p>Language: English</p> -<p>Character set encoding: UTF-8</p> -<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON TRANSLATING HOMER***</p> -<p> </p> -<h4 class="pgx" title="">E-text prepared by deaurider, David King,<br /> - and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> - (https://www.pgdp.net)<br /> - from page images generously made available by<br /> - Internet Archive<br /> - (https://archive.org)</h4> -<p> </p> -<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10"> - <tr> - <td valign="top"> - Note: - </td> - <td> - Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - https://archive.org/details/ontranslatingho00arno - </td> - </tr> -</table> -<p> </p> -<hr class="pgx" /> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> - -<div class='figcenter id001'> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_on'>on</span> -<img src='images/cover.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> -<div> - <h1 class='c001'>ON TRANSLATING HOMER</h1> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c002'> - <div><span class='xxlarge'><b>ON TRANSLATING HOMER</b></span></div> - <div class='c000'><span class='large'><b>BY</b></span></div> - <div><span class='xxlarge'><b>MATTHEW ARNOLD</b></span></div> - <div class='c000'><span class='large'><i>With F. W. Newman’s ‘Homeric Translation’</i></span></div> - <div><span class='large'><i>and Arnold’s ‘Last Words’</i></span></div> - <div class='c000'>LONDON</div> - <div>GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS <span class='sc'>Limited</span></div> - <div>NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c003'>CONTENTS</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c004'><span class='sc'>On Translating Homer</span>—</p> - -<p class='c005'><a href='#part1'>I. 1</a></p> - -<p class='c005'><a href='#part2'>II. 32</a></p> - -<p class='c005'><a href='#part3'>III. 68</a></p> - -<p class='c005'><a href='#reply1'><span class='sc'>Homeric Translation in Theory and Practice.</span> A Reply to Matthew Arnold. By Francis W. Newman 112</a></p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='sc'>Last Words on Translating Homer.</span></p> - -<p class='c005'><a href='#reply2'>A Reply to Francis W. Newman. By Matthew Arnold 217</a></p> -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span>... <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Nunquamne reponam?</span></p> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 id='part1' class='c003'><abbr title='1'>I</abbr></h2> -</div> -<p class='c004'>It has more than once been suggested to -me that I should translate Homer. That -is a task for which I have neither the time -nor the courage; but the suggestion led -me to regard yet more closely a poet whom -I had already long studied, and for one -or two years the works of Homer were -seldom out of my hands. The study of -classical literature is probably on the decline; -but, whatever may be the fate of -this study in general, it is certain that, as -instruction spreads and the number of -readers increases, attention will be more -and more directed to the poetry of Homer, -not indeed as part of a classical course, -but as the most important poetical monument -existing. Even within the last ten -years two fresh translations of the <i>Iliad</i> -have appeared in England: one by a man -of great ability and genuine learning, Professor -Newman; the other by Mr Wright, -the conscientious and painstaking translator -of Dante. It may safely be asserted -<span class='pageno' id='Page_2'>2</span>that neither of these works will take rank -as the standard translation of Homer; that -the task of rendering him will still be attempted -by other translators. It may perhaps -be possible to render to these some -service, to save them some loss of labour, -by pointing out rocks on which their predecessors -have split, and the right objects -on which a translator of Homer should fix -his attention.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It is disputed what aim a translator -should propose to himself in dealing with -his original. Even this preliminary is not -yet settled. On one side it is said that the -translation ought to be such ‘that the -reader should, if possible, forget that it is a -translation at all, and be lulled into the -illusion that he is reading an original work—something -original’ (if the translation be -English), ‘from an English hand’. The -real original is in this case, it is said, ‘taken -as a basis on which to rear a poem that -shall affect our countrymen as the original -may be conceived to have affected its -natural hearers’. On the other hand, Mr -Newman, who states the foregoing doctrine -only to condemn it, declares that he ‘aims -at precisely the opposite: to retain every -peculiarity of the original, so far as he is -able, <i>with the greater care the more foreign it -may happen to be</i>’; so that it may ‘never -be forgotten that he is imitating, and -imitating in a different material’. The -<span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>translator’s ‘first duty’, says Mr Newman -‘is a historical one, to be <i>faithful</i>’. Probably -both sides would agree that the translator’s -‘first duty is to be faithful’; but -the question at issue between them is, in -what faithfulness consists.</p> - -<p class='c005'>My one object is to give practical advice -to a translator; and I shall not the least -concern myself with theories of translation -as such. But I advise the translator not -to try ‘to rear on the basis of the <i>Iliad</i>, a -poem that shall affect our countrymen as -the original may be conceived to have -affected its natural hearers’; and for this -simple reason, that we cannot possibly tell -<i>how</i> the <i>Iliad</i> ‘affected its natural hearers’. -It is probably meant merely that he should -try to affect Englishmen powerfully, as -Homer affected Greeks powerfully; but -this direction is not enough, and can give -no real guidance. For all great poets affect -their hearers powerfully, but the effect of -one poet is one thing, that of another poet -another thing: it is our translator’s business -to reproduce the effect of Homer, and the -most powerful emotion of the unlearned -English reader can never assure him whether -he has <i>re</i>produced this, or whether he has -produced something else. So, again, he -may follow Mr Newman’s directions, he may -try to be ‘faithful’, he may ‘retain every -peculiarity of his original’; but who is to -assure him, who is to assure Mr Newman -<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>himself, that, when he has done this, he -has done that for which Mr Newman enjoins -this to be done, ‘adhered closely to -Homer’s manner and habit of thought’? -Evidently the translator needs some more -practical directions than these. No one can -tell him how Homer affected the Greeks; -but there are those who can tell him how -Homer affects <i>them</i>. These are scholars; -who possess, at the same time with knowledge -of Greek, adequate poetical taste and -feeling. No translation will seem to them -of much worth compared with the original; -but they alone can say whether the translation -produces more or less the same effect -upon them as the original. They are the -only competent tribunal in this matter: -the Greeks are dead; the unlearned Englishman -has not the data for judging; and no -man can safely confide in his own single -judgment of his own work. Let not the -translator, then, trust to his notions of what -the ancient Greeks would have thought of -him; he will lose himself in the vague. -Let him not trust to what the ordinary -English reader thinks of him; he will be -taking the blind for his guide. Let him not -trust to his own judgment of his own work; -he may be misled by individual caprices. -Let him ask how his work affects those who -both know Greek and can appreciate poetry; -whether to read it gives the Provost of -Eton, or Professor Thompson at Cambridge, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>or Professor Jowett here in Oxford, at all -the same feeling which to read the original -gives them. I consider that when Bentley -said of Pope’s translation, ‘It was a pretty -poem, but must not be called Homer’, the -work, in spite of all its power and attractiveness, -was judged.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Ὡς ἂν ὁ φρόνιμος ὁρίσειεν</span>, ‘as the judicious -would determine’, that is a test to -which everyone professes himself willing -to submit his works. Unhappily, in most -cases, no two persons agree as to who ‘the -judicious’ are. In the present case, the -ambiguity is removed: I suppose the translator -at one with me as to the tribunal to -which alone he should look for judgment; -and he has thus obtained a practical test by -which to estimate the real success of his -work. How is he to proceed, in order that -his work, tried by this test, may be found -most successful?</p> - -<p class='c005'>First of all, there are certain negative -counsels which I will give him. Homer has -occupied men’s minds so much, such a -literature has arisen about him, that every -one who approaches him should resolve -strictly to limit himself to that which may -directly serve the object for which he approaches -him. I advise the translator to -have nothing to do with the questions, -whether Homer ever existed; whether the -poet of the <i>Iliad</i> be one or many; whether -the <i>Iliad</i> be one poem or an <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><i>Achilleis</i></span> and an -<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span><i>Iliad</i> stuck together; whether the Christian -doctrine of the Atonement is shadowed -forth in the Homeric mythology; whether -the Goddess Latona in any way prefigures -the Virgin Mary, and so on. These are -questions which have been discussed with -learning, with ingenuity, nay, with genius; -but they have two inconveniences,—one -general for all who approach them, one -particular for the translator. The general -inconvenience is that there really exist no -data for determining them. The particular -inconvenience is that their solution by the -translator, even were it possible, could be -of no benefit to his translation.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I advise him, again, not to trouble himself -with constructing a special vocabulary for -his use in translation; with excluding a -certain class of English words, and with -confining himself to another class, in obedience -to any theory about the peculiar -qualities of Homer’s style. Mr Newman -says that ‘the entire dialect of Homer being -essentially archaic, that of a translator -ought to be as much Saxo-Norman as possible, -and owe as little as possible to the -elements thrown into our language by classical -learning’. Mr Newman is unfortunate -in the observance of his own theory; for I -continually find in his translation words of -Latin origin, which seem to me quite alien -to the simplicity of Homer,—‘responsive’, -for instance, which is a favourite word of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>Mr Newman, to represent the Homeric -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀμειβόμενος</span>:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Great Hector of the motley helm thus spake to her <i>responsive</i>.</div> - <div class='line'>But thus <i>responsively</i> to him spake godlike Alexander.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>And the word ‘celestial’ again, in the grand -address of Zeus to the horses of Achilles,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>You, who are born <i>celestial</i>, from Eld and Death exempted!</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>seems to me in that place exactly to jar upon -the feeling as too bookish. But, apart from -the question of Mr Newman’s fidelity to -his own theory, such a theory seems to me -both dangerous for a translator and false -in itself. Dangerous for a translator; because, -wherever one finds such a theory -announced (and one finds it pretty often), -it is generally followed by an explosion of -pedantry; and pedantry is of all things in the -world the most un-Homeric. False in itself; -because, in fact, we owe to the Latin element -in our language most of that very rapidity -and clear decisiveness by which it is contradistinguished -from the German, and in -sympathy with the languages of Greece and -Rome: so that to limit an English translator -of Homer to words of Saxon origin is -to deprive him of one of his special advantages -for translating Homer. In Voss’s -well-known translation of Homer, it is precisely -the qualities of his German language -itself, something heavy and trailing both -<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>in the structure of its sentences and in the -words of which it is composed, which prevent -his translation, in spite of the hexameters, -in spite of the fidelity, from creating -in us the impression created by the Greek. -Mr Newman’s prescription, if followed, -would just strip the English translator of -the advantage which he has over Voss.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The frame of mind in which we approach -an author influences our correctness of appreciation -of him; and Homer should be -approached by a translator in the simplest -frame of mind possible. Modern sentiment -tries to make the ancient not less than the -modern world its own; but against modern -sentiment in its applications to Homer the -translator, if he would feel Homer truly—and -unless he feels him truly, how can -he render him truly?—cannot be too -much on his guard. For example: the -writer of an interesting article on English -translations of Homer, in the last number -of the <i>National Review</i>, quotes, I see, with -admiration, a criticism of Mr Ruskin on the -use of the epithet <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">φυσίζοος</span>, ‘life-giving’, -in that beautiful passage in the third book -of the <i>Iliad</i>, which follows Helen’s mention -of her brothers Castor and Pollux as alive, -though they were in truth dead:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὣς φάτο· τοὺς δ’ ἤδη κατέχεν φυσίζοος αἶα</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐν Λακεδαίμονι αὖθι, φίλῃ ἐν πατρίδι γαίῃ</span>.<a id='r1' /><a href='#f1' class='c009'><sup>[1]</sup></a></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>‘The poet’, says Mr Ruskin, ‘has to speak -of the earth in sadness; but he will not let -that sadness affect or change his thought of -it. No; though Castor and Pollux be dead, -yet the earth is our mother still,—fruitful, -life-giving’. This is a just specimen of that -sort of application of modern sentiment to -the ancients, against which a student, who -wishes to feel the ancients truly, cannot too -resolutely defend himself. It reminds one, -as, alas! so much of Mr Ruskin’s writing -reminds one, of those words of the most -delicate of living critics: <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Comme tout -genre de composition a son écueil particulier, -<i>celui du genre romanesque, c’est le faux</i>”.</span> -The reader may feel moved as he reads it; -but it is not the less an example of <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">‘le faux’</span> -in criticism; it is false. It is not true, as -to that particular passage, that Homer called -the earth <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">φυσίζοος</span> because, ‘though he had -to speak of the earth in sadness, he would -not let that sadness change or affect his -thought of it’, but consoled himself by considering -that ‘the earth is our mother still,—fruitful, -life-giving’. It is not true, as a -matter of general criticism, that this kind of -sentimentality, eminently modern, inspires -Homer at all. ‘From Homer and Polygnotus -I every day learn more clearly’, -says Goethe, ‘that in our life here above -ground we have, properly speaking, to enact -Hell’<a id='r2' /><a href='#f2' class='c009'><sup>[2]</sup></a>:—if the student must absolutely -<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>have a keynote to the <i>Iliad</i>, let him take -this of Goethe, and see what he can do with -it; it will not, at any rate, like the tender -pantheism of Mr Ruskin, falsify for him the -whole strain of Homer.</p> - -<p class='c005'>These are negative counsels; I come to -the positive. When I say, the translator -of Homer should above all be penetrated -by a sense of four qualities of his author;—that -he is eminently rapid; that he is -eminently plain and direct, both in the -evolution of his thought and in the expression -of it, that is, both in his syntax and in -his words; that he is eminently plain and -direct in the substance of his thought, that -is, in his matter and ideas; and, finally -that he is eminently noble;—I probably -seem to be saying what is too general to be -of much service to anybody. Yet it is -strictly true that, for want of duly penetrating -themselves with the first-named -quality of Homer, his rapidity, Cowper -and Mr Wright have failed in rendering -him; that, for want of duly appreciating -the second-named quality, his plainness -and directness of style and dictation, Pope -and Mr Sotheby have failed in rendering -him; that for want of appreciating the -third, his plainness and directness of ideas, -Chapman has failed in rendering him; -while for want of appreciating the fourth, -his nobleness, Mr Newman, who has clearly -seen some of the faults of his predecessors, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>has yet failed more conspicuously than any -of them.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Coleridge says, in his strange language, -speaking of the union of the human soul -with the divine essence, that this takes place</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Whene’er the mist, which stands ’twixt God and thee,</div> - <div class='line'>Defecates to a pure transparency;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>and so, too, it may be said of that union -of the translator with his original, which -alone can produce a good translation, that -it takes place when the mist which stands -between them—the mist of alien modes of -thinking, speaking, and feeling on the translator’s -part—‘defecates to a pure transparency’, -and disappears. But between -Cowper and Homer—(Mr Wright repeats in -the main Cowper’s manner, as Mr Sotheby -repeats Pope’s manner, and neither Mr -Wright’s translation nor Mr Sotheby’s has, -I must be forgiven for saying, any proper -reason for existing)—between Cowper and -Homer there is interposed the mist of -Cowper’s elaborate Miltonic manner, entirely -alien to the flowing rapidity of Homer; -between Pope and Homer there is interposed -the mist of Pope’s literary artificial -manner, entirely alien to the plain naturalness -of Homer’s manner; between Chapman -and Homer there is interposed the mist of -the fancifulness of the Elizabethan age, -entirely alien to the plain directness of -Homer’s thought and feeling; while between -<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>Mr Newman and Homer is interposed -a cloud of more than Egyptian thickness,—namely, -a manner, in Mr Newman’s version, -eminently ignoble, while Homer’s manner -is eminently noble.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I do not despair of making all these propositions -clear to a student who approaches -Homer with a free mind. First, Homer is -eminently rapid, and to this rapidity the -elaborate movement of Miltonic blank verse -is alien. The reputation of Cowper, that -most interesting man and excellent poet, -does not depend on his translation of Homer; -and in his preface to the second edition, he -himself tells us that he felt,—he had too -much poetical taste not to feel,—on returning -to his own version after six or seven -years, ‘more dissatisfied with it himself -than the most difficult to be pleased of all -his judges’. And he was dissatisfied with -it for the right reason,—that ‘it seemed to -him deficient <i>in the grace of ease</i>’. Yet -he seems to have originally misconceived -the manner of Homer so much, that it is -no wonder he rendered him amiss. ‘The -similitude of Milton’s manner to that of -Homer is such’, he says, ‘that no person -familiar with both can read either without -being reminded of the other; and it is in -those breaks and pauses to which the -numbers of the English poet are so much -indebted, both for their dignity and variety, -that he chiefly copies the Grecian’. It -<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>would be more true to say: ‘The unlikeness -of Milton’s manner to that of Homer -is such, that no person familiar with both -can read either without being struck with -his difference from the other; and it is in -his breaks and pauses that the English poet -is most unlike the Grecian’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The inversion and pregnant conciseness -of Milton or Dante are, doubtless, most impressive -qualities of style; but they are -the very opposites of the directness and -flowingness of Homer, which he keeps alike -in passages of the simplest narrative, and -in those of the deepest emotion. Not only, -for example, are these lines of Cowper un-Homeric:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>So numerous seemed those fires the banks between</div> - <div class='line'>Of Xanthus, blazing, and the fleet of Greece</div> - <div class='line'>In prospect all of Troy;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>where the position of the word ‘blazing’ -gives an entirely un-Homeric movement to -this simple passage, describing the fires of -the Trojan camp outside of Troy; but the -following lines, in that very highly-wrought -passage where the horse of Achilles answers -his master’s reproaches for having left -Patroclus on the field of battle, are equally -un-Homeric:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>For not through sloth or tardiness on us</div> - <div class='line'>Aught chargeable, have Ilium’s sons thine arms</div> - <div class='line'>Stript from Patroclus’ shoulders; but a God</div> - <div class='line'>Matchless in battle, offspring of bright-haired</div> - <div class='line'>Latona, him contending in the van</div> - <div class='line'>Slew, for the glory of the chief of Troy.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>Here even the first inversion, ‘have Ilium’s -sons thine arms Stript from Patroclus’ -shoulders’, gives the reader a sense of a -movement not Homeric; and the second -inversion, ‘a God him contending in the van -Slew’, gives this sense ten times stronger. -Instead of moving on without check, as -in reading the original, the reader twice -finds himself, in reading the translation, -brought up and checked. Homer moves -with the same simplicity and rapidity -in the highly-wrought as in the simple -passage.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It is in vain that Cowper insists on his -fidelity: ‘my chief boast is that I have -adhered closely to my original’:—‘the -matter found in me, whether the reader like -it or not, is found also in Homer; and the -matter not found in me, how much soever -the reader may admire it, is found only in -Mr Pope’. To suppose that it is <i>fidelity</i> to -an original to give its matter, unless you at -the same time give its manner; or, rather, -to suppose that you can really give its -matter at all, unless you can give its manner, -is just the mistake of our pre-Raphaelite -school of painters, who do not understand -that the peculiar effect of nature resides in -the whole and not in the parts. So the -peculiar effect of a poet resides in his manner -and movement, not in his words taken separately. -It is well known how conscientiously -literal is Cowper in his translation -<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>of Homer. It is well known how extravagantly -free is Pope.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in16'>So let it be!</div> - <div class='line'>Portents and prodigies are lost on me;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>that is Pope’s rendering of the words,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Ξάνθε, τί μοι θάνατον μαντεύεαι; οὐδέ τί σε χρή·</span><a id='r3' /><a href='#f3' class='c009'><sup>[3]</sup></a></div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Xanthus, why prophesiest thou my death to me? thou needest not at all:</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>yet, on the whole, Pope’s translation of the -<i>Iliad</i> is more Homeric than Cowper’s, for -it is more rapid.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Pope’s movement, however, though rapid, -is not of the same kind as Homer’s; and -here I come to the real objection to rhyme -in a translation of Homer. It is commonly -said that rhyme is to be abandoned in a -translation of Homer, because ‘the exigencies -of rhyme’, to quote Mr Newman, -‘positively forbid faithfulness’; because -‘a just translation of any ancient poet in -rhyme’, to quote Cowper, ‘is impossible’. -This, however, is merely an accidental objection -to rhyme. If this were all, it might -be supposed, that if rhymes were more -abundant Homer could be adequately translated -in rhyme. But this is not so; there -is a deeper, a substantial objection to rhyme -in a translation of Homer. It is, that rhyme -inevitably tends to pair lines which in the -original are independent, and thus the movement -<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>of the poem is changed. In these -lines of Chapman, for instance, from Sarpedon’s -speech to Glaucus, in the twelfth -book of the <i>Iliad</i>:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in18'>O friend, if keeping back</div> - <div class='line'>Would keep back age from us, and death, and that we might not wrack</div> - <div class='line'>In this life’s human sea at all, but that deferring now</div> - <div class='line'>We shunned death ever,—nor would I half this vain valor show,</div> - <div class='line'>Nor glorify a folly so, to wish thee to advance;</div> - <div class='line'>But since we <i>must</i> go, though not here, and that besides the chance</div> - <div class='line'>Proposed now, there are infinite fates, etc.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Here the necessity of making the line,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Nor glorify a folly so, to wish thee to advance,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>rhyme with the line which follows it, entirely -changes and spoils the movement of the -passage.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in8'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">οὔτε κεν αὐτὸς ἐνὶ πρώτοισι μαχοίμην,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">οὔτε κέ σε στέλλοιμι μάχην ἐς κυδιάνειραν·</span><a id='r4' /><a href='#f4' class='c009'><sup>[4]</sup></a></div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Neither would I myself go forth to fight with the foremost,</div> - <div class='line'>Nor would I urge thee on to enter the glorious battle,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>says Homer; there he stops, and begins an -opposed movement:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">νῦν δ’—ἔμπης γὰρ Κῆρες ἐφεστᾶσιν θανάτοιο—</span></div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>But—for a thousand fates of death stand close to us always—</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>This line, in which Homer wishes to go away -<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>with the most marked rapidity from the -line before, Chapman is forced, by the necessity -of rhyming, intimately to connect -with the line before.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>But since we <i>must</i> go, though not here, and that besides the chance.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>The moment the word <i>chance</i> strikes our -ear, we are irresistibly carried back to <i>advance</i> -and to the whole previous line, which, -according to Homer’s own feeling, we ought -to have left behind us entirely, and to be -moving farther and farther away from.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Rhyme certainly, by intensifying antithesis, -can intensify separation, and this -is precisely what Pope does; but this balanced -rhetorical antithesis, though very -effective, is entirely un-Homeric. And this -is what I mean by saying that Pope fails to -render Homer, because he does not render -his plainness and directness of style and -diction. Where Homer marks separation -by moving away, Pope marks it by antithesis. -No passage could show this better -than the passage I have just quoted, on -which I will pause for a moment.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Robert Wood, whose <i>Essay on the Genius -of Homer</i> is 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 of this -passage a striking story. He says that in -1762, at the end of the Seven Years’ War, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>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:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὦ πέπον, εἰ μὲν γὰρ, πόλεμον περὶ τόνδε φυγόντε,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">αἰεὶ δὴ μέλλοιμεν ἀγήρω τ’ ἀθανάτω τε</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἔσσεσθ’, οὔτε κεν αὐτὸς ἐνὶ πρώτοισι μαχοίμην,</span><a id='r5' /><a href='#f5' class='c009'><sup>[5]</sup></a></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">οὔτε κέ σε στέλλοιμι μάχην ἐς κυδιάνειραν·</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">νῦν δ’—ἔμπης γὰρ Κῆρες ἐφεστᾶσιν θανάτοιο</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μυρίαι, ἃς οὐκ ἔστι φυγεῖν βρότον, οὐδ’ ὑπαλύξαι—</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἴομεν.</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>His Lordship repeated the last word several -times with a calm and determinate resignation; -and, after a serious pause of some -minutes, he desired to hear the Treaty read, -to which he listened with great attention, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>and recovered spirits enough to declare the -approbation of a dying statesman (I use his -own words) “on the most glorious war, -and most honourable peace, this nation ever -saw”’<a id='r6' /><a href='#f6' class='c009'><sup>[6]</sup></a>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I quote this story, first, because it is -interesting as exhibiting the English aristocracy -at its very height of culture, lofty spirit, -and greatness, towards the middle of the -18th century. I quote it, secondly, because -it seems to me to illustrate Goethe’s saying -which I mentioned, that our life, in Homer’s -view of it, represents a conflict and a hell; -and it brings out, too, what there is tonic -and fortifying in this doctrine. I quote it, -lastly, because it shows that the passage is -just one of those in translating which Pope -will be at his best, a passage of strong -emotion and oratorical movement, not of -simple narrative or description.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Pope translates the passage thus:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Could all our care elude the gloomy grave</div> - <div class='line'>Which claims no less the fearful than the brave,</div> - <div class='line'>For lust of fame I should not vainly dare</div> - <div class='line'>In fighting fields, nor urge thy soul to war:</div> - <div class='line'>But since, alas! ignoble age must come,</div> - <div class='line'>Disease, and death’s inexorable doom;</div> - <div class='line'>The life which others pay, let us bestow,</div> - <div class='line'>And give to fame what we to nature owe.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Nothing could better exhibit Pope’s prodigious -talent; and nothing, too, could be -<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>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 intellectualised; 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—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The life which others pay, let us bestow,</div> - <div class='line'>And give to fame what we to nature owe</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>is excellent, and is just suited to Pope’s -heroic couplet; but neither the antithesis -itself, nor the couplet which conveys it, -is suited to the feeling or to the movement -of the Homeric <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἴομεν</span>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>A literary and intellectualised language -is, however, in its own way well suited to -grand matters; and Pope, with a language -of this kind and his own admirable talent, -comes off well enough as long as he has -passion, or oratory, or a great crisis to deal -with. Even here, as I have been pointing -out, he does not render Homer; but he and -his style are in themselves strong. It is -when he comes to level passages, passages -of narrative or description, that he and his -style are sorely tried, and prove themselves -weak. A perfectly plain direct style can -of course convey the simplest matter as -naturally as the grandest; indeed, it must -be harder for it, one would say, to convey -<span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>a grand matter worthily and nobly, than to -convey a common matter, as alone such a -matter should be conveyed, plainly and -simply. But the style of Rasselas is incomparably -better fitted to describe a sage -philosophising than a soldier lighting his -camp-fire. The style of Pope is not the -style of Rasselas; but it is equally a literary -style, equally unfitted to describe a simple -matter with the plain naturalness of Homer.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Everyone knows the passage at the end -of the eighth book of the <i>Iliad</i>, where the -fires of the Trojan encampment are likened -to the stars. It is very far from my wish -to hold Pope up to ridicule, so I shall not -quote the commencement of the passage, -which in the original is of great and celebrated -beauty, and in translating which -Pope has been singularly and notoriously -fortunate. 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 a 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 -<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>by the chariots, waited for the bright-throned -Morning<a id='r7' /><a href='#f7' class='c009'><sup>[7]</sup></a>’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In Pope’s translation, this plain story -becomes the following:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>So many flames before proud Ilion blaze,</div> - <div class='line'>And brighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays;</div> - <div class='line'>The long reflections of the distant fires</div> - <div class='line'>Gleam on the walls, and tremble on the spires.</div> - <div class='line'>A thousand piles the dusky horrors gild,</div> - <div class='line'>And shoot a shady lustre o’er the field.</div> - <div class='line'>Full fifty guards each flaming pile attend,</div> - <div class='line'>Whose umbered arms, by fits, thick flashes send;</div> - <div class='line'>Loud neigh the coursers o’er their heaps of corn,</div> - <div class='line'>And ardent warriors wait the rising morn.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>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 passages -he is powerful, as Homer is powerful, -though not in the same way; but in plain -narrative, where Homer is still powerful 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 composes ‘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 conveys to us through a medium. -He aims at turning Homer’s sentiments -<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>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.</p> - -<p class='c005'>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.</p> - -<p class='c005'>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 line, which has been -so much commended, Homeric; but on -this point I shall have more to say by and -by, when I come to speak of Mr Newman’s -metrical exploits. But it is not distinctly -anti-Homeric, like the movement of Milton’s -blank verse; and it has a rapidity of its -<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>own. Chapman’s diction, 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 exigencies -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 vigour -and richness. This age, too, showed what -it could do in translating, by producing a -master-piece, its version of the Bible.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Chapman’s translation has often been -praised as eminently Homeric. Keats’s fine -sonnet in its honour everyone 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 Hallum pronounces -this translation to be ‘often exceedingly -Homeric’; and its latest editor boldly -declares that by what, with a deplorable -<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>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’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>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 unfaithfulness -occasioned by the fetters of -rhyme.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I said that there were four things which -eminently distinguished 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. -Steeped in humours 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. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>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 -<i>too</i> 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.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Take merely the opening pages to Chapman’s -translation, the introductory verses, -and the dedications. You will find:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>An Anagram of the name of our Dread Prince,</div> - <div class='line'>My most gracious and sacred Mæcenas,</div> - <div class='line'>Henry, Prince of Wales,</div> - <div class='line'>Our Sunn, Heyr, Peace, Life,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Henry, son of James the First, to whom -the work is dedicated. Then comes an -address,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>To the sacred Fountain of Princes,</div> - <div class='line'>Sole Empress of Beauty and Virtue, Anne, Queen</div> - <div class='line in14'>Of England, etc.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>All the Middle Age, with its grotesqueness, -its conceits, its irrationality, is still in these -opening pages; they by themselves are -sufficient to indicate to us what a gulf -divides Chapman from the ‘clearest-souled’ -of poets, from Homer, almost as great a gulf -<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>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 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 confirm 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 unrivalled -clearness and straightforwardness -of his thinking; in the way in which he -keeps to one thought at a time, and puts -that thought forth in its complete 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. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>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.</p> - -<p class='c005'>My limits will not allow me to do more -than shortly illustrate, from Chapman’s -version of the <i>Iliad</i>, what I mean when I -speak of this vital difference between Homer -and an Elizabethan 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.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In that tonic speech of Sarpedon, of -which I have said so much, Homer, you may -remember, has:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in6'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εἰ μὲν γὰρ, πόλεμον περὶ τόνδε φυγόντε,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">αἰεὶ δὴ μέλλοιμεν ἀγήρω τ’ ἀθανάτω τε</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἔσσεσθ’—</span></div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in12'>if indeed, but once <i>this</i> battle avoided,</div> - <div class='line'>We were for ever to live without growing old and immortal—</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Chapman cannot be satisfied with this, but -must add a fancy to it:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in24'><span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>if keeping back</div> - <div class='line'>Would keep back age from us, and death, and <i>that we might not wrack</i></div> - <div class='line'><i>In this life’s human sea at all</i>;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>and so on. Again; in another passage -which I have before quoted, where Zeus says -to the horses of Peleus,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in6'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">τί σφῶϊ δόμεν Πηλῆϊ ἀνάκτι</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">θνητῷ; ὑμεῖς δ’ ἐστὸν ἀγήρω τ’ ἀθανάτω τε</span>·<a id='r8' /><a href='#f8' class='c009'><sup>[8]</sup></a></div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Why gave we you to royal Peleus, to a mortal?</div> - <div class='line'>but ye are without old age, and immortal.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Chapman sophisticates this into:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Why gave we you t’ a mortal king, when immortality</div> - <div class='line'>And <i>incapacity of age so dignifies your states</i>?</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>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:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><i>When with blood, for this day’s fast observed, revenge shall yield</i></div> - <div class='line'><i>Our heart satiety</i>, bring us off.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>In Hector’s famous speech, again, at his -parting from Andromache, Homer makes -him say: ‘Nor does my own heart so bid -me’ (to keep safe behind the walls), ‘since -I have learned to be staunch always, and to -fight among the foremost of the Trojans, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>busy on behalf of my father’s great glory, -and my own<a id='r9' /><a href='#f9' class='c009'><sup>[9]</sup></a>’. In Chapman’s hands this -becomes:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in16'>The spirit I first did breathe</div> - <div class='line'>Did never teach me that; much less, since the contempt of death</div> - <div class='line'>Was settled in me, <i>and my mind knew what a worthy was,</i></div> - <div class='line'><i>Whose office is to lead in fight, and give no danger pass</i></div> - <div class='line'><i>Without improvement. In this fire must Hector’s trial shine:</i></div> - <div class='line'><i>Here must his country, father, friends, be in him made divine.</i></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>You see how ingeniously Homer’s plain -thought is <i>tormented</i>, 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’—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἔσσεται ἦμαρ, ὅτ’ ἄν ποτ’ ὀλώλῃ Ἴλιος ἱρή.</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Chapman makes this:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>And such a <i>stormy</i> day shall come, in mind and soul I know,</div> - <div class='line'>When sacred Troy <i>shall shed her towers, for tears of overthrow</i>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>I might go on for ever, but I could not give -you a better illustration than this last, of -what I mean by saying that the Elizabethan -poet fails to render Homer because he cannot -forbear to interpose a play of thought -between his object and its expression. -Chapman translates his object into Elizabethan, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>as Pope translates it into the -Augustan of Queen Anne; both convey it -to us through a medium. Homer, on the -other hand, sees his object and conveys it -to us immediately.</p> - -<p class='c005'>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 <i>noble</i>; 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 dressing, eating, drinking, -harnessing, travelling, going to bed), that -is to treat such subjects nobly, in the grand -style, ‘without seeming unreasonably tumid, -is extremely difficult’. It <i>is</i> 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. I -have shown you how translators of Homer -fail by wanting rapidity, by wanting simplicity -of style, by wanting plainness of -thought: in a second lecture I will show -you how a translator fails by wanting -nobility.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span> - <h2 id='part2' class='c003'><abbr title='2'>II</abbr></h2> -</div> -<p class='c004'>I must repeat what I said in beginning, -that the translator of Homer ought steadily -to keep in mind where lies the real test of -the success of his translation, what judges -he is to try to satisfy. He is to try to -satisfy <i>scholars</i>, because scholars alone have -the means of really judging him. A scholar -may be a pedant, it is true, and then his -judgment will be worthless; but a scholar -may also have poetical feeling, and then he -can judge him truly; whereas all the poetical -feeling in the world will not enable a -man who is not a scholar to judge him truly. -For the translator is to reproduce Homer, -and the scholar alone has the means of -knowing that Homer who is to be reproduced. -He knows him but imperfectly, -for he is separated from him by time, race, -and language; but he alone knows him -at all. Yet people speak as if there were -two real tribunals in this matter,—the -scholar’s tribunal, and that of the general -public. They speak as if the scholar’s -judgment was one thing, and the general -public’s judgment another; both with -their shortcomings, both with their liability -to error; but both to be regarded by the -translator. The translator who makes -verbal literalness his chief care ‘will’, -says a writer in the <i>National Review</i> whom -<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>I have already quoted, ‘be appreciated by -the scholar accustomed to test a translation -rigidly by comparison with the original, -to look perhaps with excessive care to finish -in detail rather than boldness and general -effect, and find pardon even for a version -that seems bare and bold, so it be scholastic -and faithful’. But, if the scholar in -judging a translation looks to detail rather -than to general effect, he judges it pedantically -and ill. The appeal, however, lies -not from the pedantic scholar to the general -public, which can only like or dislike Chapman’s -version, or Pope’s, or Mr Newman’s, -but cannot <i>judge</i> them; it lies from the -pedantic scholar to the scholar who is not -pedantic, who knows that Homer is Homer -by his general effect, and not by his single -words, and who demands but one thing in -a translation,—that it shall, as nearly as -possible, reproduce for him the <i>general effect</i> -of Homer. This, then, remains the one -proper aim of the translator: to reproduce -on the intelligent scholar, as nearly as possible, -the general effect of Homer. Except -so far as he reproduces this, he loses his -labour, even though he may make a spirited -<i>Iliad</i> of his own, like Pope, or translate -Homer’s <i>Iliad</i> word for word, like Mr Newman. -If his proper aim were to stimulate -in any manner possible the general public, -he might be right in following Pope’s example; -if his proper aim were to help -<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>schoolboys to construe Homer, he might -be right in following Mr Newman’s. But -it is not: his proper aim is, I repeat it yet -once more, to reproduce on the intelligent -scholar, as nearly as he can, the general -effect of Homer.</p> - -<p class='c005'>When, therefore, Cowper says, ‘My chief -boast is that I have adhered closely to my -original’; when Mr Newman says, ‘My -aim is to retain every peculiarity of the -original, to be <i>faithful</i>, exactly as is the -case with the draughtsman of the Elgin -marbles’; their real judge only replies: -‘It may be so: reproduce then upon us, -reproduce the effect of Homer, as a good -copy reproduces the effect of the Elgin -marbles’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>When, again, Mr Newman tells us that -‘by an exhaustive process of argument and -experiment’ he has found a metre which -is at once the metre of ‘the modern Greek -epic’, and a metre ‘like in moral genius’ -to Homer’s metre, his judge has still but -the same answer for him: ‘It may be so: -reproduce then on our ear something of the -effect produced by the movement of Homer’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But what is the general effect which -Homer produces on Mr Newman himself? -because, when we know this, we shall know -whether he and his judges are agreed at -the outset, whether we may expect him, -if he can reproduce the effect he feels, if -his hand does not betray him in the execution, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>to satisfy his judges and to succeed. -If, however, Mr Newman’s impression from -Homer is something quite different from -that of his judges, then it can hardly be -expected that any amount of labour or -talent will enable him to reproduce for them -<i>their</i> Homer.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Newman does not leave us in doubt -as to the general effect which Homer makes -upon him. As I have told you what is the -general effect which Homer makes upon -me,—that of a most rapidly moving poet, -that of a poet most plain and direct in his -style, that of a poet most plain and direct -in his ideas, that of a poet eminently noble,—so -Mr Newman tells us his general impression -of Homer. ‘Homer’s style’, he says, ‘is -direct, popular, forcible, quaint, flowing, -garrulous’. Again: ‘Homer rises and -sinks with his subject, is prosaic when it -is tame, is low when it is mean’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I lay my finger on four words in these -two sentences of Mr Newman, and I say -that the man who could apply those words -to Homer can never render Homer truly. -The four words are these: <i>quaint</i>, <i>garrulous</i>, -<i>prosaic</i>, <i>low</i>. Search the English language -for a word which does not apply to Homer, -and you could not fix on a better than -<i>quaint</i>, unless perhaps you fixed on one -of the other three.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Again; ‘to translate Homer suitably’, -says Mr Newman, ‘we need a diction sufficiently -<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>antiquated to obtain pardon of the -reader for its frequent homeliness’. ‘I -am concerned’, he says again, ‘with the -artistic problem of attaining a plausible -aspect of moderate antiquity, while remaining -easily intelligible’. And again, he -speaks of ‘the more antiquated style suited -to this subject’. Quaint! antiquated!—but -to whom? Sir Thomas Browne is -quaint, and the diction of Chaucer is antiquated: -does Mr Newman suppose that -Homer seemed quaint to Sophocles, when -he read him, as Sir Thomas Browne seems -quaint to us, when we read him? or that -Homer’s diction seemed antiquated to Sophocles, -as Chaucer’s diction seems antiquated -to us? But we cannot really know, -I confess, how Homer seemed to Sophocles: -well then, to those who can tell us how he -seems to them, to the living scholar, to our -only present witness on this matter,—does -Homer make on the Provost of Eton, when -he reads him, the impression of a poet -quaint and antiquated? does he make this -impression on Professor Thompson or Professor -Jowett. When Shakspeare says, -‘The princes <i>orgulous</i>’, meaning ‘the proud -princes’, we say, ‘This is antiquated’; -when he says of the Trojan gates, that they</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in14'>With massy staples</div> - <div class='line'>And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts</div> - <div class='line'><i>Sperr</i> up the sons of Troy,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>we say, ‘This is both quaint and antiquated’. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>But does Homer ever compose -in a language which produces on the scholar -at all the same impression as this language -which I have quoted from Shakspeare? -Never once. Shakspeare is quaint and antiquated -in the lines which I have just quoted; -but Shakspeare—need I say it?—can compose, -when he likes, when he is at his best, -in a language perfectly simple, perfectly -intelligible; in a language which, in spite -of the two centuries and a half which part -its author from us, stops us or surprises us -as little as the language of a contemporary. -And Homer has not Shakspeare’s variations: -Homer always composes as Shakspeare -composes at his best; Homer is always -simple and intelligible, as Shakspeare is -often; Homer is never quaint and antiquated, -as Shakspeare is sometimes.</p> - -<p class='c005'>When Mr Newman says that Homer is -garrulous, he seems, perhaps, to depart less -widely from the common opinion than when -he calls him quaint; for is there not Horace’s -authority for asserting that ‘the good -Homer sometimes nods’, <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>bonus dormitat -Homerus</i></span>? and a great many people have -come, from the currency of this well-known -criticism, to represent Homer to themselves -as a diffuse old man, with the full-stocked -mind, but also with the occasional slips and -weaknesses of old age. Horace has said -better things than his <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">‘bonus dormitat -Homerus’</span>; but he never meant by this, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>as I need not remind anyone who knows -the passage, that Homer was garrulous, or -anything of the kind. Instead, however, -of either discussing what Horace meant, or -discussing Homer’s garrulity as a general -question, I prefer to bring to my mind some -style which is garrulous, and to ask myself, -to ask you, whether anything at all of the -impression made by that style is ever made -by the style of Homer. The mediæval romancers, -for instance, are garrulous; the -following, to take out of a thousand instances -the first which comes to hand, is -in a garrulous manner. It is from the -romance of Richard Cœur de Lion.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Of my tale be not a-wondered!</div> - <div class='line'>The French says he slew an hundred</div> - <div class='line'>(Whereof is made this English saw)</div> - <div class='line'>Or he rested him any thraw.</div> - <div class='line'>Him followed many an English knight</div> - <div class='line'>That eagerly holp him for to fight</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>and so on. Now the manner of that composition -I call garrulous; everyone will -feel it to be garrulous; everyone will understand -what is meant when it is called garrulous. -Then I ask the scholar,—does -Homer’s manner ever make upon you, I -do not say, the same impression of its -garrulity as that passage, but does it make, -ever for one moment, an impression in the -slightest way resembling, in the remotest -degree akin to, the impression made by -that passage of the mediæval poet? I have -no fear of the answer.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>I follow the same method with Mr Newman’s -two other epithets, <i>prosaic</i> and <i>low</i>. -‘Homer rises and sinks with his subject’, -says Mr Newman; ‘is prosaic when it is -tame, is low when it is mean’. First I say, -Homer is never, in any sense, to be with -truth called prosaic; he is never to be -called low. He does not rise and sink with -his subject; on the contrary, his manner -invests his subject, whatever his subject -be, with nobleness. Then I look for an -author of whom it may with truth be said, -that he ‘rises and sinks with his subject, -is prosaic when it is tame, is low when it is -mean’. Defoe is eminently such an author; -of Defoe’s manner it may with perfect precision -be said, that it follows his matter; -his lifelike composition takes its character -from the facts which it conveys, not from -the nobleness of the composer. In <i>Moll -Flanders</i> and <i>Colonel Jack</i>, Defoe is undoubtedly -prosaic when his subject is tame, -low when his subject is mean. Does -Homer’s manner in the <i>Iliad</i>, I ask the -scholar, ever make upon him an impression -at all like the impression made by Defoe’s -manner in <i>Moll Flanders</i> and <i>Colonel Jack</i>? -Does it not, on the contrary, leave him with -an impression of nobleness, even when it -deals with Thersites or with Irus?</p> - -<p class='c005'>Well then, Homer is neither quaint, nor -garrulous, nor prosaic, nor mean: and Mr -Newman, in seeing him so, sees him differently -<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>from those who are to judge Mr Newman’s -rendering of him. By pointing out -how a wrong conception of Homer affects -Mr Newman’s translation, I hope to place -in still clearer light those four cardinal -truths which I pronounce essential for him -who would have a right conception of -Homer: that Homer is rapid, that he is -plain and direct in word and style, that he -is plain and direct in his ideas, and that he -is noble.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Newman says that in fixing on a style -for suitably rendering Homer, as he conceives -him, he ‘alights on the delicate line -which separates the <i>quaint</i> from the <i>grotesque</i>’. -‘I ought to be quaint’, he says, -‘I ought not to be grotesque’. This is a -most unfortunate sentence. Mr Newman -is grotesque, which he himself says he -ought not to be; and he ought not to be -quaint, which he himself says he ought to -be.</p> - -<p class='c005'>‘No two persons will agree’, says Mr -Newman, ‘as to where the quaint ends -and the grotesque begins’; and perhaps -this is true. But, in order to avoid all ambiguity -in the use of the two words, it is -enough to say, that most persons would -call an expression which produced on them -a very strong sense of its incongruity, and -which violently surprised them, <i>grotesque</i>; -and an expression, which produced on them -a slighter sense of its incongruity, and which -<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>more gently surprised them, <i>quaint</i>. Using -the two words in this manner, I say, that -when Mr Newman translates Helen’s words -to Hector in the sixth book,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Δᾶερ ἐμεῖο, κυνὸς κακομηχάνου, ὀκρυοέσσης</span><a id='r10' /><a href='#f10' class='c009'><sup>[10]</sup></a>,</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>O, brother thou of me, who am a mischief-working vixen,</div> - <div class='line'>A numbing horror,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>he is grotesque; that is, he expresses himself -in a manner which produces on us a -very strong sense of its incongruity, and -which violently surprises us. I say, again, -that when Mr Newman translates the common -line,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Τὴν δ’ ἠμείβετ’ ἔπειτα μέγας κορυθαίολος Ἕκτωρ,</span></div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Great Hector of the motley helm then spake to her responsive,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>or the common expression, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐϋκνήμιδες Ἀχαιοί</span>, -‘dapper-greaved Achaians’, he is quaint; -that is, he expresses himself in a manner -which produces on us a slighter sense of -incongruity, and which more gently surprises -us. But violent and gentle surprise -are alike far from the scholar’s spirit when -he reads in Homer <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κυνὸς κακομηχάνου</span>, or -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κορυθαίολος Ἕκτωρ</span>, or, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐϋκνήμιδες Ἀχαιοί</span>. -These expressions no more seem odd to -him than the simplest expressions in English. -He is not more checked by any feeling -<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>of strangeness, strong or weak, when he -reads them, than when he reads in an -English book ‘the painted savage’, or, -‘the phlegmatic Dutchman’. Mr Newman’s -renderings of them must, therefore, -be wrong expressions in a translation of -Homer, because they excite in the scholar, -their only competent judge, a feeling quite -alien to that excited in him by what they -profess to render.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Newman, by expressions of this kind, -is false to his original in two ways. He is -false to him inasmuch as he is ignoble; for -a noble air, and a grotesque air, the air of -the address,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Δᾶερ ἐμεῖο, κυνὸς κακομηχάνου, ὀκρυοέσσης,</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>and the air of the address,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>O, brother thou of me, who am a mischief-working vixen,</div> - <div class='line'>A numbing horror,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>are just contrary the one to the other: -and he is false to him inasmuch as he is -odd; for an odd diction like Mr Newman’s, -and a perfectly plain natural diction like -Homer’s,—‘dapper-greaved Achaians’ and -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐϋκνήμιδες Ἀχαιοί</span>,—are also just contrary -the one to the other. Where, indeed, -Mr Newman got his diction, with whom he -can have lived, what can be his test of antiquity -and rarity for words, are questions -which I ask myself with bewilderment. He -has prefixed to his translation a list of what -<span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>he calls ‘the more antiquated or rarer -words’ which he has used. In this list -appear, on the one hand, such words as -<i>doughty</i>, <i>grisly</i>, <i>lusty</i>, <i>noisome</i>, <i>ravin</i>, which -are familiar, one would think, to all the -world; on the other hand such words as -<i>bragly</i>, meaning, Mr Newman tells us, -‘proudly fine’; <i>bulkin</i>, ‘a calf’; <i>plump</i>, -a ‘mass’; and so on. ‘I am concerned’, -says Mr Newman, ‘with the artistic problem -of attaining a plausible aspect of -moderate antiquity, while remaining easily -intelligible’. But it seems to me that <i>lusty</i> -is not antiquated: and that <i>bragly</i> is not a -word readily understood. That this word, -indeed, and <i>bulkin</i>, may have ‘a plausible -aspect of moderate antiquity’, I admit; -but that they are ‘easily intelligible’, I -deny.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Newman’s syntax has, I say it with -pleasure, a much more Homeric cast than -his vocabulary; his syntax, the mode in -which his thought is evolved, although not -the actual words in which it is expressed, -seems to me right in its general character, -and the best feature of his version. It is -not artificial or rhetorical like Cowper’s -syntax or Pope’s: it is simple, direct, and -natural, and so far it is like Homer’s. It -fails, however, just where, from the inherent -fault of Mr Newman’s conception of Homer, -one might expect it to fail,—it fails in nobleness. -It presents the thought in a way -<span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>which is something more than unconstrained,—over-familiar; -something more than easy,—free -and easy. In this respect it is like -the movement of Mr Newman’s version, -like his rhythm, for this, too, fails, in spite -of some qualities, by not being noble enough; -this, while it avoids the faults of being slow -and elaborate, falls into a fault in the opposite -direction, and is slip-shod. Homer -presents his thought naturally; but when -Mr Newman has,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>A thousand fires along the plain, <i>I say</i>, that night were burning,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>he presents his thought familiarly; in a -style which may be the genuine style of -ballad-poetry, but which is not the style -of Homer. Homer moves freely; but -when Mr Newman has,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Infatuate! O that thou wert lord to some other army<a id='r11' /><a href='#f11' class='c009'><sup>[11]</sup></a>,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>he gives himself too much freedom; he -leaves us too much to do for his rhythm -ourselves, instead of giving to us a rhythm -<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>like Homer’s, easy indeed, but mastering -our ear with a fulness of power which is -irresistible.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I said that a certain style might be the -genuine style of ballad-poetry, but yet not -the style of Homer. The analogy of the -ballad is ever present to Mr Newman’s -thoughts in considering Homer; and perhaps -nothing has more caused his faults -than this analogy,—this popular, but, it is -time to say, this erroneous analogy. ‘The -moral qualities of Homer’s style’, says Mr -Newman, ‘being like to those of the English -ballad, we need a metre of the same genius. -Only those metres, which by the very possession -of these qualities are liable to degenerate -into <i>doggerel</i>, are suitable to -reproduce the ancient epic’. ‘The style of -Homer’, he says, in a passage which I have -before quoted, ‘is direct, popular, forcible, -quaint, flowing, garrulous: in all these respects -it is similar to the old English ballad’. -Mr Newman, I need not say, is by no means -alone in this opinion. ‘The most really -and truly Homeric of all the creations of -the English muse is’, says Mr Newman’s -critic in the <i>National Review</i>, ‘the ballad-poetry -of ancient times; and the association -between metre 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 -<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>fitting for Homeric translation’. And the -editor of Dr Maginn’s clever and popular -<i>Homeric Ballads</i> assumes it as one of his -author’s greatest and most undisputable -merits, that he was ‘the first who consciously -realised to himself the truth that Greek -ballads can be really represented in English -only by a similar measure’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>This proposition that Homer’s poetry is -<i>ballad-poetry</i>, analogous 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 -discredit 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 -favour, that it is now much more important -to insist on the large part of error contained -in it, than to extol its small part of truth. -It is time to say plainly that, whatever the -admirers of our old ballads may think, the -supreme form of epic poetry, the genuine -Homeric mould, 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 -<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>is Homer’s double; there is, whatever you -may think, ten thousand times more of the -real strain of Homer in</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Blind Thamyris, and blind Mæonides,</div> - <div class='line'>And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>than in</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Now Christ thee save, thou proud portèr,</div> - <div class='line'>Now Christ thee save and see<a id='r12' /><a href='#f12' class='c009'><sup>[12]</sup></a>,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>or in</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>While the tinker did dine, he had plenty of wine<a id='r13' /><a href='#f13' class='c009'><sup>[13]</sup></a>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>For Homer is not only rapid in movement, -simple in style, plain in language, natural -in thought; he is also, and above all, <i>noble</i>. -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 <i>Iliad</i>, keeps pressing in upon -us, that there is one poet of the <i>Iliad</i>, 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 <i>Iliad</i>, the magic -stamp of a master; and the moment you -have <i>anything</i> less than a masterwork, the -co-operation or consolidation of several poets -<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>becomes possible, for talent is not uncommon; -the moment you have <i>much</i> less than -a masterwork, they become easy, for mediocrity -is everywhere. I can imagine fifty -Bradies 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 -vigour and the Elizabethan mannerism, -united with Chapman to produce -his version of the <i>Iliad</i>. I can imagine -several poets, with the literary knack of the -twelfth century, united to produce the -<i>Nibelungen Lay</i> in the form in which we -have it,—a work which the Germans, in -their joy at discovering a national epic of -their 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 <i>Inferno</i>, though many poets -have taken for their subject a descent into -Hell. Many artists, again, have represented -Moses; but there is only one Moses -<span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>of Michael Angelo. So the insurmountable -obstacle to believing the <i>Iliad</i> a consolidated -work of several poets is this: that the work -of great masters is unique; and the <i>Iliad</i> -has a great master’s genuine stamp, and that -stamp is <i>the grand style</i>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>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 unable 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 vigour 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 weakness 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 <i>not</i> true of Homer’s, that it -is ‘liable to degenerate into doggerel’. It -is true of its ‘moral qualities’, as it is <i>not</i> -true of Homer’s, that ‘quaintness’ and -‘garrulity’ are among them. It is true of -its employers, as it is <i>not</i> true of Homer, -that they ‘rise and sink with their subject, -are prosaic when it is tame, are low when it -<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>is mean’. For this reason the ballad-style -and the ballad-measure are eminently <i>in</i>appropriate -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 hum-drum, -so not powerful.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The <i>Nibelungen Lay</i> affords a good illustration -of the qualities of the ballad-manner. -Based on grand traditions, which had found -expression in a grand lyric poetry, the -German epic poem of the <i>Nibelungen Lay</i>, -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 Sheridan’s saying that easy writing may -be often such hard reading. But, instead of -occupying myself with the <i>Nibelungen Lay</i>, -I prefer to look at the ballad-style as directly -applied to Homer, in Chapman’s version and -Mr Newman’s, and in the <i>Homeric Ballads</i> -of Dr. Maginn.</p> - -<p class='c005'>First I take Chapman. I have already -<span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>shown that Chapman’s conceits are un-Homeric, -and that his rhyme is un-Homeric; -I will now show how his manner and movement -are 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, where -Homer has,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἆ δειλώ, τι σφῶϊ δόμεν Πηλῆϊ ἄνακτι</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">θνητῷ; ὑμεῖς δ’ ἐστὸν ἀγήρω τ’ ἀθανάτω τε!</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἦ ἵνα δυστήνοισι μετ’ ἀνδράσιν ἄλγε’ ἔχητον</span><a id='r14' /><a href='#f14' class='c009'><sup>[14]</sup></a>;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Chapman has,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in18'><i>Poor wretched beasts</i>, said he,</div> - <div class='line'>Why gave we you to a mortal king, when immortality</div> - <div class='line'>And incapacity of age so dignifies your states?</div> - <div class='line'>Was it to haste<a id='r15' /><a href='#f15' class='c009'><sup>[15]</sup></a> the miseries poured out on human fates?</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>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’ for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἆ δειλώ</span>. This expression -just illustrates the difference 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 -<span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>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. <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Ἆ δειλώ</span> is as plain, as -simple as ‘Poor wretched beasts’; but it -is also noble, which ‘Poor wretched beasts’ -is not. ‘Poor wretched beasts’ is, in truth, -a little over-familiar, but this is no objection -to it for the ballad-manner; it is good -enough for the old English ballad, good -enough for the <i>Nibelungen Lay</i>, good enough -for Chapman’s <i>Iliad</i>, good enough for Mr -Newman’s <i>Iliad</i>, good enough for Dr -Maginn’s <i>Homeric Ballads</i>; but it is not -good enough for Homer.</p> - -<p class='c005'>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<a id='r16' /><a href='#f16' class='c009'><sup>[16]</sup></a>.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in22'>Achilles, far in rage,</div> - <div class='line'>Thus answered him:—It fits not thee thus proudly to presage</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>My overthrow. I know myself it is my fate to fall</div> - <div class='line'>Thus far from Phthia; yet that fate shall fail to vent her gall</div> - <div class='line'>Till mine vent thousands.—These words said, he fell to horrid deeds,</div> - <div class='line'>Gave dreadful signal, and forthright made fly his one-hoofed steeds.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>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 this,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in8'>These words said, he fell to horrid deeds,</div> - <div class='line'>Gave dreadful signal, and forthright made fly his one-hoofed steeds,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>who does not feel the vital difference of -the movement of Homer,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἦ ῥα, καὶ ἐν πρώτοις ἰάχων ἔχε μώνυχας ἵππο υς?</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>To pass from Chapman to Dr Maginn. -His <i>Homeric Ballads</i> are vigorous and -genuine poems in their own way; they are -not one continual falsetto, like the pinch-beck -<i>Roman Ballads</i> of Lord Macaulay; -but just because they are ballads in their -manner and movement, just because, to -use the words of his applauding editor, Dr -Maginn has ‘consciously realised to himself -the truth that Greek ballads can be really -represented in English only by a similar -manner’,—just for this very reason they -<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>are not at all Homeric, they have not the -least in the world the manner of Homer. -There is a celebrated incident in the nineteenth -book of the <i>Odyssey</i>, the recognition -by the old nurse Eurycleia of a scar on the -leg of her master Ulysses, who has entered -his own hall as an unknown wanderer, and -whose feet she has been set to wash. ‘Then -she came near’, says Homer, ‘and began -to wash her master; and straightway she -recognised a scar which he had got in -former days from the white tusk of a wild -boar, when he went to Parnassus unto -Autolycus and the sons of Autolycus, his -mother’s father and brethren’<a id='r17' /><a href='#f17' class='c009'><sup>[17]</sup></a>. This, -‘really represented’ by Dr Maginn, in ‘a -measure similar’ to Homer’s, becomes:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>And scarcely had she begun to wash</div> - <div class='line'>Ere she was aware of the grisly gash</div> - <div class='line in4'>Above his knee that lay.</div> - <div class='line'>It was a wound from a wild boar’s tooth,</div> - <div class='line'>All on Parnassus’ slope,</div> - <div class='line'>Where he went to hunt in the days of his youth</div> - <div class='line'>With his mother’s sire,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>and so on. That is the true ballad-manner, -no one can deny; ‘all on Parnassus’ slope’ -is, I was going to say, the true ballad-slang; -but never again shall I be able to read</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>νίζε δ’ ἄῤ ἆσσον ἴουσα ἄναχθ’ ἑόν· αὐτίκα δ’ ἔγνω</div> - <div class='line'>οὐλήν,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>without having the destestable dance of -Dr Maginn’s</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>And scarcely had she begun to wash</div> - <div class='line'>Ere she was aware of the grisly gash,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>jigging in my ears, to spoil the effect of -Homer, and to torture me. To apply that -manner and that rhythm to Homer’s incidents, -is not to imitate Homer, but to -travesty him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Lastly I come to Mr Newman. His -rhythm, like Chapman’s and Dr Maginn’s, -is a ballad-rhythm, but with a modification -of his own. ‘Holding it’, he tells us, ‘as -an axiom, that rhyme must be abandoned’, -he found, on abandoning it, ‘an unpleasant -void until he gave a double ending to the -verse’. In short, instead of saying</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Good people all with one accord</div> - <div class='line'>Give ear unto my <i>tale</i>,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Mr Newman would say</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Good people all with one accord</div> - <div class='line'>Give ear unto my <i>story</i>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>A recent American writer<a id='r18' /><a href='#f18' class='c009'><sup>[18]</sup></a> gravely observes -that for his countrymen this rhythm has a -disadvantage in being like the rhythm of -the American national air <i>Yankee Doodle</i>, -and thus provoking ludicrous associations. -<i>Yankee Doodle</i> is not our national air: for -us Mr Newman’s rhythm has not this disadvantage. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>He himself gives us several -plausible reasons why this rhythm of his -really ought to be successful: let us examine -how far it <i>is</i> successful.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Newman joins to a bad rhythm so -bad a diction that it is difficult to distinguish -exactly whether in any given passage it is -his words or his measure which produces a -total impression of such an unpleasant kind. -But with a little attention we may analyse -our total impression, and find the share -which each element has in producing it. -To take the passage which I have so often -mentioned, Sarpedon’s speech to Glaucus. -Mr Newman translates this as follows:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>O gentle friend! if thou and I, from this encounter ’scaping,</div> - <div class='line'>Hereafter might for ever be from Eld and Death exempted</div> - <div class='line'>As heavenly gods, not I in sooth would fight among the foremost,</div> - <div class='line'>Nor liefly thee would I advance to man-ennobling battle.</div> - <div class='line'>Now,—sith ten thousand shapes of Death do any-gait pursue us</div> - <div class='line'>Which never mortal may evade, though sly of foot and nimble;—</div> - <div class='line'>Onward! and glory let us earn, or glory yield to someone.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Could all our care elude the gloomy grave</div> - <div class='line'>Which claims no less the fearful than the brave.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>I am not going to quote Pope’s version over -again, but I must remark in passing, how -much more, with all Pope’s radical difference -<span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>of manner from Homer, it gives us of the -real effect of</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εἰ μὲν γὰρ, πόλεμον περὶ τόνδε φυγόντε</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>than Mr Newman’s lines. And now, why -are Mr Newman’s lines faulty? They are -faulty, first, because, as a matter of diction, -the expressions ‘O gentle friend’, ‘eld’, -‘in sooth’, ‘liefly’, ‘advance’, ‘man-ennobling’, -‘sith’, ‘any-gait’, and ‘sly of -foot’, are all bad; some of them worse -than others, but all bad: that is, they all -of them as here used excite in the scholar, -their sole judge,—excite, I will boldly affirm, -in Professor Thompson or Professor Jowett,—a -feeling totally different from that excited -in them by the words of Homer which -these expressions profess to render. The -lines are faulty, secondly, because, as a -matter of rhythm, any and every line among -them has to the ear of the same judges (I -affirm it with equal boldness) a movement -as unlike Homer’s movement in the corresponding -line as the single words are unlike -Homer’s words. <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Οὔτε κέ σε στέλλοιμαι μάχην -ἐς κυδιάνειρν</span>,—‘Nor liefly thee would I advance -to man-ennobling battle’;—for -whose ears do those two rhythms produce -impressions of, to use Mr Newman’s own -words, ‘similar moral genius’?</p> - -<p class='c005'>I will by no means make search in Mr -Newman’s version for passages likely to -raise a laugh; that search, alas! would -<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>be far too easy. I will quote but one other -passage from him, and that a passage where -the diction is comparatively inoffensive, in -order that disapproval of the words may not -unfairly heighten disapproval of the rhythm. -The end of the nineteenth book, the answer -of Achilles to his horse Xanthus, Mr Newman -gives thus:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Chestnut! why bodest death to me? from thee this was not needed.</div> - <div class='line'>Myself right surely know alsó, that ’t is my doom to perish,</div> - <div class='line'>From mother and from father dear apart, in Troy; but never</div> - <div class='line'>Pause will I make of war, until the Trojans be glutted.</div> - <div class='line in2'>He spake, and yelling, held afront the single-hoofed horses.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Here Mr Newman calls Xanthus <i>Chestnut</i>, -indeed, as he calls Balius <i>Spotted</i>, and -Podarga <i>Spry-foot</i>; which is as if a Frenchman -were to call Miss Nightingale <i>Mdlle. -Rossignol</i>, or Mr Bright <i>M. Clair</i>. And -several other expressions, too, ‘yelling’, -‘held afront’, ‘single-hoofed’,—leave, to -say the very least, much to be desired. Still, -for Mr Newman, the diction of this passage -is pure. All the more clearly appears the -profound vice of a rhythm, which, with -comparatively few faults of words, can leave -a sense of such incurable alienation from -Homer’s manner as, ‘Myself right surely -know also that ’tis my doom to perish -compared with the <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εὖ νύ τοι οἶδα καὶ αὐτὸς, -ὅ μοι μόρος ἐνθάδ’ ὀλέσθαι</span> of Homer.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>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 vigour of spirit and of -true genius—the Coryphæus 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 if <i>freedom</i> -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 translate Homer into the melodies of -<i>Marmion</i>’. ‘The <i>truly</i> classical and <i>truly</i> -romantic’, says Dr Maginn, ‘are one; -the moss-trooping Nestor reappears in the -moss-trooping heroes of Percy’s <i>Reliques</i>’; -and a description by Scott, which he quotes, -he calls ‘graphic, and therefore Homeric’. -He forgets our fourth axiom,—that Homer -is not <i>only</i> graphic; he is also noble, and -has the grand style. Human nature under -like circumstances is probably in all stages -much the same; and so far it may be said -that ‘the truly classical and the truly romantic -are one’; but it is of little use to -tell us this, because we know the human -nature of other ages only through the representations -of them which have come -down to us, and the classical and the romantic -modes of representation are so far -from being ‘one’, that they remain eternally -<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>distinct, and have created for us a separation -between the two worlds which they respectively -represent. Therefore to call -Nestor the ‘moss-trooping Nestor’ is absurd, -because, though Nestor may possibly -have been much the same sort of man as -many a moss-trooper, he has yet come to -us through a mode of representation so -unlike that of Percy’s <i>Reliques</i>, that instead -of ‘reappearing in the moss-trooping heroes’ -of these poems, he exists in our imagination -as something utterly unlike them, and as -belonging to another world. So the Greeks -in Shakspeare’s <i>Troilus and Cressida</i> are -no longer the Greeks whom we have known -in Homer, because they come to us through -a mode of representation of the romantic -world. But I must not forget Scott.</p> - -<p class='c005'>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,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>I do not rhyme to that dull elf</div> - <div class='line'>Who cannot image to himself<a id='r19' /><a href='#f19' class='c009'><sup>[19]</sup></a>,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>and so on, any scholar will feel that <i>this</i> 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:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Tunstall lies dead upon the field,</div> - <div class='line'>His life-blood stains the spotless shield;</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>Edmund is down,—my life is reft,—</div> - <div class='line'>The Admiral alone is left.</div> - <div class='line'>Let Stanley charge with spur of fire,—</div> - <div class='line'>With Chester charge, and Lancashire,</div> - <div class='line'>Full upon Scotland’s central host,</div> - <div class='line'>Or victory and England’s lost<a id='r20' /><a href='#f20' class='c009'><sup>[20]</sup></a>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>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 <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>saccadé</i></span>, 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 -particular 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 -<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>to put them side by side with this of Scott. -For example, when Homer says:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">άλλά, φίλος, θάνε καὶ σύ· τίη ὀλυφύρεαι οὕτως;</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κάθανε καὶ Πάτροκλος, ὅπερ σέο πολλὸν ἀμείνων</span><a id='r21' /><a href='#f21' class='c009'><sup>[21]</sup></a>,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>that is in the grand style. When Virgil -says:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Disce, puer, virtutem ex me verumque laborem,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Fortunam ex aliis</span><a id='r22' /><a href='#f22' class='c009'><sup>[22]</sup></a>,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>that is in the grand style. When Dante -says:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Lascio lo fele, et vo pei dolci pomi</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Promessi a me per lo verace Duca;</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Ma fino al centro pria convien ch’ io tomi</span><a id='r23' /><a href='#f23' class='c009'><sup>[23]</sup></a>,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>that is in the grand style. When Milton -says:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in14'>His form had yet not lost</div> - <div class='line'>All her original brightness, nor appeared</div> - <div class='line'>Less than archangel ruined, and the excess</div> - <div class='line'>Of glory obscured<a id='r24' /><a href='#f24' class='c009'><sup>[24]</sup></a>,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>that, finally, is in the grand style. Now -<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>let anyone after repeating 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 without; -and this something is precisely the grand -manner. It is no disrespect to Scott to say -that he does not attain to this manner 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 succeeded. -The poetic style of Scott is—(it becomes -necessary to say so when it is proposed to -‘translate Homer into the melodies of -<i>Marmion</i>’)—it is, tried by the highest -standard, 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 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 -<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>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.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Tunstall lies dead upon the field,</div> - <div class='line'>His life-blood stains the spotless shield:</div> - <div class='line'>Edmund is down,—my life is reft—</div> - <div class='line'>The Admiral alone is left.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>—‘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.</p> - -<p class='c005'>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 -<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>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 -English 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, <i>Homer is -noble</i>’. 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 <i>re</i>produce.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I shall have to try your patience yet once -more upon this subject, and then my task -will be completed. I have shown what the -four axioms respecting Homer which I have -laid down, exclude, what they bid a translator -not to do; I have still to show what -they supply, what positive help they can -give to the translator in his work. I will -even, with their aid, myself try my fortune -with some of those passages of Homer which -I have already noticed; not indeed with -any confidence that I more than others can -succeed in adequately rendering Homer, but -in the hope of satisfying competent judges, -in the hope of making it clear to the future -<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>translator, that I at any rate follow a right -method, and that, in coming short, I come -short from weakness of execution, not from -original vice of design. This is why I have -so long occupied myself with Mr Newman’s -version; that, apart from all faults of execution, -his original design was wrong, and -that he has done us the good service of declaring -that design in its naked wrongness. -To bad practice he has prefixed the bad -theory which made the practice bad; he -has given us a false theory in his preface, -and he has exemplified the bad effects of -that false theory in his translation. It is -because his starting-point is so bad that he -runs so badly; and to save others from -taking so false a starting-point, may be to -save them from running so futile a course.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Newman, indeed, says in his preface, -that if anyone dislikes his translation, ‘he -has his easy remedy; to keep aloof from -it’. But Mr Newman is a writer of considerable -and deserved reputation; he is -also a Professor of the University of London, -an institution which by its position and by -its merits acquires every year greater importance. -It would be a very grave thing -if the authority of so eminent a Professor -led his students to misconceive entirely the -chief work of the Greek world; that work -which, whatever the other works of classical -antiquity have to give us, gives it more -abundantly than they all. The eccentricity -<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>too, the arbitrariness, of which Mr Newman’s -conception of Homer offers so signal -an example, are not a peculiar failing of -Mr Newman’s own; in varying degrees they -are the great defect of English intellect -the great blemish of English literature. -Our literature of the eighteenth century, -the literature of the school of Dryden, -Addison, Pope, Johnson, is a long reaction -against this eccentricity, this arbitrariness; -that reaction perished by its own faults, -and its enemies are left once more masters -of the field. It is much more likely that -any new English version of Homer will have -Mr Newman’s faults than Pope’s. Our -present literature, which is very far, certainly, -from having the spirit and power -of Elizabethan genius, yet has in its own -way these faults, eccentricity, and arbitrariness, -quite as much as the Elizabethan -literature ever had. They are the cause -that, while upon none, perhaps, of the -modern literatures has so great a sum of -force been expended as upon the English -literature, at the present hour this literature, -regarded not as an object of mere literary -interest but as a living intellectual instrument, -ranks only third in European effect and -importance among the literatures of Europe; -it ranks after the literatures of France and -Germany. Of these two literatures, as of -the intellect of Europe in general, the main -effort, for now many years, has been a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span><i>critical</i> effort; the endeavour, in all branches -of knowledge, theology, philosophy, history, -art, science,—to see the object as in itself it -really is. But, owing to the presence in -English literature of this eccentric and -arbitrary spirit, owing to the strong tendency -of English writers to bring to the consideration -of their object some individual fancy, -almost the last thing for which one would -come to English literature is just that very -thing which now Europe most desires—<i>criticism</i>. -It is useful to notice any signal -manifestation of those faults, which thus -limit and impair the action of our literature. -And therefore I have pointed out how widely, -in translating Homer, a man even of real -ability and learning may go astray, unless -he brings to the study of this clearest of -poets one quality in which our English -authors, with all their great gifts, are apt -to be somewhat wanting—simple lucidity -of mind.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 id='part3' class='c003'><abbr title='3'>III</abbr></h2> -</div> -<p class='c004'>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 because -he is artificial both in his style and in his -words; Chapman renders him ill because -<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>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 rapidity -is not of the same sort as Homer’s rapidity, -nor are his plainness 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 movement, -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.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Therefore the translator must not say to -himself: ‘Cowper is noble, Pope is rapid, -Chapman has a good diction, Mr Newman -has a good cast of sentence; I will avoid -Cowper’s slowness, Pope’s artificiality, Chapman’s -<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>conceits, Mr Newman’s oddity; I -will take Cowper’s dignified manner, Pope’s -impetuous 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.</p> - -<p class='c005'>So the translator really has no good model -before him for any part of his work, and has -to invent everything for himself. He is -to be rapid in movement, plain in speech, -simple in thought, and noble; and <i>how</i> he -is to be either rapid, or plain, or simple, or -noble, no one yet has shown him. I shall -try to-day to establish some practical suggestions -which may help the translator of -Homer’s poetry to comply with the four -grand requirements which we make of him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>His version is to be rapid; and of course, -to make a man’s poetry rapid, as to make -it noble, nothing can serve him so much as -to have, in his own nature, rapidity and -nobleness. <i>It is the spirit that quickeneth</i>; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>and no one will so well render Homer’s -swift-flowing movement as he who has himself -something of the swift-moving spirit of -Homer. Yet even this is not quite enough. -Pope certainly had a quick and darting -spirit, as he had, also, real nobleness; yet -Pope does not render the movement of -Homer. To render this the translator must -have, besides his natural qualifications, an -appropriate metre.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I have sufficiently shown why I think -all forms of our ballad-metre unsuited to -Homer. It seems to me to be beyond -question that, for epic poetry, only three -metres can seriously claim to be accounted -capable of the grand style. Two of these -will at once occur to everyone,—the ten-syllable, -or so-called <i>heroic</i>, couplet, and -blank verse. I do not add to these the -Spenserian stanza, although Dr Maginn, -whose metrical eccentricities I have already -criticised, pronounces this stanza the one -right measure for a translation of Homer. -It is enough to observe that if Pope’s couplet, -with the simple system of correspondences -that its rhymes introduce, changes the movement -of Homer, in which no such correspondences -are found, and is therefore a -bad measure for a translator of Homer to -employ, Spenser’s stanza, with its far more -intricate system of correspondences, must -change Homer’s movement far more profoundly, -and must therefore be for the translator -<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>a far worse measure than the couplet -of Pope. Yet I will say, at the same time, -that the verse of Spenser is more fluid, slips -more easily and quickly along, than the -verse of almost any other English poet.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>By this the northern wagoner had set</div> - <div class='line'>His seven-fold team behind the steadfast star</div> - <div class='line'>That was in ocean waves yet never wet,</div> - <div class='line'>But firm is fixt, and sendeth light from far</div> - <div class='line'>To all that in the wide deep wandering are<a id='r25' /><a href='#f25' class='c009'><sup>[25]</sup></a>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>One cannot but feel that English verse has -not often moved with the fluidity and -sweet ease of these lines. It is possible -that it may have been this quality of -Spenser’s poetry which made Dr Maginn -think that the stanza of <i>The Faery Queen</i> -must be a good measure for rendering -Homer. This it is not: Spenser’s verse -is fluid and rapid, no doubt, but there are -more ways than one of being fluid and rapid, -and Homer is fluid and rapid in quite another -way than Spenser. Spenser’s manner is -no more Homeric than is the manner of -the one modern inheritor of Spenser’s -beautiful gift,—the poet, who evidently -caught from Spenser his sweet and easy-slipping -movement, and who has exquisitely -employed it; a Spenserian genius, nay, a -genius by natural endowment richer probably -than even Spenser; that light which -shines so unexpectedly and without fellow -in our century, an Elizabethan born too -<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>late, the early lost and admirably gifted -Keats.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I say then that there are really but three -metres,—the ten-syllable couplet, blank -verse, and a third metre which I will not -yet name, but which is neither the Spenserian -stanza nor any form of ballad-verse,—between -which, as vehicles for Homer’s -poetry, the translator has to make his -choice. Everyone will at once remember -a thousand passages in which both the ten-syllable -couplet and blank verse prove themselves -to have nobleness. Undoubtedly the -movement and manner of this,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Still raise for good the supplicating voice,</div> - <div class='line'>But leave to Heaven the measure and the choice,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>are noble. Undoubtedly, the movement -and manner of this:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>High on a throne of royal state, which far</div> - <div class='line'>Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>are noble also. But the first is in a rhymed -metre; and the unfitness of a rhymed metre -for rendering Homer I have already shown. -I will observe too, that the fine couplet -which I have quoted comes out of a satire, -a didactic poem; and that it is in didactic -poetry that the ten-syllable couplet has most -successfully essayed the grand style. In -narrative poetry this metre has succeeded -best when it essayed a sensibly lower style, -the style of Chaucer, for instance; whose -narrative manner, though a very good and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>sound manner, is certainly neither the grand -manner nor the manner of Homer.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The rhymed ten-syllable couplet being -thus excluded, blank verse offers itself for -the translator’s use. The first kind of -blank verse which naturally occurs to us -is the blank verse of Milton, which has been -employed, with more or less modification, -by Mr Cary in translating Dante, by Cowper, -and by Mr Wright in translating Homer. -How noble this metre is in Milton’s hands, -how completely it shows itself capable of -the grand, nay, of the grandest, style, I -need not say. To this metre, as used in -the <i>Paradise Lost</i>, our country owes the -glory of having produced one of the only -two poetical works in the grand style which -are to be found in the modern languages; -the <i>Divine Comedy</i> of Dante is the other. -England and Italy here stand alone; Spain, -France, and Germany, have produced great -poets, but neither Calderon, nor Corneille, -nor Schiller, nor even Goethe, has produced -a body of poetry in the true grand style, -in the sense in which the style of the body -of Homer’s poetry, or Pindar’s, or Sophocles’s, -is grand. But Dante has, and so -has Milton; and in this respect Milton possesses -a distinction which even Shakspeare, -undoubtedly the supreme poetical power in -our literature, does not share with him. -Not a tragedy of Shakspeare but contains -passages in the worst of all styles, the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>affected style; and the grand style, although -it may be harsh, or obscure, or -cumbrous, or over-laboured, is never affected. -In spite, therefore, of objections -which may justly be urged against the plan -and treatment of the <i>Paradise Lost</i>, in spite -of its possessing, certainly, a far less enthralling -force of interest to attract and to -carry forward the reader than the <i>Iliad</i> or -the <i>Divine Comedy</i>, it fully deserves, it can -never lose, its immense reputation; for, like -the <i>Iliad</i> and the <i>Divine Comedy</i>, nay, in -some respects to a higher degree than either -of them, it is in the grand style.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But the grandeur of Milton is one thing, -and the grandeur of Homer is another. -Homer’s movement, I have said again and -again, is a flowing, a rapid movement; -Milton’s, on the other hand, is a laboured, -a self-retarding movement. In each case, -the movement, the metrical cast, corresponds -with the mode of evolution of the thought, -with the syntactical cast, and is indeed -determined by it. Milton charges himself -so full with thought, imagination, knowledge, -that his style will hardly contain -them. He is too full-stored to show us -in much detail one conception, one piece -of knowledge; he just shows it to us in a -pregnant allusive way, and then he presses -on to another; and all this fulness, this -pressure, this condensation, this self-constraint, -enters into his movement, and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>makes it what it is,—noble, but difficult -and austere. Homer is quite different; he -says a thing, and says it to the end, and then -begins another, while Milton is trying to -press a thousand things into one. So that -whereas, in reading Milton, you never lose -the sense of laborious and condensed fulness, -in reading Homer you never lose the sense -of flowing and abounding ease. With -Milton line runs into line, and all is straitly -bound together: with Homer line runs off -from line, and all hurries away onward. -Homer begins, Μῆνιν ἄειδε, Θεά,—at the -second word announcing the proposed -action: Milton begins:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit</div> - <div class='line'>Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste</div> - <div class='line'>Brought death into the world, and all our woe,</div> - <div class='line'>With loss of Eden, till one greater Man</div> - <div class='line'>Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,</div> - <div class='line'>Sing, heavenly muse.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>So chary of a sentence is he, so resolute -not to let it escape him till he has crowded -into it all he can, that it is not till the -thirty-ninth word in the sentence that he -will give us the key to it, the word of action, -the verb. Milton says:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>O for that warning voice, which he, who saw</div> - <div class='line'>The Apocalypse, heard cry in heaven aloud.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>He is not satisfied, unless he can tell us, -all in one sentence, and without permitting -himself to actually mention the name, that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>the man who had the warning voice was -the same man who saw the Apocalypse. -Homer would have said, ‘O for that warning -voice, which <i>John</i> heard’—and if it had -suited him to say that John also saw the -Apocalypse, he would have given us that -in another sentence. The effect of this -allusive and compressed manner of Milton -is, I need not say, often very powerful; -and it is an effect which other great poets -have often sought to obtain much in the -same way: Dante is full of it, Horace is -full of it; but wherever it exists, it is always -an un-Homeric effect. ‘The losses of the -heavens’, says Horace, ‘fresh moons -speedily repair; we, when we have gone -down where the pious Æneas, where the -rich Tullus and Ancus are,—<span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>pulvis et umbra -sumus</i></span><a id='r26' /><a href='#f26' class='c009'><sup>[26]</sup></a>’. He never actually says <i>where</i> -we go to; he only indicates it by saying -that it is that place where Æneas, Tullus, -and Ancus are. But Homer, when he has -to speak of going down to the grave, says, -definitely, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><em class='gesperrt'>ἐς Ἐλύσιοv πεδιον</em>—ἀθάνατοι -πέμψουσιν</span><a id='r27' /><a href='#f27' class='c009'><sup>[27]</sup></a>,—‘The immortals shall send -thee <i>to the Elysian plain</i>’; and it is not -till after he has definitely said this, that -he adds, that it is there that the abode -of departed worthies is placed: <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὅθι ξανθὸς -Ῥαδάμανθυς</span>—‘Where the yellow-haired -Rhadamanthus is’. Again; Horace, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>having to say that punishment sooner or -later overtakes crime, says it thus:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Raro antecedentem scelestum</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Deseruit pede Pœna claudo</span><a id='r28' /><a href='#f28' class='c009'><sup>[28]</sup></a>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>The thought itself of these lines is familiar -enough to Homer and Hesiod; but neither -Homer nor Hesiod, in expressing it, could -possibly have so complicated its expression -as Horace complicates it, and purposely -complicates it, by his use of the word -<span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>deseruit</i></span>. I say that this complicated evolution -of the thought necessarily complicates -the movement and rhythm of a poet; and -that the Miltonic blank verse, of course the -first model of blank verse which suggests -itself to an English translator of Homer, -bears the strongest marks of such complication, -and is therefore entirely unfit to -render Homer.</p> - -<p class='c005'>If blank verse is used in translating -Homer, it must be a blank verse of which -English poetry, naturally swayed much by -Milton’s treatment of this metre, offers at -present hardly any examples. It must not -be Cowper’s blank verse, who has studied -Milton’s pregnant manner with such effect, -that, having to say of Mr Throckmorton -that he spares his avenue, although it is -the fashion with other people to cut down -theirs, he says that Benevolus ‘reprieves -<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>the obsolete prolixity of shade’. It must -not be Mr Tennyson’s blank verse.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>For all experience is an arch, wherethrough</div> - <div class='line'>Gleams that untravelled world, whose distance fades</div> - <div class='line'>For ever and for ever, as we gaze.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>It is no blame to the thought of those lines, -which belongs to another order of ideas than -Homer’s, but it is true, that Homer would -certainly have said of them, ‘It is to consider -too curiously to consider so’. It is -no blame to their rhythm, which belongs to -another order of movement than Homer’s, -but it is true that these three lines by themselves -take up nearly as much time as a -whole book of the <i>Iliad</i>. No; the blank -verse used in rendering Homer must be a -blank verse of which perhaps the best specimens -are to be found in some of the most -rapid passages of Shakspeare’s plays,—a -blank verse which does not dovetail its lines -into one another, and which habitually ends -its lines with monosyllables. Such a blank -verse might no doubt be very rapid in its -movement, and might perfectly adapt itself -to a thought plainly and directly evolved; -and it would be interesting to see it well -applied to Homer. But the translator who -determines to use it, must not conceal from -himself that in order to pour Homer into -the mould of this metre, he will have entirely -to break him up and melt him down, -with the hope of then successfully composing -<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>him afresh; and this is a process -which is full of risks. It may, no doubt, -be the real Homer that issues new from it; -it is not certain beforehand that it cannot -be the real Homer, as it is certain that -from the mould of Pope’s couplet or Cowper’s -Miltonic verse it cannot be the real -Homer that will issue; still, the chances of -disappointment are great. The result of -such an attempt to renovate the old poet -may be an Æson; but it may also, and -more probably will be a Pelias.</p> - -<p class='c005'>When I say this, I point to the metre -which seems to me to give the translator -the best chance of preserving the general -effect of Homer,—that third metre which -I have not yet expressly named, the hexameter. -I know all that is said against -the use of hexameters in English poetry; -but it comes only to this, that, among -us, they have not yet been used on any -considerable scale with success. <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>Solvitur -ambulando</i></span>: this is an objection which can -best be met by <i>producing</i> good English hexameters. -And there is no reason in the -nature of the English language why it -should not adapt itself to hexameters as -well as the German language does; nay, -the English language, from its greater -rapidity, is in itself better suited than -the German for them. The hexameter, -whether alone or with the pentameter, -possesses a movement, an expression, which -<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>no metre hitherto in common use amongst -us possesses, and which I am convinced -English poetry, as our mental wants multiply, -will not always be content to forgo. -Applied to Homer, this metre affords to -the translator the immense support of -keeping him more nearly than any other -metre to Homer’s movement; and, since -a poet’s movement makes so large a part -of his general effect, and to reproduce this -general effect is at once the translator’s -indispensable business and so difficult for -him, it is a great thing to have this part -of your model’s general effect already -given you in your metre, instead of -having to get it entirely for yourself.</p> - -<p class='c005'>These are general considerations; but -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 successful 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 <i>Iliad</i>, -which end with that mention of Castor and -Pollux from which Mr Ruskin extracts the -sentimental consolation already noticed by -me. The author is the accomplished Provost -of Eton, Dr Hawtrey; and this performance -of his must be my excuse for -<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>having taken the liberty to single him out -for mention, as one of the natural judges of -a translation of Homer, along with Professor -Thompson and Professor Jowett, -whose connection with Greek literature is -official. The passage is short<a id='r29' /><a href='#f29' class='c009'><sup>[29]</sup></a>; and Dr -<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>Hawtrey’s version of it is suffused with a -pensive grace which is, perhaps, rather more -Virgilian than Homeric; still it is the one -version of any part of the <i>Iliad</i> which in -some degree reproduces for me the original -effect of Homer: it is the best, and it is in -hexameters.</p> - -<p class='c005'>This is one of the particular considerations -that incline me to prefer the hexameter, -for translating Homer, to our established -metres. There is another. Most of you, -probably, have some knowledge of a poem -by Mr Clough, <i>The Bothie of Toper-na-fuosich</i>, -a long-vacation pastoral, in hexameters. -The general merits of that poem -I am not going to discuss: it is a serio-comic -<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>poem, and, therefore, of essentially -different nature from the <i>Iliad</i>. Still in -two things it is, more than any other English -poem which I can call to mind, like the -<i>Iliad</i>: in the rapidity of its movement, -and the plainness and directness of its style. -The thought of this poem is often curious -and subtle, and that is not Homeric; the -diction is often grotesque, and that is not -Homeric. Still by its rapidity of movement, -and plain and direct manner of presenting -the thought however curious in -itself, this poem, which, being as I say a -serio-comic poem, has a right to be grotesque, -is grotesque <i>truly</i>, not, like Mr Newman’s -version of the <i>Iliad</i>, <i>falsely</i>. Mr Clough’s -odd epithets, ‘The grave man nicknamed -Adam’, ‘The hairy Aldrich’, and so on, -grow vitally and appear naturally in their -place; while Mr Newman’s ‘dapper-greaved -Achaians’, and ‘motley-helmed Hector’, -have all the air of being mechanically elaborated -and artificially stuck in. Mr Clough’s -hexameters are excessively, needlessly -rough; still owing to the native rapidity -of this measure, and to the directness of -style which so well allies itself with it, his -composition produces a sense in the reader -which Homer’s composition also produces, -and which Homer’s translator ought to <i>re</i>-produce,—the -sense of having, within short -limits of time, a large portion of human life -presented to him, instead of a small portion.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>Mr Clough’s hexameters are, as I have -just said, too rough and irregular; and indeed -a good model, on any considerable -scale, of this metre, the English translator -will nowhere find. He must not follow the -model offered by Mr Longfellow in his -pleasing and popular poem of <i>Evangeline</i>; -for the merit of the manner and movement -of <i>Evangeline</i>, when they are at their best, -is to be tenderly elegant; and their fault, -when they are at their worst, is to be -lumbering; but Homer’s defect is not -lumberingness, neither is tender elegance -his excellence. The lumbering effect of -most English hexameters is caused by their -being much too dactylic<a id='r30' /><a href='#f30' class='c009'><sup>[30]</sup></a>; the translator -must learn to use spondees freely. Mr -Clough has done this, but he has not sufficiently -observed another rule which the translator -cannot follow too strictly; and that -is, to have no lines which will not, as it is -familiarly said, <i>read themselves</i>. This is of -the last importance for rhythms with which -the ear of the English public is not -thoroughly acquainted. Lord Redesdale, -in two papers on the subject of Greek and -Roman metres, has some good remarks on -<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>the outrageous disregard of quantity in -which English verse, trusting to its force -of accent, is apt to indulge itself. The -predominance of accent in our language is -so great, that it would be pedantic not to -avail oneself of it; and Lord Redesdale -suggests rules which might easily be pushed -too far. Still, it is undeniable that in -English hexameters we generally force the -quantity far too much; we rely on justification -by accent with a security which is -excessive. But not only do we abuse accent -by shortening long syllables and lengthening -short ones; we perpetually commit a far -worse fault, by requiring the removal of -the accent from its natural place to an unnatural -one, in order to make our line scan. -This is a fault, even when our metre is one -which every English reader knows, and -when we can see what we want and can -correct the rhythm according to our wish; -although it is a fault which a great master -may sometimes commit knowingly to produce -a desired effect, as Milton changes the -natural accent on the word <i>Tiresias</i> in the -line:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>And Tíresias and Phineus, prophets old;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>and then it ceases to be a fault, and becomes -a beauty. But it is a real fault, when -Chapman has:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>By him the golden-throned Queen slept, the Queen of Deities;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>for in this line, to make it scan, you have -to take away the accent from the word -<i>Queen</i>, on which it naturally falls, and to -place it on <i>throned</i>, which would naturally -be unaccented; and yet, after all, you get -no peculiar effect or beauty of cadence to -reward you. It is a real fault, when Mr -Newman has:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Infatuate! O that thou wert lord to some other army—</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>for here again the reader is required, not -for any special advantage to himself, but -simply to save Mr Newman trouble, to place -the accent on the insignificant word <i>wert</i>, -where it has no business whatever. But -it is still a greater fault, when Spenser has -(to take a striking instance):</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Wot ye why his mother with a veil hath covered his face?</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>for a hexameter; because here not only is -the reader causelessly required to make -havoc with the natural accentuation of the -line in order to get it to run as a hexameter; -but also he, in nine cases out of ten, will be -utterly at a loss how to perform the process -required, and the line will remain a mere -monster for him. I repeat, it is advisable -to construct <i>all</i> verses so that by reading -them naturally—that is, according to the -sense and legitimate accent,—the reader gets -the right rhythm; but, for English hexameters, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>that they be so constructed is indispensable.</p> - -<p class='c005'>If the hexameter best helps the translator -to the Homeric rapidity, what style may -best help him to the Homeric plainness -and directness? It is the merit of a metre -appropriate to your subject, that it in -some degree suggests and carries with itself -a style appropriate to the subject; the -elaborate and self-retarding style, which -comes so naturally when your metre is the -Miltonic blank verse, does not come naturally -with the hexameter; is, indeed, alien to it. -On the other hand, the hexameter has a -natural dignity which repels both the jaunty -style and the jog-trot style, to both of which -the ballad-measure so easily lends itself. -These are great advantages; and, perhaps, -it is nearly enough to say to the translator -who uses the hexameter that he cannot too -religiously follow, in style, the inspiration -of his metre. He will find that a loose -and idiomatic grammar—a grammar which -follows the essential rather than the -formal logic of the thought—allies itself excellently -with the hexameter; and that, -while this sort of grammar ensures plainness -and naturalness, it by no means comes -short in nobleness. It is difficult to pronounce, -certainly, what is idiomatic in the -ancient literature of a language which, -though still spoken, has long since entirely -adopted, as modern Greek has adopted, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>modern idioms. Still one may, I think, -clearly perceive that Homer’s grammatical -style is idiomatic,—that it may even be -called, not improperly, a loose grammatical -style<a id='r31' /><a href='#f31' class='c009'><sup>[31]</sup></a>. Examples, however, of what I -mean by a loose grammatical style, will be -of more use to the translator if taken from -English poetry than if taken from Homer. -I call it, then, a loose and idiomatic grammar -which Shakspeare uses in the last line of -the following three:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in14'>He’s here in double trust:</div> - <div class='line'>First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,</div> - <div class='line'><i>Strong both against the deed</i>;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>or in this:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Wit, <i>whither wilt</i>?</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>What Shakspeare means is perfectly clear, -clearer, probably, than if he had said it in -a more formal and regular manner; but -his grammar is loose and idiomatic, because -he leaves out the subject of the verb ‘wilt’ -in the second passage quoted, and because, -in the first, a prodigious addition to the -sentence has to be, as we used to say in -our old Latin grammar days, <i>understood</i>, -before the word ‘both’ can be properly -<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>parsed. So, again, Chapman’s grammar is -loose and idiomatic where he says,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Even share hath he that keeps his tent, and <i>he to field</i> doth go,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>because he leaves out, in the second clause, -the relative which in formal writing would -be required. But Chapman here does not -lose dignity by this idiomatic way of expressing -himself, any more than Shakspeare -loses it by neglecting to confer on ‘both’ -the blessings of a regular government: -neither loses dignity, but each gives that -impression of a plain, direct, and natural -mode of speaking, which Homer, too, gives, -and which it is so important, as I say, that -Homer’s translator should succeed in giving. -Cowper calls blank verse ‘a style further -removed than rhyme from the vernacular -idiom, both in the language itself and in -the arrangement of it’; and just in proportion -as blank verse is removed from the -vernacular idiom, from that idiomatic style -which is of all styles the plainest and most -natural, blank verse is unsuited to render -Homer.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Shakspeare is not only idiomatic in his -grammar or style, he is also idiomatic in -his words or diction; and here too, his -example is valuable for the translator of -Homer. The translator must not, indeed, -allow himself all the liberty that Shakspeare -allows himself; for Shakspeare sometimes -uses expressions which pass perfectly well -<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>as he uses them, because Shakspeare thinks -so fast and so powerfully, that in reading -him we are borne over single words as by a -mighty current; but, if our mind were less -excited,—and who may rely on exciting our -mind like Shakspeare?—they would check -us. ‘To grunt and sweat under a weary -load’;—that does perfectly well where it -comes in Shakspeare; but if the translator -of Homer, who will hardly have wound our -minds up to the pitch at which these words -of Hamlet find them, were to employ, when -he has to speak of one of Homer’s heroes -under the load of calamity, this figure of -‘grunting’ and ‘sweating’ we should say, -<i>He Newmanises</i>, and his diction would offend -us. For he is to be noble; and no plea of -wishing to be plain and natural can get him -excused from being this: only, as he is to -be also, like Homer, perfectly simple and -free from artificiality, and as the use of -idiomatic expressions undoubtedly gives this -effect<a id='r32' /><a href='#f32' class='c009'><sup>[32]</sup></a>, he should be as idiomatic as he can -<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>be without ceasing to be noble. Therefore -the idiomatic language of Shakspeare—such -language as, ‘prate of his <i>whereabout</i>’; -‘<i>jump</i> the life to come’; ‘the damnation of -his <i>taking-off</i>’; ‘his <i>quietus make</i> with a -bare <i>bodkin</i>’—should be carefully observed -by the translator of Homer, although in -every case he will have to decide for himself -whether the use, by him, of Shakspeare’s -liberty, will or will not clash with his indispensable -duty of nobleness. He will find -one English book and one only, where, as -in the <i>Iliad</i> itself, perfect plainness of speech -is allied with perfect nobleness; and that -book is the Bible. No one could see this -more clearly than Pope saw it: ‘This pure -and noble simplicity’, he says, ‘is nowhere -in such perfection as in the Scripture and -Homer’: yet even with Pope a woman is -a ‘fair’, a father is a ‘sire’ and an old -man a ‘reverend sage’, and so on through -all the phrases of that pseudo-Augustan, -and most unbiblical, vocabulary. The -Bible, however, is undoubtedly the grand -mine of diction for the translator of Homer; -and, if he knows how to discriminate truly -between what will suit him and what will -not, the Bible may afford him also invaluable -lessons of style.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I said that Homer, besides being plain -in style and diction, was plain in the quality -of his thought. It is possible that a thought -may be expressed with idiomatic plainness, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>and yet not be in itself a plain thought. -For example, in Mr Clough’s poem, already -mentioned, the style and diction is almost -always idiomatic and plain, but the thought -itself is often of a quality which is not plain; -it is <i>curious</i>. But the grand instance of -the union of idiomatic expression with curious -or difficult thought is in Shakspeare’s -poetry. Such, indeed, is the force and -power of Shakspeare’s idiomatic expression, -that it gives an effect of clearness and vividness -even to a thought which is imperfect -and incoherent; for instance, when Hamlet -says,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>To take arms against a sea of troubles,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>the figure there is undoubtedly most faulty, -it by no means runs on four legs; but the -thing is said so freely and idiomatically, -that it passes. This, however, is not a -point to which I now want to call your -attention; I want you to remark, in Shakspeare -and others, only that which we may -directly apply to Homer. I say, then, that -in Shakspeare the thought is often, while -most idiomatically uttered, nay, while good -and sound in itself, yet of a quality which -is curious and difficult; and that this quality -of thought is something entirely un-Homeric. -For example, when Lady Macbeth says:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>Memory, the warder of the brain,</div> - <div class='line'>Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason</div> - <div class='line'>A limbeck only,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>this figure is a perfectly sound and correct -figure, no doubt; Mr Knight even calls it -a ‘happy’ figure; but it is a <i>difficult</i> figure: -Homer would not have used it. Again, -when Lady Macbeth says,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>When you durst do it, then you were a man;</div> - <div class='line'>And, to be more than what you were, you would</div> - <div class='line'>Be so much more the man,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>the thought in the two last of these lines is, -when you seize it, a perfectly clear thought, -and a fine thought; but it is a <i>curious</i> -thought: Homer would not have used it. -These are favourable instances of the union -of plain style and words with a thought not -plain in quality; but take stronger instances -of this union,—let the thought be not only -not plain in quality, but highly fanciful: -and you have the Elizabethan conceits; -you have, in spite of idiomatic style and -idiomatic diction, everything which is most -un-Homeric; you have such atrocities as -this of Chapman:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in6'>Fate shall fail to vent her gall</div> - <div class='line'>Till mine vent thousands.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>I say, the poets of a nation which has produced -such conceit as that, must purify -themselves seven times in the fire before -they can hope to render Homer. They must -expel their nature with a fork, and keep -crying to one another night and day: -‘Homer not only moves rapidly, not only -speaks idiomatically; he is, also, <i>free from -fancifulness</i>’.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>So essentially characteristic of Homer is -his plainness and naturalness of thought, -that to the preservation of this in his own -version the translator must without scruple -sacrifice, where it is necessary, verbal fidelity -to his original, rather than run any risk of -producing, by literalness, an odd and unnatural -effect. The double epithets so constantly -occurring in Homer must be dealt -with according to this rule; these epithets -come quite naturally in Homer’s poetry; -in English poetry they, in nine cases out of -ten, come, when literally rendered, quite -unnaturally. I will not now discuss why -this is so, I assume it as an indisputable -fact that it is so; that Homer’s <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μερόπων -ἀνθρώπων</span> comes to the reader as something -perfectly natural, while Mr Newman’s -‘voice-dividing mortals’ comes to him as -something perfectly unnatural. Well then, -as it is Homer’s general effect which we are -to reproduce, it is to be false to Homer to -be so verbally faithful to him as that we -lose this effect: and by the English translator -Homer’s double epithets must be, in -many places, renounced altogether; in all -places where they are rendered, rendered by -equivalents which come naturally. Instead -of rendering <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">θέτι τανύπεπλε</span> by Mr Newman’s -‘Thetis trailing-robed’, which brings to -one’s mind long petticoats sweeping a dirty -pavement, the translator must render the -Greek by English words which come as naturally -<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>to us as Milton’s words when he says, -‘Let gorgeous Tragedy With sceptred pall -come sweeping by’. Instead of rendering -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μώνυχας ἵππους</span> by Chapman’s ‘one-hoofed -steeds’, or Mr Newman’s ‘single-hoofed -horses’, he must speak of horses in a way -which surprises us as little as Shakspeare -surprises when he says, ‘Gallop apace, you -fiery-footed steeds’. Instead of rendering -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μελιηδέα θυμόν</span> by ‘life as honey pleasant’, -he must characterise life with the simple -pathos of Gray’s ‘warm precincts of the -cheerful day’. Instead of converting <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ποῖόν -σε ἔπoς φύγεν ἔρκος ὀδόντων;</span> into the portentous -remonstrance, ‘Betwixt the outwork -of thy teeth what word hath split’? -he must remonstrate in English as straightforward -as this of St Peter, ‘Be it far from -thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee’; -or as this of the disciples, ‘What is this that -he saith, a little while? we cannot tell what -he saith’. Homer’s Greek, in each of the -places quoted, reads as naturally as any of -those English passages: the expression no -more calls away the attention from the -sense in the Greek than in the English. -But when, in order to render literally in -English one of Homer’s double epithets, a -strange unfamiliar adjective is invented,—such -as ‘voice-dividing’ for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέρψς</span>,—an -improper share of the reader’s attention is -necessarily diverted to this ancillary word, -to this word which Homer never intended -<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>should receive so much notice; and a total -effect quite different from Homer’s is thus -produced. Therefore Mr Newman, though -he does not purposely import, like Chapman, -conceits of his own into the <i>Iliad</i>, does -actually import them; for the result of his -singular diction is to raise ideas, and odd -ideas, not raised by the corresponding diction -in Homer; and Chapman himself does no -more. Cowper says: ‘I have cautiously -avoided all terms of new invention, with an -abundance of which persons of more ingenuity -than judgment have not enriched -our language but encumbered it’; and -this criticism so exactly hits the diction of -Mr Newman that one is irresistibly led to -imagine his present appearance in the flesh -to be at least his second.</p> - -<p class='c005'>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 proceed -at once to give you, in conclusion, one -or two passages in which I have tried to -follow those principles of Homeric translation -which I have laid down. I give them, -it must be remembered, not as specimens of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>perfect translation, but as specimens of an -attempt to translate Homer on certain principles; -specimens which may very aptly -illustrate those principles by falling short -as well as by succeeding.</p> - -<p class='c005'>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:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>So numerous seemed those fires the bank between</div> - <div class='line'>Of Xanthus, blazing, and the fleet of Greece,</div> - <div class='line'>In prospect all of Troy—</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>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:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>So many flames before proud Ilion blaze,</div> - <div class='line'>And brighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays;</div> - <div class='line'>The long reflections of the distant fires</div> - <div class='line'>Gleam on the walls, and tremble on the spires,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>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 simplicity -without being heavy and dull; and -to keep his dignity without bringing in pomp -<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>and ornament. ‘As numerous as are the -stars on a clear night’, says Homer,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>So shone forth, in front of Troy, by the bed of Xanthus,</div> - <div class='line'>Between that and the ships, the Trojans’ numerous fires.</div> - <div class='line'>In the plain there were kindled a thousand fires: by each one</div> - <div class='line'>There sat fifty men, in the ruddy light of the fire:</div> - <div class='line'>By their chariots stood the steeds, and champed the white barley</div> - <div class='line'>While their masters sat by the fire, and waited for Morning.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Here, in order to keep Homer’s effect of -perfect plainness and directness, I repeat -the word ‘fires’ as he repeats πυρά without -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 endeavour 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 personal familiarity with -war, and with the war-horse as his master’s -companion, is such that, as it seems to me, -his attributing to the one the other’s feelings -<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>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.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Again, in the address of Zeus to the horses -of Achilles, Cowper has:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Jove saw their grief with pity, and his brows</div> - <div class='line'>Shaking, within himself thus, pensive, said.</div> - <div class='line in6'>‘Ah hapless pair! wherefore by gift divine</div> - <div class='line'>Were ye to Peleus given, a mortal king,</div> - <div class='line'>Yourselves immortal and from age exempt?’</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>There is no want of dignity here, as in the -versions of Chapman and Mr Newman, -which I have already quoted: but the whole -effect is much too slow. Take Pope:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Nor Jove disdained to cast a pitying look</div> - <div class='line'>While thus relenting to the steeds he spoke.</div> - <div class='line in6'>‘Unhappy coursers of immortal strain!</div> - <div class='line'>Exempt from age and deathless now in vain;</div> - <div class='line'>Did we your race on mortal man bestow</div> - <div class='line'>Only, alas! to share in mortal woe?’</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Here there is no want either of dignity or -rapidity, but all is too artificial. ‘Nor Jove -disdained’, for instance, is a very artificial -and literary way of rendering Homer’s -words and so is, ‘coursers of immortal -strain’.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Μυρομένω δ’ ἄρα τώ γε ἰδὼν, ἐλέησε Κρονίων.</span></div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>And with pity the son of Saturn saw them bewailing,</div> - <div class='line'>And he shook his head, and thus addressed his own bosom.</div> - <div class='line in6'><span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>‘Ah, unhappy pair, to Peleus why did we give you,</div> - <div class='line'>To a mortal? but ye are without old age and immortal.</div> - <div class='line'>Was it that ye, with man, might have your thousands of sorrows?</div> - <div class='line'>For than man, indeed, there breathes no wretcheder creature,</div> - <div class='line'>Of all living things, that on earth are breathing and moving’.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>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 over-reliance on accent, and too free -disregard of quantity, which Lord Redesdale -visits with just reprehension<a id='r33' /><a href='#f33' class='c009'><sup>[33]</sup></a>.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>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 Andromache. -One astounding conceit will probably still -be in your remembrance,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>When sacred Troy shall <i>shed her tow’rs for tears of overthrow</i>,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>as a translation of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὅτ’ ἄν ποτ’ ὀλώλῃ Ἴλιος ἰρή</span>. -I will quote a few lines which will give you, -also, the key-note 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 sufficiently 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:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>All these thy anxious cares are also mine,</div> - <div class='line'>Partner beloved; but how could I endure</div> - <div class='line'>The scorn of Trojans and their long-robed wives,</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>Should they behold their Hector shrink from war,</div> - <div class='line'>And act the coward’s part! Nor doth my soul</div> - <div class='line'>Prompt the base thought.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>Ex pede Herculem</i></span>: 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:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>‘What moves thee, moves my mind,’ brave Hector said,</div> - <div class='line'>‘Yet Troy’s upbraiding scorn I deeply dread,</div> - <div class='line'>If, like a slave, where chiefs with chiefs engage,</div> - <div class='line'>The warrior Hector fears the war to wage.</div> - <div class='line'>Not thus my heart inclines.’</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>From that specimen, too, you can easily -divine what, with such a manner, will become -of the whole passage. But Homer -has neither</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>What moves thee, moves my mind,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>nor has he</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>All these thy anxious cares are also mine.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Ἦ καὶ ἐμοὶ τάδε πάντα μέλει, γύναι· ἀλλὰ μάλ’ αἰνῶς,</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>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:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Woman, I too take thought for this; but then I bethink me</div> - <div class='line'>What the Trojan men and Trojan women might murmur,</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>If like a coward I skulked behind, apart from the battle.</div> - <div class='line'>Nor would my own heart let me; my heart, which has bid me be valiant</div> - <div class='line'>Always, and always fighting among the first of the Trojans,</div> - <div class='line'>Busy for Priam’s fame and my own, in spite of the future.</div> - <div class='line'>For that day will come, my soul is assured of its coming,</div> - <div class='line'>It will come, when sacred Troy shall go to destruction,</div> - <div class='line'>Troy, and warlike Priam too, and the people of Priam.</div> - <div class='line'>And yet not that grief, which then will be, of the Trojans,</div> - <div class='line'>Moves me so much—not Hecuba’s grief, nor Priam my father’s,</div> - <div class='line'>Nor my brethren’s, many and brave, who then will be lying</div> - <div class='line'>In the bloody dust, beneath the feet of their foemen—</div> - <div class='line'>As thy grief, when, in tears, some brazen-coated Achaian</div> - <div class='line'>Shall transport thee away, and the day of thy freedom be ended.</div> - <div class='line'>Then, perhaps, thou shalt work at the loom of another, in Argos,</div> - <div class='line'>Or bear pails to the well of Messeïs, or Hypereia,</div> - <div class='line'>Sorely against thy will, by strong Necessity’s order.</div> - <div class='line'>And some man may say, as he looks and sees thy tears falling:</div> - <div class='line'><i>See, the wife of Hector, that great pre-eminent captain</i></div> - <div class='line'><i>Of the horsemen of Troy, in the day they fought for their city</i>.</div> - <div class='line'>So some man will say; and then thy grief will redouble</div> - <div class='line'>At thy want of a man like me, to save thee from bondage.</div> - <div class='line'>But let me be dead, and the earth be mounded above me,</div> - <div class='line'>Ere I hear thy cries, and thy captivity told of.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>The main question, whether or no this -version reproduces for him the movement -and general effect of Homer better than -other versions<a id='r34' /><a href='#f34' class='c009'><sup>[34]</sup></a> 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 <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἑλκεσιπέπλους</span>, 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 clue to his thought, which -makes a hint enough; but in the English -language this sense of nearness, this clue, -is gone; hints are insufficient, everything -must be stated with full distinctness. In -the ninth line Homer’s epithet for Priam is -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐυμμελίω</span>,—‘armed with good ashen spear’, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>say the dictionaries; ‘ashen-speared’, -translates Mr Newman, following his own -rule to ‘retain every peculiarity of his -original’,—I say, on the other hand, that -ἐυμμελίω has not the effect of a ‘peculiarity’ -in the original, while ‘ashen-speared’ has -the effect of a ‘peculiarity’ in English; and -‘warlike’ is as marking an equivalent as I -dare give for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐυμμελίω</span>, for fear of disturbing -the balance of expression in Homer’s sentence. -In the fourteenth line, again, I translate -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">χαλκοχιτώνων</span> by ‘brazen-coated’. Mr -Newman, meaning to be perfectly literal, -translates it by ‘brazen-cloaked’, an expression -which comes to the reader oddly -and unnaturally, while Homer’s word comes -to him quite naturally; but I venture to -go as near to a literal rendering as ‘brazen-coated’, -because a ‘coat of brass’ is familiar -to us all from the Bible, and familiar, too, -as distinctly specified in connection with -the wearer. Finally, let me further illustrate -from the twentieth line the value which -I attach, in a question of diction, to the -authority of the Bible. The word ‘pre-eminent’ -occurs in that line; I was a little -in doubt whether that was not too bookish -an expression to be used in rendering Homer, -as I can imagine Mr Newman to have been -a little in doubt whether his ‘responsively -accosted’ for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀμειβόμενος προσέφη</span>, was not -too bookish an expression. Let us both, I -say, consult our Bibles: Mr Newman will -<span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>nowhere find it in his Bible that David, for -instance, ‘<i>responsively accosted</i> Goliath’; -but I do find in mine that ‘the right hand -of the Lord hath the <i>pre-eminence</i>’; and -forthwith I use ‘pre-eminent’, without -scruple. My Bibliolatry is perhaps excessive; -and no doubt a true poetic feeling -is the Homeric translator’s best guide in -the use of words; but where this feeling -does not exist, or is at fault, I think he -cannot do better than take for a mechanical -guide Cruden’s <i>Concordance</i>. To be sure, -here as elsewhere, the consulter must know -how to consult,—must know how very slight -a variation of word or circumstance makes -the difference between an authority in his -favour, and an authority which gives him -no countenance at all; for instance, the -‘Great simpleton!’ (for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέγα νήπιος</span>) of Mr -Newman, and the ‘Thou fool!’ of the -Bible, are something alike; but ‘Thou -fool!’ is very grand, and ‘Great simpleton!’ -is an atrocity. So, too, Chapman’s -‘Poor wretched beasts’ is pitched many -degrees too low; but Shakspeare’s ‘Poor -venomous fool, Be angry and despatch!’ -is in the grand style.</p> - -<p class='c005'>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 <i>Iliad</i>, the dialogue between -<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>Achilles and his horse Xanthus, after the -death of Patroclus. Achilles begins:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>‘Xanthus and Balius both, ye far-famed seed of Podarga!</div> - <div class='line'>See that ye bring your master home to the host of the Argives</div> - <div class='line'>In some other sort than your last, when the battle is ended;</div> - <div class='line'>And not leave him behind, a corpse on the plain, like Patroclus’.</div> - <div class='line in6'>Then, from beneath the yoke, the fleet horse Xanthus addressed him:</div> - <div class='line'>Sudden he bowed his head, and all his mane, as he bowed it,</div> - <div class='line'>Streamed to the ground by the yoke, escaping from under the collar;</div> - <div class='line'>And he was given a voice by the white-armed Goddess Hera.</div> - <div class='line in6'>‘Truly, yet this time will we save thee, mighty Achilles!</div> - <div class='line'>But thy day of death is at hand; nor shall <i>we</i> be the reason—</div> - <div class='line'>No, but the will of heaven, and Fate’s invincible power.</div> - <div class='line'>For by no slow pace or want of swiftness of ours</div> - <div class='line'>Did the Trojans obtain to strip the arms from Patroclus;</div> - <div class='line'>But that prince among Gods, the son of the lovely-haired Leto,</div> - <div class='line'>Slew him fighting in front of the fray, and glorified Hector.</div> - <div class='line'>But, for us, we vie in speed with the breath of the West-Wind,</div> - <div class='line'>Which, men say, is the fleetest of winds; ’tis thou who art fated</div> - <div class='line'>To lie low in death, by the hand of a God and a Mortal’.</div> - <div class='line in6'>Thus far he; and here his voice was stopped by the Furies.</div> - <div class='line'>Then, with a troubled heart, the swift Achilles addressed him:</div> - <div class='line in6'><span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>‘Why dost thou prophesy so my death to me, Xanthus? It needs not.</div> - <div class='line'>I of myself know well, that here I am destined to perish,</div> - <div class='line'>Far from my father and mother dear: for all that I will not</div> - <div class='line'>Stay this hand from fight, till the Trojans are utterly routed</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in6'>So he spake, and drove with a cry his steeds into battle.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Here the only particular remark which -I will make is, that in the fourth and eighth -line the grammar is what I call a loose and -idiomatic grammar. In writing a regular -and literary style, one would in the fourth -line have to repeat before ‘leave’ the words -‘that ye’ from the second line, and to insert -the word ‘do’; and in the eighth line -one would not use such an expression as -‘he was given a voice’. But I will make -one general remark on the character of my -own translations, as I have made so many -on that of the translations of others. It is, -that over the graver passages there is shed -an air somewhat too strenuous and severe, -by comparison with that lovely ease and -sweetness which Homer, for all his noble -and masculine way of thinking, never loses.</p> - -<p class='c005'>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 translator is -<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>not likely to have the requisite gifts for -poetically rendering all of them. Such are -the works of Shakspeare, and Goethe’s -<i>Faust</i>; and these it is best to attempt to -render in prose only. People praise Tieck -and Schlegel’s version of Shakspeare. I, for -my part, would sooner read Shakspeare in -the French prose translation, and that is -saying a great deal; but in the German -poets’ hands Shakspeare so often gets, -especially where he is humorous, an air -of what the French call <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>niaiserie</i></span>! and can -anything be more un-Shakspearian than -that? Again; Mr Hayward’s prose translation -of the first part of <i>Faust</i>—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 <i>Iliad</i>, 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,—<i>moderation</i>. For Homer has -not only the English vigour, he has the -Greek grace; and when one observes the -bolstering, rollicking way in which his -English admirers—even men of genius like -<span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>the late Professor Wilson—love to talk of -Homer and his poetry, one cannot 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 honour, -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 -<i>Othello</i> and <i>Faust</i>; 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 horizon, the liquid clearness -of an Ionian sky.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span> - <h2 id='reply1' class='c003'>Homeric Translation in Theory and Practice <br /> A Reply to Matthew Arnold <br /> By Francis W. Newman</h2> -</div> -<p class='c004'>It is so difficult, amid the press of literature, -for a mere versifier and translator to gain -notice at all, that an assailant may even do -one a service, if he so conduct his assault -as to enable the reader to sit in intelligent -judgment on the merits of the book assailed. -But when the critic deals out to the readers -only so much knowledge as may propagate -his own contempt of the book, he has undoubtedly -immense power to dissuade them -from wishing to open it. Mr Arnold writes -as openly aiming at this end. He begins by -complimenting me, as ‘a man of great -ability and genuine learning’; but on -questions of learning, as well as of taste, -he puts me down as bluntly, as if he had -meant, ‘a man totally void both of learning -and of sagacity’. He again and again -takes for granted that he has ‘the scholar’ -on his side, ‘the living scholar’, the man -<span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>who has learning and taste without pedantry. -He bids me please ‘the scholars’, -and go to ‘the scholars’ tribunal’; and -does not know that I did this, to the extent -of my opportunity, before committing myself -to a laborious, expensive and perhaps -thankless task. Of course he cannot guess, -what is the fact, that scholars of fastidious -refinement, but of a judgment which I -think far more masculine than Mr Arnold’s, -have passed a most encouraging sentence -on large specimens of my translations. I -at this moment count eight such names, -though of course I must not here adduce -them: nor will I further allude to it, than -to say, that I have no such sense either of -pride or of despondency, as those are liable -to, who are consciously isolated in their -taste.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Scholars are the tribunal of Erudition, but -of Taste the educated but unlearned public -is the only rightful judge; and to it I wish -to appeal. Even scholars collectively have -no right, and much less have single scholars, -to pronounce a final sentence on questions -of taste in their court. Where I differ in -Taste from Mr Arnold, it is very difficult -to find ‘the scholars’ tribunal even if I -acknowledged its absolute jurisdiction: but -as regards Erudition, this difficulty does -not occur, and I shall fully reply to the -numerous dogmatisms by which he settles -the case against me.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>But I must first avow to the reader my -own moderate pretensions. Mr Arnold begins -by instilling two errors which he does -not commit himself to assert. He says that -my work will <i>not</i> take rank as <i>the</i> standard -translation of Homer, but <i>other translations -will be made</i>: as if I thought otherwise! -If I have set the example of the right direction -in which translators ought to aim, of -course those who follow me will improve -upon me and supersede me. A man would -be rash indeed to withhold his version of a -poem of fifteen thousand lines, until he had, -to his best ability, imparted to them all -their final perfection. He might spend the -leisure of his life upon it. He would possibly -be in his grave before it could see the -light. If it then were published, and it -was founded on any new principle, there -would be no one to defend it from the -attacks of ignorance and prejudice. In the -nature of the case, his wisdom is to elaborate -in the first instance all the high and noble -parts <i>carefully</i>, and get through the inferior -parts <i>somehow</i>; leaving of necessity very -much to be done in successive editions, if -possibly it please general taste sufficiently -to reach them. A generous and intelligent -critic will test such a work mainly or solely -by the most noble parts, and as to the rest, -will consider whether the metre and style -adapts itself naturally to them also.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Next, Mr Arnold asks, ‘Who is to assure -<span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>Mr Newman, that when he has tried to -retain every peculiarity of his original, he -has done that for which Mr Newman enjoins -this to be done—adhered closely to Homer’s -manner and habit of thought? Evidently -the translator needs more practical directions -than these’. The tendency of this is, to -suggest to the reader that I am not aware -of the difficulty of rightly applying good -principles; whereas I have in this very -connection said expressly, that even when -a translator has got right principles, he is -liable to go wrong in the detail of their -application. This is as true of all the principles -which Mr Arnold can possibly give, -as of those which I have given; nor do I -for a moment assume, that in writing fifteen -thousand lines of verse I have not made -hundreds of blots.</p> - -<p class='c005'>At the same time Mr Arnold has overlooked -the point of my remark. Nearly -every translator before me has <i>knowingly</i>, -<i>purposely</i>, <i>habitually</i> shrunk from Homer’s -thoughts and Homer’s manner. The reader -will afterwards see whether Mr Arnold does -not justify them in their course. It is not -for those who are purposely unfaithful to -taunt me with the difficulty of being truly -faithful.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I have alleged, and, against Mr Arnold’s -flat denial, I deliberately repeat, that Homer -rises and sinks with his subject, and is often -homely or prosaic. I have professed as my -<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>principle, to follow my original in this -matter. It is unfair to expect of me -grandeur in trivial passages. If in any -place where Homer is <i>confessedly</i> grand -and noble, I have marred and ruined his -greatness, let me be reproved. But I shall -have occasion to protest, that Stateliness -is not Grandeur, Picturesqueness is not -Stately, Wild Beauty is not to be confounded -with Elegance: a Forest has its -swamps and brushwood, as well as its tall -trees.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The duty of one who <i>publishes</i> his censures -on me is, to select noble, greatly admired -passages, and confront me both with -a prose translation of the original (for the -public cannot go to the Greek) and also -with that which he judges to be a more -successful version than mine. Translation -being matter of compromise, and being -certain to fall below the original, when this -is of the highest type of grandeur; the -question is not, What translator is perfect? -but, Who is least imperfect? Hence the -only fair test is by comparison, when comparison -is possible. But Mr Arnold has not -put me to this test. He has quoted two -very short passages, and various single -lines, half lines and single words, from -me; and chooses to <i>tell</i> his readers that I -ruin Homer’s nobleness, when (if his censure -is just) he might make them <i>feel</i> it by -quoting me upon the most admired pieces. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>Now with the warmest sincerity I say: If -any English reader, after perusing my -version of four or five eminently noble -passages of sufficient length, side by side -with those of other translators, and (better -still) with a prose version also, finds in -them high qualities which I have destroyed; -I am foremost to advise him to shut my -book, or to consult it only (as Mr Arnold -suggests) as a schoolboy’s ‘help to construe’, -if such it can be. My sole object -is, to bring Homer before the unlearned -public: I seek no self-glorification: the -sooner I am superseded by a really better -translation, the greater will be my pleasure.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was not until I more closely read Mr -Arnold’s own versions, that I understood -how necessary is his repugnance to mine. -I am unwilling to speak of his metrical -efforts. I shall not say more than my -argument strictly demands. It here suffices -to state the simple fact, that for awhile I -seriously doubted whether he meant his first -specimen for metre at all. He seems distinctly -to say, he is going to give us English -Hexameters; but it was long before I could -believe that he had written the following -for that metre:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>So shone forth, in front of Troy, by the bed of Xanthus,</div> - <div class='line'>Between that and the ships, the Trojans’ numerous fires.</div> - <div class='line'>In the plain there were kindled a thousand fires: by each one</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>There sate fifty men, in the ruddy light of the fire.</div> - <div class='line'>By their chariots stood the steeds, and champ’d the white barley,</div> - <div class='line'>While their masters sate by the fire, and waited for Morning.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>I sincerely thought, this was meant for -prose; at length the two last lines opened -my eyes. He <i>does</i> mean them for Hexameters! -‘Fire’ ( = feuer) with him is a -spondee or trochee. The first line, I now -see, begins with three (quantitative) spondees, -and is meant to be spondaic in the -fifth foot. ‘Bed of, Between, In the’,—are -meant for spondees! So are ‘There -sate’, ‘<i>By</i> their’; though ‘Troy <i>by</i> the’ -was a dactyl. ‘Champ’d the white’ is a -dactyl. My ‘metrical exploits’ amaze Mr -Arnold (<abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 23); but my courage is timidity -itself compared to his.</p> - -<p class='c005'>His second specimen stands thus:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>And with pity the son of Saturn saw them bewailing,</div> - <div class='line'>And he shook his head, and thus address’d his own bosom:</div> - <div class='line'>Ah, unhappy pair! to Peleus why did we give you,</div> - <div class='line'>To a mortal? but ye are without old age and immortal.</div> - <div class='line'>Was it that ye with man, might have your thousands of sorrows?</div> - <div class='line'>For than man indeed there breathes no wretcheder creature,</div> - <div class='line'>Of all living things, that on earth are breathing and moving.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>Upon this he apologises for ‘To a’, intended -as a spondee in the fourth line, and ‘-dress’d -his own’ for a dactyl in the second; liberties -which, he admits, go rather far, but ‘do not -actually spoil the run of the hexameter’. -In a note, he attempts to palliate his deeds -by recriminating on Homer, though he will -not allow to me the same excuse. The -accent (it seems) on the second syllable of -αἰόλος makes it as impure a dactyl to a -Greek as ‘death-destin’d’ is to us! Mr -Arnold’s erudition in Greek metres is very -curious, if he can establish that they take -any cognisance <i>at all</i> of the prose accent, -or that <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">αἰολος</span> is quantitatively more or less -of a dactyl, according as the prose accent -is on one or other syllable. His ear also -must be of a very unusual kind, if it makes -out that ‘death-destin’d’ is anything but -a downright Molossus. Write it <i>dethdestind</i>, -as it is pronounced, and the eye, equally -with the ear, decides it to be of the same -type as the word <i>persistunt</i>. -In the lines just quoted, most readers will -be slow to believe, that they have to place -an impetus of the voice (an ictus metricus -at least) on Bétween, In´ the, Thére sate, -By´ their, A´nd with, A´nd he, Tó a, Fór -than, O´f all. Here, in the course of thirteen -lines, <i>composed as a specimen of style</i>, -is found the same offence nine times repeated, -to say nothing here of other deformities. -Now contrast Mr Arnold’s -<span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>severity against me<a id='r35' /><a href='#f35' class='c009'><sup>[35]</sup></a>, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>: ‘It is a real -fault when Mr Newman has:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Infátuáte! óh that thou wért | lord to some other army—</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>for here the reader is required, not for any -special advantage to himself, but <i>simply to -save Mr Newman trouble</i>, to place the accent -on the insignificant word <i>wert</i>, where it has -<i>no business whatever</i>’. Thus to the flaw -which Mr Arnold admits nine times in -thirteen pattern lines, he shows no mercy -in me, who have toiled through fifteen -thousand. Besides, on <i>wert</i> we are free at -pleasure to place or not to place the accent; -but in Mr Arnold’s <i>Bétween</i>, <i>Tó a</i>, etc., it -is impossible or offensive.</p> - -<p class='c005'>To avoid a needlessly personal argument, -I enlarge on the general question of hexameters. -Others, scholars of repute, have -given example and authority to English -hexameters. As matter of curiosity, as -erudite sport, such experiments may have -their value. I do not mean to express -indiscriminate disapproval, much less contempt. -I have myself privately tried the -same in Alcaics; and find the chief objection -to be, not that the task is impossible, -but that to execute it <i>well</i> is too difficult -for a language like ours, overladen with -consonants, and abounding with syllables -<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>neither distinctly long nor distinctly short, -but of every intermediate length. Singing -to a tune was essential to keep even Greek -or Roman poetry to true <i>time</i>; to the -English language it is of tenfold necessity. -But if <i>time</i> is abandoned (as in fact it always -is), and the prose accent has to do -duty for the ictus metricus, the moral genius -of the metre is fundamentally subverted. -What previously was steady duplicate time -(‘march-time’, as Professor Blackie calls -it) vacillates between duplicate and triplicate. -With Homer, a dactyl had nothing -in it <i>more tripping</i> than a spondee: a -crotchet followed by two quavers belongs -to as grave an anthem as two crotchets. -But Mr Arnold himself (<abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>) calls the -introduction of anapæsts by Dr Maginn into -our ballad measure, ‘a detestable dance’: -as in:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>And scarcely hád shĕ bĕgún to wash,</div> - <div class='line'>Ere shé wăs ăwáre ŏf thĕ grisly gash.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>I will not assert that this is everywhere -improper in the Odyssey; but no part of -the Iliad occurs to me in which it is proper, -and I have totally excluded it in my own -practice. I notice it but once in Mr Gladstone’s -specimens, and it certainly offends -my taste as out of harmony with the gravity -of the rest, viz.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>My ships shall bound ĭn thĕ morning’s light.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>In Shakspeare we have <i>i’th’</i> and <i>o’th’</i> for -<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>monosyllables, but (so scrupulous am I in -the midst of my ‘atrocities’) I never dream -of such a liberty myself, much less of avowed -‘anapæsts’. So far do I go in the opposite -direction, as to prefer to make such words -as <i>Danai</i>, <i>victory</i> three syllables, which even -Mr Gladstone and Pope accept as dissyllabic. -Some reviewers have called my metre <i>lege -solutum</i>; which is as ridiculous a mistake -as Horace made concerning Pindar. That, -in passing. But surely Mr Arnold’s severe -blow at Dr Maginn rebounds with double -force upon himself.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>To Péleus whý dĭd wĕ gíve you?—</div> - <div class='line'>Hécŭbă’s griéf nor Príăm my fáther’s—</div> - <div class='line'>Thoúsănds ŏf sórrows—</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>cannot be a <i>less</i> detestable jig than that of -Dr Maginn. And this objection holds -against every accentual hexameter, even -to those of Longfellow or Lockhart, if applied -to grand poetry. For bombast, in a -wild whimsical poem, Mr Clough has proved -it to be highly appropriate; and I think, -the more ‘rollicking’ is Mr Clough (if only -I understand the word) the more successful -his metre. Mr Arnold himself <i>feels</i> what -I say against ‘dactyls’, for on this very -ground he advises largely superseding them -by spondees; and since what he calls a -spondee is any pair of syllables of which the -former is accentuable, his precept amounts -to this, that the hexameter be converted -into a line of six accentual trochees, with -<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>free liberty left of diversifying it, in any -foot except the last, by Dr Maginn’s ‘detestable -dance’. What more severe condemnation -of the metre is imaginable than -this mere description gives? ‘Six trochees’ -seems to me the worst possible foundation -for an English metre. I cannot imagine -that Mr Arnold will give the slightest weight -to this, as a judgment from me; but I do -advise him to search in Samson Agonistes, -Thalaba, Kehama, and Shelley’s works, for -the phenomenon.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I have elsewhere insisted, but I here repeat, -that for a long poem a trochaic beginning -of the verse is most unnatural and -vexatious in English, because so large a -number of our sentences begin with unaccented -syllables, and the vigour of a trochaic -line eminently depends on the purity of its -initial trochee. Mr Arnold’s feeble trochees -already quoted (from <i>Bétween</i> to <i>Tó a</i>) are -all the fatal result of defying the tendencies -of our language.</p> - -<p class='c005'>If by a happy combination any scholar -could compose fifty <i>such</i> English hexameters, -as would convey a living likeness of the -Virgilian metre, I should applaud it as -valuable for initiating schoolboys into that -metre: but there its utility would end. -The method could not be profitably used for -translating Homer or Virgil, plainly because -it is impossible to say for whose service such -a translation would be executed. Those -<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>who can read the original will never care to -read <i>through</i> any translation; and the unlearned -look on all, even the best hexameters, -whether from Southey, Lockhart or Longfellow, -as odd and disagreeable prose. Mr -Arnold deprecates appeal to popular taste: -well he may! yet if the unlearned are to -be our audience, we cannot defy them. I -myself, before venturing to print, sought -to ascertain how unlearned women and -children would accept my verses. I could -boast how children and half-educated women -have extolled them; how greedily a working -man has inquired for them, without knowing -who was the translator; but I well know -that this is quite insufficient to establish the -merits of a translation. It is nevertheless <i>one</i> -point. ‘Homer is popular’, is one of the -very few matters of fact in this controversy -on which Mr Arnold and I are agreed. -‘English hexameters are not popular’, is -a truth so obvious, that I do not yet believe -he will deny it. Therefore, ‘Hexameters -are not the metre for translating Homer’. -<abbr class='spell'>Q. E. D.</abbr></p> - -<p class='c005'>I cannot but think that the very respectable -scholars who pertinaciously adhere to -the notion that English hexameters have -something ‘epical’ in them, have no vivid -<i>feeling</i> of the difference between Accent and -Quantity: and this is the less wonderful, -since so very few persons have ever actually -<i>heard</i> quantitative verse. I have; by -<span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>listening to Hungarian poems, read to me -by my friend Mr Francis Pulszky, a native -Magyar. He had not finished a single page, -before I complained gravely of the monotony. -He replied: ‘So do <i>we</i> complain of -it’: and then showed me, by turning the -pages, that the poet cut the knot which he -could not untie, by frequent changes of his -metre. Whether it was a change of mere -length, as from Iambic senarian to Iambic -dimeter; or implied a fundamental change -of time, as in music from <i>common</i> to <i>minuet</i> -time; I cannot say. But, to my ear, -nothing but a tune can ever save a quantitative -metre from hideous monotony. It is -like strumming a piece of very simple music -on a single note. Nor only so; but the most -beautiful of anthems, after it has been repeated -a hundred times on a hundred successive -verses, begins to pall on the ear. -How much more would an entire book of -Homer, if chanted at one sitting! I have -the conviction, though I will not undertake -to impart it to another, that if the living -Homer could sing his lines to us, they would -at first move in us the same pleasing interest -as an elegant and simple melody from an -African of the Gold Coast; but that, after -hearing twenty lines, we should complain -of meagreness, sameness, and <i>loss of moral -expression</i>; and should judge the style to -be <i>as</i> inferior to our own oratorical metres, -as the music of Pindar to our third-rate -<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>modern music. But if the poet, at our request, -instead of singing the verses, read or -spoke them, then from the loss of well-marked -time and the ascendency reassumed -by the prose-accent, we should be as helplessly -unable to <i>hear</i> any metre in them, as -are the modern Greeks.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I expect that Mr Arnold will reply to this, -that he <i>reads</i> and does not <i>sing</i> Homer, and -yet he finds his verses to be melodious and -not monotonous. To this, I retort, that he -begins by wilfully pronouncing Greek falsely, -according to the laws of <i>Latin</i> accent, and -artificially assimilating the Homeric to the -Virgilian line. Virgil has compromised between -the ictus metricus and the prose -accent, by exacting that the two coincide -in the two last feet and generally forbidding -it in the second and third foot. What is -called the ‘feminine cæsura’ gives (in the -Latin language) coincidence on the third -foot. Our extreme familiarity with these -laws of compromise enables us to anticipate -recurring sounds and satisfies our ear. But -the Greek prose accent, by reason of oxytons -and paroxytons, and accent on the ante-penultima -in spite of a long penultima, -totally resists all such compromise; and -proves that particular form of melody, -which our scholars enjoy in Homer, to be -an unhistoric imitation of Virgil.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I am aware, there is a bold theory, -whispered if not published, that,—so out-and-out -<span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span><i>Æolian</i> was Homer,—his laws of -accent must have been almost Latin. According -to this, Erasmus, following the track -of Virgil blindly, has taught us to pronounce -Euripides and Plato ridiculously ill, but -Homer, with an accuracy of accent which -puts Aristarchus to shame. This is no place -for discussing so difficult a question. Suffice -it to say, <i>first</i>, that Mr Arnold cannot take -refuge in such a theory, since he does not -admit that Homer was antiquated to Euripides; -<i>next</i>, that admitting the theory to -him, still the loss of the Digamma destroys -to him the true rhythm of Homer. I shall -recur to both questions below. I here add, -that our English pronunciation even of Virgil -often so ruins Virgil’s own <i>quantities</i>, that -there is something either of delusion or of -pedantry in our scholars’ self-complacency -in the rhythm which they elicit.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I think it fortunate for Mr Arnold, that -he had <i>not</i> ‘courage to translate Homer’; -for he must have failed to make it acceptable -to the unlearned. But if the public ear -prefers ballad metres, still (Mr Arnold assumes) -‘the scholar’ is with him in this -whole controversy. Nevertheless it gradually -comes out that neither is this the case, -but he himself is in the minority. P. <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, -he writes: ‘When one observes the -boistering, rollicking way in which Homer’s -English admirers—even men of genius, like -the late Professor Wilson—love to talk of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>Homer and his poetry, one cannot help -feeling that there is no very deep community -of nature between them and the -object of their enthusiasm.’ It does not -occur to Mr Arnold that the defect of perception -lies with himself, and that Homer -has more sides than he has discovered. He -deplores that Dr Maginn, and others whom -he names, err with me, in believing that -our ballad-style is the nearest approximation -to that of Homer; and avows that ‘<i>it is -time to say plainly</i>’ (<abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>) that Homer is -not of the ballad-type. So in <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, ‘—this -<i>popular</i>, but, <i>it is time to say</i>, this erroneous -analogy’ between the ballad and Homer. -Since it is reserved for Mr Arnold to turn -the tide of opinion; since it is a task not -yet achieved, but remains to be achieved by -his authoritative enunciation; he confesses -that hitherto I have with me the suffrage of -scholars. With this confession, a little more -diffidence would be becoming, if diffidence -were possible to the fanaticism with which -he idolises hexameters. P. <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, he says: -‘The hexameter has a natural dignity, -which repels both the jaunty style and the -jog-trot style, etc.... <i>The translator who uses -it cannot too religiously follow the</i> <span class='fss'>INSPIRATION -OF HIS METRE</span>’ etc. Inspiration from a metre -which has no recognised type? from a -metre which the <i>heart</i> and <i>soul</i> of the nation -ignores? I believe, if the metre can inspire -anything, it is to frolic and gambol -<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>with Mr Clough. Mr Arnold’s English hexameter -cannot be a higher inspiration to him, -than the true hexameter was to a Greek: -yet that metre inspired strains of totally -different essential genius and merit.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But I claim Mr Arnold himself as confessing -that our ballad <i>metre</i> is epical, when -he says that Scott is ‘<i>bastard</i>-epic’. I do -not admit that his quotations from Scott -are all Scott’s best, nor anything like it; -but if they were, it would only prove something -against Scott’s genius or talent, -nothing about his metre. The Κύπρια ἔπη -or <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Ἰλίου πέρσις</span> were probably very inferior -to the Iliad; but no one would on -that account call them or the Frogs and -Mice bastard-epic. No one would call a -bad tale of Dryden or of Crabbe bastard-epic. -The application of the word to Scott virtually -concedes what I assert. Mr Arnold also calls -Macaulay’s ballads ‘pinchbeck’; but a man -needs to produce something very noble himself, -before he can afford thus to sneer at -Macaulay’s ‘Lars Porsena’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Before I enter on my own ‘metrical exploits’, -I must get rid of a disagreeable -topic. Mr Arnold’s repugnance to them has -led him into forms of attack, which I do not -know how to characterize. I shall state my -complaints as concisely as I can, and so -leave them.</p> - -<p class='c005'>1. I do not seek for any similarity of -<i>sound</i> in an English accentual metre to that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>of a Greek quantitative metre; besides that -Homer writes in a highly vocalized tongue, -while ours is overfilled with consonants. I -have disowned this notion of similar rhythm -in the strongest terms (<abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <abbr title='17'>xvii</abbr> of my Preface), -expressly because some critics had -imputed this aim to me in the case of -Horace. I summed up: ‘It is not audible -sameness of metre, but a likeness of moral -genius which is to be aimed at’. I contrast -the audible to the moral. Mr Arnold suppresses -this contrast, and writes as follows, -<abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 34. Mr Newman tells us that he has -found a metre like in moral genius to -Homer’s. His judge has still the same -answer: reproduce <span class='fss'>THEN</span> <i>on our ear</i> something -of ‘the effect produced by the <i>movement</i> -of Homer’. He recurs to the same -fallacy in <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 57. ‘For whose <span class='fss'>EAR</span> do those -two <i>rhythms</i> produce impressions of (<i>to use -Mr Newman’s own words</i>) “similar moral -genius”’? His reader will naturally suppose -that ‘like in moral genius’ is with me -an eccentric phrase for ‘like in musical -cadence’. The only likeness to the ear -which I have admitted, is, that the one and -the other are primitively made <i>for music</i>. -That, Mr Arnold knows, is a matter of fact, -whether a ballad be well or ill written. If -he pleases, he may hold the rhythm of our -metre to be necessarily inferior to Homer’s -and to his own; but when I fully explained -in my preface what were my tests of ‘like -<span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>moral genius’, I cannot understand his suppressing -them, and perverting the sense of -my words.</p> - -<p class='c005'>2. In <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, Mr Arnold quotes Chapman’s -translation of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἆ δείλω</span>, ‘Poor wretched -<i>beasts</i>’ (of Achilles’ horses), on which he -comments severely. He does <i>not</i> quote me. -Yet in <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>, after exhibiting Cowper’s -translation of the same passage, he adds: -‘There is no want of dignity here, as in the -versions of Chapman and of <i>Mr Newman, -which I have already quoted</i>’. Thus he leads -the reader to believe that I have the same -phrase as Chapman! In fact, my translation -is:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Ha! why on Peleus, mortal prince,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Bestowed we <i>you</i>, unhappy!</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>If he had done me the justice of quoting, -it is possible that some readers would not -have thought my rendering intrinsically -‘wanting in dignity’, or less noble than -Mr Arnold’s own, which is:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Ah! unhappy pair! to Peleus<a id='r36' /><a href='#f36' class='c009'><sup>[36]</sup></a> why did we give you,</div> - <div class='line'>To a mortal?</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>In <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, he with very gratuitous insult -remarks, that ‘Poor wretched beasts’ is -a little over-familiar; but this is no objection -to it for the ballad-manner<a id='r37' /><a href='#f37' class='c009'><sup>[37]</sup></a>: <i>it is good -<span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>enough</i> ... <i>for Mr Newman’s Iliad</i>, ... -etc.’ Yet I myself have <i>not</i> thought it -good enough for my Iliad.</p> - -<p class='c005'>3. In <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, Mr Arnold gives his own -translation of the discourse between Achilles -and his horse; and prefaces it with the -words, ‘I will take the passage in which -both Chapman and Mr Newman <i>have already -so much excited our astonishment</i>’. -But he did not quote my translation of the -noble part of the passage, consisting of 19 -lines; he has merely quoted<a id='r38' /><a href='#f38' class='c009'><sup>[38]</sup></a> the tail of -it, 5 lines; which are altogether inferior. -Of this a sufficient indication is, that Mr -Gladstone has translated the 19 and omitted -the 5. I shall below give my translation -parallel to Mr Gladstone’s. The curious -reader may compare it with Mr Arnold’s, -if he choose.</p> - -<p class='c005'>4. In <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, Mr Arnold quotes from -Chapman as a translation of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὅταν ποτ’ ὀλώλῃ -Ιλιος ἱρὴ</span>,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>‘When sacred Troy shall <i>shed her tow’rs for tears of overthrow</i>’;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>and adds: ‘What Mr Newman’s manner -of rendering would be, you can by this -time sufficiently imagine for yourselves’. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span><i>Would be!</i> Why does he set his readers to -‘imagine’, when in fewer words he could -tell them what my version <i>is</i>? It stands -thus:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>A day, when sacred Ilium | for overthrow is destin’d,—</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>which may have faults unperceived by me, -but is in my opinion far better than Mr -Arnold’s, and certainly did not deserve to -be censured side by side with Chapman’s -absurdity. I must say plainly; a critic -has no right to hide what I have written, -and stimulate his readers to despise me -by these <i>indirect</i> methods.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I proceed to my own metre. It is exhibited -in this stanza of Campbell:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>By this the storm grew loud apace:</div> - <div class='line in2'>The waterwraith was shrieking,</div> - <div class='line'>And in the scowl of heav’n each face</div> - <div class='line in2'>Grew dark as they were speaking.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Whether I use this metre well or ill, I maintain -that it is essentially a noble metre, a -popular metre, a metre of great capacity. -<i>It is essentially the national ballad metre</i>, -for the double rhyme is an accident. Of -<i>course</i> it can be applied to low, as well as -to high subjects; else it would <i>not</i> be -popular: it would <i>not</i> be ‘of a like moral -genius’ to the Homeric metre, which was -available equally for the comic poem -<i>Margites</i>, for the precepts of Pythagoras, -for the pious prosaic hymn of Cleanthes, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>for the driest prose of a naval catalogue<a id='r39' /><a href='#f39' class='c009'><sup>[39]</sup></a>, -in short, <i>for all early thought</i>. Mr Arnold -appears to forget, though he cannot be ignorant, -that prose-composition is later than -Homer, and that in the epical days every -initial effort at prose history was carried -on in <i>Homeric doggerel</i> by the Cyclic poets, -who traced the history of Troy <i>ab ovo</i> in -consecutive chronology. I say, he is merely -inadvertent, he cannot be ignorant, that the -Homeric <i>metre</i>, like my metre, subserves -prosaic thought with the utmost facility; -but I hold it to be, not indavertence, but -blindness, when he does not see that Homer’s -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">τὸν δ’ ἀπαμειβόμενος</span> is a line of as thoroughly -unaffected <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>oratio pedestris</i></span> as any -verse of Pythagoras or Horace’s Satires. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>But on diction I defer to speak, till I have -finished the topic of metre.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I do not say that any measure is faultless. -Every measure has its foible: mine -has that fault which every uniform line -must have; it is liable to monotony. This -is evaded of course, as in the hexameter or -rather as in Milton’s line, first, by varying -the cæsura, secondly, by varying certain -feet, within narrow and well understood -limits, thirdly, by irregularity in the strength -of accents, fourthly, by varying the weight -of the unaccented syllables also. All these -things are needed, <i>for the mere sake of -breaking uniformity</i>. I will not here assert -that Homer’s many marvellous freedoms, -such as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἑκηβόλου Ἀπόλλωνος</span>, were dictated -by this aim, like those in the <i>Paradise -Lost</i>; but I do say, that it is most unjust, -most unintelligent, in critics, to produce -<i>single</i> lines from me, and criticize them -as rough or weak, instead of examining them -and presenting them as part of <i>a mass</i>. -How would Shakspeare stand this sort of -test? nay, or Milton? The metrical laws -of a long poem cannot be the same as of a -sonnet: single verses are organic elements -of a great whole. A crag must not be cut -like a gem. Mr Arnold should remember -Aristotle’s maxim, that popular eloquence -(and such is Homer’s) should be broad, -rough and highly coloured, like scene painting, -not polished into delicacy like miniature. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>But I speak now of metre, not yet of diction. -In <i>any</i> long and popular poem it is a mistake -to wish every line to conform severely -to a few types; but to claim this of a translator -of <i>Homer</i> is a doubly unintelligent -exaction, when Homer’s own liberties transgress -all bounds; many of them being feebly -disguised by later double spellings, as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εἵως, -εἷος</span>, invented for his special accommodation.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The Homeric verse has a rhythmical advantage -over mine in less rigidity of cæsura. -Though the Hexameter was made out of -two Doric lines, yet no division of sense, -no pause of the voice or thought, is exacted -between them. The chasm between two -English verses is deeper. Perhaps, on the -side of syntax, a <i>four + three</i> English metre -drives harder towards monotony than -Homer’s own verse. For other reasons, -it lies under a like disadvantage, compared -with Milton’s metre. The secondary -cæsuras possible in the four feet are of -course less numerous than those in the five -feet, and the three-foot verse has still less -variety. To my taste, it is far more pleasing -that the short line recur less regularly; just -as the parœmiac of Greek anapæsts is less -pleasant in the Aristophanic tetrameter, than -when it comes frequent but not expected. -This is a main reason why I prefer Scott’s -free metre to my own; yet, without rhyme, -I have not found how to use his freedom. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>Mr Arnold wrongly supposes me to have -overlooked his main and just objections to -rhyming Homer; viz. that so many Homeric -lines are intrinsically made for isolation. -In <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <abbr title='9'>ix</abbr> of my Preface I called it a fatal -embarrassment. But the objection applies -in its full strength only against Pope’s -rhymes, not against Walter Scott’s.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Gladstone has now laid before the -public his own specimens of Homeric translation. -Their dates range from 1836 to -1859. It is possible that he has as strong -a distaste as Mr Arnold for my version; -for he totally ignores the archaic, the rugged, -the boisterous element in Homer. But as -to metre, he gives me his full suffrage. He -has lines with four accents, with three, and -a few with two; not one with five. On the -whole, his metre, his cadences, his varying -rhymes, are those of Scott. He has more -trochaic lines than I approve. He is truthful -to Homer on many sides; and (such is -the delicate grace and variety admitted by -the rhyme) his verses are more pleasing than -mine. I do not hesitate to say, that if <i>all</i> -Homer could be put before the public in the -same style equally well with his best pieces, -a translation executed on my principles -could not live in the market at its side; -and certainly I should spare my labour. -I add, that I myself prefer the former piece -which I quote to my own, even while I see -his defects: for I hold that his graces, at -<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>which I cannot afford to aim, more than -make up for his losses. After this confession, -I frankly contrast his rendering of -the two noblest passages with mine, that the -reader may see, what Mr Arnold does not -show, my weak and strong sides.</p> -<p class='c004'><span class='sc'>Gladstone</span>, Iliad 4, 422</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>As when the billow gathers fast</div> - <div class='line in2'>With slow and sullen roar</div> - <div class='line'>Beneath the keen northwestern blast</div> - <div class='line in2'>Against the sounding shore:</div> - <div class='line'>First far at sea it rears its crest,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Then bursts upon the beach,</div> - <div class='line'>Or<a id='r40' /><a href='#f40' class='c009'><sup>[40]</sup></a> with proud arch and swelling breast,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Where headlands outward reach,</div> - <div class='line'>It smites their strength, and bellowing flings</div> - <div class='line in2'>Its silver foam afar;</div> - <div class='line'>So, stern and thick, the Danaan kings</div> - <div class='line in2'>And soldiers marched to war.</div> - <div class='line'>Each leader gave his men the word;</div> - <div class='line'>Each warrior deep in silence heard.</div> - <div class='line'>So mute they march’d, thou could’st not ken</div> - <div class='line'>They were a mass of speaking men:</div> - <div class='line'>And as they strode in martial might,</div> - <div class='line'>Their flickering arms shot back the light.</div> - <div class='line'>But as at even the folded sheep</div> - <div class='line in2'>Of some rich master stand,</div> - <div class='line'>Ten thousand thick their place they keep,</div> - <div class='line in2'>And bide the milkman’s hand,</div> - <div class='line'>And more and more they bleat, the more</div> - <div class='line in2'>They hear their lamblings cry;</div> - <div class='line'>So, from the Trojan host, uproar</div> - <div class='line in2'>And din rose loud and high.</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>They were a many-voicèd throng:</div> - <div class='line in2'>Discordant accents there,</div> - <div class='line'>That sound from many a differing tongue,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Their differing race declare.</div> - <div class='line'>These, Mars had kindled for the fight;</div> - <div class='line'>Those, starry-ey’d Athenè’s might,</div> - <div class='line'>And savage Terror and Affright,</div> - <div class='line'>And Strife, insatiate of wars,</div> - <div class='line'>The sister and the mate of Mars:</div> - <div class='line'>Strife, that, a pigmy at her birth,</div> - <div class='line in2'>By gathering rumour fed,</div> - <div class='line'>Soon plants her feet upon the earth,</div> - <div class='line in2'>And in the heav’n her head.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>I add my own rendering of the same; -somewhat corrected, but only in the direction -of my own principles and against -Arnold’s.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>As when the surges of the deep,    by Western blore uphoven,</div> - <div class='line'>Against the ever-booming strand     dash up in roll successive;</div> - <div class='line'>A head of waters swelleth first     aloof; then under harried</div> - <div class='line'>By the rough bottom, roars aloud;    till, hollow at the summit,</div> - <div class='line'>Sputtering the briny foam abroad,    the huge crest tumbleth over:</div> - <div class='line'>So then the lines of Danaï,     successive and unceasing,</div> - <div class='line'>In battle’s close array mov’d on.     To his own troops each leader</div> - <div class='line'>Gave order: dumbly went the rest     (nor mightèst thou discover,</div> - <div class='line'>So vast a train of people held     a voice within their bosom),</div> - <div class='line'>In silence their commanders fearing:     all the ranks wellmarshall’d</div> - <div class='line'>Were clad in crafty panoply,     which glitter’d on their bodies.</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>Meantime, as sheep within the yard     of some great cattle-master,</div> - <div class='line'>While the white milk is drain’d from them,     stand round in number countless,</div> - <div class='line'>And, grievèd by their lambs’ complaint,     respond with bleat incessant;</div> - <div class='line'>So then along their ample host     arose the Troian hurly.</div> - <div class='line'>For neither common words spake théy,     nor kindred accent utter’d;</div> - <div class='line'>But mingled was the tongue of men     from divers places summon’d.</div> - <div class='line'>By Arès these were urgèd on,     those by grey-ey’d Athenè,</div> - <div class='line'>By Fear, by Panic, and by Strife     immeasurably eager,</div> - <div class='line'>The sister and companion<a id='r41' /><a href='#f41' class='c009'><sup>[41]</sup></a>     of hero-slaying Arès,</div> - <div class='line'>Who truly doth at first her crest     but humble rear; thereafter,</div> - <div class='line'>Planting upon the ground her feet,     her head in heaven fixeth.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'><span class='sc'>Gladstone</span>, Iliad 19, 403</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Hanging low his auburn head,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Sweeping with his mane the ground,</div> - <div class='line'>From beneath his collar shed,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Xanthus, hark! a voice hath found,</div> - <div class='line'>Xanthus of the flashing feet:</div> - <div class='line'>Whitearm’d Herè gave the sound.</div> - <div class='line'>‘Lord Achilles, strong and fleet!</div> - <div class='line'>Trust us, we will bear thee home;</div> - <div class='line'>Yet cometh nigh thy day of doom:</div> - <div class='line'>No doom of ours, but doom that stands</div> - <div class='line'>By God and mighty Fate’s commands.</div> - <div class='line'>’Twas not that we were slow or slack</div> - <div class='line'>Patroclus lay a corpse, his back</div> - <div class='line'>All stript of arms by Trojan hands.</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>The prince of gods, whom Leto bare,</div> - <div class='line'>Leto with the flowing hair,</div> - <div class='line'>He forward fighting did the deed,</div> - <div class='line'>And gave to Hector glory’s meed.</div> - <div class='line'>In toil for thee, we will not shun</div> - <div class='line'>Against e’en Zephyr’s breath to run,</div> - <div class='line'>Swiftest of winds: but all in vain:</div> - <div class='line'>By God and man shalt thou be slain.’</div> - <div class='line in2'>He spake: and here, his words among,</div> - <div class='line'>Erinnys bound his faltering tongue.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Beginning with Achilles’ speech, I render -the passage parallel to Gladstone thus.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>‘<i>Chestnut</i> and <i>Spotted</i>! noble pair!     farfamous brood of <i>Spry-foot</i>!</div> - <div class='line'>In other guise now ponder ye     your charioteer to rescue</div> - <div class='line'>Back to the troop of Danaï,     when we have done with battle:</div> - <div class='line'>Nor leave him dead upon the field,     as late ye left Patroclus’.</div> - <div class='line'>But him the dapplefooted steed     under the yoke accosted;</div> - <div class='line'>(And droop’d his auburn head aside     straightway; and through the collar,</div> - <div class='line'>His full mane, streaming to the ground,     over the yoke was scatter’d:</div> - <div class='line'>Him Juno, whitearm’d goddess, then     with voice Of man endowèd):</div> - <div class='line'>‘Now and again we verily     will save and more than save thee,</div> - <div class='line'>Dreadful Achilles! yet for thee     the deadly day approacheth.</div> - <div class='line'>Not ours the guilt; but mighty God     and stubborn Fate are guilty.</div> - <div class='line'>Not by the slowness of our feet     or dulness of our spirit</div> - <div class='line'>The Troians did thy armour strip     from shoulders of Patroclus;</div> - <div class='line'>But the exalted god, for whom     brighthair’d Latona travail’d,</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>Slew him amid the foremost rank     and glory gave to Hector.</div> - <div class='line'>Now we, in coursing, pace would keep     even with breeze of Zephyr,</div> - <div class='line'>Which speediest they say to be:     but for thyself ’tis fated</div> - <div class='line'>By hand of hero and of God     in mighty strife to perish</div> - <div class='line'>So much he spake: thereat his voice     the Furies stopp’d for ever.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Now if any fool ask, Why does not Mr -Gladstone translate <i>all</i> Homer? any fool -can reply with me, Because he is Chancellor -of the Exchequer. A man who has talents -and acquirements adequate to translate -Homer <i>well</i> into <i>rhyme</i>, is almost certain -to have other far more urgent calls for the -exercise of such talents.</p> - -<p class='c005'>So much of metre. At length I come to -the topic of Diction, where Mr Arnold and -I are at variance not only as to taste, but -as to the main facts of Greek literature. -I had called Homer’s style quaint and garrulous; -and said that he rises and falls -with his subject, being prosaic when it is -tame, and low when it is mean. I added -no proof; for I did not dream that it was -needed. Mr Arnold not only absolutely -denies all this, and denies it without proof; -but adds, that these assertions prove my -incompetence, and account for my total -and conspicuous failure. His whole attack -upon my diction is grounded on a passage -which I must quote at length; for it is so -<span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>confused in logic, that I may otherwise be -thought to garble it, <abbr title='pages'>pp.</abbr> <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>‘Mr Newman speaks of the more antiquated -style suited to this subject. Quaint! -Antiquated! but to whom? Sir Thomas -Browne is quaint, and the diction of Chaucer -is antiquated: does Mr Newman suppose -that Homer seemed quaint to Sophocles, -as Chaucer’s diction seems antiquated to -us? But we cannot really know, I confess -(!!), how Homer seemed to Sophocles. Well -then, to those who can tell us how he seems -to them, to the living scholar, to our only -present witness on this matter—does Homer -make on the Provost of Eton, when he reads -him, the impression of a poet quaint and -antiquated! does he make this impression -on Professor Thompson or Professor Jowett? -When Shakspeare says, “The Princes orgulous”, -meaning “the proud princes”, -we say, “This is antiquated”. When he -says of the Trojan gates, that they,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in14'>With massy staples</div> - <div class='line'>And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts</div> - <div class='line'><i>Sperr</i> up the sons of Troy,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>we say, “This is both quaint and antiquated”. -But does Homer ever compose in a language, -which produces on the scholar at all the -same impression as this language which I -have quoted from Shakspeare? Never -once. Shakspeare is quaint and antiquated -in the lines I have just quoted; but Shakspeare, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>need I say it? can compose, when -he likes, when he is at his best, in a language -perfectly simple, perfectly intelligible; in -a language, which, in spite of the two centuries -and a half which part its author from us, -stops or surprises us as little as the language -of a contemporary. And Homer has not -Shakspeare’s variations. Homer always -composes, as Shakspeare composes at his -best. Homer is always simple and intelligible, -as Shakspeare is often; Homer is -never quaint and antiquated, as Shakspeare -is sometimes’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>If Mr Arnold were to lay before none -but Oxford students assertions concerning -Greek literature so startlingly erroneous as -are here contained, it would not concern me to -refute or protest against them. The young -men who read Homer and Sophocles and -Thucydides, nay, the boys who read Homer -and Xenophon, would know his statements to -be against the most notorious and elementary -fact: and the Professors, whom he quotes, -would only lose credit, if they sanctioned the -use he makes of their names. But when he -publishes the book for the unlearned in -Greek, among whom I must include a great -number of editors of magazines, I find Mr -Arnold to do a public wrong to literature, -and a private wrong to my book. If I am -silent, such editors may easily believe that -I have made an enormous blunder in treating -the dialect of Homer as antiquated. If -<span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>those who are ostensibly scholars, thus assail -my version, and the great majority of -magazines and reviews ignore it, its existence -can never become known to the public; -or it will exist not to be read, but to be -despised without being opened; and it -must perish as many meritorious books -perish. I but lately picked up, new, and -for a fraction of its price, at a second-hand -stall, a translation of the Iliad by <abbr class='spell'>T. S.</abbr> -Brandreth, Esq. (Pickering, London), into -Cowper’s metre, which is, as I judge, immensely -superior to Cowper. Its date is -1846: I had never heard of it. It seems -to have perished uncriticized, unreproved, -unwept, unknown. I do not wish my -progeny to die of neglect, though I am -willing that it should be slain in battle. -However, just because I address myself to -the public <i>unlearned</i> in Greek, and because -Mr Arnold lays before <i>them</i> a new, paradoxical, -monstrously erroneous representation -of facts, with the avowed object of staying the -plague of my Homer; I am forced to reply -to him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Knowingly or unknowingly, he leads his -readers to confuse four different questions: -1. whether Homer is thoroughly intelligible -to modern scholars; 2. whether Homer was -antiquated to the Athenians of Themistocles -and Pericles; 3. whether he was thoroughly -understood by them; 4. whether he is, -absolutely, an antique poet.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>I feel it rather odd, that Mr Arnold begins -by complimenting me with ‘genuine learning’, -and proceeds to appeal from me to -the ‘living scholar’. (What if I were -bluntly to reply: ‘Well! I am the living -scholar’?) After starting the question, -how Homer’s style appeared to Sophocles, -he suddenly enters a plea, under form of a -concession [‘I confess’!], as a pretence for -carrying the cause into a new court, that -of the Provost of Eton and two Professors, -into which court I have no admission; and -then, of his own will, pronounces a sentence -in the name of these learned men. Whether -they are pleased with this parading of their -name in behalf of paradoxical error, I may -well doubt: and until they indorse it themselves, -I shall treat Mr Arnold’s process as a -piece of forgery. But, be this as it may, I -cannot allow him to ‘confess’ for me against -me: let him confess for himself that he does -not know, and not for me, who know perfectly -well, whether Homer seemed quaint -or antiquated to Sophocles. Of course he -did, as every beginner must know. Why, -if I were to write <i>mon</i> for <i>man</i>, <i>londis</i> for -<i>lands</i>, <i>nesties</i> for <i>nests</i>, <i>libbard</i> for <i>leopard</i>, -<i>muchel</i> for <i>much</i>, <i>nap</i> for <i>snap</i>, <i>green-wood -shaw</i> for <i>greenwood shade</i>, Mr Arnold would -call me antiquated, although every word -would be intelligible. Can he possibly be -ignorant, that this exhibits but the smallest -part of the chasm which separates the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>Homeric dialect not merely from the Attic -prose, but from Æschylus when he borrows -most from Homer? Every sentence of -Homer was more or less antiquated to -Sophocles, who could no more help feeling -at every instant the foreign and antiquated -character of the poetry, than an Englishman -can help feeling the same in reading Burns’ -poems. Would <i>mon</i>, <i>londis</i>, <i>libbard</i>, <i>withouten</i>, -<i>muchel</i> be antiquated or foreign, and -are <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Πηληϊάδαο</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Πηλείδου, ὁσσάτιος</span> for -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὅσος, ἤϋτε</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὡς, στήῃ</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">στῇ, τεκέεσσι</span> -for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">τέκνοις, τοῖσδεσσι</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">τοῖσδε, πολέες</span> for -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">πολλοὶ, μεσοηγὺς</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μεταξὺ, αἶα</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">γῆ, εἴβω</span> -for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">λείβω</span>, and five hundred others, less -antiquated or less foreign? Homer has -archaisms in every variety; some rather -recent to the Athenians, and carrying their -minds back only to Solon, as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">βασιλῆος</span> -for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">βασίλεως</span>; others harsher, yet varying -as dialect still, as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ξεῖνος</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ξένος, τίε</span> for -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐτίμα, ἀνθεμόεις</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀνθηρὸς, κέκλυθι</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κλύε</span> -or <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἄκουσον, θαμὺς</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">θαμινὸς</span> or <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">συχνὸς, -ναιετάοντες</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ναίοντες</span> or <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">οἰκοῦντες</span>: others -varying in the root, like a new language, -as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἄφενος</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">πλοῦτος, ἰότης</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">βούλημα, τῆ</span> -for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">δέξαι</span>, under which head are heaps of -strange words, as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀκὴν, χώομαι, βιὸς, κῆλα, -μέμβλωκε, γέντο, πέπον</span>, etc. etc. Finally -comes a goodly lot of words which to this -day are most uncertain in sense. My -learned colleague Mr Malden has printed a -paper on Homeric words, misunderstood -<span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>by the later poets. Buttmann has written -an octavo volume (I have the English -translation, <i>containing 548 pages</i>) to discuss -106 ill-explained Homeric words. Some -of these Sophocles may have understood, -though we do not; but even if so, -they were not the less antiquated to him. -If there has been any perfect traditional -understanding of Homer, we should not need -to deal with so many words by elaborate -argument. On the face of the Iliad alone -every learner must know how many difficult -adjectives occur: I write down on the spur -of the moment and without reference, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κρήγυον, -ἀργὸς, ἀδινὸς, ἄητος, αἴητος, νώροψ, ἦνοψ, -εἰλίποδες, ἕλιξ, ἑλικῶπες, ἔλλοπες, μέροπες, -ἠλίβατος, ἠλέκτωρ, αἰγίλιψ, σιγαλόεις, ἰόμωρος, -ἐγχεσίμωρος, πέπονες, ἠθεῖος</span>. If Mr Arnold -thought himself wiser than all the world of -Greek scholars, he would not appeal to -them, but would surely enlighten us all: he -would tell me, for instance, what <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἔλλοπες</span> -means, which Liddell and Scott do not -pretend to understand; or <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἠθεῖος</span>, of which -they give three different explanations. But -he does not write as claiming an independent -opinion, when he flatly opposes me -and sets me down; he does but use surreptitiously -the name of the ‘living scholar’ -against me.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But I have only begun to describe the -marked chasm often separating Homer’s -dialect from everything Attic. It has a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>wide diversity of grammatical inflections, -far beyond such vowel changes of dialect -as answer to our provincial pronunciations. -This begins with new case-endings to the -nouns; in -θι, -θεν, -δε, -φι, proceeds to -very peculiar pronominal forms, and then -to strange or irregular verbal inflections, -infinitives in -μεν, -μεναι, imperfects in --εσκε, presents in -αθω, and an immensity -of strange adverbs and conjunctions. In -Thiersch’s Greek Grammar, after the Accidence -of common Greek is added as supplement -an Homeric Grammar: and in it the -Homeric Noun and Verb occupy (in the -English Translation) 206 octavo pages. -Who ever heard of a Spenserian Grammar? -How many pages could be needed to explain -Chaucer’s grammatical deviations -from modern English? The bare fact of -Thiersch having written so copious a grammar -will enable even the unlearned to understand -the monstrous misrepresentation of -Homer’s dialect, on which Mr Arnold has -based his condemnation of my Homeric -diction. Not wishing to face the plain and -undeniable facts which I have here recounted, -Mr Arnold makes a ‘confession’ -that we know nothing about them! and -then appeals to three learned men whether -Homer is antiquated to <i>them</i>; and expounds -this to mean, <i>intelligible to them</i>! Well: -if they have learned <i>modern</i> Greek, of course -they may understand it; but Attic Greek -<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>alone will not teach it to them. Neither -will it teach them <i>Homer’s</i> Greek. The -difference of the two is in some directions -so vast, that they may deserve to be called -two languages as much as Portuguese and -Spanish.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Much as I have written, a large side of -the argument remains still untouched. The -orthography of Homer was revolutionized -in adapting it to Hellenic use, and in the -process not only were the grammatical -forms tampered with, but at least one consonant -was suppressed. I am sure Mr -Arnold has heard of the Digamma, though -he does not see it in the current Homeric -text. By the re-establishment of this letter, -no small addition would be made to the -‘oddity’ of the sound to the ears of Sophocles. -That the unlearned in Greek may -understand this, I add, that what with us -is written <i>eoika</i>, <i>oikon</i>, <i>oinos</i>, <i>hekas</i>, <i>eorga</i>, -<i>eeipe</i>, <i>eleli</i>χθη, were with the poet <i>wewoika</i>, -<i>wīkon</i>, <i>wīnos</i>, <i>wekas</i> (or <i>swekas</i>?), <i>weworga</i>, -<i>eweipe</i>, <i>eweli</i>χθη<a id='r42' /><a href='#f42' class='c009'><sup>[42]</sup></a>; and so with very many -other words, in which either the metre or the -grammatical formation helps us to detect -a lost consonant, and the analogy of other -dialects or languages assures us that it is -<span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span><i>w</i> which has been lost. Nor is this all; -but in certain words <i>sw</i> seems to have -vanished. What in our text is <i>hoi</i>, <i>heos</i>, -<i>hekuros</i>, were probably <i>woi</i> and <i>swoi</i>, <i>weos</i> -and <i>sweos</i>, <i>swekuros</i>. Moreover the received -spelling of many other words is -corrupt: for instance, <i>deos</i>, <i>deidoika</i>, -<i>eddeisen</i>, <i>periddeisas</i>, <i>addees</i>. The true root -must have had the form <i>dwe</i> or <i>dre</i> or <i>dhe</i>. -That the consonant lost was really <i>w</i>, is -asserted by Benfey from the Sanscrit <i>dvish</i>. -Hence the true forms are <i>dweos</i>, <i>dedwoika</i>, -<i>edweisen</i>, etc.... Next, the initial <i>l</i> of -Homer had in some words a stronger pronunciation, -whether λλ or χλ, as in <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">λλιταὶ, -λλίσσομαι, λλωτὸς, λλιτανεύω</span>. I have met -with the opinion that the consonant lost in -<i>anax</i> is not <i>w</i> but <i>k</i>; and that Homer’s -<i>kanax</i> is connected with English <i>king</i>. The -relations of <i>wergon</i>, <i>weworga</i>, <i>wrexai</i>, to -English <i>work</i> and <i>wrought</i> must strike everyone; -but I do not here press the phenomena -of the Homeric <i>r</i> (although it became <i>br</i> in -strong Æolism), because they do not differ -from those in Attic. The Attic forms <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εἴληφα, -εἴλεγμαι</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">λέληφα</span>, etc., point to -a time when the initial λ of the roots -was a double letter. A root λλαβ would -explain Homer’s ἔλλαβε. If λλ<a id='r43' /><a href='#f43' class='c009'><sup>[43]</sup></a> approached -<span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>to its Welsh sound, that is, to χλ, -it is not wonderful that such a pronunciation -as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">οφρᾰ λλαβωμεν</span> was possible: but it is -singular that the <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὕδατι χλιαρῷ</span> of Attic is -written <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">λιαρῷ</span> in our Homeric text, though -the metre needs a double consonant. Such -phenomena as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">χλιαρὸς</span> and <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">λιαρὸς, εἴβω</span> -and <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">λειβω, ἴα</span> and <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μία, εἴμαρμαι</span> and <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἔμμορε, -αἶα</span> and <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">γαῖα, γέντο</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἕλετο, ἰωκὴ</span> and -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἴωξις</span> with <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">διώκω</span>, need to be reconsidered -in connection. The <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εἰς ἅλα ἇλτο</span> of our -Homer was perhaps <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εἰς ἅλα σάλλτο</span>: when -λλ was changed into λ, they compensated -by circumflexing the vowel. I might add -the query, Is it so certain that his <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">θεαων</span> -was θ<i>eāwōn</i>, and not θ<i>eārōn</i>, analogous to -Latin <i>dearum</i>? But dropping here everything -that has the slightest uncertainty, -the mere restoration of the <i>w</i> where it is -most necessary, makes a startling addition -to the antiquated sound of the Homeric -text. The reciters of Homer in Athens -must have dropped the <i>w</i>, since it is never -written. Nor indeed would Sophocles have -introduced in his <i>Trachiniæ</i>, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἁ δέ οἱ φίλα -δάμαρ</span> ... leaving a hiatus most offensive -to the Attics, in mere imitation of -Homer, if he had been accustomed to hear -from the reciters, <i>de woi</i> or <i>de swoi</i>. In -other words also, as in <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">οὐλόμενος</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὀλόμενος</span>, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>later poets have slavishly followed -Homer into irregularities suggested by his -peculiar metre. Whether Homer’s <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ᾱθανατος, -αμμορος</span> ... rose out of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ανθάνατος, ἄνμορος</span> -... is wholly unimportant when we remember -his <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Ᾱπόλλωνος</span>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But this leads to remark on the acuteness -of Mr Arnold’s ear. I need not ask whether -he recites the Α differently in <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Ἆρες, Ἄρες,</span> -and in, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Ᾰπόλλων Ᾱπολλωνος</span>. He will not -allow anything antiquated in Homer; and -therefore it is certain that he recites,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">αιδοιος τε μοι εσσι, φιλε εκυρε, δεινος τε</span></div> - <div class='line'>and—<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ουδε εοικε—</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>as they are printed, and admires the rhythm. -When he endures with exemplary patience -such hiatuses, such dactyls as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἑεκυ, ουδεε</span>, -such a spondee as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ρε δει</span>, I can hardly -wonder at his complacency in his own -spondees “Between,” “To a.” He finds -nothing wrong in <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">και πεδια λωτευντα</span> or <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">πολλα -λισσομενη</span>. But Homer sang,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">φιλε swεκυρε δwεινος τε—ουδε wεwοικε—</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">και πεδια λλωτευντα ... πολλα λλισσομενη.</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Mr Arnold is not satisfied with destroying -Quantity alone. After theoretically substituting -Accent for it in his hexameters, -he robs us of Accent also; and presents to -us the syllables “to a,” <i>both short</i> and <i>both -necessarily unaccented</i>, for a Spondee, in a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>pattern piece seven lines long, and with an -express and gratuitous remark, that in -using ‘to a’ for a Spondee, he has perhaps -relied too much on accent. I hold up these -phenomena in Mr Arnold as a warning to -all scholars, of the pit of delusion into which -they will fall, if they allow themselves to -talk fine about the ‘Homeric rhythm’ <i>as -now heard</i>, and the duty of a translator -to reproduce something of it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It is not merely the sound and the metre -of Homer, which are impaired by the loss -of his radical <i>w</i>; in extreme cases the sense -also is confused. Thus if a scholar be asked, -what is the meaning of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐείσατο</span> in the Iliad? -he will have to reply: If it stands for -<i>eweisato</i>, it means, ‘he was like’, and is -related to the English root <i>wis</i> and <i>wit</i>, -<abbr title='germanic'>Germ.</abbr> <i>wiss</i>, <abbr title='latin'>Lat.</abbr> <i>vid</i>; but it may also mean -‘he went’—a very eccentric Homerism,—in -which case we should perhaps write it -<i>eyeisato</i>, as in old English we have <i>he yode</i> -or <i>yede</i> instead of <i>he goed</i>, <i>gaed</i>, since too -the current root in Greek and Latin <i>i</i> (go) -may be accepted as <i>ye</i>, answering to German -<span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>geh</i></span>, English <i>go</i>. Thus two words, <i>eweisato</i>, -‘he was like’, <i>eyeisato</i>, ‘he went’, are -confounded in our text. I will add, that -in the Homeric</p> - -<p class='c010'>—<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἤϋτε wέθνεα (<i>y</i>)εῖσι</span>—(<abbr title='iliad'><i>Il.</i></abbr> 2, 87)</p> - -<p class='c011'>—<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">διὰ πρὸ δὲ (<i>y</i>)είσατο καὶ τῆς</span> (<abbr title='iliad'><i>Il.</i></abbr> 4, 138)</p> - -<p class='c008'><i>my</i> ear misses the consonant, though Mr -<span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>Arnold’s (it seems) does not. If we were -ordered to read <i>dat ting</i> in Chaucer for <i>that -thing</i>, it would at first ‘surprise’ us as -‘grotesque’, but after this objection had -vanished, we should still feel it ‘antiquated’. -The confusion of <i>thick</i> and <i>tick</i>, <i>thread</i> and -<i>tread</i>, may illustrate the possible effect of -dropping the <i>w</i> in Homer. I observe that -Benfey’s Greek Root Lexicon has a list of -454 digammated words, most of which -are Homeric. But it is quite needless to -press the argument to its full.</p> - -<p class='c005'>If as much learning had been spent on -the double λ and on the <i>y</i> and <i>h</i> of Homer, -as on the digamma, it might perhaps now -be conceded that we have lost, not one, -but three or four consonants from his text. -That λ in <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">λύω</span> or <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">λούω</span> was ever a complex -sound in Greek, I see nothing to indicate; -hence <i>that</i> λ, and the λ of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">λιταὶ, λιαρὸς,</span> -seem to have been different consonants in -Homer, as <i>l</i> and <i>ll</i> in Welsh. As to <i>h</i> and -<i>y</i> I assert nothing, except that critics appear -too hastily to infer, that if a consonant has -disappeared, it must needs be <i>w</i>. It is -credible that the Greek <i>h</i> was once strong -enough to stop hiatus or elision, as the -English, and much more the Asiatic <i>h</i>. The -later Greeks, after turning the character H -into a vowel, seem to have had no idea of -a consonant <i>h</i> in the middle of a word, nor -any means of writing the consonant <i>y</i>. -Since G passes through <i>gh</i> into the sounds -<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span><i>h</i>, <i>w</i>, <i>y</i>, <i>f</i> (as in English and German is -obvious), it is easy to confound them all -under the compendious word ‘digamma’. -I should be glad to know that Homer’s -forms were as well understood by modern -scholars as Mr Arnold lays down.</p> - -<p class='c005'>On his quotation from Shakspeare, I -remark, 1. ‘Orgulous’, from French <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">‘orgueilleux’</span>, -is intelligible to all who know -French, and is comparable to Sicilian words -in Æschylus. 2. It is contrary to fact to -say, that Homer has not words, and words -in great plenty, as unintelligible to later -Greeks, as ‘orgulous’ to us. 3. <i>Sperr</i>, -for <i>Bar</i>, as <i>Splash</i> for <i>Plash</i>, is much less -than the diversity which separates Homer -from the spoken Attic. What is <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">σμικρὸς</span> for -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μικρὸς</span> to compare with <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἠβαιὸς</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μικρός</span>? -4. Mr Arnold (as I understand him) blames -Shakspeare for being sometimes antiquated: -I do not blame him, nor yet Homer for the -same; but neither can I admit the contrast -which he asserts. He says: ‘Shakspeare -can compose, when he is at his best, in a -language perfectly intelligible, in spite of the -two centuries and a half which part him -from us. <i>Homer has not Shakspeare’s variations</i>: -he is never antiquated, as Shakspeare -is sometimes’. I certainly find the -very same variations in Homer, as Mr -Arnold finds in Shakspeare. My reader -unlearned in Greek might hastily infer from -the facts just laid before him, that Homer -<span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>is always equally strange to a purely Attic -ear: but is not so. The dialects of Greece -did indeed differ strongly, as broad Scotch -from English; yet as we know, Burns is -sometimes perfectly intelligible to an -Englishman, sometimes quite unintelligible. -In spite of Homer’s occasional wide receding -from Attic speech, he as often comes -close to it. For instance, in the first -piece quoted above from Gladstone, the -simile occupying five (Homeric) lines would -<i>almost</i> go down in Sophocles, if the Tragedian -had chosen to use the metre. There -is but one out-and-out Homeric word in it -(<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐπασσύτερος</span>): and even that is used -once in an Æschylean chorus. There are -no strange inflections, and not a single -digamma is sensibly lost. Its peculiarities -are only -εϊ for ει, ἐὸν for ὂν, and δέ τε for -δέ, which could not embarrass the hearer -as to the sense. I myself reproduce much -the same result. Thus in my translation -of these five lines I have the antiquated -words <i>blore</i> for <i>blast</i>, <i>harry</i> for <i>harass</i> (<i>harrow</i>, -<i>worry</i>), and the antiquated participle <i>hoven</i> -from <i>heave</i>, as <i>cloven</i>, <i>woven</i> from <i>cleave</i>, -<i>weave</i>. The whole has thus just a tinge of -antiquity, as had the Homeric passage to -the Attics, without any need of aid from -a Glossary. But at other times the aid is -occasionally convenient, just as in Homer -or Shakspeare.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Arnold plays fallaciously on the words -<span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>familiar and unfamiliar. Homer’s words -may have been <i>familiar</i> to the Athenians -(<i>i.e.</i> often heard), even when they were <i>not</i> -understood, but, at most, were guessed at; -or when, being understood, they were still -felt and known to be utterly foreign. Of -course, when thus ‘familiar’, they could -not ‘surprise’ the Athenians, as Mr Arnold -complains that my renderings surprise the -English. Let mine be heard as Pope or -even Cowper has been heard, and no one -will be ‘surprised’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Antiquated words are understood well by -some, ill by others, not at all by a third -class; hence it is difficult to decide the -limits of a glossary. Mr Arnold speaks -scornfully of me (he wonders <i>with whom -Mr Newman can have lived</i>), that I use the -words which I use, and explain those which -I explain. He censures my little Glossary, -for containing three words which he did not -know, and some others, which, he says, -are ‘familiar to all the world’. It is clear, -he will never want a stone to throw at me. -I suppose I am often guilty of keeping low -company. I have found ladies whom no -one would guess to be so ill-educated, who -yet do not distinctly know what <i>lusty</i> -means; but have an uncomfortable feeling -that it is very near to <i>lustful</i>; and understand -<i>grisly</i> only in the sense of <i>grizzled</i>, <i>grey</i>. -Great numbers mistake the sense of Buxom, -Imp, Dapper, deplorably. I no more wrote -<span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>my Glossary than my translation for persons -so highly educated as Mr Arnold.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But I must proceed to remark: Homer -might have been as unintelligible to Pericles, -as was the court poet of king Crœsus, and -yet it might be highly improper to translate -him into an old English dialect; namely, -if he had been the typical poet of a logical -and refined age. <i>Here is the real question</i>;—is -he absolutely antique, or only antiquated -relatively, as Euripides is now antiquated? -A modern Greek statesman, -accomplished for every purpose of modern -business, might find himself quite perplexed -by the infinitives, the numerous participles, -the optatives, the datives, by the particle -ἂν, and by the whole syntax of Euripides, -as also by many special words; but this -would never justify us in translating Euripides -into any but a most refined style. -Was Homer of this class? I say, that he -<i>not only was</i> antiquated, relatively to -Pericles, but <i>is also</i> absolutely antique, -being the poet of a barbarian age. Antiquity -in poets is not (as Horace stupidly -imagines in the argument of the horse’s -tail) a question of years, but of intrinsic -qualities. Homer sang to a wholly unfastidious -audience, very susceptible to the -marvellous, very unalive to the ridiculous, -capable of swallowing with reverence the -most grotesque conceptions. Hence nothing -is easier than to turn Homer to ridicule. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>The fun which Lucian made of his mythology, -a rhetorical critic like Mr Arnold -could make of his diction, if he understood -it as he understands mine. He takes credit -to himself for <i>not</i> ridiculing me; and is not -aware, that I could not be like Homer -without being easy to ridicule. An intelligent -child is the second-best reader of -Homer. The best of all is a scholar of -highly masculine taste; the worst of all is -a fastidious and refined man, to whom -everything quaint seems ignoble and contemptible.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I might have supposed that Mr Arnold -thinks Homer to be a polished drawing-room -poet, like Pope, when I read in him -this astonishing sentence, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 35. ‘Search -the English language for a word which does -<i>not</i> apply to Homer, and you could not fix -on a better word than <i>quaint</i>’. But I am -taken aback at finding him praise the diction -of Chapman’s translation in contrast to -mine. Now I never open Chapman, without -being offended at his pushing Homer’s -quaintness most unnecessarily into the -grotesque. Thus in Mr Gladstone’s first -passage above, where Homer says that the -sea ‘sputters out the foam’, Chapman -makes it, ‘<i>all her back in bristles set, spits</i> -every way <i>her</i> foam’, obtruding what may -remind one of a cat or a stoat. I hold -<i>sputter</i> to be epical<a id='r44' /><a href='#f44' class='c009'><sup>[44]</sup></a>, because it is strong; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>but <i>spit</i> is feeble and mean. In passing, -I observe that the universal praise given to -Chapman as ‘Homeric’ (a praise which I -have too absolutely repeated, perhaps -through false shame of depreciating my -only rival) is a testimony to me that I -rightly appreciate Homeric style; for my -style is Chapman’s softened, purged of conceits -and made far more melodious. Mr -Arnold leaves me to wonder, how, with his -disgust at me, he can avoid feeling tenfold -disgust at Chapman; and to wonder also -what he <i>means</i>, by so blankly contradicting -my statement that Homer is quaint; and -why he so vehemently resents it. He does -not vouchsafe to me or to his readers one -particle of disproof or of explanation.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I regard it as quaint in Homer to call Juno -<i>white-arm’d goddess</i> and <i>large-ey’d</i>. (I have -not rendered <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">βοῶπις</span> <i>ox-ey’d</i>, because in a -case of doubt I shrank to obtrude anything -so grotesque to us.) It is quaint to say, -‘the lord of bright-haired Juno lightens’ -for ‘it lightens’; or ‘my heart in my -<i>shaggy</i> bosom is divided’, for ‘I doubt’: -quaint to call waves <i>wet</i>, milk <i>white</i>, blood -<i>dusky</i>, horses <i>singlehoofed</i>, a hero’s hand -<i>broad</i>, words <i>winged</i>, Vulcan <i>Lobfoot</i> (<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Κυλλοποδίων</span>), -a maiden <i>fair-ankled</i>, the Greeks -<span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span><i>wellgreav’d</i>, a spear <i>longshadowy</i>, battle and -council <i>man-ennobling</i>, one’s knees <i>dear</i>, and -many other epithets. Mr Arnold most -gratuitously asserts that the sense of these -had evaporated to the Athenians. If that -were true, it would not signify to this argument. -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Δαιμόνιος</span> (possessed by an elf or -dæmon) so lost its sense in Attic talk, that -although Æschylus has it in its true meaning, -some college tutors (I am told) render -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὦ δαιμόνιε</span> in Plato, ‘my very good sir!’ -This is surely no good reason for mistranslating -the word in Homer. If Mr Arnold -could prove (what he certainly cannot) that -Sophocles had forgotten the derivation of -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐϋκνημῖδες</span> and <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐϋμμελίης</span>, and understood -by the former nothing but ‘full armed’ and -by the latter (as he says) nothing but ‘war-like’, -this would not justify his blame of -me for rendering the words correctly. If -the whole Greek nation by long familiarity -had become inobservant of Homer’s ‘oddities’ -(conceding this for the moment), that -also would be no fault of mine. That -Homer <i>is</i> extremely peculiar, even if the -Greeks had become deadened to the sense -of it, the proof on all sides is overpowering.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It is very quaint to say, ‘the outwork -(or rampart) of the teeth’ instead of ‘the -lips’. If Mr Arnold will call it ‘portentous’ -in my English, let him produce some shadow -of reason for denying it to be portentous -in Greek. Many phrases are so quaint as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>to be almost untranslatable, as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μήστωρ -φόβοιο</span> (deviser of fear?) <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μήστωρ ἀϋτῆς</span> -(deviser of outcry?): others are quaint to -the verge of being comical, as to call a man -an <i>equipoise</i> (<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀτάλαντος</span>) to a god, and to -praise eyes for having a <i>curl</i> in them<a id='r45' /><a href='#f45' class='c009'><sup>[45]</sup></a>. It -is quaint to make Juno call Jupiter <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">αἰνότατε</span> -(grimmest? direst?), whether she is in -good or bad humour with him, and to call -a Vision <i>ghastly</i>, when it is sent with a -pleasant message. It is astonishingly quaint -to tell how many oxen every fringe of -Athene’s ægis was worth.—It is quaint to -call Patroclus ‘a great simpleton’, for not -foreseeing that he would lose his life in -rushing to the rescue of his countrymen. -(I cannot receive Mr Arnold’s suggested -Biblical correction ‘Thou fool’! which he -thinks grander: first, because grave moral -rebuke is utterly out of place; secondly, -because the Greek cannot mean this;—it -means infantine simplicity, and has precisely -the colour of the word which I have -used.)—It is quaint to say: ‘Patroclus -kindled a great fire, <i>godlike man</i>’! or, -‘Automedon held up the meat, <i>divine</i> -Achilles slic’d it’: quaint to address a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>young friend as ‘Oh<a id='r46' /><a href='#f46' class='c009'><sup>[46]</sup></a> pippin’! or ‘Oh -softheart’! or ‘Oh pet’! whichever is -the true translation. It is quaint to compare -Ajax to an ass whom boys are belabouring, -Ulysses to a pet ram, Agamemnon -in two lines to three gods, and in the third -line to a bull; the Myrmidons to wasps, -Achilles to a grampus chasing little fishes, -Antilochus to a wolf which kills a dog and -runs away. Menelaus striding over Patroclus’s -body to a heifer defending her first-born. -It is quaint to say that Menelaus -was as brave as a bloodsucking fly, that -Agamemnon’s sobs came thick as flashes of -lightning; and that the Trojan mares, -while running, groaned like overflowing -rivers. All such similes come from a mind -quick to discern similarities, but <i>very dull -to feel incongruities</i>; unaware therefore -that it is on a verge where the sublime -easily turns into the ludicrous; a mind and -heart inevitably quaint to the very core. -What is it in Vulcan, when he would comfort -his mother under Jupiter’s threat, to -make jokes about the severe mauling which -he himself formerly received, and his terror -lest she should be now beaten? Still more -quaint (if <i>rollicking</i> is not the word), is the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>address by which Jupiter tries to ingratiate -himself with Juno: viz. he recounts to her -all his unlawful amours, declaring that in -none of them was he so smitten as now. I -have not enough of the γενναῖος εὐηθεία, -the barbarian simple-heartedness, needed by -a reader of Homer, to get through this speech -with gravity. What shall I call it, certainly -much worse than quaint, that the poet adds: -Jupiter was more enamoured than at his -<i>stolen</i> embrace in their first bed ‘secretly -from their dear parents’? But to develop -Homer’s inexhaustible quaintnesses, of -which Mr Arnold denies the existence, seems -to me to need a long treatise. It is not to -be expected, that one who is blind to superficial -facts so very prominent as those which -I have recounted, should retain any delicate -perception of the highly coloured, intense, -and very eccentric diction of Homer, even -if he has ever understood it, which he forces -me to doubt. He sees nothing ‘odd’ in -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κυνὸς κακομηχάνου</span>, or in <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κυνόμυια</span>, ‘thou -dogfly’! He replaces to his imagination -the flesh and blood of the noble barbarian -by a dim feeble spiritless outline.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I have not adduced, in proof of Homer’s -quaintness, the monstrous simile given to -us in Iliad 13, 754; viz. Hector ‘darted -forward screaming like a snowy mountain, -and flew through the Trojans and allies’: -for I cannot believe that the poet wrote -anything so absurd. Rather than admit -<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>this, I have suggested that the text is -corrupt, and that for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὄρεϊ νιφόεντι</span> we -should read <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὀρνέῳ θύοντι</span>, ‘darted forth -screaming <i>like a raging bird</i>’. Yet, as far -as I know, I am the first man that has here -impugned the text. Mr Brandreth is faithful -in his rendering, except that he says -<i>shouting</i> for <i>screaming</i>:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>‘He said; and like a snowy mountain, rush’d</div> - <div class='line'>Shouting; and flew through Trojans and allies.’</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Chapman, Cowper, and Pope strain and -twist the words to an impossible sense, -putting in something about <i>white plume</i>, -which they fancy suggested a snowy mountain; -but they evidently accept the Greek -as it stands, unhesitatingly. I claim this -phenomenon in proof that to all commentators -and interpreters hitherto Homer’s -quaintness has been such an <i>axiom</i>, that they -have even acquiesced unsuspiciously in an -extravagance which goes far beyond oddity. -Moreover the reader may augur by my -opposite treatment of the passage, with -what discernment Mr Arnold condemns -me of obtruding upon Homer gratuitous -oddities which equal the conceits of Chapman.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But, while thus vindicating <i>Quaintness</i> -as an essential quality of Homer, do I regard -it as a weakness to be apologized for? Certainly -not; for it is a condition of his cardinal -excellences. He could not otherwise -be <i>Picturesque</i> as he is. So volatile is his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>mind, that what would be a Metaphor in a -more logical and cultivated age, with him -riots in Simile which overflows its banks. -His similes not merely go beyond<a id='r47' /><a href='#f47' class='c009'><sup>[47]</sup></a> the -mark of likeness; in extreme cases they -even turn into contrariety. If he were not -so carried away by his illustration, as to -forget what he is illustrating (which belongs -to a quaint mind), he would never paint -for us such full and splendid pictures. -Where a logical later poet would have said -that Menelaus</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>With <i>eagle-eye</i> survey’d the field,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>the mere metaphor contenting him; Homer -says:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Gazing around on every side,     in fashion of an eagle,</div> - <div class='line'>Which, of all heaven’s fowl, they say,     to scan the earth is keenest:</div> - <div class='line'>Whose eye, when loftiest he hangs,     not the swift hare escapeth,</div> - <div class='line'>Lurking amid a leaf-clad bush:     but straight at it he souseth,</div> - <div class='line'>Unerring; and with crooked gripe     doth quickly rieve its spirit.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>I feel this long simile to be a disturbance -of the logical balance, such as belongs to -the lively eye of the savage, whose observation -is intense, his concentration of reasoning -<span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>powers feeble. Without this, we should -never have got anything so picturesque.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Homer never sees things <i>in the same proportions</i> -as we see them. To omit his -digressions, and what I may call his ‘impertinences’, -in order to give to his argument -that which Mr Arnold is pleased to call the -proper ‘balance’, is to value our own logical -minds, more than his picturesque<a id='r48' /><a href='#f48' class='c009'><sup>[48]</sup></a> but -illogical mind.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Arnold says that I am not quaint, but -grotesque, in my rendering of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κυνὸς -κακομηχάνου</span>. I do not hold the phrase -to be quaint: to me it is excessively coarse. -When Jupiter calls Juno ‘a bitch’, of course -he means a snarling cur; hence my rendering, -‘vixen’ (or she-fox), is there perfect, -since we say <i>vixen</i> of an irascible woman. -But Helen had no such evil tempers, and -beyond a doubt she meant to ascribe impurity -to herself. I have twice committed -a pious fraud by making her call herself ‘a -vixen’, where ‘bitch’ is the only faithful -rendering; and Mr Arnold, instead of -thanking me for throwing a thin veil over -<span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>Homer’s deformity, assails me for my phrase -as intolerably grotesque.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He further forbids me to invent new -compound adjectives, as fair-thron’d, rill-bestream’d; -because they strike us as new, -though Homer’s epithets (he says) did not -so strike the Greeks: hence they derange -attention from the main question. I hold -this doctrine of his (conceding his fact for -a moment) to be destructive of all translation -whatever, into prose or poetry. When -Homer tells us that Achilles’ horses were -munching lotus and parsley, Pope renders -it by ‘the horses grazed’, and does not say -on what. Using Mr Arnold’s principles, -he might defend himself by arguing: ‘The -Greeks, being familiar with such horsefood, -were not struck by it as new, as my reader -would be. I was afraid of telling him <i>what</i> -the horses were eating, lest it should derange -the balance of his mind, and injuriously -divert him from the main idea of the -sentence’. But, I find, readers are indignant -on learning Pope’s suppression: -they feel that he has defrauded them of a -piece of interesting information.—In short, -how <i>can</i> an Englishman read any Greek -composition and be affected by it as Greeks -were? In a piece of Euripides my imagination -is caught by many things, which he -never intended or calculated for the prominence -which they actually get in my -mind. This or that absurdity in mythology, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>which passed with him as matter of -course, may monopolize my main attention. -Our minds are not passive recipients of this -or that poet’s influence; but the poet is -the material on which our minds actively -work. If an unlearned reader thinks it -very ‘odd’ of Homer (the first time he hears -it) to call Aurora ‘fair-thron’d’, so does a -boy learning Greek think it odd to call her -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εὔθρονος</span>. Mr Arnold ought to blot every -odd Homeric epithet out of his <i>Greek</i> Homer -(or never lend the copy to a youthful -learner) if he desires me to expunge ‘fair-thron’d’ -from the translation. Nay, I -think he should conceal that the Morning -was esteemed as a goddess, though she had -no altars or sacrifice. It is <i>all</i> odd. But -that is just why people want to read an -English Homer,—to know all his oddities, -exactly as learned men do. He is the -phenomenon to be studied. His peculiarities, -pleasant or unpleasant, are to be made -known, precisely because of his great eminence -and his substantial deeply seated -worth. Mr Arnold writes like a timid -biographer, fearful to let too much of his -friend come out. So much as to the substance. -As to mere words, here also I hold -the very reverse of Mr Arnold’s doctrine. -I do not feel free to translate οὐρανομήκης -by ‘heaven-kissing’, precisely <i>because</i> -Shakspeare has used the last word. It -is his property, as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐϋκνημῖδες, ἐϋμμελίης,</span> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κυδιάνειρα</span>, etc., are Homer’s property. I -could not use it without being felt to <i>quote</i> -Shakspeare, which would be highly inappropriate -in a Homeric translation. But -<i>if</i> nobody had ever yet used the phrase -‘heaven-kissing’ (or if it were current -without any proprietor) <i>then</i> I should be -quite free to use it as a rendering of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">οὐρανομήκης</span>. -I cannot assent to a critic killing -the vital powers of our tongue. If Shakspeare -might invent the compound ‘heaven-kissing’, -or ‘man-ennobling’, so might -William Wordsworth or Matthew Arnold; -and so might I. Inspiration is not dead, -nor yet is the English language.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Arnold is slow to understand what -I think very obvious. Let me then put a -case. What if I were to scold a missionary -for rendering in Feejee the phrase ‘kingdom -of heaven’ and ‘Lamb of God’ accurately; -also ‘saints’ and other words <i>characteristic -of the New Testament</i>? I might urge against -him: ‘This and that sounds very <i>odd</i> to -the Feejees: that cannot be right, for it -did <i>not</i> seem odd to the Nicene bishops. -The latter had forgotten that <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">βασιλεία</span> meant -“kingdom”; they took the phrase “kingdom -of God” collectively to mean “the -Church”. The phrase did not surprise -them. As to “Lambs”, the Feejees are not -accustomed to sacrifice, and cannot be expected -to know of themselves what “Lamb -of God” means, as Hebrews did. The -<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>courtiers of Constantine thought it very -natural to be called <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἅγιοι</span>, for they were -accustomed to think every baptised person -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἅγιος</span>; but to the baptised courtiers of -Feejee it really seems very <i>odd</i> to be called -<i>saints</i>. You disturb the balance of their -judgment’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The missionary might reply: ‘You seemed -to be ashamed of the oddities of the Gospel. -I am not. They grow out of its excellences -and cannot be separated. By avoiding a -few eccentric phrases you will do little to -remove the deep-seated eccentricity of its -very essence. Odd and eccentric it will -remain, unless you despoil it of its heart, -and reduce it to a fashionable philosophy’. -And just so do I reply to Mr Arnold. The -Homeric style (whether it be that of an -individual or of an age) is peculiar, is ‘odd’, -if Mr Arnold like the word, to the very core. -Its eccentricities in epithet are mere efflorescences -of its essential eccentricity. If -Homer could cry out to us, I doubt not he -would say, as Oliver Cromwell to the -painter, ‘Paint me just I am, <i>wart and all</i>’: -but if the true Homer could reappear, I am -sure Mr Arnold would start from him just -as a bishop of Rome from a fisherman -apostle. If a translator of the Bible honours -the book by his close rendering of its characteristics, -however ‘odd’, so do I honour -Homer by the same. Those characteristics, -the moment I produce them, Mr -<span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>Arnold calls <i>ignoble</i>. Well: be it so; but -I am not to blame for them. They exist -whether Mr Arnold likes them or not.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I will here observe that he bids me -paraphrase <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">τανύπεπλος</span> (trailing-robed) into -something like, ‘Let gorgeous Tragedy -With sceptred pall come sweeping by’. I -deliberately judge, that to paraphrase an -otiose epithet is the very worst thing that -can be done: to omit it entirely would be -better. I object even to Mr Gladstone’s</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in6'>... whom Leto bare,</div> - <div class='line'>Leto with the flowing hair.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>For the repetition overdoes the prominence -of the epithet. Still more extravagant is -Mr Arnold in wishing me to turn ‘single-hoofed -horses’ in to ‘something which <i>as -little surprises us</i> as “Gallop apace, you -fiery-footed steeds”’: <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 96. To reproduce -Shakspeare would be in any case a ‘surprising’ -mode of translating Homer: but -the principle which changes ‘single-hoofed’ -into a different epithet which the translator -thinks <i>better</i>, is precisely that which for -more than two centuries has made nearly -all English translation worthless. To throw -the poet into your crucible, and bring out -old Pelias young, is not a hopeful process. -I had thought, the manly taste of this day -had outgrown the idea that a translator’s -business is to melt up the old coin and -stamp it with a modern image. I am -<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>wondering that I should have to write -against such notions: I would not take the -trouble, only that they come against me -from an Oxford Professor of Poetry.</p> - -<p class='c005'>At the same time, his doctrine, as I have -said, goes far beyond compound epithets. -Whether I say ‘motley-helmèd Hector’ or -‘Hector of the motley helm’, ‘silver-footed -Thetis’ or ‘Thetis of the silver foot’, ‘man-ennobling -combat’ or ‘combat which ennobles -man’, the novelty is so nearly on a -par, that he cannot condemn one and justify -the other on this score. Even Pope falls -far short of the false taste which would -plane down every Homeric prominence: for -he prizes an elegant epithet like ‘silver-footed’, -however new and odd.</p> - -<p class='c005'>From such a Homer as Mr Arnold’s -specimens and principles would give us, -no one could <i>learn</i> anything; no one could -have any motive for reading the translation. -He smooths down the stamp of Homer’s -coin, till nothing is left even for microscopic -examination. When he forbids me (<abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>) -to let my reader know that Homer calls -horses ‘single-hoofed’, of course he would -suppress also the epithets ‘white milk’, -‘dusky blood’, ‘dear knees’, ‘dear life’, -etc. His process obliterates everything -characteristic, great or small.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Arnold condemns my translating certain -names of horses. He says (<abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>8): -‘Mr Newman calls Xanthus <i>Chesnut</i>; as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>he calls Balius <i>Spotted</i> and Podarga <i>Spry-foot</i>: -which is as if a Frenchman were to -call Miss Nightingale <i>Mdelle. Rossignol</i>, or -Mr Bright <i>M. Clair</i>’. He is very wanting -in discrimination. If I had translated -Hector into <i>Possessor</i> or Agamemnon into -<i>Highmind</i>, his censure would be just. A -Miss White may be a brunette, a Miss Brown -may be a blonde: we utter the proper names -of men and women without any remembrance -of their intrinsic meaning. But it is different -with many names of domestic animals. We -never call a dog <i>Spot</i>, unless he is spotted; -nor without consciousness that the name -expresses his peculiarity. No one would -give to a black horse the name Chesnut; -nor, if he had called a chesnut horse by -the name Chesnut, would he ever forget -the meaning of the name while he used it. -The Greeks called a chesnut horse <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><i>xanthos</i></span> -and a spotted horse <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><i>balios</i></span>; therefore, until -Mr Arnold proves the contrary, I believe -that they never read the names of Achilles’ -two horses without a sense of their meaning. -Hence the names ought to be translated; -while Hector and Laomedon ought not. The -same reasoning applies to Podarga, though -I do not certainly understand <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀργός</span>. I have -taken it to mean <i>sprightly</i>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Arnold further asserts, that Homer is -never ‘garrulous’. Allowing that too many -others agree with me, he attributes our error -to giving too much weight to a sentence in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>Horace! I admire Horace as an ode-writer, -but I do not revere him as a critic, -any more than as a moral philosopher. I -say that Homer is garrulous, because I see -and feel it. Mr Arnold puts me into a most -unwelcome position. I have a right to say, -I have some enthusiasm for Homer. In -the midst of numerous urgent calls of duty -and taste, I devoted every possible quarter -of an hour for two years and a half to translate -the Iliad, toiling unremittingly in my -vacations and in my walks, and going to -large expenses of money, in order to put the -book before the unlearned; and this, though -I am not a Professor of Poetry nor even of -Greek. Yet now I am forced to appear as -Homer’s disparager and accuser! But if -Homer were always a poet, he could not be, -what he is, so many other things beside -poet. As the Egyptians paint in their -tombs processes of art, not because they -are beautiful or grand, but from a mere -love of imitating; so Homer narrates perpetually -from a mere love of chatting. In -how thoroughly Egyptian a way does he tell -the process of cutting up an ox and making -<i>kebâb</i>; the process of bringing a boat to -anchor and carefully putting by the tackle; -the process of taking out a shawl from a -chest, where it lies at the very bottom! -With what glee he repeats the secret talk -of the gods; and can tell all about the -toilet of Juno. Every particular of trifling -<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>actions comes out with him, as, the opening -of a door or box with a key. He tells who -made Juno’s earrings or veil or the shield -of Ajax, the history of Agamemnon’s breast-plate, -and in what detail a hero puts on his -pieces of armour. I would not press the -chattiness of Pandarus, Glaucus, Nestor, -Æneas, in the midst of battle; I might -press his description of wounds. Indeed I -have said enough, and more than enough, -against Mr Arnold’s novel, unsupported, -paradoxical assertion.—But this is connected -with another subject. I called -Homer’s manner ‘direct’: Mr Arnold (if -I understand) would supersede this by his -own epithet ‘rapid’. But I cannot admit -the exchange: Homer is often the opposite -of rapid. Amplification is his characteristic, -as it must be of every improvisatore, -every popular orator: condensation indeed -is improper for anything but written style; -written to be read privately. But I regard -as Homer’s worst defect, his lingering over -scenes of endless carnage and painful -wounds. He knows to half an inch where -one hero hits another and how deep. They -arm: they approach: they encounter: we -have to listen to stereotype details again -and again. Such a style is anything but -‘rapid’. Homer’s garrulity often leads -him into it; yet he can do far better, as -in a part of the fight over Patroclus’s body, -and other splendid passages.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>Garrulity often vents itself in expletives. -Mr Arnold selects for animadversion this -line of mine (<abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 41),</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>‘A thousand fires along the plain, <i>I say</i>, that night were gleaming’.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>He says: ‘This may be the genuine style -of ballad poetry, but it is <i>not</i> the style of -Homer’. I reply; my use of expletives -is moderate indeed compared to Homer’s. -Mr Arnold writes, as if quite unaware that -such words as the intensely prosaic ἄρα, and -its abbreviations ἂρ, ῥα, with τοι, τε, δὴ, -μάλα, ἦ, ἦ ῥα νυ, περ, overflow in epic style; -and that a pupil who has mastered the very -copious stock of Attic particles, is taken -quite aback by the extravagant number in -Homer. Our expletives are generally more -offensive, because longer. My principle is, -to admit only such expletives as <i>add energy</i>, -and savour of antiquity. To the feeble -expletives of mean ditties I am not prone. -I once heard from an eminent counsellor the -first lesson of young lawyers, in the following -doggerel:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>He who holds his lands in fee,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Need neither quake nor quiver:</div> - <div class='line'>For I humbly conceive, look ye, do ye see?</div> - <div class='line in2'>He holds his lands for ever.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>The ‘humbly conceiving’ certainly outdoes -Homer. Yet if the poet had chosen (as -he <i>might</i> have chosen) to make Polydamas -or Glaucus say:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Ὅστις ἐπετράφθη τέμενος πίστει βασιλῆος,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">φημί τοι, οὗτος ἀνὴρ οὔτ’ ἂρ τρέμει οὔτε φοβεῖται·</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">δὴ μάλα γάρ ῥα ἑὰς κρατέοι κεν ἐσαιὲν ἀρούρας:</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>I rather think the following would be a fair -prose rendering: ‘Whoso hath been entrusted -with a demesne under pledge with -the king (I tell you); this man neither -trembleth (you see) nor feareth: for (look -ye!) he (verily) may hold (you see) his lands -for ever’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Since Mr Arnold momentarily appeals to -me on the chasm between Attic and Homeric -Greek, I turn the last piece into a style <i>far -less</i> widely separated from modern English -than Homer from Thucydides.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Dat mon, quhich hauldeth Kyngis-af</div> - <div class='line in2'>Londis yn féo, niver</div> - <div class='line'>(I tell ’e) feereth aught; sith hee</div> - <div class='line in2'>Doth hauld hys londis yver.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>I certainly do <i>not</i> recommend this style to -a translator, yet it would have its advantage. -Even with a smaller change of dialect it -would aid us over Helen’s self-piercing denunciation, -‘approaching to Christian penitence’, -as some have judged it.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Quoth she, I am a gramsome bitch,</div> - <div class='line in2'>If woman bitch may bee.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>But in behalf of the poet I must avow: -when one considers how dramatic he is, it -is marvellous how little in him can offend. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>For this very reason he is above needing -tender treatment from a translator, but can -bear faithful rendering, not only better -than Shakspeare but better than Pindar -or Sophocles.</p> - -<p class='c005'>When Mr Arnold denies that Homer is -ever prosaic or homely, his own specimens -of translation put me into despair of convincing -him; for they seem to me a very -anthology of prosaic flatness. Phrases, -which are not in themselves bad, if they -were elevated by something in the syntax -or rhythm distinguishing them from prose, -become in him prose out-and-out. ‘To -Peleus why did we give you, to a mortal’? -‘In the plain <i>there</i> were kindled a thousand -fires; by each one <i>there</i> sate fifty men’. -[At least he might have left out the expletive.] -‘By their chariots stood the -steeds, and champed the white barley; -while their masters sate by the fire and -waited for morning’. ‘Us, whose portion -for ever Zeus has made it, from youth <i>right -up</i> to age, to be winding skeins of grievous -wars, till <i>every soul of us</i> perish’. The words -which I here italicize, seem to me below -noble ballad. What shall I say of ‘I bethink -me what the Trojan men and Trojan -women might murmur’. ‘Sacred Troy -shall <i>go to destruction</i>’. ‘Or bear pails to -the well of Messeϊs’. ‘See, the wife of -Hector, that great pre-eminent captain of -the horsemen of Troy, <i>in the day they fought</i> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>for their city’, for, ‘<i>who was</i> captain in the -day <i>on which</i>——’. ‘Let me be dead and the -earth be mounded (?) above me, ere I hear -thy cries, and thy captivity<a id='r49' /><a href='#f49' class='c009'><sup>[49]</sup></a> <i>told of</i>’. ‘By -no slow pace or want of swiftness <i>of ours</i><a id='r50' /><a href='#f50' class='c009'><sup>[50]</sup></a> -did the Trojans <i>obtain to strip</i> the arms of -Patroclus’. ‘Here I am destined to perish, -far from my father and mother dear; <i>for -all that</i>, I will not’, etc. ‘Dare they not -enter the fight, or stand in the council of -heroes, <i>all</i> for fear of the shame and the -<i>taunts my crime</i> has awakened?’ One who -regards all this to be high poetry,—emphatically -‘noble’,—may well think <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">τὸν δ’ ἀπαμειβόμενος</span> -or ‘with him there came forty -black galleys’, or the broiling of the beef -collops, to be such. When Mr Arnold regards -‘no want of swiftness of <i>ours</i>’; ‘for -all that’, in the sense of nevertheless; ‘<i>all</i> -for fear’, <i>i.e.</i> because of the fear; <i>not</i> to be -prosaic: my readers, however ignorant of -Greek, will dispense with further argument -from me. Mr Arnold’s inability to discern -prose in Greek is not to be trusted.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>But I see something more in this phenomenon. -Mr Arnold is an original poet; -and, as such, certainly uses a diction far -more elevated than he here puts forward to -represent Homer. He calls his Homeric -diction <i>plain</i> and <i>simple</i>. Interpreting these -words from the contrast of Mr Arnold’s own -poems, I claim his suffrage as on my side, that -Homer is often in a style much lower than -what the moderns esteem to be poetical. -But I protest, that he carries it <i>very much</i> -too far, and levels the noblest down to the -most negligent style of Homer. The poet -is <i>not</i> always so ‘ignoble’, as the unlearned -might infer from my critic’s specimens. He -never drops so low as Shakspeare; yet if he -were as sustained as Virgil or Milton, he -would with it lose his vast superiority over -these, his rich variety. That the whole first -book of the Iliad is pitched lower than the -rest, though it has vigorous descriptions, -is denoted by the total absence of simile in -it: for Homer’s kindling is always indicated -by simile. The second book rises on -the first, until the catalogue of ships, which -(as if to atone for its flatness) is ushered in -by five consecutive similes. In the third -and fourth books the poet continues to rise, -and almost culminates in the fifth; but then -seems to restrain himself, lest nothing grander -be left for Achilles. Although I do not believe -in a unity of authorship between the -Odyssey and the Iliad, yet in the Iliad itself -<span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>I see such unity, that I cannot doubt its -negligences to be from art. (The monstrous -speech of Nestor in the 11th book is a case -by itself. About 100 lines have perhaps -been added later, for reasons other than -literary.) I observe that just before the -poet is about to bring out Achilles in his -utmost splendour, he has three-quarters of a -book comparatively tame, with a ridiculous -legend told by Agamemnon in order to cast -his own sins upon Fate. If Shakspeare introduces -coarse wrangling, buffoonery, or -mean superstition, no one claims or wishes -this to be in a high diction or tragic rhythm; -and why should anyone wish such a thing -from Homer or Homer’s translator? I find -nothing here in the poet to apologize for; -but much cause for indignation, when the -unlearned public is misled by translators -or by critics to expect delicacy and elegance -out of place. But I beg the unlearned to -judge for himself whether Homer <i>can</i> have -intended such lines as the following for -poetry, and whether I am bound to make -them any better than I do.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Then visiting he urged each man with words,</div> - <div class='line'>Mesthles and Glaucus and Medon and Thersilochus</div> - <div class='line'>And Asteropæus and Deisenor and Hippothoüs</div> - <div class='line'>And Phorkys and Chromius and Ennomus the augur.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>He has lines in plenty as little elevated. -If they came often in masses, it would be -best to translate them into avowed prose: -but since gleams of poetry break out amid -<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>what is flattest, I have no choice but to -imitate Homer in retaining a uniform, but -easy and unpretending metre. Mr Arnold -calls my metre ‘slip-shod’: if it can rise -into grandeur when needful, the epithet is -a praise.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Of course I hold the Iliad to be <i>generally</i> -noble and grand. Very many of the poet’s -conceptions were grand to him, mean to us: -especially is he mean and absurd in scenes -of conflict between the gods. Besides, he -is disgusting and horrible occasionally in -word and thought; as when Hecuba wishes -to ‘cling on Achilles and eat up his liver’; -when (as Jupiter says) Juno would gladly -eat Priam’s children raw; when Jupiter -hanged Juno up and fastened a pair of -anvils to her feet; also in the description -of dreadful wounds, and the treatment -which (Priam says) dogs give to an old -man’s corpse. The descriptions of Vulcan -and Thersites are ignoble; so is the mode -of mourning for Hector adopted by Priam; -so is the treatment of the populace by -Ulysses, which does but reflect the manners -of the day. I am not now blaming Homer -for these things; but I say no treatment -can elevate the subject; the translator -must not be expected to make noble what -is not so intrinsically.</p> - -<p class='c005'>If anyone think that I am disparaging -Homer, let me remind him of the horrid -grossnesses of Shakspeare, which yet are -<span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>not allowed to lessen our admiration of -Shakspeare’s grandeur. The Homer of the -Iliad is morally pure and often very tender; -but to expect refinement and universal delicacy -of expression in that stage of civilization -is quite anachronistic and unreasonable. -As in earlier England, so in Homeric Greece, -even high poetry partook of the coarseness -of society. This was probably inevitable, -precisely because Greek epic poetry was so -<i>natural</i>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Arnold says that I make Homer’s -nobleness <i>eminently ignoble</i>. This suggests -to me to quote a passage, not because I -think myself particularly successful in it, -but because the poet is evidently aiming -to be grand, when his mightiest hero puts -forth mighty boastings, offensive to some -of the gods. It is the speech of Achilles -over the dead body of Asteropæus (Iliad -21, 184). Whether I make it ignoble, by -my diction or my metre, the reader must -judge.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Lie as thou art. ’Tis hard for thee     to strive against the children</div> - <div class='line'>Of overmatching Saturn’s son,     tho’ offspring of a River.</div> - <div class='line'>Thou boastest, that thy origin     is from a Stream broad-flówing;</div> - <div class='line'>I boast, from mighty Jupiter     to trace my first beginning.</div> - <div class='line'>A man who o’er the Myrmidons     holdeth wide rule, begat me,</div> - <div class='line'>Peleus; whose father Æacus     by Jupiter was gotten.</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>Rivers, that trickle to the sea,     than Jupiter are weaker;</div> - <div class='line'>So, than the progeny of Jove,     weaker a River’s offspring.</div> - <div class='line'>Yea, if he aught avail’d to help,     behold! a mighty River</div> - <div class='line'>Beside thee here: but none can fight     with Jove, the child of Saturn.</div> - <div class='line'>Not royal Acheloïus     with him may play the equal.</div> - <div class='line'>Nor e’en the amplebosom’d strength     of deeply-flowing Ocean:</div> - <div class='line'>Tho’ from his fulness every Sea     and every River welleth,</div> - <div class='line'>And all the ever-bubbling springs     and eke their vasty sources.</div> - <div class='line'>Yet at the lightning-bolt of Jove     doth even Ocean shudder,</div> - <div class='line'>And at the direful thunder-clap,     when from the sky it crasheth.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Mr Arnold has in some respects attacked -me discreetly; I mean, where he has said -that which damages me with his readers, -and yet leaves me no possible reply. What -is easier than for one to call another ignoble? -what more damaging? what harder to refute? -Then when he speaks of my ‘metrical -exploits’ how can I be offended? to -what have I to reply? His words are expressive -either of compliment or of contempt; -but in either case are untangible. -Again: when he would show how tender he -has been of my honour, and how unwilling -to expose my enormities, he says: <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 57: -‘I will by no means search in Mr Newman’s -version for passages likely to raise a laugh: -that search, <i>alas!</i> would be far too easy’; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>I find the pity which the word <i>alas!</i> expresses, -to be very clever, and very effective -against me. But, I think, he was not discreet, -but very unwise, in making dogmatic -statements on the ground of erudition, many -of which I have exposed; and about which -much more remains to be said than space -will allow me.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In his denial that Homer is ‘garrulous’, -he complains that so many think him to be -‘diffuse’. Mr Arnold, it seems, is unaware -of that very prominent peculiarity; which -suits ill even to Mr Gladstone’s style. Thus, -where Homer said (and I said) in a passage -quoted above, ‘people that have <i>a voice in -their bosom</i>’, Mr Gladstone has only ‘<i>speaking</i> -men’. I have noticed the epithet -<i>shaggy</i> as quaint, in ‘His heart in his shaggy -bosom was divided’, where, in a moral -thought, a physical epithet is obtruded. -But even if ‘shaggy’ be dropped, it remains -diffuse (and characteristically so) to -say ‘my <i>heart in my bosom</i> is divided’, for -‘I doubt’. So—‘I will speak what <i>my -heart in my bosom</i> bids me’. So, Homer -makes men think <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κατὰ φρένα καὶ κατὰ -θυμὸν</span>, ‘in their heart <i>and mind</i>’; and -deprives them of ‘mind and soul’. Also: -‘this appeared to him <i>in his mind</i> to be -the best counsel’. Mr Arnold assumes -tones of great superiority; but every school-boy -knows that diffuseness is a distinguishing -characteristic of Homer. Again, the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>poet’s epithets are often selected by their -convenience for his metre; sometimes perhaps -even appropriated for no other cause. -No one has ever given any better reason -why Diomedes and Menelaus are almost -exclusively called <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">βοὴν ἀγαθὸς</span>, except that -it suits the metre. This belongs to the improvisatore, -the negligent, the ballad style. -The word <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐϋμμελίης</span>, which I with others -render ‘ashen-speared’, is said of Priam, -of Panthus, and of sons of Panthus. Mr -Arnold rebukes me, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 106, for violating -my own principles. ‘I say, on the other -hand, that <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εὐμμελίω</span> has <i>not</i> the effect<a id='r51' /><a href='#f51' class='c009'><sup>[51]</sup></a> -of a peculiarity in the original, while “ashen-speared” -<i>has</i> the effect of a peculiarity in -the English: and “warlike” is as marking -an equivalent as I dare give for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐϋμμελίω</span>, -<i>for fear of disturbing the balance of expression</i> -in Homer’s sentence’. Mr Arnold cannot -write a sentence on Greek, without showing -an ignorance hard to excuse in one who -thus comes forward as a vituperating censor. -<i>Warlike</i> is a word current in the lips and -books of all Englishmen: <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐϋμμελίης</span> is a -word <i>never</i> used, never, I believe, in all -Greek literature, by anyone but Homer. -If he does but turn to Liddell and Scott, -he will see their statement, that the Attic -<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>form <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εὐμελίας</span> is only to be found in -grammars. He is here, as always, wrong -in his facts. The word is most singular -in Greek; more singular by far than ‘ashen-spear’d’ -in English, because it is more -obscure, as is its special application to one -or two persons: and in truth I have doubted -whether we any better understand Eumelian -Priam than Gerenian Nestor.—Mr Arnold -presently imputes to me the opinion that -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">χιτὼν</span> means ‘a cloak’, <i>which he does not -dispute</i>; but if I had thought it necessary -to be literal, I must have rendered <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">χαλκοχίτωνες</span> -brazen-shirted. He suggests to me -the rendering ‘brazen-coated’, which I have -used in <abbr title='iliad'>Il.</abbr> 4, 285 and elsewhere. I have -also used ‘brazen-clad’, and I now prefer -‘brazen-mail’d’. I here wish only to press -that Mr Arnold’s criticism proceeds on a -false fact. Homer’s epithet was <i>not</i> a -familiar word at Athens (in any other sense -than as Burns or Virgil may be familiar to -Mr Arnold), but was strange, unknown even -to their poets; hence his demand that I -shall use a word already familiar in English -poetry is doubly baseless. The later poets -of Greece have plenty of words beginning -with <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">χαλκο-</span>; but this one word is exclusively -Homer’s.—Everything that I have -now said, may be repeated still more pointedly -concerning <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐϋκνημῖδες</span>, inasmuch as directing -attention to leg-armour is peculiarly -quaint. No one in all Greek literature (as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>far as I know) names the word but Homer; -and yet Mr Arnold turns on me with his ever -reiterated, ever unsupported, assertions and -censures, of course assuming that ‘the -scholar’ is with him. (I have no theory -at hand, to explain why he regards his own -word to suffice without attempt at proof.) -The epithet is intensely peculiar; and I -observe that Mr Arnold has not dared to -suggest a translation. It is clear to me that -he is ashamed of my poet’s oddities; and -has no mode of escaping from them but by -bluntly denying facts. Equally peculiar to -Homer are the words <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κυδιάνειρα, τανύπεπλος</span> -and twenty others, equally unknown to Attic -the peculiar compound <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μελιήδης</span> (adopted -from Homer by Pindar), about all which -he carps at me on false grounds. But I -pass these, and speak a little more at length -about <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροπες</span>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Will the reader allow me to vary these -tedious details, by imagining a conversation -between the Aristophanic Socrates and his -clownish pupil Strepsiades. I suppose the -philosopher to be instructing him in the -higher Greek, Homer being the text.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> Now Streppy, tell me what <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροπες -ἄνθρωποι</span> means?</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> Let me see: <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροπες</span>? that must -mean ‘half-faced’.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> Nonsense, silly fellow: think again.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> Well then: <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροπες</span>, half-eyed, -squinting.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> No; you are playing the fool: it -is not our ὀπ in <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὄψις, ὄψομαι, κάτοπτρον</span>, -but another sort of ὀπ.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> Why, you yesterday told me that -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">οἴνοπα</span> was ‘wine-faced’, and <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">αἴθοπα</span> -‘blazing-faced’, something like our <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">αἰθίοψ</span>.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> Ah! well: it is not so wonderful -that you go wrong. It is true, there is -also <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">νῶροψ, στέροψ, ἦνοψ</span>. Those might -mislead you: <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροψ</span> is rather peculiar. Now -cannot you think of any characteristic of -mankind, which <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροπες</span> will express. How -do men differ from other animals?</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> I have it! I heard it from your -young friend Euclid. <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Μέροψ ἐστὶν ἄνθρωπος</span>, -‘man is a cooking animal’.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> You stupid lout! what are you at? -what do you mean?</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> Why, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροψ</span>, from <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μείρω</span>, I distribute, -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὄψον</span> sauce.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> No, no: <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὄψον</span> has the ὀψ, with -radical immovable ς in it; but here ὀπ is -the root, and ς is movable.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> Now I have got it; <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μείρω</span>, I distribute, -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὀπὸν</span>, juice, rennet.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> Wretched man! you must forget -your larder and your dairy, if ever you are -to learn grammar.—Come Streppy: leave -rustic words, and think of the language of -the gods. Did you ever hear of the brilliant -goddess Circe and of her <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὄπα καλὴν</span>?</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> Oh yes; Circe and her beautiful -face.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> I told you, <i>no</i>! you forgetful fellow. -It is <span class='fss'>ANOTHER</span> ὀπ. Now I will ask you in a -different way. Do you know why we call -fishes <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἔλλοπες</span>?</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> I suppose, because they are cased -in scales.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> That is not it. (And yet I am not -sure. Perhaps the fellow is right, after all.) -Well, we will not speak any more of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἔλλοπες</span>. -But did you never hear in Euripides, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">οὐκ -ἔχω γεγωνεῖν ὄπα</span>? What does that mean?</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> ‘I am not able to shout out, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὦ -πόποι’</span>.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> No, no, Streppy: but Euripides -often uses ὄπα. He takes it from Homer, -and it is akin to ἐπ, not to <i>our</i> ὀπ and much -less to πόποι. What does <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἔπη</span> mean?</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> It means such lines as the diviners -sing.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> So it does in Attic, but Homer uses -it for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ῥήματα</span>, words; indeed we also sometimes.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> Yes, yes, I do know it. All is -right.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> I think you do: well, and <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὂψ</span> means -a voice, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">φωνὴ</span>.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> How you learned men like to puzzle -us! I often have heard <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὀπι, ὄπα</span> in the -Tragedies, but never quite understood it. -What a pity they do not say <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">φωνὴ</span> when -they mean <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">φωνή</span>.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> We have at last made one step. -Now what is <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροψ? μέροπες ἄνθρωποι</span>.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Μείρω</span>, I divide, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὄπα, φωνὴν</span>, voice; -‘voice-dividing’: what <i>can</i> that mean?</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> You have heard a wild dog howl, -and a tame dog bark: tell me how they -differ.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> The wild dog gives a long long -<i>oo-oo</i>, which changes like a trumpet if you -push your hand up and down it; and the -tame dog says <i>bow, wow, wow</i>, like two or -three panpipes blown one after another.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> Exactly; you see the tame dog is -humanized: he <i>divides his voice</i> into syllables, -as men do. ‘Voice-dividing’ means -‘speaking in syllables’.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> Oh, how clever you are!</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> Well then, you understand; ‘Voice-dividing’ -means <i>articulating</i>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Arnold will see in the Scholiast on -Iliad 1, 250, precisely this order of analysis -for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροπες</span>. It seems to me to give not -a traditional but a grammatical explanation. -Be that as it may, it indicates that a Greek -had to pass through <i>exactly the same process</i> -in order to expound <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροπες</span>, as an -Englishman to get sense out of ‘voice-dividing’. -The word is twice used by -Æschylus, who affects Homeric words, and -once by Euripides (Iph. T.) in the connection -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">πολέσιν μερόπων</span>, where the very unusual -Ionism <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">πολέσιν</span> shows in how Homeric a -region is the poet’s fancy. No other word -ending in οψ except <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροψ</span> can be confidently -assigned to the root ὂψ, a voice. <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"> Ἦνοψ</span> in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>Homer (itself of most uncertain sense and -derivation) is generally referred to the other -ὄψ. The sense of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἔλλοψ</span> again<a id='r52' /><a href='#f52' class='c009'><sup>[52]</sup></a> is very -uncertain. Every way therefore <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροψ</span> is -‘odd’ and obscure. The phrase ‘articulating’ -is utterly prosaic and inadmissible. -<i>Vocal</i> is rather too Latinized for my style, -and besides, is apt to mean <i>melodious</i>. The -phrase ‘voice-dividing’ is indeed easier -to us than μέροπες can have been to the -Athenians, because we all know what <i>voice</i> -means, but they had to be taught scholastically -what <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὄπα</span> meant; nor would easily -guess that ὂψ in <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροψ</span> had a sense, differing -from ὂψ in <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">(ἀ)στέροψ οἶνοψ, αἶθοψ, αἶθίοψ, -νῶροψ (ἦνοψ), χάροψ</span>. Finally, since <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροπες</span> -is only found in the plural, it remains an -open question, whether it does not mean -‘speaking various languages’. Mr Arnold -will find that Stephanus and Scapula treat -it as doubtful, though Liddell and Scott do -not name the second interpretation. I -desired to leave in the English all the uncertainty -of the Greek: but my critic is -unencumbered with such cares.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Hitherto I have been unwillingly thrown -into nothing but antagonism to Mr Arnold, -who thereby at least adds tenfold value to -his praise, and makes me proud when he -<span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>declares that the <i>structure</i> of my sentences -is good and Homeric. For this I give the -credit to my metre, which alone confers -on me this cardinal advantage. But in -turn I will compliment Mr Arnold at the -expense of some other critics. He does -know, and they do not, the difference of -<i>flowing</i> and <i>smooth</i>. A mountain torrent -is flowing, but often very rough; such is -Homer. The ‘staircases of Neptune’ on -the canal of Languedoc are smooth, but do -not flow: you have to descend abruptly -from each level to the next. It would be -unjust to say absolutely, that such is Pope’s -smoothness; yet often, I feel, this censure -would not be too severe. The rhyme forces -him to so frequent a change of the nominative, -that he becomes painfully discontinuous, -where Homer is what Aristotle -calls ‘long-linked’. At the same time, in -our language, in order to impart a flowing -style, good structure does not suffice. A -principle is needed, unknown to the Greeks; -viz. the natural divisions of the sentence -oratorically, must coincide with the divisions -of the verse musically. To attain this -<i>always</i> in a long poem, is very difficult to -a translator who is scrupulous as to tampering -with the sense. I have not always been -successful in this. But before any critic -passes on me the general sentence that I -am ‘deficient in flow’, let him count up -the proportion of instances in which he -<span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>can justly make the complaint, and mark -whether they occur in elevated passages.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I shall now speak of the peculiarities of my -diction, under three heads: 1. old or antiquated -words; 2. coarse words expressive -of outward actions, but having no moral -colour; 3. words of which the sense has -degenerated in modern days.</p> - -<p class='c005'>1. Mr Arnold appears to regard what is -<i>antiquated</i> as <i>ignoble</i>. I think him, as usual, -in fundamental error. In general the nobler -words come from ancient style, and in no -case can it be said that old words (as such) -are ignoble. To introduce such terms as -<i>whereat</i>, <i>therefrom</i>, <i>quoth</i>, <i>beholden</i>, <i>steed</i>, <i>erst</i>, -<i>anon</i>, <i>anent</i>, into the midst of style which in -all other respects is modern and prosaic, would -be like to that which we often hear from -half-educated people. The want of harmony -makes us regard it as low-minded and uncouth. -From this cause (as I suspect) has -stolen into Mr Arnold’s mind the fallacy, -that the words themselves are uncouth<a id='r53' /><a href='#f53' class='c009'><sup>[53]</sup></a>. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>But the words are excellent, if only they are -in proper keeping with the general style.—Now -it is very possible, that in some passages, -few or many, I am open to the charge -of having mixed old and new style unskilfully; -but I cannot admit that the old -words (as such) are ignoble. No one speaks -of Spenser’s dialect, nay, nor of Thomson’s; -although with Thomson it was assumed, -exactly as by me, but to a far greater extent, -and without any such necessity as -urges me. As I have stated in my preface, -a broad tinge of antiquity in the style is -essential, to make Homer’s barbaric puerilities -and eccentricities less offensive. (Even -Mr Arnold would admit this, if he admitted -my <i>facts</i>: but he denies that there is anything -eccentric, antique, quaint, barbaric -in Homer: that is his <i>only</i> way of resisting -my conclusion.) If Mr Gladstone were able -to give his valuable time to work out an -entire Iliad in his refined modern style, I -feel confident that he would find it impossible -to deal faithfully with the eccentric phraseology -and with the negligent parts of the -poem. I have the testimony of an unfriendly -reviewer, that I am the first and -<i>only</i> translator that has dared to give -Homer’s constant epithets and not conceal -<span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>his forms of thought: of course I could not -have done this in modern style. The lisping -of a child is well enough from a child, but -is disgusting in a full-grown man. Cowper -and Pope systematically cut out from -Homer whatever they cannot make <i>stately</i>, -and harmonize with modern style: even -Mr Brandreth often shrinks, though he is -brave enough to say <i>ox-eyed Juno</i>. Who -then can doubt the extreme unfitness of -their metre and of their modern diction? -My opposers never fairly meet the argument. -Mr Arnold, when most gratuitously censuring -my mild rendering of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κυνὸς κακομηχάνου -ὀκρυοέσσης</span>, <i>does not dare to suggest any -English for it himself</i>. Even Mr Brandreth -skips it. It is not merely offensive words; -but the purest and simplest phrases, as a -man’s ‘dear life’, ‘dear knees’, or his -‘tightly-built house’, are a stumbling-block -to translators. No stronger proof is -necessary, or perhaps is possible, than these -phenomena give, that to shed an antique -hue over Homer is of first necessity to a -translator: without it, <i>injustice</i> is done both -to the reader and to the poet. Whether I -have managed the style well, is a separate -question, and is matter of detail. I may -have sometimes done well, sometimes ill; -but I claim that my critics shall judge me -from a broader ground, and shall not pertinaciously -go on comparing my version -with modern style, and condemning me as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>(what they are pleased to call) <i>inelegant</i> -because it is not like refined modern poetry, -when it specially avoids to be such. They -never deal thus with Thomson or Chatterton, -any more than with Shakspeare or Spenser.</p> - -<p class='c005'>There is no sharp distinction possible between -the foreign and the antiquated in -language. What is obsolete with us, may -still live somewhere: as, what in Greek is -called Poetic or Homeric, may at the same -time be living Æolic. So, whether I take -a word from Spenser or from Scotland, is -generally unimportant. I do not remember -more than four Scotch words, which I have -occasionally adopted for convenience; viz. -Callant, young man; Canny, right-minded; -Bonny, handsome; to Skirl, to cry shrilly. -A trochaic word, which I cannot get in -English, is sometimes urgently needed. It -is astonishing to me that those who ought -to know both what a large mass of antique -and foreign-sounding words an Athenian -found in Homer, and how many Doric or -Sicilian forms as well as Homeric words the -Greek tragedians <i>on principle</i> brought into -their songs, should make the outcry that -they do against my very limited use of that -which has an antique or Scotch sound. -Classical scholars ought to set their faces -against the double heresy, of trying to enforce, -that foreign poetry, however various, -shall be all rendered into one English dialect, -and that this shall, in order of words -<span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>and in diction, closely approximate to polished -prose. From an Oxford Professor I -should have expected the very opposite -spirit to that which Mr Arnold shows. He -ought to know and feel that one glory of -Greek poetry is its great internal variety. -He admits the principle that old words are -a source of ennoblement for diction, when -he extols the Bible as his standard: for -surely he claims no rhetorical inspiration -for the translators. Words which have -come to us in a sacred connection, no doubt, -gain a sacred hue, but they must not be -allowed to desecrate other old and excellent -words. Mr Arnold informs his Oxford -hearers that ‘his Bibliolatry is perhaps excessive’. -So the public will judge, if he -say that <i>wench</i>, <i>whore</i>, <i>pate</i>, <i>pot</i>, <i>gin</i>, <i>damn</i>, -<i>busybody</i>, <i>audience</i>, <i>principality</i>, <i>generation</i>, -are epical noble words because they are -in the Bible, and that <i>lief</i>, <i>ken</i>, <i>in sooth</i>, -<i>grim</i>, <i>stalwart</i>, <i>gait</i>, <i>guise</i>, <i>eld</i>, <i>hie</i>, <i>erst</i>, are -bad, because they are not there. Nine -times out of ten, what are called ‘poetical’ -words, are nothing but antique words, and -are made ignoble by Mr Arnold’s doctrine. -His very arbitrary condemnation of <i>eld</i>, -<i>lief</i>, <i>in sooth</i>, <i>gait</i>, <i>gentle friend</i> in one passage -of mine as ‘bad words’, is probably due to -his monomaniac fancy that there is nothing -quaint and nothing antique in Homer. -Excellent and noble as are these words -which he rebukes, excellent even for Æschylus, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>I should doubt the propriety of using -them in the dialogue of Euripides; on the -level of which he seems to think Homer -to be.</p> - -<p class='c005'>2. Our language, especially the Saxon -part of it, abounds with vigorous monosyllabic -verbs, and dissyllabic frequentatives -derived from them, indicative of strong -physical action. For these words (which, -I make no doubt, Mr Arnold regards as -ignoble plebeians), I claim Quiritarian rights: -but I do not wish them to displace patricians -from high service. Such verbs as <i>sweat</i>, -<i>haul</i>, <i>plump</i>, <i>maul</i>, <i>yell</i>, <i>bang</i>, <i>splash</i>, <i>smash</i>, -<i>thump</i>, <i>tug</i>, <i>scud</i>, <i>sprawl</i>, <i>spank</i>, etc., I hold -(in their purely physical sense) to be eminently -epical: for the epic revels in descriptions -of violent action to which they are -suited. Intense muscular exertion in every -form, intense physical action of the surrounding -elements, with intense ascription -or description of size or colour;—together -make up an immense fraction of the poem. -To cut out these words is to emasculate the -epic. Even Pope admits such words. My -eye in turning his pages was just now -caught by: ‘They tug, they sweat’. Who -will say that ‘tug’, ‘sweat’ are admissible, -but ‘bang’, ‘smash’, ‘sputter’ are inadmissible? -Mr Arnold resents my saying -that Homer is often homely. He is homely -expressly because he is natural. The epical -diction admits both the gigantesque and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>the homely: it inexorably refuses the conventional, -under which is comprised a vast -mass of what some wrongly call elegant. -But while I justify the use of homely words -in a primary physical, I depreciate them in -a secondary moral sense. Mr Arnold clearly -is dull to this distinction, or he would not -utter against me the following taunt, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 91:</p> - -<p class='c005'>‘<i>To grunt and sweat under a weary load</i> -does perfectly well where it comes in Shakspeare: -but if the translator of Homer, -who will hardly have wound up our minds -to the pitch at which these words of Hamlet -find them, were to employ, when he has to -speak of Homer’s heroes under the load of -calamity, this figure of “grunting” and -“sweating”, we should say, <i>He Newmanizes</i>’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Arnold here not only makes a mistake, -he propagates a slander; as if I had ever -used such words as <i>grunt</i> and <i>sweat</i> morally. -If Homer in the Iliad spoke of grunting -swine, as he does of sweating steeds, so -should I. As the coarse metaphors here -quoted from Shakspeare are utterly opposed -to Homer’s style, to obtrude them on him -would be a gross offence. Mr Arnold sends -his readers away with the belief that this -is my practice, though he has not dared to -assert it. I <i>bear</i> such coarseness in Shakspeare, -not because I am ‘wound up to a -high pitch’ by him, ‘borne away by a -mighty current’ (which Mr Arnold, with -ingenious unfairness to me, assumes to be -<span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>certain in a reader of Shakspeare and all -but impossible in a reader of Homer), but -because I know, that in Shakspeare’s time -all literature was coarse, as was the speech -of courtiers and of the queen herself. Mr -Arnold imputes to me Shakspeare’s coarseness, -from which I instinctively shrink; -and when his logic leads to the conclusion, -‘he Shakspearizes’, he with gratuitous -rancour turns it into ‘he Newmanizes’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Some words which with the Biblical translators -seem to have been noble, I should not -now dare to use in the primitive sense. For -instance, ‘His iniquity shall fall upon his -own <i>pate</i>’. Yet I think <i>pate</i> a good metaphorical -word and have used it of the sea-waves, -in a bold passage, <abbr title='iliad'>Il.</abbr> 13, 795:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Then ón rush’d théy, with weight and mass     like to a troublous whirlwind,</div> - <div class='line'>Which from the thundercloud of Jove     down on the campaign plumpeth,</div> - <div class='line'>And doth the briny flood bestir     with an unearthly uproar:</div> - <div class='line'>Then in the everbrawling sea     full many a billow splasheth,</div> - <div class='line'>Hollow, and bald with hoary <i>pate</i>,     one racing after other.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Is there really no ‘mighty current’ here, -to sweep off petty criticism?</p> - -<p class='c005'>I have a remark on the strong physical -word ‘plumpeth’ here used. It is fundamentally -Milton’s, ‘plump down he drops -ten thousand fathom deep’; <i>plumb</i> and -<i>plump</i> in this sense are clearly the same -<span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>root. I confess I have not been able to -find the <i>verb</i> in an old writer, though it is -so common now. Old writers do not say -‘to plumb down’, but ‘to <i>drop</i> plumb down’. -Perhaps in a second edition (if I reach to it), -I may alter the words to ‘plumb ... droppeth’, -on this ground; but I do turn sick -at the mawkishness of critics, one of whom, -who ought to know better, tells me that the -word <i>plump</i> reminds him ‘of the crinolined -hoyden of a boarding-school’!! If he had -said, ‘It is too like the phrase of a sailor, -of a peasant, of a schoolboy’, this objection -would be at least intelligible. However: -the word is intended to express the <i>violent -impact of a body descending from aloft</i>, and -it <i>does</i> express it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Arnold censures me for representing -Achilles as <i>yelling</i>. He is depicted by the -poet as in the most violent physical rage, -boiling over with passion and wholly uncontrouled. -He smacks his two thighs at once; -he rolls on the ground, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέγας μεγαλωστὶ</span>; -he defiles his hair with dust; he rends it; -he grinds his teeth; fire flashes from his -eyes; but—he may not ‘yell’, that would -not be <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>comme il faut</i></span>! We shall agree, -that in peace nothing so becomes a hero as -modest stillness; but that ‘Peleus’ son, -insatiate of combat’, full of the fiercest -pent-up passion, should vent a little of it in -a <i>yell</i>, seems to me quite in place. That -the Greek <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἰάχων</span> is not necessarily to be so -<span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>rendered, I am aware; but it is a very -vigorous word, like <i>peal</i> and <i>shriek</i>; neither -of which would here suit. I sometimes -render it <i>skirl</i>: but ‘battle-yell’ is a received -rightful phrase. Achilles is not a -stately Virgilian <i>pius Æneas</i>, but is a far -wilder barbarian.</p> - -<p class='c005'>After Mr Arnold has laid upon me the -sins of Shakspeare, he amazes me by adding, -<abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 92: ‘The idiomatic language of Shakspeare, -such language as “prate of his <i>whereabout</i>”, -“<i>jump</i> the life to come”, “the -damnation of his <i>taking-off</i>”, “<i>quietus make</i> -with a bare bodkin”, should be carefully -observed by the translator of Homer; although -in every case he will have to decide -for himself, whether the use, by him, of -Shakspeare’s liberty, will or will not clash -with his indispensable duty of nobleness’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Of the Shakspearianisms here italicized by -Mr Arnold, there is not one which I could -endure to adopt. ‘His whereabout’, I -regard as the flattest prose. (The word -<i>prate</i> is a plebeian which I admit in its own -low places; but how Mr Arnold can approve -of it, consistently with his attacks on me, -I do not understand.) Damnation and -Taking-off (for Guilt and Murder), and Jump, -I absolutely reject; and ‘quietus make’ -would be nothing but an utterly inadmissible -<i>quotation</i> from Shakspeare. <i>Jump</i> as an -active verb is to me monstrous, but <i>Jump</i> -is just the sort of modern prose word which -<span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>is not noble. <i>Leap</i>, <i>Bound</i>, for great action, -<i>Skip</i>, <i>Frisk</i>, <i>Gambol</i> for smaller, are all -good.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I have shown against Mr Arnold—(1) that -Homer was out-and-out antiquated to the -Athenians, even when perfectly understood -by them; (2) that his conceptions, similes, -phraseology and epithets are habitually -quaint, strange, unparalleled in Greek literature; -and pardonable only to semibarbarism; -(3) that they are intimately related -to his noblest excellences; (4) that many -words are so peculiar as to be still doubtful -to us; (5) I have indicated that some of his -descriptions and conceptions are horrible to -us, though they are not so to his barbaric -auditors; (6) that considerable portions of -the poem are not poetry, but rhythmical -prose like Horace’s Satires, and are interesting -to us not as poetry but as portraying -the manners or sentiments of the day. I -now add (7) what is inevitable in all high -and barbaric poetry, perhaps in all high -poetry, many of his energetic descriptions -are expressed in <i>coarse physical words</i>. I -do not here attempt proof, for it might need -a treatise: but I give one illustration; <abbr title='iliad'>Il.</abbr> -13, 136, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Τρῶες προὒτυψαν ἀολλέες</span>. Cowper, -misled by the <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>ignis fatuus</i></span> of ‘stateliness’, -renders it absurdly</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><i>The pow’rs of Ilium</i> gave the first assault,</div> - <div class='line'><i>Embattled</i> close;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>but it is strictly, ‘The Trojans <i>knocked-forward</i> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>(or, thumped, <i>butted</i>, forward) in -close pack’. The verb is too coarse for -later polished prose, and even the adjective -is very strong (<i>packed together</i>). I believe, -that ‘Forward in <i>pack</i> the Troians <i>pitch’d</i>’, -would not be really unfaithful to the Homeric -colour; and I maintain that ‘Forward in -mass the Troians pitch’d’, would be an irreprovable -rendering.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Dryden in this respect is in entire harmony -with Homeric style. No critic deals -fairly with me in isolating any of these -strong words, and then appealing to his -readers whether I am not ignoble. Hereby -he deprives me of the <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀγὼν</span>, the ‘mighty -current’ of Mr Arnold, and he misstates -the problem; which is, whether the word -is suitable, <i>then</i> and <i>there</i>, for the work required -of it, as the coalman at the pit, the -clown in the furrow, the huntsman in the -open field.</p> - -<p class='c005'>3. There is a small number of words not -natural plebeians, but patricians on which -a most unjust bill of attainder has been -passed, which I seek to reverse. On the -first which I name, Mr Arnold will side with -me, because it is a Biblical word, <i>wench</i>. -In Lancashire I believe that at the age -of about sixteen a ‘girl’ turns into ‘a -wench’, or as we say ‘a young woman’. -In Homer, ‘girl’ and ‘young woman’ are -alike inadmissible; ‘maid’ or ‘maiden’ -will not always suit, and ‘wench’ is the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>natural word. I do not know that I have -used it three times, but I claim a right of -using it, and protest against allowing the -heroes of slang to deprive us of excellent -words by their perverse misuse. If the -imaginations of some men are always in -satire and in low slang, so much the worse -for them: but the more we yield to such -demands, the more will be exacted. I expect, -before long, to be told that <i>brick</i> is an -ignoble word, meaning a jolly fellow, and -that <i>sell</i>, <i>cut</i> are out of place in Homer. -My metre, it seems, is inadmissible with -some, because it is the metre of Yankee -Doodle! as if Homer’s metre were not that -of the Margites. Every noble poem is liable -to be travestied, as the Iliad and Æschylus -and Shakspeare have been. Every burlesque -writer uses the noble metre, and caricatures -the noble style. Mr Arnold says, -I must not render τανύπεπλος ‘trailing-rob’d’, -because it reminds him of ‘long -petticoats sweeping a dirty pavement’. -What a confession as to the state of his -imagination! Why not, of ‘a queen’s robe -trailing on a marble pavement’? Did he -never read</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">πέπλον μὲν κατέχευεν ἑανὸν πατρὸς ἐτ’ οὔδει?</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>I have digressed: I return to words -which have been misunderstood. A second -word is of more importance, <i>Imp</i>; which -properly means a Graft. The best translation -<span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὦ Λήδας ἔρνος</span> to my mind, is, -‘O Imp of Leda’! for neither ‘bud of -Leda’, nor ‘scion of Leda’ satisfy me: -much less ‘sprig’ or ‘shoot of Leda’. The -theological writers so often used the phrase -‘imp of Satan’ for ‘child of the devil’, -that (since Bunyan?) the vulgar no longer -understand that <i>imp</i> means <i>scion</i>, <i>child</i>, -and suppose it to mean ‘little devil’. A -Reviewer has omitted to give his unlearned -readers any explanation of the word (though -I carefully explained it) and calls down their -indignation upon me by his censures, which -I hope proceeded from carelessness and -ignorance.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Even in Spenser’s Fairy Queen the word -retains its rightful and noble sense:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Well worthy <i>imp</i>! then said the lady, etc.,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>and in North’s Plutarch,</p> - -<p class='c005'>‘He took upon him to protect him from -them all, and not to suffer so goodly an <i>imp</i> -[Alcibiades] to lose the good fruit of his -youth’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Dryden uses the verb, To imp; to graft, -insert.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I was quite aware that I claimed of my -readers a certain strength of mind, when -I bid them to forget the defilements which -vulgarity has shed over the noble word Imp, -and carry their imaginations back two or -three centuries: but I did not calculate -that any critic would call Dainty grotesque. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>This word is equivalent in meaning to Delicate -and Nice, but has precisely the epical -character in which both those words are -deficient. For instance, I say, that after -the death of Patroclus, the coursers ‘stood -motionless’,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Drooping tōwārd the ground their heads,     and down their plaintive eyelids</div> - <div class='line'>Did warm tears trickle to the ground,     their charioteer bewailing.</div> - <div class='line'>Defilèd were their <i>dainty</i> manes,     over the yoke-strap dropping.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>A critic who objects to this, has to learn -English from my translation. Does he -imagine that Dainty can mean nothing but -‘over-particular as to food’?</p> - -<p class='c005'>In the compound Dainty-cheek’d, Homer -shows his own epic peculiarity. It is imitated -in the similar word <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εὐπάρᾳος</span> applied -to the Gorgon Medusa by Pindar: but not -in the Attics. I have somewhere read, that -the rudest conception of female beauty is -that of a brilliant red <i>plump</i> cheek; such -as an English clown admires (was this what -Pindar meant?); the second stage looks -to the delicacy of tint in the cheek (this -is Homer’s <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">καλλιπάρῃος</span>:) the third looks -to shape (this is the <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εὒμορφος</span> of the Attics, -the <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>formosus</i></span> of the Latins, and is seen in the -Greek sculpture); the fourth and highest -looks to moral expression: this is the idea -of Christian Europe. That Homer rests exclusively -in the second or semibarbaric -<span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>stage, it is not for me to say, but, as far -as I am able, to give to the readers of my -translation materials for their own judgment. -From the vague word <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εἶδος</span>, <i>species</i>, <i>appearance</i>, -it cannot be positively inferred whether -the poet had an eye for Shape. The epithets -curl-eyed and fine-ankled decidedly suggest -that he had; except that his application of -the former to the entire nation of the Greeks -makes it seem to be of foreign tradition, -and as unreal as brazen-<i>mailed</i>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Another word which has been ill-understood -and ill-used, is <i>dapper</i>. Of the epithet -dappergreav’d for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐϋκνημὶς</span> I certainly am -not enamoured, but I have not yet found a -better rendering. It is easier to carp at my -phrase, than to suggest a better. The word -<i>dapper</i> in Dutch = German <span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>tapfer</i></span>; and like -the Scotch <i>braw</i> or <i>brave</i> means with us <i>fine</i>, -<i>gallant</i>, <i>elegant</i>. I have read the line of an -old poet,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The dapper words which lovers use,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>for <i>elegant</i>, I suppose; and so ‘the dapper -does’ and ‘dapper elves’ of Milton must -refer to elegance or refined beauty. What -is there<a id='r54' /><a href='#f54' class='c009'><sup>[54]</sup></a> ignoble in such a word? ‘Elegant’ -and ‘pretty’ are inadmissible in epic -poetry: ‘dapper’ is logically equivalent, -and <i>has the epic colour</i>. Neither ‘fair’ nor -‘comely’ here suit. As to the school translation -<span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>of ‘wellgreav’d’, every common -Englishman on hearing the sound receives -it as ‘wellgrieved’, and to me it is very -unpleasing. A part of the mischief, a large -part of it, is in the word <i>greave</i>; for <i>dapper-girdled</i> -is on the whole well-received. But -what else can we say for <i>greave</i>? leggings? -gambados?</p> - -<p class='c005'>Much perhaps remains to be learnt concerning -Homer’s perpetual epithets. My -very learned colleague Goldstücke, Professor -of Sanscrit, is convinced that the -epithet <i>cow-eyed</i> of the Homeric Juno is an -echo of the notion of Hindoo poets, that -(if I remember his statement) ‘the sun-beams -are the <i>cows</i> of heaven’. The sacred -qualities of the Hindoo cow are perhaps not -to be forgotten. I have myself been struck -by the phrase <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">διϊπετέος ποτάμοιο</span> as akin -to the idea that the Ganges falls from -Mount Meru, the Hindoo Olympus. Also -the meaning of two other epithets has been -revealed to me from the pictures of Hindoo -ladies. First, <i>curl-eyed</i>, to which I have -referred above; secondly, <i>rosy-fingered -Aurora</i>. For Aurora is an ‘Eastern lady’; -and, as such, has the tips of her fingers dyed -rosy-red, whether by henna or by some -more brilliant drug. Who shall say that -the kings and warriors of Homer do not derive -from the East their epithet ‘Jove-nurtured’? -or that this or that goddess -is not called ‘golden-throned’ or ‘fair-throned’ -<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>in allusion to Assyrian sculptures -or painting, as Rivers probably drew their -later poetical attribute ‘bull-headed’ from -the sculpture of fountains? It is a familiar -remark, that Homer’s poetry presupposes -a vast pre-existing art and material. Much -in him was traditional. Many of his wild -legends came from Asia. He is to us much -beside a poet; and that a translator -should assume to cut him down to the -standard of modern taste, is a thought -which all the higher minds of this age have -outgrown. How much better is that reverential -Docility, which with simple and -innocent wonder, receives the oddest notions -of antiquity as material of instruction yet -to be revealed, than the self-complacent -Criticism, which pronouncing everything -against modern taste to be grotesque<a id='r55' /><a href='#f55' class='c009'><sup>[55]</sup></a> and -contemptible, squares the facts to its own -‘Axioms’! <i>Homer is noble: but this or -that epithet is not noble: therefore we must -explode it from Homer!</i> I value, I maintain, -I struggle for the ‘high a priori road’ in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>its own place; but certainly not in historical -literature. To read Homer’s own thoughts -is to wander in a world abounding with freshness: -but if we insist on treading round and -round in our own footsteps, we shall never -ascend those heights whence the strange -region is to be seen. Surely an intelligent -learned critic ought to inculcate on the unlearned, -that if they would get instruction -from Homer, they must not expect to have -their ears tickled by a musical sound as of a -namby-pamby poetaster; but must look on -a metre as doing its duty, when it ‘strings -the mind up to the necessary pitch’ in -elevated passages; and that instead of demanding -of a translator everywhere a rhythmical -perfection which perhaps can only be -attained by a great sacrifice of higher qualities, -they should be willing to submit to -a small part of that ruggedness, which Mr -Arnold cheerfully bears in Homer himself -through the loss of the Digamma. And -now, for a final protest. To be <i>stately</i> is -not to be <i>grand</i>. Nicolas of Russia may -have been stately like Cowper, Garibaldi is -grand like the true Homer. A diplomatic -address is stately; it is not grand, nor often -noble. To expect a translation of Homer -to be <i>pervadingly elegant</i>, is absurd; Homer -is not such, any more than is the side of an -Alpine mountain. The elegant and the -picturesque are seldom identical, however -much of delicate beauty may be interstudded -<span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>in the picturesque; but this has always got -plenty of what is shaggy and uncouth, without -which contrast the full delight of beauty -would not be attained. I think Moore in -his characteristic way tells of a beauty</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Shining on, shining on, by no shadow made tender,</div> - <div class='line'>Till love falls asleep in the sameness of splendour.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Such certainly is not Homer’s. His beauty, -when at its height, is <i>wild</i> beauty: it smells -of the mountain and of the sea. If he be -compared to a noble animal, it is not to such -a spruce rubbed-down Newmarket racer as -our smooth translators would pretend, but -to a wild horse of the Don Cossacks: and -if I, instead of this, present to the reader -nothing but a Dandie Dinmont’s pony, this, -as a first approximation, is a valuable step -towards the true solution.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Before the best translation of the Iliad -of which our language is capable can be -produced, the English public has to unlearn -the false notion of Homer which his <i>deliberately -faithless</i> versifiers have infused. Chapman’s -conceits unfit his translation for -instructing the public, even if his rhythm -‘jolted’ less, if his structure were simpler, -and his dialect more intelligible. My version, -if allowed to be read, will prepare the -public to receive a version better than -mine. I regard it as a question about to -open hereafter, whether a translator of -Homer ought not to adopt the old dissyllabic -<span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span><i>landis</i>, <i>houndis</i>, <i>hartis</i>, etc., instead -of our modern unmelodious <i>lands</i>, <i>hounds</i>, -<i>harts</i>; whether the <i>ye</i> or <i>y</i> before the past -participle may not be restored; the want -of which confounds that participle with the -past tense. Even the final -en of the plural -of verbs (we dancen, they singen, etc.) still -subsists in Lancashire. It deserves consideration -whether by a <i>few</i> such slight -grammatical retrogressions into antiquity -a translator of Homer might not add much -melody to his poem and do good service -to the language.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span> - <h2 id='reply2' class='c003'>Last Words on Translating Homer <br /> A Reply to Francis W. Newman <br /> By Matthew Arnold</h2> -</div> -<p class='c012'>‘Multi, qui persequuntur me, et tribulant me: a -testimoniis non declinavi.’</p> -<p class='c004'>Buffon, the great French naturalist, imposed -on himself the rule of steadily abstaining -from all answer to attacks made -upon him. <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">‘Je n’ai jamais répondu à -aucune critique’</span>, he said to one of his -friends who, on the occasion of a certain -criticism, was eager to take up arms in his -behalf; <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">‘je n’ai jamais répondu à aucune -critique, et je garderai le même silence sur -celle-ci’</span>. On another occasion, when accused -of plagiarism, and pressed by his -friends to answer, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">‘Il vaut mieux’</span>, he said, -<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">‘laisser ces mauvaises gens dans l’incertitude’</span>. -Even when reply to an attack -was made successfully, he disapproved of -it, he regretted that those he esteemed -should make it. Montesquieu, more sensitive -<span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>to criticism than Buffon, had answered, -and successfully answered, an attack made -upon his great work, the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Esprit des Lois</i></span>, -by the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Gazetier Janséniste</i></span>. This Jansenist -Gazetteer was a periodical of those times, -a periodical such as other times, also, have -occasionally seen, very pretentious, very -aggressive, and, when the point to be seized -was at all a delicate one, very apt to miss -it. ‘Notwithstanding this example’, said -Buffon, who, as well as Montesquieu, had -been attacked by the Jansenist Gazetteer, -‘notwithstanding this example, I think I -may promise my course will be different. -I shall not answer a single word’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And to anyone who has noticed the baneful -effects of the controversy, with all its -train of personal rivalries and hatreds, on -men of letters or men of science; to anyone -who has observed how it tends to impair, -not only their dignity and repose, but -their productive force, their genuine activity; -how it always checks the free play -of the spirit, and often ends by stopping -it altogether; it can hardly seem doubtful -that the rule thus imposed on himself by -Buffon was a wise one. His own career, -indeed, admirably shows the wisdom of it. -That career was as glorious as it was serene; -but it owed to its serenity no small part of -its glory. The regularity and completeness -with which he gradually built up the great -work which he had designed, the air of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span>equable majesty which he shed over it, -struck powerfully the imagination of his -contemporaries, and surrounded Buffon’s -fame with a peculiar respect and dignity. -‘He is’, said Frederick the Great of him, -‘the man who has best deserved the great -celebrity which he has acquired’. And this -regularity of production, this equableness -of temper, he maintained by his resolute -disdain of personal controversy.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Buffon’s example seems to me worthy of -all imitation, and in my humble way I mean -always to follow it. I never have replied, -I never will reply, to any literary assailant; -in such encounters tempers are lost, the -world laughs, and truth is not served. -Least of all should I think of using this -Chair as a place from which to carry on -such a conflict. But when a learned and -estimable man thinks he has reason to complain -of language used by me in this Chair, -when he attributes to me intentions and -feelings towards him which are far from -my heart, I owe him some explanation, -and I am bound, too, to make the explanation -as public as the words which gave -offence. This is the reason why I revert -once more to the subject of translating -Homer. But being thus brought back to -that subject, and not wishing to occupy -you solely with an explanation which, after -all, is Mr Newman’s affair and mine, not -the public’s, I shall take the opportunity, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>not certainly to enter into any conflict with -anyone, but to try to establish our old friend, -the coming translator of Homer, yet a little -firmer in the positions which I hope we have -now secured for him; to protect him against -the danger of relaxing, in the confusion of -dispute, his attention to those matters which -alone I consider important for him; to save -him from losing sight, in the dust of the -attacks delivered over it, of the real body -of Patroclus. He will, probably, when he -arrives, requite my solicitude very ill, and -be in haste to disown his benefactor: but -my interest in him is so sincere that I can -disregard his probable ingratitude.</p> - -<p class='c005'>First, however, for the explanation. Mr -Newman has published a reply to the remarks -which I made on his translation of the <i>Iliad</i>. -He seems to think that the respect which at -the outset of those remarks I professed for -him must have been professed ironically; -he says that I use ‘forms of attack against -him which he does not know how to characterize’; -that I ‘speak scornfully’ of him, -treat him with ‘gratuitous insult, gratuitous -rancour’; that I ‘propagate slanders’ -against him, that I wish to ‘damage him -with my readers’, to ‘stimulate my readers -to despise’ him. He is entirely mistaken. -I respect Mr Newman sincerely; I respect -him as one of the few learned men we have, -one of the few who love learning for its own -sake; this respect for him I had before I -<span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>read his translation of the <i>Iliad</i>, I retained -it while I was commenting on that translation, -I have not lost it after reading his -reply. Any vivacities of expression which -may have given him pain I sincerely regret, -and can only assure him that I used them -without a thought of insult or rancour. -When I took the liberty of creating the -verb <i>to Newmanize</i>, my intentions were no -more rancorous than if I had said to <i>Miltonize</i>; -when I exclaimed, in my astonishment -at his vocabulary, ‘With whom can Mr -Newman have lived’? I meant merely to -convey, in a familiar form of speech, the -sense of bewilderment one has at finding a -person to whom words one thought all the -world knew seem strange, and words one -thought entirely strange, intelligible. Yet -this simple expression of my bewilderment -Mr Newman construes into an accusation -that he is ‘often guilty of keeping low company’, -and says that I shall ‘never want a -stone to throw at him’. And what is -stranger still, one of his friends gravely -tells me that Mr Newman ‘lived with the -fellows of Balliol’. As if that made Mr -Newman’s glossary less inexplicable to me! -As if he could have got his glossary from -the fellows of Balliol! As if I could believe -that the members of that distinguished -society, of whose discourse, not so many -years afterwards, I myself was an unworthy -hearer, were in Mr Newman’s time so far -<span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span>removed from the Attic purity of speech -which we all of us admired, that when one -of them called a calf a <i>bulkin</i>, the rest ‘easily -understood’ him; or, when he wanted to -say that a newspaper-article was ‘proudly -fine’, it mattered little whether he said it -was that or <i>bragly</i>! No; his having lived -with the fellows of Balliol does not explain -Mr Newman’s glossary to me. I will no -longer ask ‘with whom he can have lived’, -since that gives him offence; but I must -still declare that where he got his test of -rarity or intelligibility for words is a mystery -to me.</p> - -<p class='c005'>That, however, does not prevent me from -entertaining a very sincere respect for Mr -Newman, and since he doubts it, I am glad -to reiterate my expression of it. But the -truth of the matter is this: I unfeignedly -admire Mr Newman’s ability and learning; -but I think in his translation of Homer he -has employed that ability and learning quite -amiss. I think he has chosen quite the -wrong field for turning his ability and learning -to account. I think that in England, partly -from the want of an Academy, partly from -a national habit of intellect to which that -want of an Academy is itself due, there -exists too little of what I may call a public -force of correct literary opinion, possessing -within certain limits a clear sense of what -is right and wrong, sound and unsound, -and sharply recalling men of ability and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>learning from any flagrant misdirection of -these their advantages. I think, even, that -in our country a powerful misdirection of -this kind is often more likely to subjugate -and pervert opinion than to be checked -and corrected by it<a id='r56' /><a href='#f56' class='c009'><sup>[56]</sup></a>. Hence a chaos of -false tendencies, wasted efforts, impotent -conclusions, works which ought never to -have been undertaken. Anyone who can -introduce a little order into this chaos by -establishing in any quarter a single sound -rule of criticism, a single rule which clearly -marks what is right as right, and what is -wrong as wrong, does a good deed; and his -deed is so much the better the greater force -he counteracts of learning and ability applied -to thicken the chaos. Of course no -one can be sure that he has fixed any such -rules; he can only do his best to fix them; -but somewhere or other, in the literary -opinion of Europe, if not in the literary -opinion of one nation, in fifty years, if not -in five, there is a final judgment on these -<span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>matters, and the critic’s work will at last -stand or fall by its true merits.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Meanwhile, the charge of having in one -instance misapplied his powers, of having -once followed a false tendency, is no such -grievous charge to bring against a man; -it does not exclude a great respect for himself -personally, or for his powers in the -happiest manifestations of them. False -tendency is, I have said, an evil to which -the artist or the man of letters in England -is peculiarly prone; but everywhere in our -time he is liable to it,—the greatest as well -as the humblest. ‘The first beginnings of -my <i>Wilhelm Meister</i>’, says Goethe, ‘arose -out of an obscure sense of the great truth -that man will often attempt something of -which nature has denied him the proper -powers, will undertake and practise something -in which he cannot become skilled. -An inward feeling warns him to desist’ -(yes, but there are, unhappily, cases of absolute -judicial blindness!), ‘nevertheless he -cannot get clear in himself about it, and is -driven along a false road to a false goal, -without knowing how it is with him. To -this we may refer everything which goes by -the name of false tendency, dilettanteism, -and so on. A great many men waste in -this way the fairest portion of their lives, -and fall at last into wonderful delusion’. -Yet after all, Goethe adds, it sometimes -happens that even on this false road a man -<span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>finds, not indeed that which he sought, -but something which is good and useful for -him; ‘like Saul, the son of Kish, who went -forth to look for his father’s asses, and found -a kingdom’. And thus false tendency as -well as true, vain effort as well as fruitful, -go together to produce that great movement -of life, to present that immense and -magic spectacle of human affairs, which -from boyhood to old age fascinates the gaze -of every man of imagination, and which -would be his terror, if it were not at the -same time his delight.</p> - -<p class='c005'>So Mr Newman may see how wide-spread -a danger it is, to which he has, as I think, -in setting himself to translate Homer, fallen -a prey. He may be well satisfied if he can -escape from it by paying it the tribute of -a single work only. He may judge how -unlikely it is that I should ‘despise’ him -for once falling a prey to it. I know far -too well how exposed to it we all are; how -exposed to it I myself am. At this very -moment, for example, I am fresh from -reading Mr Newman’s Reply to my Lectures, -a reply full of that erudition in which (as -I am so often and so good-naturedly reminded, -but indeed I know it without being -reminded) Mr Newman is immeasurably my -superior. Well, the demon that pushes us -all to our ruin is even now prompting me -to follow Mr Newman into a discussion -about the digamma, and I know not what -<span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span>providence holds me back. And some day, -I have no doubt, I shall lecture on the -language of the Berbers, and give him his -entire revenge.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But Mr Newman does not confine himself -to complaints on his own behalf, he complains -on Homer’s behalf too. He says -that my ‘statements about Greek literature -are against the most notorious and elementary -fact’; that I ‘do a public wrong -to literature by publishing them’; and -that the Professors to whom I appealed in -my three Lectures, ‘would only lose credit -if they sanctioned the use I make of their -names’. He does these eminent men the -kindness of adding, however, that ‘whether -they are pleased with this parading of their -names in behalf of paradoxical error, he -may well doubt’, and that ‘until they endorse -it themselves, he shall treat my process -as a piece of forgery’. He proceeds -to discuss my statements at great length, -and with an erudition and ingenuity which -nobody can admire more than I do. And -he ends by saying that my ignorance is great.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Alas! that is very true. Much as Mr -Newman was mistaken when he talked of -my rancour, he is entirely right when he -talks of my ignorance. And yet, perverse -as it seems to say so, I sometimes find myself -wishing, when dealing with these matters -of poetical criticism, that my ignorance -were even greater than it is. To handle -<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>these matters properly there is needed a -poise so perfect that the least overweight -in any direction tends to destroy the balance. -Temper destroys it, a crotchet destroys -it, even erudition may destroy it. -To press to the sense of the thing itself with -which one is dealing, not to go off on some -collateral issue about the thing, is the hardest -matter in the world. The ‘thing itself’ -with which one is here dealing, the critical -perception of poetic truth, is of all things -the most volatile, elusive, and evanescent; -by even pressing too impetuously after it, -one runs the risk of losing it. The critic -of poetry should have the finest tact, the -nicest moderation, the most free, flexible, -and elastic spirit imaginable; he should be -indeed the ‘ondoyant et divers’, the <i>undulating -and diverse</i> being of Montaigne. -The less he can deal with his object simply -and freely, the more things he has to take -into account in dealing with it, the more, -in short, he has to encumber himself, so -much the greater force of spirit he needs -to retain his elasticity. But one cannot -exactly have this greater force by wishing -for it; so, for the force of spirit one has, -the load put upon it is often heavier than it -will well bear. The late Duke of Wellington -said of a certain peer that ‘it was a great -pity his education had been so far too much -for his abilities’. In like manner, one often -sees erudition out of all proportion to its -<span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>owner’s critical faculty. Little as I know, -therefore, I am always apprehensive, in -dealing with poetry, lest even that little -should prove ‘too much for my abilities’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>With this consciousness of my own lack -of learning, nay, with this sort of acquiescence -in it, with this belief that for the -labourer in the field of poetical criticism -learning has its disadvantages, I am not -likely to dispute with Mr Newman about -matters of erudition. All that he says on -these matters in his Reply I read with great -interest; in general I agree with him; but -only, I am sorry to say, up to a certain -point. Like all learned men, accustomed -to desire definite rules, he draws his conclusions -too absolutely; he wants to include -too much under his rules; he does not quite -perceive that in poetical criticism the shade, -the fine distinction, is everything; and that, -when he has once missed this, in all he says -he is in truth but beating the air. For instance: -because I think Homer noble, he -imagines I must think him elegant; and -in fact he says in plain words that I do -think him so, that to me Homer seems -‘pervadingly elegant’. But he does not. -Virgil is elegant, ‘pervadingly elegant’, -even in passages of the highest emotion:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in28'>O, ubi campi,</div> - <div class='line'>Spercheosque, et virginibus bacchata Lacænis</div> - <div class='line'>Taygeta<a id='r57' /><a href='#f57' class='c009'><sup>[57]</sup></a>!</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>Even there Virgil, though of a divine elegance, -is still elegant, but Homer is not -elegant; the word is quite a wrong one -to apply to him, and Mr Newman is quite -right in blaming anyone he finds so applying -it. Again; arguing against my assertion -that Homer is not quaint, he says: -‘It is quaint to call waves <i>wet</i>, milk <i>white</i>, -blood <i>dusky</i>, horses <i>single-hoofed</i>, words -winged, Vulcan <i>Lobfoot</i> (<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Κυλλοποδίων</span>), a -spear <i>longshadowy</i>‘, and so on. I find I -know not how many distinctions to draw -here. I do not think it quaint to call -waves <i>wet</i>, or milk <i>white</i>, or words <i>winged</i>; -but I do think it quaint to call horses <i>single-hoofed</i>, -or Vulcan <i>Lobfoot</i>, or a spear <i>longshadowy</i>. -As to calling blood <i>dusky</i>, I do -not feel quite sure; I will tell Mr Newman -my opinion when I see the passage in which -he calls it so. But then, again, because it -is quaint to call Vulcan <i>Lobfoot</i>, I cannot -admit that it was quaint to call him <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Κυλλοποδίων</span>; -nor that, because it is quaint to -call a spear <i>longshadowy</i>, it was quaint to -call it <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">δολιχόσκιον</span>. Here Mr Newman’s -erudition misleads him: he knows the -literal value of the Greek so well, that he -thinks his literal rendering identical with -the Greek, and that the Greek must stand -or fall along with his rendering. But the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>real question is, not whether he has given -us, so to speak, full change for the Greek, -but <i>how</i> he gives us our change: we want -it in gold, and he gives it us in copper. -Again: ‘It is quaint’, says Mr Newman, -‘to address a young friend as “O Pippin”! -it is quaint to compare Ajax to an ass whom -boys are belabouring’. Here, too, Mr Newman -goes much too fast, and his category of -quaintness is too comprehensive. To address -a young friend as ‘O Pippin’! is, I -cordially agree with him, very quaint; although -I do not think it was quaint in -Sarpedon to address Glaucus as ὦ πέπον: -but in comparing, whether in Greek or in -English, Ajax to an ass whom boys are -belabouring, I do not see that there is of -necessity anything quaint at all. Again; -because I said that <i>eld</i>, <i>lief</i>, <i>in sooth</i>, and -other words, are, as Mr Newman uses them -in certain places, bad words, he imagines -that I must mean to stamp these words -with an absolute reprobation; and because -I said that ‘my Bibliolatry is excessive’, -he imagines that I brand all words as ignoble -which are not in the Bible. Nothing of the -kind: there are no such absolute rules to -be laid down in these matters. The Bible -vocabulary is to be used as an assistance, -not as an authority. Of the words which, -placed where Mr Newman places them, I -have called bad words, everyone may be -excellent in some other place. Take <i>eld</i>, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>for instance: when Shakspeare, reproaching -man with the dependence in which his youth -is passed, says:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in12'>all thy blessed youth</div> - <div class='line'>Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms</div> - <div class='line'>Of palsied <i>eld</i>, ...</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>it seems to me that <i>eld</i> comes in excellently -there, in a passage of curious meditation; -but when Mr Newman renders <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀγήρω τ’ -ἀθανάτω τε</span> by ‘from <i>Eld</i> and Death exempted’, -it seems to me he infuses a tinge -of quaintness into the transparent simplicity -of Homer’s expression, and so I call <i>eld</i> a -bad word in that place.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Once more. Mr Newman lays it down -as a general rule that ‘many of Homer’s -energetic descriptions are expressed in coarse -physical words’. He goes on: ‘I give -one illustration,—<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Τρῶες προὔτυψαν ἀολλέες</span>. -Cowper, misled by the <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>ignis fatuus</i></span> of -“stateliness” renders it absurdly:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The powers of Ilium gave the first assault</div> - <div class='line'>Embattled close;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>but it is, strictly, “The Trojans <i>knocked -forward</i> (or, thumped, butted forward) <i>in -close pack</i>”. The verb is too coarse for -later polished prose, and even the adjective -is very strong (<i>packed together</i>). I believe -that “forward in pack the Trojans pitched”, -would not be really unfaithful to the Homeric -colour; and I maintain that “forward in -mass the Trojans pitched”, would be an -<span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span>irreprovable rendering’. He actually gives -us all that as if it were a piece of scientific -deduction; and as if, at the end, he had -arrived at an incontrovertible conclusion. -But, in truth, one cannot settle these matters -quite in this way. Mr Newman’s general -rule may be true or false (I dislike to meddle -with general rules), but every part in what -follows must stand or fall by itself, and its -soundness or unsoundness has nothing at -all to do with the truth or falsehood of Mr -Newman’s general rule. He first gives, as -a strict rendering of the Greek, ‘The Trojans -knocked forward (or, thumped, butted forward), -in close pack’. I need not say that, -as a ‘strict rendering of the Greek’, this is -good; all Mr Newman’s ‘strict renderings of -the Greek’ are sure to be, as such, good; -but ‘in close pack’, for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀολλέες</span>, seems to -me to be what Mr Newman’s renderings are -not always,—an excellent <i>poetical rendering</i> -of the Greek; a thousand times better, -certainly, than Cowper’s ‘embattled close’. -Well, but Mr Newman goes on: ‘I believe -that, “forward in pack the Trojans pitched”, -would not be really unfaithful to the -Homeric colour’. Here, I say, the Homeric -colour is half washed out of Mr Newman’s -happy rendering of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀολλέες</span>; while in -‘pitched’ for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">προὔτυψαν</span>, the literal fidelity -of the first rendering is gone, while certainly -no Homeric colour has come in its place. -Finally, Mr Newman concludes: ‘I maintain -<span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>that “forward in mass the Trojans pitched”, -would be an irreprovable rendering’. Here, -in what Mr Newman fancies his final moment -of triumph, Homeric colour and literal -fidelity have alike abandoned him altogether; -the last stage of his translation is -much worse than the second, and immeasurably -worse than the first.</p> - -<p class='c005'>All this to show that a looser, easier -method than Mr Newman’s must be taken, -if we are to arrive at any good result in -these questions. I now go on to follow Mr -Newman a little further, not at all as wishing -to dispute with him, but as seeking (and this -is the true fruit we may gather from criticisms -upon us) to gain hints from him for -the establishment of some useful truth -about our subject, even when I think him -wrong. I still retain, I confess, my conviction -that Homer’s characteristic qualities -are rapidity of movement, plainness of words -and style, simplicity and directness of ideas, -and, above all, nobleness, the grand manner. -Whenever Mr Newman drops a word, -awakens a train of thought, which leads me -to see any of these characteristics more -clearly, I am grateful to him; and one or -two suggestions of this kind which he -affords, are all that now, having expressed -my sorrow that he should have misconceived -my feelings towards him, and pointed -out what I think the vice of his method of -criticism, I have to notice in his Reply.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>Such a suggestion I find in Mr Newman’s -remarks on my assertion that the translator -of Homer must not adopt a quaint and -antiquated style in rendering him, because -the impression which Homer makes upon -the living scholar is not that of a poet -quaint and antiquated, but that of a poet -perfectly simple, perfectly intelligible. I -added that we cannot, I confess, really -know how Homer seemed to Sophocles, -but that it is impossible to me to believe -that he seemed to him quaint and antiquated. -Mr Newman asserts, on the other -hand, that I am absurdly wrong here; that -Homer seemed ‘out and out’ quaint and -antiquated to the Athenians; that ‘every -sentence of him was more or less antiquated -to Sophocles, who could no more help -feeling at every instant the foreign and -antiquated character of the poetry than an -Englishman can help feeling the same in -reading Burns’ poems’. And not only -does Mr Newman say this, but he has managed -thoroughly to convince some of his -readers of it. ‘Homer’s Greek’, says one -of them, ‘certainly seemed antiquated to -the historical times of Greece. Mr Newman, -taking a far broader historical and philological -view than Mr Arnold, stoutly maintains -that it did seem so.’ And another says: -‘Doubtless Homer’s dialect and diction were -as hard and obscure to a later Attic Greek -as Chaucer to an Englishman of our day.’</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span>Mr Newman goes on to say, that not only -was Homer antiquated relatively to Pericles, -but he is antiquated to the living scholar; -and, indeed, is in himself ‘absolutely antique, -being the poet of a barbarian age’. He -tells us of his ‘inexhaustible quaintnesses’, -of his ‘very eccentric diction’; and he -infers, of course, that he is perfectly right -in rendering him in a quaint and antiquated -style.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Now this question, whether or no Homer -seemed quaint and antiquated to Sophocles, -I call a delightful question to raise. It is -not a barren verbal dispute; it is a question -‘drenched in matter’, to use an expression -of Bacon; a question full of flesh and blood, -and of which the scrutiny, though I still -think we cannot settle absolutely, may yet -give us a directly useful result. To scrutinize -it may lead us to see more clearly -what sort of a style a modern translator -of Homer ought to adopt.</p> - -<p class='c005'>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 -<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>were sure to be so perpetually conversant, -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.</p> - -<p class='c005'>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 everyone who -made that sort of poetry composed. Everyone -at Athens who dabbled in epic poetry, -not only understood Homer’s language, he -possessed it. He possessed it as everyone -who dabbles in poetry with us, possesses -what may be called the poetical vocabulary, -as distinguished from the vocabulary of -common speech and of modern prose: -I mean, such expressions as <i>perchance</i> for -<i>perhaps</i>, <i>spake</i> for <i>spoke</i>, <i>aye</i> for <i>ever</i>, <i>don</i> -for <i>put on</i>, <i>charméd</i> for <i>charm’d</i>, and thousands -of others.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I might go to Burns and Chaucer, and, -taking words and passages from them, ask -if they afforded any parallel to a language -so familiar and so possessed. But this I -will not do, for Mr Newman himself supplies -me with what he thinks a fair parallel, in -its effect upon us, to the language of Homer -<span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>in its effect upon Sophocles. He says that -such words as <i>mon</i>, <i>londis</i>, <i>libbard</i>, <i>withouten</i>, -<i>muchel</i>, give us a tolerable but incomplete -notion of this parallel; and he finally exhibits -the parallel in all its clearness, by this -poetical specimen:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Dat mon, quhich hauldeth Kyngis af</div> - <div class='line in2'>Londis yn féo, niver</div> - <div class='line'>(I tell ’e) feereth aught; sith hee</div> - <div class='line in2'>Doth hauld hys londis yver.