diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old/65381-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/65381-0.txt | 7404 |
1 files changed, 0 insertions, 7404 deletions
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. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive -specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this -eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook -for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, -performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given -away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks -not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the -trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country outside the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - 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. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation." - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The -Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the -mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its -volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous -locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt -Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to -date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and -official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -For additional contact information: - - Dr. Gregory B. Newby - Chief Executive and Director - gbnewby@pglaf.org - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - |