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margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } - div.tnotes { padding-left:1em;padding-right:1em;background-color:#E3E4FA; - border:1px solid silver;margin:1em 5% 0 5%;text-align:justify; } - abbr { border:none; text-decoration:none; font-variant:normal; } - - - - h1.pgx { text-align: center; - clear: both; - font-weight: bold; - font-size: 190%; - margin-top: 0em; - margin-bottom: 1em; - word-spacing: 0em; - letter-spacing: 0em; - line-height: 1; } - h2.pgx { text-align: center; - clear: both; - font-weight: bold; - font-size: 135%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 1em; - word-spacing: 0em; - letter-spacing: 0em; - page-break-before: avoid; - line-height: 1; } - h3.pgx { text-align: center; - clear: both; - font-weight: bold; - font-size: 110%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 1em; - word-spacing: 0em; - letter-spacing: 0em; - line-height: 1; } - h4.pgx { text-align: center; - clear: both; - font-weight: bold; - font-size: 100%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 1em; - word-spacing: 0em; - letter-spacing: 0em; - line-height: 1; } - hr.pgx { width: 100%; - margin-top: 3em; - margin-bottom: 0em; - margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto; - height: 4px; - border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ - border-style: solid; - border-color: #000000; - clear: both; } - </style> -</head> -<body> -<h1 class="pgx" title="">The Project Gutenberg eBook, On Translating Homer, by Mathew Arnold</h1> -<p>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 <a -href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you are not -located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this ebook.</p> -<p>Title: On Translating Homer</p> -<p>Author: Mathew Arnold</p> -<p>Release Date: May 19, 2021 [eBook #65381]</p> -<p>Language: English</p> -<p>Character set encoding: UTF-8</p> -<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON TRANSLATING HOMER***</p> -<p> </p> -<h4 class="pgx" title="">E-text prepared by deaurider, David King,<br /> - and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> - (https://www.pgdp.net)<br /> - from page images generously made available by<br /> - Internet Archive<br /> - (https://archive.org)</h4> -<p> </p> -<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10"> - <tr> - <td valign="top"> - Note: - </td> - <td> - Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - https://archive.org/details/ontranslatingho00arno - </td> - </tr> -</table> -<p> </p> -<hr class="pgx" /> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> - -<div class='figcenter id001'> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_on'>on</span> -<img src='images/cover.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> -<div> - <h1 class='c001'>ON TRANSLATING HOMER</h1> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c002'> - <div><span class='xxlarge'><b>ON TRANSLATING HOMER</b></span></div> - <div class='c000'><span class='large'><b>BY</b></span></div> - <div><span class='xxlarge'><b>MATTHEW ARNOLD</b></span></div> - <div class='c000'><span class='large'><i>With F. W. Newman’s ‘Homeric Translation’</i></span></div> - <div><span class='large'><i>and Arnold’s ‘Last Words’</i></span></div> - <div class='c000'>LONDON</div> - <div>GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS <span class='sc'>Limited</span></div> - <div>NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c003'>CONTENTS</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c004'><span class='sc'>On Translating Homer</span>—</p> - -<p class='c005'><a href='#part1'>I. 1</a></p> - -<p class='c005'><a href='#part2'>II. 32</a></p> - -<p class='c005'><a href='#part3'>III. 68</a></p> - -<p class='c005'><a href='#reply1'><span class='sc'>Homeric Translation in Theory and Practice.</span> A Reply to Matthew Arnold. By Francis W. Newman 112</a></p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='sc'>Last Words on Translating Homer.</span></p> - -<p class='c005'><a href='#reply2'>A Reply to Francis W. Newman. By Matthew Arnold 217</a></p> -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span>... <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Nunquamne reponam?</span></p> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 id='part1' class='c003'><abbr title='1'>I</abbr></h2> -</div> -<p class='c004'>It has more than once been suggested to -me that I should translate Homer. That -is a task for which I have neither the time -nor the courage; but the suggestion led -me to regard yet more closely a poet whom -I had already long studied, and for one -or two years the works of Homer were -seldom out of my hands. The study of -classical literature is probably on the decline; -but, whatever may be the fate of -this study in general, it is certain that, as -instruction spreads and the number of -readers increases, attention will be more -and more directed to the poetry of Homer, -not indeed as part of a classical course, -but as the most important poetical monument -existing. Even within the last ten -years two fresh translations of the <i>Iliad</i> -have appeared in England: one by a man -of great ability and genuine learning, Professor -Newman; the other by Mr Wright, -the conscientious and painstaking translator -of Dante. It may safely be asserted -<span class='pageno' id='Page_2'>2</span>that neither of these works will take rank -as the standard translation of Homer; that -the task of rendering him will still be attempted -by other translators. It may perhaps -be possible to render to these some -service, to save them some loss of labour, -by pointing out rocks on which their predecessors -have split, and the right objects -on which a translator of Homer should fix -his attention.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It is disputed what aim a translator -should propose to himself in dealing with -his original. Even this preliminary is not -yet settled. On one side it is said that the -translation ought to be such ‘that the -reader should, if possible, forget that it is a -translation at all, and be lulled into the -illusion that he is reading an original work—something -original’ (if the translation be -English), ‘from an English hand’. The -real original is in this case, it is said, ‘taken -as a basis on which to rear a poem that -shall affect our countrymen as the original -may be conceived to have affected its -natural hearers’. On the other hand, Mr -Newman, who states the foregoing doctrine -only to condemn it, declares that he ‘aims -at precisely the opposite: to retain every -peculiarity of the original, so far as he is -able, <i>with the greater care the more foreign it -may happen to be</i>’; so that it may ‘never -be forgotten that he is imitating, and -imitating in a different material’. The -<span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>translator’s ‘first duty’, says Mr Newman -‘is a historical one, to be <i>faithful</i>’. Probably -both sides would agree that the translator’s -‘first duty is to be faithful’; but -the question at issue between them is, in -what faithfulness consists.</p> - -<p class='c005'>My one object is to give practical advice -to a translator; and I shall not the least -concern myself with theories of translation -as such. But I advise the translator not -to try ‘to rear on the basis of the <i>Iliad</i>, a -poem that shall affect our countrymen as -the original may be conceived to have -affected its natural hearers’; and for this -simple reason, that we cannot possibly tell -<i>how</i> the <i>Iliad</i> ‘affected its natural hearers’. -It is probably meant merely that he should -try to affect Englishmen powerfully, as -Homer affected Greeks powerfully; but -this direction is not enough, and can give -no real guidance. For all great poets affect -their hearers powerfully, but the effect of -one poet is one thing, that of another poet -another thing: it is our translator’s business -to reproduce the effect of Homer, and the -most powerful emotion of the unlearned -English reader can never assure him whether -he has <i>re</i>produced this, or whether he has -produced something else. So, again, he -may follow Mr Newman’s directions, he may -try to be ‘faithful’, he may ‘retain every -peculiarity of his original’; but who is to -assure him, who is to assure Mr Newman -<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>himself, that, when he has done this, he -has done that for which Mr Newman enjoins -this to be done, ‘adhered closely to -Homer’s manner and habit of thought’? -Evidently the translator needs some more -practical directions than these. No one can -tell him how Homer affected the Greeks; -but there are those who can tell him how -Homer affects <i>them</i>. These are scholars; -who possess, at the same time with knowledge -of Greek, adequate poetical taste and -feeling. No translation will seem to them -of much worth compared with the original; -but they alone can say whether the translation -produces more or less the same effect -upon them as the original. They are the -only competent tribunal in this matter: -the Greeks are dead; the unlearned Englishman -has not the data for judging; and no -man can safely confide in his own single -judgment of his own work. Let not the -translator, then, trust to his notions of what -the ancient Greeks would have thought of -him; he will lose himself in the vague. -Let him not trust to what the ordinary -English reader thinks of him; he will be -taking the blind for his guide. Let him not -trust to his own judgment of his own work; -he may be misled by individual caprices. -Let him ask how his work affects those who -both know Greek and can appreciate poetry; -whether to read it gives the Provost of -Eton, or Professor Thompson at Cambridge, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>or Professor Jowett here in Oxford, at all -the same feeling which to read the original -gives them. I consider that when Bentley -said of Pope’s translation, ‘It was a pretty -poem, but must not be called Homer’, the -work, in spite of all its power and attractiveness, -was judged.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Ὡς ἂν ὁ φρόνιμος ὁρίσειεν</span>, ‘as the judicious -would determine’, that is a test to -which everyone professes himself willing -to submit his works. Unhappily, in most -cases, no two persons agree as to who ‘the -judicious’ are. In the present case, the -ambiguity is removed: I suppose the translator -at one with me as to the tribunal to -which alone he should look for judgment; -and he has thus obtained a practical test by -which to estimate the real success of his -work. How is he to proceed, in order that -his work, tried by this test, may be found -most successful?</p> - -<p class='c005'>First of all, there are certain negative -counsels which I will give him. Homer has -occupied men’s minds so much, such a -literature has arisen about him, that every -one who approaches him should resolve -strictly to limit himself to that which may -directly serve the object for which he approaches -him. I advise the translator to -have nothing to do with the questions, -whether Homer ever existed; whether the -poet of the <i>Iliad</i> be one or many; whether -the <i>Iliad</i> be one poem or an <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><i>Achilleis</i></span> and an -<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span><i>Iliad</i> stuck together; whether the Christian -doctrine of the Atonement is shadowed -forth in the Homeric mythology; whether -the Goddess Latona in any way prefigures -the Virgin Mary, and so on. These are -questions which have been discussed with -learning, with ingenuity, nay, with genius; -but they have two inconveniences,—one -general for all who approach them, one -particular for the translator. The general -inconvenience is that there really exist no -data for determining them. The particular -inconvenience is that their solution by the -translator, even were it possible, could be -of no benefit to his translation.