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Now, does Mr Newman really think that -Sophocles could, as he says, ‘no more help -feeling at every instant the foreign and -antiquated character of Homer, than an -Englishman can help feeling the same in -hearing these lines’? Is he quite sure of -it? He says he is; he will not allow of -any doubt or hesitation in the matter. I -had confessed we could not really know -how Homer seemed to Sophocles; ‘Let Mr -Arnold confess for himself’, cries Mr Newman, -‘and not for me, who know perfectly -well’. And this is what he knows!</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Newman says, however, that I ‘play -fallaciously on the words familiar and unfamiliar’; -that ‘Homer’s words may have -been familiar to the Athenians (<i>i.e.</i> often -heard) even when they were either not -understood by them or else, being understood, -were yet felt and known to be utterly -foreign. Let my renderings’, he continues, -‘be heard, as Pope or even Cowper has been -heard, and no one will be “surprised”’.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>But the whole question is here. The -translator must not assume that to have -taken place which has not taken place, -although, perhaps, he may wish it to have -taken place, namely, that his diction is -become an established possession of the -minds of men, and therefore is, in its proper -place, familiar to them, will not ‘surprise’ -them. If Homer’s language was familiar, -that is, often heard, then to his language -words like <i>londis</i> and <i>libbard</i>, which are not -familiar, offer, for the translator’s purpose, -no parallel. For some purpose of the philologer -they may offer a parallel to it; for the -translator’s purpose they offer none. The -question is not, whether a diction is antiquated -for current speech, but whether it -is antiquated for that particular purpose -for which it is employed. A diction that -is antiquated for common speech and common -prose, may very well not be antiquated -for poetry or certain special kinds of prose. -‘Peradventure there shall be ten found -there’, is not antiquated for Biblical prose, -though for conversation or for a newspaper -it is antiquated. ‘The trumpet spake not -to the arméd throng’, is not antiquated for -poetry, although we should not write in a -letter, ‘he <i>spake</i> to me’, or say, ‘the -British soldier is <i>arméd</i> with the Enfield -rifle’. But when language is antiquated -for that particular purpose for which it is -employed, as numbers of Chaucer’s words, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>for instance, are antiquated for poetry, -such language is a bad representative of -language which, like Homer’s, was never -antiquated for that particular purpose for -which it was employed. I imagine that -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Πηληϊάδεω</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Πηλείδου</span>, in Homer, no -more sounded antiquated to Sophocles, than -<i>arméd</i> for <i>arm’d</i>, in Milton, sounds antiquated -to us; but Mr Newman’s <i>withouten</i> -and <i>muchel</i> do sound to us antiquated, even -for poetry, and therefore they do not correspond -in their effect upon us with Homer’s -words in their effect upon Sophocles. When -Chaucer, who uses such words, is to pass -current amongst us, to be familiar to us, -as Homer was familiar to the Athenians, -he has to be modernized, as Wordsworth -and others set to work to modernize him; -but an Athenian no more needed to have -Homer modernized, than we need to have -the Bible modernized, or Wordsworth himself.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Therefore, when Mr Newman’s words -<i>bragly</i>, <i>bulkin</i>, and the rest, are an established -possession of our minds, as Homer’s -words were an established possession of an -Athenian’s mind, he may use them; but not -till then. Chaucer’s words, the words of -Burns, great poets as these were, are yet -not thus an established possession of an -Englishman’s mind, and therefore they -must not be used in rendering Homer into -English.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span>Mr Newman has been misled just by -doing that which his admirer praises him -for doing, by taking a ‘far broader historical -and philological view than mine’. Precisely -because he has done this, and has applied -the ‘philological view’ where it was not -applicable, but where the ‘poetical view’ -alone was rightly applicable, he has fallen -into error.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It is the same with him in his remarks on -the difficulty and obscurity of Homer. -Homer, I say, is perfectly plain in speech, -simple, and intelligible. And I infer from -this that his translator, too, ought to be -perfectly plain in speech, simple, and intelligible; -ought not to say, for instance, -in rendering</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Οὔτε κέ σε στέλλοιμι μάχην ἐς κυδιάνειραν ...</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>‘Nor liefly thee would I advance to man-ennobling -battle’,—and things of that kind. -Mr Newman hands me a list of some twenty -hard words, invokes Buttmann, Mr Malden, -and M. Benfey, and asks me if I think myself -wiser than all the world of Greek scholars, -and if I am ready to supply the deficiencies -of Liddell and Scott’s <i>Lexicon</i>! But here, -again, Mr Newman errs by not perceiving -that the question is not one of scholarship, -but of a poetical translation of Homer. -This, I say, should be perfectly simple and -intelligible. He replies by telling me that -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀδινὸς, εἰλίποδες</span>, and <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">σιγαλόεις</span> are hard -<span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>words. Well, but what does he infer from -that? That the poetical translation, in his -rendering of them, is to give us a sense of -the difficulties of the scholar, and so is to -make his translation obscure? If he does -not mean that, how, by bringing forward -these hard words, does he touch the question -whether an English version of Homer should -be plain or not plain? If Homer’s poetry, -as poetry, is in its general effect on the -poetical reader perfectly simple and intelligible, -the uncertainty of the scholar about -the true meaning of certain words can never -change this general effect. Rather will the -poetry of Homer make us forget his philology, -than his philology make us forget his -poetry. It may even be affirmed that everyone -who reads Homer perpetually for the -sake of enjoying his poetry (and no one who -does not so read him will ever translate him -well), comes at last to form a perfectly clear -sense in his own mind for every important -word in Homer, such as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀδινὸς</span>, or <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἠλίβατος</span>, -whatever the scholar’s doubts about the -word may be. And this sense is present -to his mind with perfect clearness and fulness, -whenever the word recurs, although -as a scholar he may know that he cannot -be sure whether this sense is the right one -or not. But poetically he feels clearly -about the word, although philologically he -may not. The scholar in him may hesitate, -like the father in Sheridan’s play; but the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>reader of poetry in him is, like the governor, -fixed. The same thing happens to us with -our own language. How many words occur -in the Bible, for instance, to which thousands -of hearers do not feel sure they attach the -precise real meaning; but they make out -<i>a</i> meaning for them out of what materials -they have at hand; and the words, heard -over and over again, come to convey this -meaning with a certainty which poetically -is adequate, though not philologically. How -many have attached a clear and poetically -adequate sense to ‘<i>the beam</i>’ and ‘<i>the -mote</i>’, though not precisely the right one! -How clearly, again, have readers got a sense -from Milton’s words, ‘grate on their <i>scrannel</i> -pipes’, who yet might have been puzzled -to write a commentary on the word <i>scrannel</i> -for the dictionary! So we get a clear sense -from <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀδινὸs</span> as an epithet for grief, after -often meeting with it and finding out all -we can about it, even though that all be -philologically insufficient; so we get a clear -sense from <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εἰλίποδες</span> as an epithet for cows. -And this his clear poetical sense about the -words, not his philological uncertainties -about them, is what the translator has to -convey. Words like <i>bragly</i> and <i>bulkin</i> offer -no parallel to these words; because the -reader, from his entire want of familiarity -with the words bragly and bulkin, has no -clear sense of them poetically.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Perplexed by his knowledge of the philological -<span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>aspect of Homer’s language, encumbered -by his own learning, Mr Newman, I -say, misses the poetical aspect, misses that -with which alone we are here concerned. -‘Homer <i>is</i> odd’, he persists, fixing his eyes -on his own philological analysis of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μώνυξ</span>, -and <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροψς</span>, and <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Κυλλοποδίων</span>, and not on -these words in their synthetic character;—just -as Professor Max Müller, going a little -farther back, and fixing his attention on the -elementary value of the word <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">θυγάτηρ</span>, might -say Homer was ‘odd’ for using <i>that</i> word;—‘if -the whole Greek nation, by long -familiarity, had become inobservant of -Homer’s oddities’, of the oddities of this -‘noble barbarian’, as Mr Newman elsewhere -calls him, this ‘noble barbarian’ with the -‘lively eye of the savage’, ‘that would be -no fault of mine. That would not justify -Mr Arnold’s blame of me for rendering the -words correctly’. <i>Correctly</i>,—ah, but what -<i>is</i> correctness in this case? This correctness -of his is the very rock on which Mr Newman -has split. He is so correct that at last he -finds peculiarity everywhere. The true -knowledge of Homer becomes at last, in -his eyes, a knowledge of Homer’s ‘peculiarities, -pleasant and unpleasant’. Learned -men know these ‘peculiarities’, and Homer -is to be translated because the unlearned -are impatient to know them too. ‘That’, -he exclaims, ‘is just why people want to -read an English Homer, <i>to know all his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>oddities, just as learned men do</i>’. Here I -am obliged to shake my head, and to declare -that, in spite of all my respect for Mr Newman, -I cannot go these lengths with him. -He talks of my ‘monomaniac fancy that -there is nothing quaint or antique in -Homer’. Terrible learning, I cannot help -in my turn exclaiming, terrible learning, -which discovers so much!</p> - -<p class='c005'>Here, then, I take my leave of Mr Newman, -retaining my opinion that his version -of Homer is spoiled by his making Homer -odd and ignoble; but having, I hope, -sufficient love for literature to be able to -canvass works without thinking of persons, -and to hold this or that production cheap, -while retaining a sincere respect, on other -grounds, for its author.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In fulfilment of my promise to take this -opportunity for giving the translator of -Homer a little further advice, I proceed to -notice one or two other criticisms which I -find, in like manner, <i>suggestive</i>; which give -us an opportunity, that is, of seeing more -clearly, as we look into them, the true -principles on which translation of Homer -should rest. This is all I seek in criticisms; -and, perhaps (as I have already said) it is -only as one seeks a positive result of this -kind, that one can get any fruit from them. -Seeking a negative result from them, personal -altercation and wrangling, one gets -no fruit; seeking a positive result, the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>elucidation and establishment of one’s ideas, -one may get much. Even bad criticisms -may thus be made suggestive and fruitful. -I declared, in a former lecture on this subject, -my conviction that criticism is not the -strong point of our national literature. -Well, even the bad criticisms on our present -topic which I meet with, serve to illustrate -this conviction for me. And thus one is -enabled, even in reading remarks which for -Homeric criticism, for their immediate subject, -have no value, which are far too personal -in spirit, far too immoderate in temper, -and far too heavy-handed in style, for the -delicate matter they have to treat, still to -gain light and confirmation for a serious -idea, and to follow the Baconian injunction, -<i>semper aliquid addiscere</i>, always to be adding -to one’s stock of observation and knowledge. -Yes, even when we have to do with -writers who, to quote the words of an exquisite -critic, the master of us all in criticism, -M. Sainte-Beuve, remind us, when they -handle such subjects as our present, of -‘Romans of the fourth or fifth century, -coming to hold forth, all at random, in -African style, on papers found in the desk -of Augustus, Mæcenas, or Pollio’, even then -we may instruct ourselves if we may regard -ideas and not persons; even then we may -enable ourselves to say, with the same critic -describing the effect made upon him by -D’Argenson’s <i>Memoirs</i>: ‘My taste is revolted, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>but I learn something; <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Je suis -choqué mais je suis instruit</i></span>’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But let us pass to criticisms which are -suggestive directly and not thus indirectly -only, criticisms by examining which we may -be brought nearer to what immediately interests -us, the right way of translating -Homer.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I said that Homer did not rise and sink -with his subject, was never to be called -prosaic and low. This gives surprise to -many persons, who object that parts of -the <i>Iliad</i> are certainly pitched lower than -others, and who remind me of a number -of absolutely level passages in Homer. But -I never denied that a <i>subject</i> must rise and -sink, that it must have its elevated and its -level regions; all I deny is, that a poet -can be said to rise and sink when all that -he, as a poet, can do, is perfectly well done; -when he is perfectly sound and good, that -is, perfect as a poet, in the level regions of -his subject as well as in its elevated regions. -Indeed, what distinguishes the greatest -masters of poetry from all others is, that -they are perfectly sound and poetical in -these level regions of their subject, in these -regions which are the great difficulty of all -poets but the very greatest, which they -never quite know what to do with. A poet -may sink in these regions by being falsely -grand as well as by being low; he sinks, -in short, whenever he does not treat his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>matter, whatever it is, in a perfectly good -and poetic way. But, so long as he treats -it in this way, he cannot be said to <i>sink</i>, -whatever his matter may do. A passage -of the simplest narrative is quoted to me -from Homer:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὤτρυνεν δὲ ἕκαστον ἐποιχόμενος ἐπέεσσιν,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Μέσθλην τε, Γλαῦκόν τε, Μέδοντά τε, θερσιλοχόν τε</span> ...<a id='r58' /><a href='#f58' class='c009'><sup>[58]</sup></a></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>and I am asked, whether Homer does not -sink <i>there</i>; whether he ‘<i>can</i> have intended -such lines as those for poetry’? My answer -is: Those lines are very good poetry indeed, -poetry of the best class, <i>in that place</i>. But -when Wordsworth, having to narrate a very -plain matter, tries <i>not</i> to sink in narrating -it, tries, in short, to be what is falsely called -poetical, he does sink, although he sinks -by being pompous, not by being low.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Onward we drove beneath the Castle; caught,</div> - <div class='line'>While crossing Magdalen Bridge, a glimpse of Cam,</div> - <div class='line'>And at the Hoop alighted, famous inn.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>That last line shows excellently how a poet -may sink with his subject by resolving not -to sink with it. A page or two farther on, -the subject rises to grandeur, and then -Wordsworth is nobly worthy of it:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The antechapel, where the statue stood</div> - <div class='line'>Of Newton with his prism and silent face,</div> - <div class='line'>The marble index of a mind for ever</div> - <div class='line'>Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>But the supreme poet is he who is thoroughly -sound and poetical, alike when his subject -is grand, and when it is plain: with him -the subject may sink, but never the poet. -But a Dutch painter does not rise and sink -with his subject; Defoe, in <i>Moll Flanders</i>, -does not rise and sink with his subject, -in so far as an artist cannot be said to sink -who is sound in his treatment of his subject, -however plain it is: yet Defoe, yet a Dutch -painter, may in one sense be said to sink -with their subject, because though sound -in their treatment of it, they are not <i>poetical</i>, -poetical in the true, not the false sense of -the word; because, in fact, they are not -in the grand style. Homer can in no sense -be said to sink with his subject, because -his soundness has something more than -literal naturalness about it; because his -soundness is the soundness of Homer, of -a great epic poet; because, in fact, he is -in the grand style. So he sheds over the -simplest matter he touches the charm of his -grand manner; he makes everything noble. -Nothing has raised more questioning among -my critics than these words, <i>noble</i>, <i>the grand -style</i>. People complain that I do not define -these words sufficiently, that I do not tell -them enough about them. ‘The grand -style, but what <i>is</i> the grand style’? they -cry; some with an inclination to believe -in it, but puzzled; others mockingly and -with incredulity. Alas! the grand style -<span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>is the last matter in the world for verbal -definition to deal with adequately. One -may say of it as is said of faith: ‘One must -feel it in order to know what it is’. But, -as of faith, so too one may say of nobleness, -of the grand style: ‘Woe to those who -know it not’! Yet this expression, though -indefinable, has a charm; one is the better -for considering it; <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>bonum est, nos hic esse</i></span>; -nay, one loves to try to explain it, though -one knows that one must speak imperfectly. -For those, then, who ask the question, -What is the grand style? with sincerity, -I will try to make some answer, inadequate -as it must be. For those who ask it mockingly -I have no answer, except to repeat -to them, with compassionate sorrow, the -Gospel words: <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>Moriemini in peccatis vestris</i></span>, -Ye shall die in your sins.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But let me, at any rate, have the pleasure -of again giving, before I begin to try and -define the grand style, a specimen of what -it <i>is</i>.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Standing on earth, not wrapt above the pole,</div> - <div class='line'>More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged</div> - <div class='line'>To hoarse or mute, though fall’n on evil days,</div> - <div class='line'>On evil days though fall’n, and evil tongues....</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>There is the grand style in perfection; and -anyone who has a sense for it, will feel it -a thousand times better from repeating -those lines than from hearing anything I -can say about it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Let us try, however, what <i>can</i> be said, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span>controlling what we say by examples. I think -it will be found that the grand style arises -in poetry, <i>when a noble nature, poetically -gifted, treats with simplicity or with severity a -serious subject</i>. I think this definition will be -found to cover all instances of the grand style -in poetry which present themselves. I think -it will be found to exclude all poetry which -is not in the grand style. And I think it -contains no terms which are obscure, which -themselves need defining. Even those who -do not understand what is meant by calling -poetry noble, will understand, I imagine, -what is meant by speaking of a noble nature -in a man. But the noble or powerful -nature—the <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>bedeutendes Individuum</i></span> of -Goethe—is not enough. For instance, Mr -Newman has zeal for learning, zeal for thinking, -zeal for liberty, and all these things are -noble, they ennoble a man; but he has not -the poetical gift: there must be the poetical -gift, the ‘divine faculty’, also. And, besides -all this, the subject must be a serious -one (for it is only by a kind of licence that -we can speak of the grand style in comedy); -and it must be treated <i>with simplicity or -severity</i>. Here is the great difficulty: the -poets of the world have been many; there -has been wanting neither abundance of -poetical gift nor abundance of noble natures; -but a poetical gift so happy, in a noble -nature so circumstanced and trained, that -the result is a continuous style, perfect in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span>simplicity or perfect in severity, has been -extremely rare. One poet has had the gifts -of nature and faculty in unequalled fulness, -without the circumstances and training -which make this sustained perfection of -style possible. Of other poets, some have -caught this perfect strain now and then, -in short pieces or single lines, but have not -been able to maintain it through considerable -works; others have composed all -their productions in a style which, by -comparison with the best, one must call -secondary.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The best model of the grand style simple -is Homer; perhaps the best model of the -grand style severe is Milton. But Dante is -remarkable for affording admirable examples -of both styles; he has the grand style -which arises from simplicity, and he has -the grand style which arises from severity; -and from him I will illustrate them both. -In a former lecture I pointed out what that -severity of poetical style is, which comes -from saying a thing with a kind of intense -compression, or in an illusive, brief, almost -haughty way, as if the poet’s mind were -charged with so many and such grave -matters, that he would not deign to treat -any one of them explicitly. Of this severity -the last line of the following stanza of the -<i>Purgatory</i> is a good example. Dante has -been telling Forese that Virgil had guided -him through Hell, and he goes on:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Indi m’ han tratto su gli suoi conforti,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Salendo e rigirando la Montagna</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="it" xml:lang="it"><i>Che drizza voi che il mondo fece torti</i></span><a id='r59' /><a href='#f59' class='c009'><sup>[59]</sup></a>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>‘Thence hath his comforting aid led me up, -climbing and circling the Mountain, <i>which -straightens you whom the world made crooked</i>’. -These last words, <span lang="it" xml:lang="it">‘la Montagna <i>che drizza voi -che il mondo fece torti</i>’</span>, ‘the Mountain <i>which -straightens you whom the world made crooked</i>’, -for the Mountain of Purgatory, I call an excellent -specimen of the grand style in -severity, where the poet’s mind is too full -charged to suffer him to speak more explicitly. -But the very next stanza is a -beautiful specimen of the grand style in -simplicity, where a noble nature and a -poetical gift unite to utter a thing with the -most limpid plainness and clearness:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Tanto dice di farmi sua compagna</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Ch’ io sarὸ là dove fia Beatrice;</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Quivi convien che senza lui rimagna</span><a id='r60' /><a href='#f60' class='c009'><sup>[60]</sup></a>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>‘So long’, Dante continues, ‘so long he -(Virgil) saith he will bear me company, -until I shall be there where Beatrice is; -there it behoves that without him I remain’. -But the noble simplicity of that -in the Italian no words of mine can render.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Both these styles, the simple and the -severe, are truly grand; the severe seems, -perhaps, the grandest, so long as we attend -most to the great personality, to the noble -<span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>nature, in the poet its author; the simple -seems the grandest when we attend most -to the exquisite faculty, to the poetical gift. -But the simple is no doubt to be preferred. -It is the more <i>magical</i>: in the other there -is something intellectual, something which -gives scope for a play of thought which may -exist where the poetical gift is either wanting -or present in only inferior degree: the -severe is much more imitable, and this a -little spoils its charm. A kind of semblance -of this style keeps Young going, one -may say, through all the nine parts of that -most indifferent production, the <i>Night -Thoughts</i>. But the grand style in simplicity -is inimitable:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in12'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">αἰὼν ἀσφαλὴς</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">οὐκ ἔγεντ’ οὔτ’ Αἰακίδᾳ παρὰ Πηλεῖ,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">οὔτε παρ’ ἀντιθέῳ Κάδμῳ· λέγονται μὰν βροτῶν</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὄλβον ὑπέρτατον οἱ σχεῖν, οἵ τε καὶ χρυσαμπύκων</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μελπομενᾶν ἐν ὄρει Μοισᾶν, καὶ ἐν ἑπταπύλοις</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἄϊον Θήβαις</span> ..<a id='r61' /><a href='#f61' class='c009'><sup>[61]</sup></a>..</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>There is a limpidness in that, a want of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span>salient points to seize and transfer, which -makes imitation impossible, except by a -genius akin to the genius which produced it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Greek simplicity and Greek grace are inimitable; -but it is said that the <i>Iliad</i> may -still be ballad-poetry while infinitely superior -to all other ballads, and that, in my specimens -of English ballad-poetry, I have been -unfair. Well, no doubt there are better -things in English ballad-poetry than</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Now Christ thee save, thou proud portér, ...</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>but the real strength of a chain, they say, -is the strength of its weakest link; and -what I was trying to show you was, that the -English ballad-style is not an instrument -of enough compass and force to correspond -to the Greek hexameter; that, owing to an -inherent weakness in it as an epic style, -it easily runs into one or two faults, either -it is prosaic and humdrum, or, trying to -avoid that fault, and to make itself lively -(<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>se faire vif</i></span>), it becomes pert and jaunty. -To show that, the passage about King -Adland’s porter serves very well. But these -degradations are not proper to a true epic -instrument, such as the Greek hexameter.</p> - -<p class='c005'>You may say, if you like, when you find -Homer’s verse, even in describing the -plainest matter, neither humdrum nor -jaunty, that this is because he is so incomparably -better a poet than other balladists, -because he is Homer. But take the whole -<span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span>range of Greek epic poetry, take the later -poets, the poets of the last ages of this -poetry, many of them most indifferent, -Coluthus, Tryphiodorus, Quintus of Smyrna, -Nonnus. Never will you find in this instrument -of the hexameter, even in their -hands, the vices of the ballad-style in the -weak moments of this last: everywhere the -hexameter, a noble, a truly epical instrument, -rather resists the weakness of its employer -than lends itself to it. Quintus of Smyrna -is a poet of merit, but certainly not a poet -of a high order: with him, too, epic poetry, -whether in the character of its prosody or -in that of its diction, is no longer the epic -poetry of earlier and better times, nor epic -poetry as again restored by Nonnus: but -even in Quintus of Smyrna, I say, the hexameter -is still the hexameter; it is a style -which the ballad-style, even in the hands -of better poets, cannot rival. And in the -hands of inferior poets, the ballad-style -sinks to vices of which the hexameter, even -in the hands of a Tryphiodorus, never can -become guilty.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But a critic, whom it is impossible to read -without pleasure, and the disguise of whose -initials I am sure I may be allowed to penetrate, -Mr Spedding says that he ‘denies -altogether that the metrical movement of -the English hexameter has any resemblance -to that of the Greek’. Of course, in that -case, if the two metres in no respect correspond, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>praise accorded to the Greek hexameter -as an epical instrument will not extend -to the English. Mr Spedding seeks to -establish his proposition by pointing out -that the system of accentuation differs in -the English and in the Virgilian hexameter; -that in the first, the accent and the long -syllable (or what has to do duty as such) -coincide, in the second they do not. He -says that we cannot be so sure of the accent -with which Greek verse should be read as -of that with which Latin should; but that -the lines of Homer in which the accent and -the long syllable coincide, as in the English -hexameter, are certainly very rare. He -suggests a type of English hexameter in -agreement with the Virgilian model, and -formed on the supposition that ‘quantity -is as distinguishable in English as in Latin -or Greek by any ear that will attend to it’. -Of the truth of this supposition he entertains -no doubt. The new hexameter will, Mr -Spedding thinks, at least have the merit -of resembling, in its metrical movement, -the classical hexameter, which merit the -ordinary English hexameter has not. But -even with this improved hexameter he is not -satisfied; and he goes on, first to suggest -other metres for rendering Homer, and -finally to suggest that rendering Homer is -impossible.</p> - -<p class='c005'>A scholar to whom all who admire Lucretius -owe a large debt of gratitude, Mr -<span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>Munro, has replied to Mr Spedding. Mr -Munro declares that ‘the accent of the old -Greeks and Romans resembled our accent -only in name, in reality was essentially -different’; that ‘our English reading of -Homer and Virgil has in itself no meaning’; -and that ‘accent has nothing to do with -the Virgilian hexameter’. If this be so, -of course the merit which Mr Spedding attributes -to his own hexameter, of really -corresponding with the Virgilian hexameter, -has no existence. Again; in contradiction -to Mr Spedding’s assertion that -lines in which (in our reading of them) the -accent and the long syllable coincide<a id='r62' /><a href='#f62' class='c009'><sup>[62]</sup></a>, as -in the ordinary English hexameter, are ‘rare -even in Homer’, Mr Munro declares that -such lines, ‘instead of being rare, are among -the very commonest types of Homeric -rhythm’. Mr Spedding asserts that ‘quantity -is as distinguishable in English as in -Latin or Greek by any ear that will attend -to it’; but Mr Munro replies, that in English -‘neither his ear nor his reason recognises any -real distinction of quantity except that -which is produced by accentuated and unaccentuated -syllables’. He therefore arrives -at the conclusion that in constructing -English hexameters, ‘quantity must be -<span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>utterly discarded; and longer or shorter -unaccentuated syllables can have no meaning, -except so far as they may be made to -produce sweeter or harsher sounds in the -hands of a master’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It is not for me to interpose between two -such combatants; and indeed my way lies, -not up the highroad where they are contending, -but along a bypath. With the -absolute truth of their general propositions -respecting accent and quantity, I have -nothing to do; it is most interesting and -instructive to me to hear such propositions -discussed, when it is Mr Munro or Mr -Spedding who discusses them; but I have -strictly limited myself in these Lectures to -the humble function of giving practical advice -to the translator of Homer. He, I -still think, must not follow so confidently, -as makers of English hexameters have -hitherto followed, Mr Munro’s maxim, -<i>quantity may be utterly discarded</i>. He must -not, like Mr Longfellow, make <i>seventeen</i> a -dactyl in spite of all the length of its last -syllable, even though he can plead that in -counting we lay the accent on the first -syllable of this word. He may be far from -attaining Mr Spedding’s nicety of ear; may -be unable to feel that ‘while <i>quantity</i> is a -dactyl, <i>quiddity</i> is a tribrach’, and that -‘<i>rapidly</i> is a word to which we find no -parallel in Latin’; but I think he must -bring himself to distinguish, with Mr Spedding, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>between ‘<i>th’ o’er</i>-wearied eyelid’, and -‘<i>the</i> wearied eyelid’, as being, the one a -correct ending for a hexameter, the other -an ending with a false quantity in it; instead -of finding, with Mr Munro, that this -distinction ‘conveys to his mind no intelligible -idea’. He must temper his belief -in Mr Munro’s dictum, <i>quantity must be -utterly discarded</i>, by mixing with it a belief -in this other dictum of the same author, -<i>two or more consonants take longer time in -enunciating than one</i><a id='r63' /><a href='#f63' class='c009'><sup>[63]</sup></a>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Criticism is so apt in general to be vague -and impalpable, that when it gives us a -solid and definite possession, such as is Mr -Spedding’s parallel of the Virgilian and the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span>English hexameter with their difference of -accentuation distinctly marked, we cannot -be too grateful to it. It is in the way in -which Mr Spedding proceeds to press his -conclusions from the parallel which he has -drawn out, that his criticism seems to me -to come a little short. Here even he, I -think, shows (if he will allow me to say so) -a little of that want of pliancy and suppleness -so common among critics, but so -dangerous to their criticism; he is a little -too absolute in imposing his metrical laws; -he too much forgets the excellent maxim -of Menander, so applicable to literary criticism:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Καλὸν οἱ νόμοι σφόδρ’ εἰσίν· ὁ δ’ ὁρῶν τοὺς νόμους</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">λίαν ἀκριβῶς, συκοφάντης φαίνεται·</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>‘Laws are admirable things; but he who -keeps his eye too closely fixed upon them, -runs the risk of becoming’, let us say, a -purist. Mr Spedding is probably mistaken -in supposing that Virgil pronounced his -hexameters as Mr Spedding pronounces -them. He is almost certainly mistaken in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>supposing that Homer pronounced his hexameters -as Mr Spedding pronounces Virgil’s. -But this, as I have said, is not a question -for us to treat; all we are here concerned -with is the imitation, by the English hexameter, -of the ancient hexameter <i>in its effect -upon us moderns</i>. Suppose we concede to -Mr Spedding that his parallel proves our -accentuation of the English and of the -Virgilian hexameter to be different: what -are we to conclude from that; how will a -criticism, not a formal, but a substantial -criticism, deal with such a fact as that? -Will it infer, as Mr Spedding infers, that the -English hexameter, therefore, must not pretend -to reproduce better than other rhythms -the movement of Homer’s hexameter for -us, that there can be no correspondence at -all between the movement of these two hexameters, -that if we want to have such a correspondence, -we must abandon the current -English hexameter altogether, and adopt in -its place a new hexameter of Mr Spedding’s -Anglo-Latin type, substitute for lines like -the</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Clearly the rest I behold of the dark-eyed sons of Achaia ...</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>of Dr Hawtrey, lines like the</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Procession, complex melodies, pause, quantity, accent,</div> - <div class='line'>After Virgilian precedent and practice, in order ...</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>of Mr Spedding? To infer this, is to go, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>as I have complained of Mr Newman for -sometimes going, a great deal too fast. I -think prudent criticism must certainly recognise, -in the current English hexameter, -a fact which cannot so lightly be set aside; -it must acknowledge that by this hexameter -the English ear, the genius of the English -language, have, in their own way, adopted, -have <i>translated</i> for themselves the Homeric -hexameter; and that a rhythm which has -thus grown up, which is thus, in a manner, -the production of nature, has in its general -type something necessary and inevitable, -something which admits change only within -narrow limits, which precludes change that -is sweeping and essential. I think, therefore, -the prudent critic will regard Mr -Spedding’s proposed revolution as simply -impracticable. He will feel that in English -poetry the hexameter, if used at all, must -be, in the main, the English hexameter now -current. He will perceive that its having -come into existence as the representative -of the Homeric hexameter, proves it to -have, for the English ear, a certain correspondence -with the Homeric hexameter, -although this correspondence may be, from -the difference of the Greek and English -languages, necessarily incomplete. This -incompleteness he will endeavour<a id='r64' /><a href='#f64' class='c009'><sup>[64]</sup></a>, as he -<span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span>may find or fancy himself able, gradually -somewhat to lessen through minor changes, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_264'>264</span>suggested by the ancient hexameter, but -respecting the general constitution of the -modern: the notion of making it disappear -altogether by the critic’s inventing in his -closet a new constitution of his own for the -English hexameter, he will judge to be a -chimerical dream.</p> - -<p class='c005'>When, therefore, Mr Spedding objects to -the English hexameter, that it imperfectly -represents the movement of the ancient -hexameters, I answer: We must work with -the tools we have. The received English -type, in its general outlines, is, for England, -the necessary given type of this metre; it -is by rendering the metrical beat of its -pattern, not by rendering the accentual -beat of it, that the English language has -adapted the Greek hexameter. To render -the metrical beat of its pattern is something; -by effecting so much as this the -English hexameter puts itself in closer relations -with its original, it comes nearer to -its movement than any other metre which -does not even effect so much as this; but -Mr Spedding is dissatisfied with it for not -effecting more still, for not rendering the -accentual beat too. If he asks me <i>why</i> the -English hexameter has not tried to render -this too, <i>why</i> it has confined itself to rendering -the metrical beat, <i>why</i>, in short, it is -itself, and not Mr Spedding’s new hexameter, -that is a question which I, whose only business -is to give practical advice to a translator, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span>am not bound to answer; but I will -not decline to answer it nevertheless. I will -suggest to Mr Spedding that, as I have already -said, the modern hexameter is merely -an attempt to imitate the effect of the -ancient hexameter, as read by us moderns; -that the great object of its imitation has -been the hexameter of Homer; that of this -hexameter such lines as those which Mr -Spedding declares to be so rare, even in -Homer, but which are in truth so common, -lines in which the quantity and the reader’s -accent coincide, are, for the English reader, -just from that simplicity (for him) of rhythm -which they owe to this very coincidence, the -master-type; that so much is this the case -that one may again and again notice an -English reader of Homer, in reading lines -where his Virgilian accent would not coincide -with the quantity, abandoning this -accent, and reading the lines (as we say) -<i>by quantity</i>, reading them as if he were -scanning them; while foreigners neglect -our Virgilian accent even in reading Virgil, -read even Virgil by quantity, making the -accents coincide with the long syllables. -And no doubt the hexameter of a kindred -language, the German, based on this mode -of reading the ancient hexameter, has had -a powerful influence upon the type of its -English fellow. But all this shows how -extremely powerful accent is for us moderns, -since we find not even Greek and Latin -<span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>quantity perceptible enough without it. Yet -in these languages, where we have been accustomed -always to look for it, it is far -more perceptible to us Englishmen than in -our own language, where we have not been -accustomed to look for it. And here is the -true reason why Mr Spedding’s hexameter -is not and cannot be the current English -hexameter, even though it is based on the -accentuation which Englishmen give to all -Virgil’s lines, and to many of Homer’s,—that -the quantity which in Greek or Latin -words we feel, or imagine we feel, even -though it be unsupported by accent, we do -not feel or imagine we feel in English words -when it is thus unsupported. For example, -in repeating the Latin line</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Ipsa tibi blandos <i>fundent</i> cunabula flores,</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>an Englishman feels the length of the second -syllable of <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>fundent</i></span>, although he lays the -accent on the first; but in repeating Mr -Spedding’s line,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Softly cometh slumber <i>closing</i> th’ o’erwearied eyelid,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>the English ear, full of the accent on the first -syllable of <i>closing</i>, has really no sense at all -of any length in its second. The metrical -beat of the line is thus quite destroyed.</p> - -<p class='c005'>So when Mr Spedding proposes a new -Anglo-Virgilian hexameter he proposes an -impossibility; when he ‘denies altogether -that the metrical movement of the English -<span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>hexameter has <i>any</i> resemblance to that of -the Greek’, he denies too much; when he -declares that, ‘were every other metre impossible, -an attempt to translate Homer -into English hexameters might be permitted, -<i>but that such an attempt he himself would -never read</i>’, he exhibits, it seems to me, a -little of that obduracy and over-vehemence -in liking and disliking,—a remnant, I suppose, -of our insular ferocity,—to which -English criticism is so prone. He ought -to be enchanted to meet with a good attempt -in any metre, even though he would never -have advised it, even though its success -be contrary to all his expectations; for it -is the critic’s first duty—prior even to his -duty of stigmatizing what is bad—<i>to welcome -everything that is good</i>. In welcoming -this, he must at all times be ready, like the -Christian convert, even to burn what he -used to worship, and to worship what he -used to burn. Nay, but he need not be -thus inconsistent in welcoming it; he may -retain all his principles: principles endure, -circumstances change; absolute success is -one thing, relative success another. Relative -success may take place under the -most diverse conditions; and it is in appreciating -the good in even relative success, -it is in taking into account the change of -circumstances, that the critic’s judgment is -tested, that his versatility must display -itself. He is to keep his idea of the best, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>of perfection, and at the same time to be -willingly accessible to every second best -which offers itself. So I enjoy the ease -and beauty of Mr Spedding’s stanza,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Therewith to all the gods in order due ...</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>I welcome it, in the absence of equally good -poetry in another metre<a id='r65' /><a href='#f65' class='c009'><sup>[65]</sup></a>, although I still -<span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span>think the stanza unfit to render Homer -thoroughly well, although I still think other -metres fit to render him better. So I concede -to Mr Spedding that every form of -translation, prose or verse, must more or -less break up Homer in order to reproduce -him; but then I urge that that form which -needs to break him up least is to be preferred. -So I concede to him that the test proposed -by me for the translator—a competent -scholar’s judgment whether the translation -more or less reproduces for him the effect -of the original—is not perfectly satisfactory; -but I adopt it as the best we can get, as the -only test capable of being really applied; -for Mr Spedding’s proposed substitute, the -translations making the same effect, more -or less, upon the unlearned which the original -makes upon the scholar, is a test which -can never really be applied at all. These -two impressions, that of the scholar, and -that of the unlearned reader, can, practically, -never be accurately compared; they are, -and must remain, like those lines we read -of in Euclid, which, though produced ever -so far, can never meet. So, again, I concede -that a good verse-translation of Homer, or, -indeed, of any poet, is very difficult, and -that a good prose-translation is much easier; -but then I urge that a verse-translation, -while giving the pleasure which Pope’s has -given, might at the same time render Homer -more faithfully than Pope’s; and that this -<span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>being possible, we ought not to cease wishing -for a source of pleasure which no prose-translation -can ever hope to rival.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Wishing for such a verse-translation of -Homer, believing that rhythms have natural -tendencies which, within certain limits, inevitably -govern them; having little faith, -therefore, that rhythms which have manifested -tendencies utterly un-Homeric can -so change themselves as to become well -adapted for rendering Homer, I have looked -about for the rhythm which seems to depart -least from the tendencies of Homer’s -rhythm. Such a rhythm I think may be -found in the English hexameter, somewhat -modified. I look with hope towards continued -attempts at perfecting and employing -this rhythm; but my belief in the immediate -success of such attempts is far less confident -than has been supposed. Between the recognition -of this rhythm as ideally the best, -and the recommendation of it to the translator -for instant practical use, there must -come all that consideration of circumstances, -all that pliancy in foregoing, under the pressure -of certain difficulties, the absolute best, -which I have said is so indispensable to the -critic. The hexameter is, comparatively, -still unfamiliar in England; many people -have a great dislike to it. A certain degree -of unfamiliarity, a certain degree of dislike, -are obstacles with which it is not wise to -contend. It is difficult to say at present -<span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>whether the dislike to this rhythm is so -strong and so wide-spread that it will prevent -its ever becoming thoroughly familiar. -I think not, but it is too soon to decide. -I am inclined to think that the dislike of -it is rather among the professional critics -than among the general public; I think the -reception which Mr Longfellow’s <i>Evangeline</i> -has met with indicates this. I think that -even now, if a version of the <i>Iliad</i> in English -hexameters were made by a poet who, like -Mr Longfellow, has that indefinable quality -which renders him popular, something <i>attractive</i> -in his talent, which communicates -itself to his verses, it would have a great -success among the general public. Yet a -version of Homer in hexameters of the -<i>Evangeline</i> type would not satisfy the judicious, -nor is the definite establishment of this -type to be desired; and one would regret -that Mr Longfellow should, even to popularise -the hexameter, give the immense -labour required for a translation of Homer -when one could not wish his work to stand. -Rather it is to be wished that by the efforts -of poets like Mr Longfellow in original -poetry, and the efforts of less distinguished -poets in the task of translation, the hexameter -may gradually be made familiar to -the ear of the English public; at the same -time that there gradually arises, out of all -these efforts, an improved type of this -rhythm; a type which some man of genius -<span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span>may sign with the final stamp, and employ -in rendering Homer; a hexameter which -may be as superior to Vosse’s as Shakspeare’s -blank verse is superior to Schiller’s. I am -inclined to believe that all this travail will -actually take place, because I believe that -modern poetry is actually in want of such -an instrument as the hexameter.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In the meantime, whether this rhythm -be destined to success or not, let us steadily -keep in mind what originally made us turn -to it. We turned to it because we required -certain Homeric characteristics in a translation -of Homer, and because all other -rhythms seemed to find, from different -causes, great difficulties in satisfying this -our requirement. If the hexameter is impossible, -if one of these other rhythms must -be used, let us keep this rhythm always in -mind of our requirements and of its own -faults, let us compel it to get rid of these -latter as much as possible. It may be -necessary to have recourse to blank verse; -but then blank verse must <i>de-Cowperize</i> -itself, must get rid of the habits of stiff -self-retardation which make it say ‘<i>Not -fewer</i> shone’, for ‘<i>So many shone</i>’. Homer -moves swiftly: blank verse <i>can</i> move -swiftly if it likes, but it must remember -that the movement of such lines as</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>A thousand fires were burning, and by each ...</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>is just the slow movement which makes us -<span class='pageno' id='Page_273'>273</span>despair of it. Homer moves with noble -ease: blank verse must not be suffered to -forget that the movement of</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Came they not over from sweet Lacedæmon ...</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>is ungainly. Homer’s expression of his -thought is simple as light: we know how -blank verse affects such locutions as</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>While the steeds <i>mouthed their corn aloof</i> ...</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>and such models of expressing one’s thought -are sophisticated and artificial.</p> - -<p class='c005'>One sees how needful it is to direct incessantly -the English translator’s attention -to the essential characteristics of Homer’s -poetry, when so accomplished a person as -Mr Spedding, recognising these characteristics -as indeed Homer’s, admitting them to -be essential, is led by the ingrained habits -and tendencies of English blank verse thus -repeatedly to lose sight of them in translating -even a few lines. One sees this yet -more clearly, when Mr Spedding, taking -me to task for saying that the blank verse -used for rendering Homer ‘must not be -Mr Tennyson’s blank verse’, declares that -in most of Mr Tennyson’s blank verse all -Homer’s essential characteristics, ‘rapidity -of movement, <i>plainness of words and style</i>, -<i>simplicity and directness of ideas</i>, and, above -all, nobleness of manner, are as conspicuous -as in Homer himself’. This shows, it seems -to me, how hard it is for English readers -of poetry, even the most accomplished, to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_274'>274</span>feel deeply and permanently what Greek -plainness of thought and Greek simplicity -of expression really are: they admit the -importance of these qualities in a general -way, but they have no ever-present sense -of them; and they easily attribute them -to any poetry which has other excellent -qualities, and which they very much admire. -No doubt there are plainer things in Mr -Tennyson’s poetry than the three lines I -quoted; in choosing them, as in choosing -a specimen of ballad-poetry, I wished to -bring out clearly, by a strong instance, the -qualities of thought and style to which I -was calling attention; but when Mr Spedding -talks of a plainness of thought <i>like -Homer’s</i>, of a plainness of speech <i>like -Homer’s</i>, and says that he finds these constantly -in Mr Tennyson’s poetry, I answer -that these I do not find there at all. Mr -Tennyson is a most distinguished and -charming poet; but the very essential -characteristic of his poetry is, it seems to -me, an extreme subtlety and curious elaborateness -of thought, an extreme subtlety -and curious elaborateness of expression. In -the best and most characteristic productions -of his genius, these characteristics are most -prominent. They are marked characteristics, -as we have seen, of the Elizabethan -poets; they are marked, though not the -essential, characteristics of Shakspeare himself. -Under the influences of the nineteenth -<span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span>century, under wholly new conditions of -thought and culture, they manifest themselves -in Mr Tennyson’s poetry in a wholly -new way. But they are still there. The -essential bent of his poetry is towards such -expressions as</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in22'>O’er the sun’s bright eye</div> - <div class='line'>Drew the vast eyelid of an inky cloud;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>When the cairned mountain was a shadow, sunned</div> - <div class='line'>The world to peace again;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The fresh young captains flashed their glittering teeth,</div> - <div class='line'>The huge bush-bearded barons heaved and blew;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>He bared the knotted column of his throat,</div> - <div class='line'>The massive square of his heroic breast,</div> - <div class='line'>And arms on which the standing muscle sloped</div> - <div class='line'>As slopes a wild brook o’er a little stone,</div> - <div class='line'>Running too vehemently to break upon it.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>And this way of speaking is the least <i>plain</i>, -the most <i>un-Homeric</i>, which can possibly -be conceived. Homer presents his thought -to you just as it wells from the source of -his mind: Mr Tennyson carefully distils his -thought before he will part with it. Hence -comes, in the expression of the thought, a -heightened and elaborate air. In Homer’s -poetry it is all natural thoughts in natural -words; in Mr Tennyson’s poetry it is all -distilled thoughts in distilled words. Exactly -this heightening and elaboration may -be observed in Mr Spedding’s</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>While the steeds <i>mouthed their corn aloof</i></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span>(an expression which might have been Mr -Tennyson’s), on which I have already commented; -and to one who is penetrated with -a sense of the real simplicity of Homer, this -subtle sophistication of the thought is, I -think, very perceptible even in such lines -as these,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>And drunk delight of battle with my peers,</div> - <div class='line'>Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>which I have seen quoted as perfectly -Homeric. Perfect simplicity can be obtained -only by a genius of which perfect -simplicity is an essential characteristic.</p> - -<p class='c005'>So true is this, that when a genius essentially -subtle, or a genius which, from -whatever cause, is in its essence not truly -and broadly simple, determines to be perfectly -plain, determines not to admit a -shade of subtlety or curiosity into its expression, -it cannot ever then attain real -simplicity; it can only attain a semblance -of simplicity<a id='r66' /><a href='#f66' class='c009'><sup>[66]</sup></a>. French criticism, richer in -its vocabulary than ours, has invented a -useful word to distinguish this semblance -(often very beautiful and valuable) from -the real quality. The real quality it calls -<span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>simplicité</i></span>, the semblance <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>simplesse</i></span>. The -one is natural simplicity, the other is artificial -simplicity. What is called simplicity -in the productions of a genius essentially -not simple, is, in truth, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>simplesse</i></span>. The two -are distinguishable from one another the -moment they appear in company. For instance, -let us take the opening of the narrative -in Wordsworth’s <i>Michael</i>:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Upon the forest-side in Grasmere Vale</div> - <div class='line'>There dwelt a shepherd, Michael was his name;</div> - <div class='line'>An old man, stout of heart, and strong of limb.