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I advise him, again, not to trouble himself -with constructing a special vocabulary for -his use in translation; with excluding a -certain class of English words, and with -confining himself to another class, in obedience -to any theory about the peculiar -qualities of Homer’s style. Mr Newman -says that ‘the entire dialect of Homer being -essentially archaic, that of a translator -ought to be as much Saxo-Norman as possible, -and owe as little as possible to the -elements thrown into our language by classical -learning’. Mr Newman is unfortunate -in the observance of his own theory; for I -continually find in his translation words of -Latin origin, which seem to me quite alien -to the simplicity of Homer,—‘responsive’, -for instance, which is a favourite word of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>Mr Newman, to represent the Homeric -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀμειβόμενος</span>:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Great Hector of the motley helm thus spake to her <i>responsive</i>.</div> - <div class='line'>But thus <i>responsively</i> to him spake godlike Alexander.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>And the word ‘celestial’ again, in the grand -address of Zeus to the horses of Achilles,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>You, who are born <i>celestial</i>, from Eld and Death exempted!</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>seems to me in that place exactly to jar upon -the feeling as too bookish. But, apart from -the question of Mr Newman’s fidelity to -his own theory, such a theory seems to me -both dangerous for a translator and false -in itself. Dangerous for a translator; because, -wherever one finds such a theory -announced (and one finds it pretty often), -it is generally followed by an explosion of -pedantry; and pedantry is of all things in the -world the most un-Homeric. False in itself; -because, in fact, we owe to the Latin element -in our language most of that very rapidity -and clear decisiveness by which it is contradistinguished -from the German, and in -sympathy with the languages of Greece and -Rome: so that to limit an English translator -of Homer to words of Saxon origin is -to deprive him of one of his special advantages -for translating Homer. In Voss’s -well-known translation of Homer, it is precisely -the qualities of his German language -itself, something heavy and trailing both -<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>in the structure of its sentences and in the -words of which it is composed, which prevent -his translation, in spite of the hexameters, -in spite of the fidelity, from creating -in us the impression created by the Greek. -Mr Newman’s prescription, if followed, -would just strip the English translator of -the advantage which he has over Voss.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The frame of mind in which we approach -an author influences our correctness of appreciation -of him; and Homer should be -approached by a translator in the simplest -frame of mind possible. Modern sentiment -tries to make the ancient not less than the -modern world its own; but against modern -sentiment in its applications to Homer the -translator, if he would feel Homer truly—and -unless he feels him truly, how can -he render him truly?—cannot be too -much on his guard. For example: the -writer of an interesting article on English -translations of Homer, in the last number -of the <i>National Review</i>, quotes, I see, with -admiration, a criticism of Mr Ruskin on the -use of the epithet <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">φυσίζοος</span>, ‘life-giving’, -in that beautiful passage in the third book -of the <i>Iliad</i>, which follows Helen’s mention -of her brothers Castor and Pollux as alive, -though they were in truth dead:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὣς φάτο· τοὺς δ’ ἤδη κατέχεν φυσίζοος αἶα</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐν Λακεδαίμονι αὖθι, φίλῃ ἐν πατρίδι γαίῃ</span>.<a id='r1' /><a href='#f1' class='c009'><sup>[1]</sup></a></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>‘The poet’, says Mr Ruskin, ‘has to speak -of the earth in sadness; but he will not let -that sadness affect or change his thought of -it. No; though Castor and Pollux be dead, -yet the earth is our mother still,—fruitful, -life-giving’. This is a just specimen of that -sort of application of modern sentiment to -the ancients, against which a student, who -wishes to feel the ancients truly, cannot too -resolutely defend himself. It reminds one, -as, alas! so much of Mr Ruskin’s writing -reminds one, of those words of the most -delicate of living critics: <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Comme tout -genre de composition a son écueil particulier, -<i>celui du genre romanesque, c’est le faux</i>”.