</div> - <div class='line'>His bodily frame had been from youth to age</div> - <div class='line'>Of an unusual strength; his mind was keen,</div> - <div class='line'>Intense, and frugal, apt for all affairs;</div> - <div class='line'>And in his shepherd’s calling he was prompt</div> - <div class='line'>And watchful more than ordinary men.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Now let us take the opening of the narrative -in Mr Tennyson’s <i>Dora</i>:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>With Farmer Allan at the farm abode</div> - <div class='line'>William and Dora. William was his son,</div> - <div class='line'>And she his niece. He often looked at them,</div> - <div class='line'>And often thought, ‘I’ll make them man and wife’.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>The simplicity of the first of these passages -is <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>simplicité</i></span>; that of the second, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>simplesse</i></span>. -Let us take the end of the same two poems: -first, of <i>Michael</i>:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The cottage which was named the Evening Star</div> - <div class='line'>Is gone, the ploughshare has been through the ground</div> - <div class='line'>On which it stood; great changes have been wrought</div> - <div class='line'>In all the neighbourhood: yet the oak is left</div> - <div class='line'>That grew beside their door: and the remains</div> - <div class='line'>Of the unfinished sheepfold may be seen</div> - <div class='line'>Beside the boisterous brook of Green-head Ghyll.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span>And now, of <i>Dora</i>:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in16'>So those four abode</div> - <div class='line'>Within one house together; and as years</div> - <div class='line'>Went forward, Mary took another mate:</div> - <div class='line'>But Dora lived unmarried till her death.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>A heedless critic may call both of these -passages simple if he will. Simple, in a -certain sense, they both are; but between -the simplicity of the two there is all the -difference that there is between the simplicity -of Homer and the simplicity of Moschus.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But, whether the hexameter establish itself -or not, whether a truly simple and rapid -blank verse be obtained or not, as the -vehicle for a standard English translation -of Homer, I feel sure that this vehicle will -not be furnished by the ballad-form. On -this question about the ballad-character of -Homer’s poetry, I see that Professor Blackie -proposes a compromise: he suggests that -those who say Homer’s poetry is pure ballad-poetry, -and those who deny that it is ballad-poetry -at all, should split the difference -between them; that it should be agreed -that Homer’s poems are ballads <i>a little</i>, -but not so much as some have said. I am -very sensible to the courtesy of the terms -in which Mr Blackie invites me to this -compromise; but I cannot, I am sorry to -say, accept it; I cannot allow that Homer’s -poetry is ballad-poetry at all. A want of -capacity for sustained nobleness seems to -me inherent in the ballad-form when employed -<span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span>for epic poetry. The more we examine -this proposition, the more certain, -I think, will it become to us. Let us but -observe how a great poet, having to deliver -a narrative very weighty and serious, instinctively -shrinks from the ballad-form as -from a form not commensurate with his -subject-matter, a form too narrow and -shallow for it, and seeks for a form which -has more amplitude and impressiveness. -Everyone knows the <i>Lucy Gray</i> and the -<i>Ruth</i> of Wordsworth. Both poems are excellent; -but the subject-matter of the -narrative of <i>Ruth</i> is much more weighty -and impressive to the poet’s own feeling -than that of the narrative of <i>Lucy Gray</i>, -for which latter, in its unpretending simplicity, -the ballad-form is quite adequate. -Wordsworth, at the time he composed <i>Ruth</i>, -his great time, his <i>annus mirabilis</i>, about -1800, strove to be simple; it was his mission -to be simple; he loved the ballad-form, he -clung to it, because it was simple. Even -in <i>Ruth</i> he tried, one may say, to use it; -he would have used it if he could: but -the gravity of his matter is too much for -this somewhat slight form; he is obliged -to give to his form more amplitude, more -augustness, to shake out its folds.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The wretched parents all that night</div> - <div class='line in2'>Went shouting far and wide;</div> - <div class='line'>But there was neither sound nor sight</div> - <div class='line in2'>To serve them for a guide.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_280'>280</span>That is beautiful, no doubt, and the form -is adequate to the subject-matter. But take -this, on the other hand:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>I, too, have passed her on the hills,</div> - <div class='line'>Setting her little water-mills</div> - <div class='line in2'>By spouts and fountains wild;</div> - <div class='line'>Such small machinery as she turned,</div> - <div class='line'>Ere she had wept, ere she had mourned,</div> - <div class='line in2'>A young and happy child.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Who does not perceive how the greater -fulness and weight of his matter has here -compelled the true and feeling poet to adopt -a form of more <i>volume</i> than the simple -ballad-form?</p> - -<p class='c005'>It is of narrative poetry that I am speaking; -the question is about the use of the ballad-form -for <i>this</i>. I say that for this poetry -(when in the grand style, as Homer’s is) -the ballad-form is entirely inadequate; and -that Homer’s translator must not adopt it, -because it even leads him, by its own weakness, -away from the grand style rather than -towards it. We must remember that the -matter of narrative poetry stands in a -different relation to the vehicle which conveys -it, is not so independent of this vehicle, -so absorbing and powerful in itself, as the -matter of purely emotional poetry. When -there comes in poetry what I may call the -<i>lyrical cry</i>, this transfigures everything, -makes everything grand; the simplest -form may be here even an advantage, because -the flame of the emotion glows through -<span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span>and through it more easily. To go again -for an illustration to Wordsworth; our -great poet, since Milton, by his performance, -as Keats, I think, is our great poet by his -gift and promise; in one of his stanzas -to the Cuckoo, we have:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>And I can listen to thee yet;</div> - <div class='line in2'>Can lie upon the plain</div> - <div class='line'>And listen, till I do beget</div> - <div class='line in2'>That golden time again.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Here the lyrical cry, though taking the -simple ballad-form, is as grand as the lyrical -cry coming in poetry of an ampler form, -as grand as the</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>An innocent life, yet far astray!</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>of <i>Ruth</i>; as the</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>There is a comfort in the strength of love</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>of <i>Michael</i>. In this way, by the occurrence -of this lyrical cry, the ballad-poets themselves -rise sometimes, though not so often -as one might perhaps have hoped, to the -grand style.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>O lang, lang may their ladies sit,</div> - <div class='line'>Wi’ their fans into their hand,</div> - <div class='line'>Or ere they see Sir Patrick Spence</div> - <div class='line'>Come sailing to the land.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>O lang, lang may the ladies stand,</div> - <div class='line'>Wi’ their gold combs in their hair,</div> - <div class='line'>Waiting for their ain dear lords,</div> - <div class='line'>For they’ll see them nae mair.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>But from this impressiveness of the ballad-form, -when its subject-matter fills it over -and over again, is, indeed, in itself, all in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>all, one must not infer its effectiveness when -its subject-matter is not thus overpowering, -in the great body of a narrative.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But, after all, Homer is not a better poet -than the balladists, because he has taken -in the hexameter a better instrument; he -took this instrument because he was a -<i>different</i> poet from them; so different, not -only so much better, but so essentially -different, that he has not to be classed -with them at all. Poets receive their distinctive -character, not from their subject, -but from their application to that subject -of the ideas (to quote the <i>Excursion</i>)</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>On God, on Nature, and on human life,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>which they have acquired for themselves. -In the ballad-poets in general, as in men -of a rude and early stage of the world, in -whom their humanity is not yet variously -and fully developed, the stock of these ideas -is scanty, and the ideas themselves not very -effective or profound. From them the narrative -itself is the great matter, not the -spirit and significance which underlies the -narrative. Even in later times of richly -developed life and thought, poets appear -who have what may be called a <i>balladist’s -mind</i>; in whom a fresh and lively curiosity -for the outward spectacle of the world is -much more strong than their sense of the -inward significance of that spectacle. When -they apply ideas to their narrative of human -<span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span>events, you feel that they are, so to speak, -travelling out of their own province: in -the best of them you feel this perceptibly, -but in those of a lower order you feel it very -strongly. Even Sir Walter Scott’s efforts -of this kind, even, for instance, the</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Breathes there the man with soul so dead,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>or the</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>O woman! in our hours of ease,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>even these leave, I think, as high poetry, -much to be desired; far more than the same -poet’s descriptions of a hunt or a battle. -But Lord Macaulay’s</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Then out spake brave Horatius,</div> - <div class='line in2'>The captain of the gate:</div> - <div class='line'>‘To all the men upon this earth</div> - <div class='line in2'>Death cometh soon or late’.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>(and here, since I have been reproached -with undervaluing Lord Macaulay’s <i>Lays -of Ancient Rome</i>, let me frankly say that, -to my mind, a man’s power to detect the -ring of false metal in those Lays is a good -measure of his fitness to give an opinion -about poetical matters at all), I say, Lord -Macaulay’s</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>To all the men upon this earth</div> - <div class='line in2'>Death cometh soon or late,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>it is hard to read without a cry of pain. -But with Homer it is very different. This -‘noble barbarian’, this ‘savage with the -lively eye’, whose verse, Mr Newman thinks, -would affect us, if we could hear the living -Homer, ‘like an elegant and simple melody -<span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span>from an African of the Gold Coast’, is never -more at home, never more nobly himself, -than in applying profound ideas to his -narrative. As a poet he belongs, narrative -as is his poetry, and early as is his date, -to an incomparably more developed spiritual -and intellectual order than the balladists, -or than Scott and Macaulay; he is here as -much to be distinguished from them, and -in the same way, as Milton is to be distinguished -from them. He is, indeed, rather -to be classed with Milton than with the -balladists and Scott; for what he has in -common with Milton, the noble and profound -application of ideas to life is the most -essential part of poetic greatness. The most -essentially grand and characteristic things -of Homer are such things as</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἔτλην δ’, οἷ’ οὔπω τις ἐπιχθόνιος βροτὸς ἂλλος,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀνδρὸς παιδοφόνοιο ποτὶ στόμα χεῖρ’ ὀρέγεσθαι</span><a id='r67' /><a href='#f67' class='c009'><sup>[67]</sup></a>,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>or as</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">καὶ σὲ, γέρον, τὸ πρὶν μὲν ἀκούομεν ὄλβιον εἶναι</span><a id='r68' /><a href='#f68' class='c009'><sup>[68]</sup></a>,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span>or as</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὥς γὰρ ἐπεκλώσαντο θεοὶ δειλοῖσι βροτοῖσιν,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ζώειν ἀχνυμένους· αὐτοὶ δὲ τ’ ἀκηδέες εἰσίν</span><a id='r69' /><a href='#f69' class='c009'><sup>[69]</sup></a>,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>and of these the tone is given, far better -than by anything of the balladists, by such -things as the</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Io no piangeva: sì dentro impietrai:</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Piangevan elli</span> ...<a id='r70' /><a href='#f70' class='c009'><sup>[70]</sup></a></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>of Dante; or the</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Fall’n Cherub! to be weak is miserable</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>of Milton.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I suppose I must, before I conclude, say -a word or two about my own hexameters; -and yet really, on such a topic, I am almost -ashamed to trouble you. From those perishable -objects I feel, I can truly say, a most -Oriental detachment. You yourselves are -witnesses how little importance, when I -offered them to you, I claimed for them, -how humble a function I designed them -to fill. I offered them, not as specimens -of a competing translation of Homer, but as -illustrations of certain canons which I had -been trying to establish for Homer’s poetry. -I said that these canons they might very well -<span class='pageno' id='Page_286'>286</span>illustrate by failing as well as by succeeding: -if they illustrate them in any manner, I am -satisfied. I was thinking of the future -translator of Homer, and trying to let him -see as clearly as possible what I meant by -the combination of characteristics which I -assigned to Homer’s poetry, by saying that -this poetry was at once rapid in movement, -plain in words and style, simple and direct -in its ideas, and noble in manner. I do not -suppose that my own hexameters are rapid -in movement, plain in words and style, -simple and direct in their ideas, and noble -in manner; but I am in hopes that a translator, -reading them with a genuine interest -in his subject, and without the slightest -grain of personal feeling, may see more -clearly, as he reads them, what I meant by -saying that Homer’s poetry is all these. -I am in hopes that he may be able to seize -more distinctly, when he has before him my</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>So shone forth, in front of Troy, by the bed of the Xanthus,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>or my</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Ah, unhappy pair, to Peleus why did we give you?</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>or my</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>So he spake, and drove with a cry his steeds into battle,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>the exact points which I wish him to avoid -in Cowper’s</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>So numerous seemed those fires the banks between,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_287'>287</span>or in Pope’s</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Unhappy coursers of immortal strain,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>or in Mr Newman’s</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>He spake, and, yelling, held a-front his single-hoofed horses.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>At the same time there may be innumerable -points in mine which he ought to avoid also. -Of the merit of his own compositions no -composer can be admitted the judge.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But thus humbly useful to the future -translator I still hope my hexameters may -prove; and he it is, above all, whom one -has to regard. The general public carries -away little from discussions of this kind, -except some vague notion that one advocates -English hexameters, or that one has -attacked Mr Newman. On the mind of an -adversary one never makes the faintest impression. -Mr Newman reads all one can -say about diction, and his last word on the -subject is, that he ‘regards it as a question -about to open hereafter, whether a translator -of Homer ought not to adopt the old -dissyllabic <i>landis</i>, <i>houndis</i>, <i>hartis</i>’ (for lands, -hounds, harts), and also ‘the final <i>en</i> of the -plural of verbs (we <i>dancen</i>, they <i>singen</i>, etc.), -which still subsists in Lancashire’. A certain -critic reads all one can say about style, and -at the end of it arrives at the inference that, -‘after all, there is some style grander than -the grand style itself, since Shakspeare has -not the grand manner, and yet has the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_288'>288</span>supremacy over Milton’; another critic -reads all one can say about rhythm, and the -result is, that he thinks Scott’s rhythm, in -the description of the death of Marmion, -all the better for being <i>saccadé</i>, because the -dying ejaculations of Marmion were likely -to be ‘jerky’. How vain to rise up early, -and to take rest late, from any zeal for -proving to Mr Newman that he must not, -in translating Homer, say <i>houndis</i> and -<i>dancen</i>; or to the first of the two critics -above quoted, that one poet may be a greater -poetical force than another, and yet have a -more unequal style; or to the second, that -the best art, having to represent the death -of a hero, does not set about imitating his -dying noises! Such critics, however, provide -for an opponent’s vivacity the charming -excuse offered by Rivarol for his, when he -was reproached with giving offence by it: -‘Ah’! he exclaimed, ‘no one considers -how much pain every man of taste has had -to <i>suffer</i>, before he ever inflicts any’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It is for the future translator that one -must work. The successful translator of -Homer will have (or he cannot succeed) -that true sense for his subject, and that disinterested -love for it, which are, both of -them, so rare in literature, and so precious; -he will not be led off by any false scent; -he will have an eye for the real matter, and -where he thinks he may find any indication -of this, no hint will be too slight for him, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_289'>289</span>no shade will be too fine, no imperfections -will turn him aside, he will go before his -adviser’s thought, and help it out with his -own. This is the sort of student that a -critic of Homer should always have in his -thoughts; but students of this sort are -indeed rare.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And how, then, can I help being reminded -what a student of this sort we have just lost -in Mr Clough, whose name I have already -mentioned in these lectures? He, too, was -busy with Homer; but it is not on that -account that I now speak of him. Nor do -I speak of him in order to call attention to -his qualities and powers in general, admirable -as these were. I mention him because, -in so eminent a degree, he possessed -these two invaluable literary qualities, a true -sense for his object of study, and a single-hearted -care for it. He had both; but he -had the second even more eminently than -the first. He greatly developed the first -through means of the second. In the study -of art, poetry, or philosophy, he had the -most undivided and disinterested love for -his object in itself, the greatest aversion to -mixing up with it anything accidental or -personal. His interest was in literature -itself; and it was this which gave so rare -a stamp to his character, which kept him -so free from all taint of littleness. In the -saturnalia of ignoble personal passions, of -which the struggle for literary success, in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_290'>290</span>old and crowded communities, offers so sad -a spectacle, he never mingled. He had not -yet traduced his friends, nor flattered his -enemies, nor disparaged what he admired, -nor praised what he despised. Those who -knew him well had the conviction that, even -with time, these literary arts would never -be his. His poem, of which I before spoke, -has some admirable Homeric qualities;—out-of-doors -freshness, life, naturalness, -buoyant rapidity. Some of the expressions -in that poem, ‘<i>Dangerous Corrievreckan ... -Where roads are unknown to Loch Nevish</i>’, -come back now to my ear with the true -Homeric ring. But that in him of which -I think oftenest is the Homeric simplicity -of his literary life.</p> - -<p class='c005'>THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div><span class='large'>Footnotes</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='footnote' id='f1'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r1'>1</a>. </span><i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='3'>iii</abbr>. 243.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f2'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r2'>2</a>. </span><i>Briefwechsel zwischen Schiller und Goethe</i>, <abbr title='6'>vi.</abbr> 230.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f3'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r3'>3</a>. </span><i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='19'>xix.</abbr> 420.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f4'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r4'>4</a>. </span><i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='12'>xii.</abbr> 324.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f5'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r5'>5</a>. </span>These are the words on which Lord Granville -‘dwelled with particular emphasis’.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f6'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r6'>6</a>. </span>Robert Wood, <i>Essay on the Original Genius -and Writings of Homer</i>, London, 1775, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <abbr title='7'>vii.</abbr></p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f7'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r7'>7</a>. </span><i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='8'>viii.</abbr> 560.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f8'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r8'>8</a>. </span><i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='17'>xvii.</abbr> 443.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f9'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r9'>9</a>. </span><i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='6'>vi.</abbr> 444.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f10'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r10'>10</a>. </span><i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='6'>vi.</abbr> 344.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f11'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r11'>11</a>. </span>From the reproachful answer of Ulysses to -Agamemnon, who had proposed an abandonment -of their expedition. This is one of the ‘tonic’ -passages of the <i>Iliad</i>, so I quote it:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Ah, unworthy king, some other inglorious army</div> - <div class='line'>Should’st thou command, not rule over <i>us</i>, whose portion for ever</div> - <div class='line'>Zeus hath made it, from youth right up to age, to be winding</div> - <div class='line'>Skeins of grievous wars, till every soul of us perish.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='14'>xiv.</abbr> 84.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f12'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r12'>12</a>. </span>From the ballad of <i>King Estmere</i>, in Percy’s -<i>Reliques of Ancient English Poetry</i>, <abbr title='1'>i</abbr>. 69 (<abbr title='edition'>edit.</abbr> of -1767).</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f13'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r13'>13</a>. </span><i>Reliques</i>, <abbr title='1'>i.</abbr> 241</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f14'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r14'>14</a>. </span><i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='17'>xvii.</abbr> 443.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f15'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r15'>15</a>. </span>All the editions which I have seen have ‘haste’, -but the right reading must certainly be ‘taste’.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f16'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r16'>16</a>. </span><i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='19'>xix.</abbr> 419.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f17'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r17'>17</a>. </span><i>Odyssey</i>, <abbr title='19'>xix.</abbr> 392.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f18'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r18'>18</a>. </span>Mr Marsh, in his <i>Lectures on the English -Language</i>, New York, 1860, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 520.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f19'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r19'>19</a>. </span><i>Marmion</i>, canto <abbr title='6'>vi.</abbr> 38.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f20'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r20'>20</a>. </span><i>Marmion</i>, canto <abbr title='6'>vi.</abbr> 29.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f21'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r21'>21</a>. </span>‘Be content, good friend, die also thou! why -lamentest thou thyself on this wise? Patroclus, too, -died, who was a far better than thou.’—<i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='21'>xxi.</abbr> -106.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f22'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r22'>22</a>. </span>‘From me, young man, learn nobleness of soul -and true effort: learn success from others.’—<i>Æneid</i>, -<abbr title='12'>xii.</abbr> 435.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f23'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r23'>23</a>. </span>‘I leave the gall of bitterness, and I go for the -apples of sweetness promised unto me by my faithful -Guide; but far as the centre it behoves me first to -fall.’—<i>Hell</i>, <abbr title='16'>xvi.</abbr> 61.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f24'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r24'>24</a>. </span><i>Paradise Lost</i>, <abbr title='1'>i.</abbr> 591.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f25'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r25'>25</a>. </span><i>The Faery Queen</i>, Canto <abbr title='2'>ii.</abbr> stanza <abbr title='1'>I.</abbr></p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f26'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r26'>26</a>. </span><i>Odes</i>, <abbr title='4'>IV.</abbr> <abbr title='7'>vii.</abbr> 13.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f27'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r27'>27</a>. </span><i>Odyssey</i> <abbr title='4'>iv.</abbr> 563.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f28'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r28'>28</a>. </span><i>Odes</i>, <abbr title='3'>III.</abbr> <abbr title='2'>ii.</abbr> 31.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f29'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r29'>29</a>. </span>So short, that I quote it entire:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Clearly the rest I behold of the dark-eyed sons of Achaia;</div> - <div class='line'>Known to me well are the faces of all; their names I remember;</div> - <div class='line'>Two, two only remain, whom I see not among the commanders,</div> - <div class='line'>Castor fleet in the car,—Polydeukes brave with the cestus,—</div> - <div class='line'>Own dear brethren of mine,—one parent loved us as infants.</div> - <div class='line'>Are they not here in the host, from the shores of loved Lacedæmon,</div> - <div class='line'>Or, though they came with the rest in ships that bound through the waters,</div> - <div class='line'>Dare they not enter the fight or stand in the council of Heroes,</div> - <div class='line'>All for fear of the shame and the taunts my crime has awakened?</div> - <div class='line in2'>So said she;—they long since in Earth’s soft arms were reposing,</div> - <div class='line'>There, in their own dear land, their Fatherland, Lacedæmon.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><i>English Hexameter Translations</i>, London,</div> - <div class='line'>1847, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 242.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>I have changed Dr Hawtrey’s ‘Kastor’, ‘Lakedaimon’, -back to the familiar ‘Castor’, ‘Lacedæmon’, -in obedience to my own rule that everything <i>odd</i> is -to be avoided in rendering Homer, the most natural -and least odd of poets. I see Mr Newman’s critic in -the <i>National Review</i> urges our generation to bear -with the unnatural effect of these rewritten Greek -names, in the hope that by this means the effect of -them may have to the next generation become natural. -For my part, I feel no disposition to pass all my own -life in the wilderness of pedantry, in order that a -posterity which I shall never see may one day enter -an orthographical Canaan; and, after all, the real -question is this: whether our living apprehension of -the Greek world is more checked by meeting in an -English book about the Greeks, names not spelt letter -for letter as in the original Greek, or by meeting -names which make us rub our eyes and call out, -‘How exceedingly odd!’</p> - -<p class='c005'>The Latin names of the Greek deities raise in most -cases the idea of quite distinct personages from the -personages whose idea is raised by the Greek names. -Hera and Juno are actually, to every scholar’s imagination, -two different people. So in all these cases the -Latin names must, at any inconvenience, be abandoned -when we are dealing with the Greek world. -But I think it can be in the sensitive imagination of -Mr Grote only, that ‘Thucydides’ raises the idea of -a different man from <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><b>Θουκυδίδης</b></span>.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f30'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r30'>30</a>. </span>For instance; in a version (I believe, by the late -Mr Lockhart) of Homer’s description of the parting -of Hector and Andromache, there occurs, in the first -five lines, but one spondee besides the necessary -spondees in the sixth place; in the corresponding -five lines of Homer there occur ten. See <i>English -Hexameter Translations</i>, 244.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f31'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r31'>31</a>. </span>See for instance, in the <i>Iliad</i>, the loose construction -of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><b>ὅστε</b></span>, <abbr title='17'>xvii.</abbr> 658; that of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><b>ἴδοιτο</b></span>, <abbr title='17'>xvii.</abbr> 681; -that of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><b>οἵτε</b></span>, <abbr title='18'>xviii.</abbr> 209; and the elliptical construction -at <abbr title='19'>xix.</abbr> 42, 43; also the idiomatic construction of -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><b>ἐγὼν ὅδε παρασχεῖν</b></span>, <abbr title='19'>xix.</abbr> 140. These instances are -all taken within a range of a thousand lines; anyone -may easily multiply them for himself.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f32'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r32'>32</a>. </span>Our knowledge of Homer’s Greek is hardly such -as to enable us to pronounce quite confidently what is -idiomatic in his diction, and what is not, any more -than in his grammar; but I seem to myself clearly -to recognise an idiomatic stamp in such expressions as -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><b>τολυπεύειν πολέμους</b></span>, <abbr title='14'>xiv.</abbr> 86; <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><b>φάος ἐν νήεσσιν θήῃς</b></span>, -<abbr title='16'>xvi.</abbr> 94; <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><b>τιν’ οἴω ἀσπασίως αὐτῶν γόνυ κάμψειν</b></span>, <abbr title='19'>xix.</abbr> -71; <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><b>κλοτοπεύειν</b></span>, <abbr title='19'>xix.</abbr> 149; and many others. The -first-quoted expression, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><b>τολυπεύειν ἀργαλέους πολέμους</b></span>, -seems to me to have just about the same degree -of freedom as the ‘<i>jump</i> the life to come’, or the -‘<i>shuffle off</i> this mortal coil’, of Shakspeare.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f33'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r33'>33</a>. </span>It must be remembered, however, that, if we -disregard quantity too much in constructing English -hexameters, we also disregard accent too much in -reading Greek hexameters. We read every Greek -dactyl so as to make a pure dactyl of it; but, to a -Greek, the accent must have hindered many dactyls -from sounding as pure dactyls. When we read -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><b>αἰόλος</b> ἵππος</span>, for instance, or <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><b>αἰγιόχοιο</b></span>, the -dactyl in each of these cases is made by us as pure a -dactyl as ‘Tityre’, or ‘dignity’; but to a Greek it -was not so. To him <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">αἰόλος</span> must have been nearly -as impure a dactyl as ‘death-destined’ is to us; and -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">αἰγιόχ</span> nearly as impure as the ‘dressed his own’ of -my text. Nor, I think, does this right mode of -pronouncing the two words at all spoil the run of the -line as a hexameter. The effect of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><b>αἰόλλος</b> ἵππος</span> -(or something like that), though not <i>our</i> effect, is not -a disagreeable one. On the other hand, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κορυθαιόλος</span> -as a paroxytonon, although it has the respectable -authority of Liddell and Scott’s <i>Lexicon</i> (following -Heyne), is certainly wrong; for then the word cannot -be pronounced without throwing an accent on the -first syllable as well as the third, and <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέγας -<b>κοῤῥυθαιόλλος</b> Ἕκτωρ</span> would have been to a -Greek as intolerable an ending for a hexameter -line as ‘accurst <i>orphanhood-destined</i> houses’ would -be to us. The best authorities, accordingly, -accent <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κορυθαίολος</span> as a proparoxytonon.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f34'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r34'>34</a>. </span>Dr Hawtrey also has translated this passage; but -here, he has not, I think, been so successful as in his -‘Helen on the walls of Troy’.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f35'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r35'>35</a>. </span>He attacks the same line also in <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>; but I do -not claim this as a mark, how free I am from the -fault.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f36'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r36'>36</a>. </span>If I had used such a double dative, as ‘to Peleus -to a mortal’, what would he have said of my syntax?</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f37'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r37'>37</a>. </span>Ballad-<i>manner</i>! The prevalent ballad-<i>metre</i> is -the Common Metre of our Psalm tunes: and yet he -assumes that whatever is in this metre must be on the -same level. I have professed (<abbr title='preface'>Pref.</abbr> <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <abbr title='10'>x</abbr>) that our -<i>existing</i> old ballads are ‘poor and mean’, and are -not my pattern.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f38'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r38'>38</a>. </span>He has also overlooked the misprint <i>Trojans</i>, -where I wrote <i>Troïans</i> (in three syllables), and has -thus spoiled one verse out of the five.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f39'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r39'>39</a>. </span>As a literary curiosity I append the sentence of a -learned reviewer concerning this metre of Campbell. -‘It is a metre fit for introducing anything or translating -anything; a metre that <i>nothing can elevate, or -degrade, or improve, or spoil</i>; in which all subjects -will sound alike. A theorem of Euclid, a leading -article from the <i>Times</i>, a dialogue from the last new -novel, could all be reduced to it with the slightest -possible verbal alteration’. [Quite true of Greek -hexameter or Shakspeare’s line. It is a <i>virtue</i> in -the metres]. ‘To such a mill all would be grist that -came near it, and <i>in no grain that had once passed -through it would human ingenuity ever detect again -a characteristic quality</i>’. This writer is a stout -maintainer that English ballad metre is the right -one for translating Homer: only, somehow, he shuts -his eyes to the fact that Campbell’s <i>is</i> ballad metre! -Sad to say, extravagant and absurd assertions, like -these, though anonymous, can, by a parade of learning, -do much damage to the sale of a book in verse.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f40'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r40'>40</a>. </span>I think he has mistaken the <i>summit</i> of the wave -for a <i>headland</i>, and has made a single description -into two, by the word <i>Or</i>: but I now confine my regard -to the metre and general effect of the style.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f41'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r41'>41</a>. </span><i>Companion</i>, in four syllables, is in Shakspeare’s -style; with whom habitually the termination <i>-tion</i> -is two.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f42'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r42'>42</a>. </span>By corrupting the past tenses of <i>welisso</i> into a -false similarity to the past tenses of <i>elelizo</i>, the old -editors superimposed a new and false sense on the -latter verb; which still holds its place in our dictionaries, -as it deceived the Greeks themselves.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f43'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r43'>43</a>. </span>That λλ <i>in Attic</i> was sounded like French <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>l -mouillée</i></span>, is judged probable by the learned writer -of the article L (Penny Cyclop.), who urges that -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μᾶλλον</span> is for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μάλιον</span>, and compares <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">φυλλο</span> with <i>folio</i>, -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">αλλο</span> with <i>alio</i>, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἁλλ</span> with <i>sali</i>.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f44'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r44'>44</a>. </span>Men who can bear ‘belch’ in poetry, nowadays -pretend that ‘sputter’ is indelicate. They find -Homer’s <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀποπτύει</span> to be ‘elegant’, but <i>sputter</i>—not! -‘No one would guess from Mr Newman’s coarse -phrases how <i>elegant</i> is Homer’!!</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f45'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r45'>45</a>. </span>In a Note to my translation (overlooked by more -than one critic) I have explained <i>curl-ey’d</i>, carefully, -but not very accurately perhaps; as I had not before -me the picture of the Hindoo lady to which I referred. -The whole <i>upper eyelid</i>, when <i>open</i>, may be called -the curl; for it is shaped like a buffalo’s horns. This -accounts for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἑλικοβλέφαρος</span>, ‘having a curly eye<i>lid</i>’.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f46'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r46'>46</a>. </span>I thought I had toned it down pretty well, in -rendering it ‘O gentle friend’! Mr Arnold rebukes -me for this, without telling me what I ought to say, -or what is my fault. One thing is certain, that the -Greek is most <i>odd</i> and peculiar.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f47'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r47'>47</a>. </span>In the noble simile of the sea-tide, quoted <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <a href='#Page_138'>138</a> -above, only the two first of its five lines are to the -purpose. Mr Gladstone, seduced by rhyme, has so -tapered off the point of the similitude, that only a -microscopic reader will see it.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f48'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r48'>48</a>. </span>It is very singular that Mr Gladstone should -imagine such a poet to have no eye for colour. I -totally protest against his turning Homer’s paintings -into leadpencil drawings. I believe that <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">γλαυκὸς</span> is -grey (silvergreen), <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">χάροψ</span> blue; and that <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">πρασινὸς</span>, -‘leek-colour’, was too mean a word for any poets, -early or late, to use for ‘green’, therefore <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">χλωρὸς</span> -does duty for it. <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Κῦμα πορφύρεον</span> is surely ‘the -purple wave’, and <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἰοειδέα πόντον</span> ‘the violet sea’.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f49'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r49'>49</a>. </span>He pares down <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἑλκηθμοῖο</span> (the dragging away of a -woman by the hair) into ‘captivity’! Better surely -is my ‘ignoble’ version: ‘Ere-that I see thee <i>dragg’d -away</i>, and hear thy shriek of anguish’.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f50'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r50'>50</a>. </span>He means <i>ours</i> for two syllables. ‘Swiftness of -ours’ is surely ungrammatical. ‘A galley of my own’ = -one of my own galleys; but ‘a father of mine’, -is absurd, since each has but one father. I confess -I have myself been seduced into writing ‘those two -eyes of his’, to avoid ‘<i>those his</i> two eyes’: but I have -since condemned and altered it.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f51'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r51'>51</a>. </span>Of course no peculiarity of phrase has <i>the effect</i> of -peculiarity on a man who has imperfect acquaintance -with the delicacies of a language; who, for instance, -thinks that <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἑλκηθμὸς</span> means <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">δουλεία</span>.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f52'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r52'>52</a>. </span><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Ἐλλὸς</span> needs light and gives none. Benfey suggests -that it is for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐνεὸς</span>, as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἄλλος</span>, <i>alius</i>, for Sanscrit -<span lang="sa" xml:lang="sa"><i>anya</i></span>. He with me refers <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἔλλοψ</span> to <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">λέπω</span>. Cf. <i>squamigeri</i> -in Lucretius.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f53'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r53'>53</a>. </span>I do not see that Mr Arnold has any right to -reproach <i>me</i>, because <i>he</i> does not know Spenser’s -word ‘bragly’ (which I may have used twice in the -Iliad), or Dryden’s word ‘plump’, for a mass. The -former is so near in sound to <i>brag</i> and <i>braw</i>, that an -Englishman who is once told that it means ‘proudly -fine’, ought thenceforward to find it very intelligible: -the latter is a noble modification of the vulgar <i>lump</i>. -That he can carp as he does against these words and -against <i>bulkin</i> (= young bullock) as unintelligible, is -a testimony how little I have imposed of difficulty -on my readers. Those who know <i>lambkin</i> cannot -find <i>bulkin</i> very hard. Since writing the above, I -see a learned writer in the Philological Museum illustrates -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἴλη</span> by the old English phrase ‘a plump of -spears’.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f54'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r54'>54</a>. </span>I observe that Lord Lyttelton renders Milton’s -<i>dapper elf</i> by <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ῥαδινὰ</span>, ‘softly moving’.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f55'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r55'>55</a>. </span>Mr Arnold calls it an unfortunate sentence of -mine: ‘I ought to be quaint; I ought not to be -grotesque’. I am disposed to think him right, but -for reasons very opposite to those which he assigns. -I have ‘unfortunately’ given to querulous critics a -cue for attacking me unjustly. I should rather have -said: ‘We ought to be <i>quaint</i>, and not to shrink -from that which the fastidious modern will be sure -to call <i>grotesque</i> in English, when he is too blunted -by habit, or too poor a scholar to discern it in the -Greek’.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f56'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r56'>56</a>. </span>‘It is the fact, that scholars of fastidious refinement, -but of a judgment which I think far more -masculine than Mr Arnold’s, have passed a most -encouraging sentence on large specimens of my translation. -I at present count eight such names’.—‘Before -venturing to print, I sought to ascertain how -unlearned women and children would accept my -verses. I could boast how children and half-educated -women have extolled them, how greedily -a working man has inquired for them, without knowing -who was the translator’.—<span class='sc'>Mr Newman’s</span> Reply, -<abbr title='pages'>pp.</abbr> <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>, <i>supra</i>.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f57'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r57'>57</a>. </span>‘O for the fields of Thessaly and the streams of -Spercheios! O for the hills alive with the dances of -the Laconian maidens, the hills of Taygetus’!—<i>Georgics</i>, -<abbr title='2'>ii.</abbr> 486.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f58'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r58'>58</a>. </span><i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='17'>xvii</abbr>, 216.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f59'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r59'>59</a>. </span><i>Purgatory</i>, <abbr title='23'>xxiii</abbr>, 124.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f60'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r60'>60</a>. </span><i>Purgatory</i>, <abbr title='23'>xxiii</abbr>, 127.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f61'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r61'>61</a>. </span>‘A secure time fell to the lot neither of Peleus -the son of Æacus, nor of the godlike Cadmus; howbeit -these are said to have had, of all mortals, the -supreme of happiness, who heard the golden-snooded -Muses sing, one of them on the mountain (Pelion), -the other in seven-gated Thebus’.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f62'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r62'>62</a>. </span>Lines such as the first of the <i>Odyssey</i></p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὅς μάλα πολλὰ</span>....</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f63'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r63'>63</a>. </span>Substantially, however, in the question at issue -between Mr Munro and Mr Spedding, I agree with -Mr Munro. By the italicized words in the following -sentence, ‘The rhythm of the Virgilian hexameter -depends entirely on <i>cæsura</i>, <i>pause</i>, and a due arrangement -of words’, he has touched, it seems to -me, in the constitution of this hexameter, the central -point which Mr Spedding misses. The accent, or -<i>heightened tone</i>, of Virgil in reading his own hexameters, -was probably far from being the same thing -as the accent or <i>stress</i> with which we read them. -The general effect of each line, in Virgil’s mouth, -was probably therefore something widely different -from what Mr Spedding assumes it to have been: an -ancient’s accentual reading was something which -allowed the metrical beat of the Latin line to be far -more perceptible than our accentual reading allows it -to be.</p> - -<p class='c005'>On the question as to the <i>real</i> rhythm of the ancient -hexameter, Mr Newman has in his <i>Reply</i> a page quite -admirable for force and precision. Here he is in his -element, and his ability and acuteness have their -proper scope. But it is true that the <i>modern</i> reading -of the ancient hexameter is what the modern -hexameter has to imitate, and that the English reading -of the Virgilian hexameter is as Mr Spedding describes -it. Why this reading has not been imitated by the -English hexameter, I have tried to point out in the -text.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f64'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r64'>64</a>. </span>Such a minor change I have attempted by occasionally -shifting, in the first foot of the hexameter, -the accent from the first syllable to the second. In -the current English hexameter, it is on the first. -Mr Spedding, who proposes radically to subvert the -constitution of this hexameter, seems not to understand -that anyone can propose to modify it partially; -he can comprehend revolution in this metre, but not -reform. Accordingly he asks me how I can bring -myself to say, ‘<i>Bé</i>tween that and the ships’, or -‘<i>Thére</i> sat fifty men’; or how I can reconcile such -forcing of the accent with my own rule, that ‘hexameters -must <i>read themselves</i>’. Presently he says that -he cannot believe I do pronounce these words so, but -that he thinks I leave out the accent in the first foot -altogether, and thus get a hexameter with only five -accents. He will pardon me: I pronounce, as I -suppose he himself does, if he reads the words -naturally, ‘Be<i>tween</i> that and the ships’, and ‘There -<i>sát</i> fifty men’. Mr Spedding is familiar enough with -this accent on the second syllable in Virgil’s hexameters; -in ‘et <i>té</i> montosæ’, or ‘Ve<i>ló</i>ces jaculo’. -Such a change is an attempt to relieve the monotony -of the current English hexameter by occasionally -altering the position of one of its accents; it is not -an attempt to make a wholly new English hexameter -by habitually altering the position of four of them. -Very likely it is an unsuccessful attempt; but at any-rate -it does not violate what I think is the fundamental -rule for English hexameters, that may be such -as to <i>read themselves</i> without necessitating, on the -reader’s part, any non-natural putting-on or taking-off -accent. Hexameters like these of Mr Longfellow,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>‘In that delightful land which is washed by the Delaware’s waters’,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>and,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>‘As if they fain would appease the Dryads, whose haunts they molested’,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>violate this rule; and they are very common. I think -the blemish of Mr Dart’s recent meritorious version of -the <i>Iliad</i> is that it contains too many of them.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f65'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r65'>65</a>. </span>As I welcome another more recent attempt in -stanza,—Mr Worsley’s version of the <i>Odyssey</i> in -Spenser’s measure. Mr Worsley does me the honour -to notice some remarks of mine on this measure: I -had said that its greater intricacy made it a worse -measure than even the ten-syllable couplet to employ -for rendering Homer. He points out, in answer, -that ‘the more complicated the correspondences in -a poetical measure, the less obtrusive and absolute -are the rhymes’. This is true, and subtly remarked; -but I never denied that the single shocks of rhyme -in the couplet were more <i>strongly felt</i> than those in -the stanza; I said that the more frequent recurrence -of the same rhyme, in the stanza, necessarily made -this measure more <i>intricate</i>. The stanza repacks -Homer’s matter yet more arbitrarily, and therefore -changes his movement yet more radically, than the -couplet. Accordingly, I imagine a nearer approach -to a perfect translation of Homer is possible in the -couplet, well managed, than in the stanza, however -well managed. But meanwhile Mr Worsley, applying -the Spenserian stanza, that beautiful romantic measure, -to the most romantic poem of the ancient world; -making this stanza yield him, too (what it never -yielded to Byron), its treasures of fluidity and sweet -ease; above all, bringing to his task a truly poetical -sense and skill, has produced a version of the <i>Odyssey</i> -much the most pleasing of those hitherto produced, -and which is delightful to read.</p> - -<p class='c005'>For the public this may well be enough, nay, more -than enough; but for the critic even this is not yet -quite enough.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f66'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r66'>66</a>. </span>I speak of poetic genius as employing itself upon -narrative or dramatic poetry,—poetry in which the -poet has to go out of himself and to create. In -lyrical poetry, in the direct expression of personal -feeling, the most subtle genius may, under the -momentary pressure of passion, express itself simply. -Even here, however, the native tendency will generally -be discernible.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f67'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r67'>67</a>. </span>‘And I have endured—the like whereof no soul -upon the earth hath yet endured—to carry to my lips -the hand of him who slew my child’.—<i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='24'>xxiv.</abbr> -505.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f68'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r68'>68</a>. </span>‘Nay and thou too, old man, in times past wert, -as we hear, happy’.—<i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='24'>xxiv.</abbr> 543. In the -original this line, for mingled pathos and dignity, -is perhaps without a rival even in Homer.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f69'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r69'>69</a>. </span>’For so have the gods spun our destiny to us -wretched mortals,—that we should live in sorrow; -but they themselves are without trouble’.—<i>Iliad</i>, -<abbr title='24'>xxiv</abbr>. 525.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f70'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r70'>70</a>. </span>‘<i>I</i> wept not: so of stone grew I within:—<i>they</i> -wept’.—<i>Hell</i>, <abbr title='33'>xxxiii</abbr>. 49 (Carlyle’s Translation, -slightly altered).</p> -</div> - -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<hr /> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> - -<div class='tnotes'> - - <ul class='ul_1 c002'> - <li>Transcriber’s Note: - <ul class='ul_2'> - <li>Footnotes have been collected at the end of the text, and are linked for ease of - reference. - </li> - </ul> - </li> - </ul> - -</div> - -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<hr class="pgx" /> -<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON TRANSLATING HOMER***</p> -<p>******* This file should be named 65381-h.htm or 65381-h.zip *******</p> -<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/5/3/8/65381">http://www.gutenberg.org/6/5/3/8/65381</a></p> -<p> -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed.</p> - -<p>Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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