</span> -The reader may feel moved as he reads it; -but it is not the less an example of <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">‘le faux’</span> -in criticism; it is false. It is not true, as -to that particular passage, that Homer called -the earth <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">φυσίζοος</span> because, ‘though he had -to speak of the earth in sadness, he would -not let that sadness change or affect his -thought of it’, but consoled himself by considering -that ‘the earth is our mother still,—fruitful, -life-giving’. It is not true, as a -matter of general criticism, that this kind of -sentimentality, eminently modern, inspires -Homer at all. ‘From Homer and Polygnotus -I every day learn more clearly’, -says Goethe, ‘that in our life here above -ground we have, properly speaking, to enact -Hell’<a id='r2' /><a href='#f2' class='c009'><sup>[2]</sup></a>:—if the student must absolutely -<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>have a keynote to the <i>Iliad</i>, let him take -this of Goethe, and see what he can do with -it; it will not, at any rate, like the tender -pantheism of Mr Ruskin, falsify for him the -whole strain of Homer.</p> - -<p class='c005'>These are negative counsels; I come to -the positive. When I say, the translator -of Homer should above all be penetrated -by a sense of four qualities of his author;—that -he is eminently rapid; that he is -eminently plain and direct, both in the -evolution of his thought and in the expression -of it, that is, both in his syntax and in -his words; that he is eminently plain and -direct in the substance of his thought, that -is, in his matter and ideas; and, finally -that he is eminently noble;—I probably -seem to be saying what is too general to be -of much service to anybody. Yet it is -strictly true that, for want of duly penetrating -themselves with the first-named -quality of Homer, his rapidity, Cowper -and Mr Wright have failed in rendering -him; that, for want of duly appreciating -the second-named quality, his plainness -and directness of style and dictation, Pope -and Mr Sotheby have failed in rendering -him; that for want of appreciating the -third, his plainness and directness of ideas, -Chapman has failed in rendering him; -while for want of appreciating the fourth, -his nobleness, Mr Newman, who has clearly -seen some of the faults of his predecessors, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>has yet failed more conspicuously than any -of them.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Coleridge says, in his strange language, -speaking of the union of the human soul -with the divine essence, that this takes place</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Whene’er the mist, which stands ’twixt God and thee,</div> - <div class='line'>Defecates to a pure transparency;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>and so, too, it may be said of that union -of the translator with his original, which -alone can produce a good translation, that -it takes place when the mist which stands -between them—the mist of alien modes of -thinking, speaking, and feeling on the translator’s -part—‘defecates to a pure transparency’, -and disappears. But between -Cowper and Homer—(Mr Wright repeats in -the main Cowper’s manner, as Mr Sotheby -repeats Pope’s manner, and neither Mr -Wright’s translation nor Mr Sotheby’s has, -I must be forgiven for saying, any proper -reason for existing)—between Cowper and -Homer there is interposed the mist of -Cowper’s elaborate Miltonic manner, entirely -alien to the flowing rapidity of Homer; -between Pope and Homer there is interposed -the mist of Pope’s literary artificial -manner, entirely alien to the plain naturalness -of Homer’s manner; between Chapman -and Homer there is interposed the mist of -the fancifulness of the Elizabethan age, -entirely alien to the plain directness of -Homer’s thought and feeling; while between -<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>Mr Newman and Homer is interposed -a cloud of more than Egyptian thickness,—namely, -a manner, in Mr Newman’s version, -eminently ignoble, while Homer’s manner -is eminently noble.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I do not despair of making all these propositions -clear to a student who approaches -Homer with a free mind. First, Homer is -eminently rapid, and to this rapidity the -elaborate movement of Miltonic blank verse -is alien. The reputation of Cowper, that -most interesting man and excellent poet, -does not depend on his translation of Homer; -and in his preface to the second edition, he -himself tells us that he felt,—he had too -much poetical taste not to feel,—on returning -to his own version after six or seven -years, ‘more dissatisfied with it himself -than the most difficult to be pleased of all -his judges’. And he was dissatisfied with -it for the right reason,—that ‘it seemed to -him deficient <i>in the grace of ease</i>’. Yet -he seems to have originally misconceived -the manner of Homer so much, that it is -no wonder he rendered him amiss. ‘The -similitude of Milton’s manner to that of -Homer is such’, he says, ‘that no person -familiar with both can read either without -being reminded of the other; and it is in -those breaks and pauses to which the -numbers of the English poet are so much -indebted, both for their dignity and variety, -that he chiefly copies the Grecian’. It -<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>would be more true to say: ‘The unlikeness -of Milton’s manner to that of Homer -is such, that no person familiar with both -can read either without being struck with -his difference from the other; and it is in -his breaks and pauses that the English poet -is most unlike the Grecian’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The inversion and pregnant conciseness -of Milton or Dante are, doubtless, most impressive -qualities of style; but they are -the very opposites of the directness and -flowingness of Homer, which he keeps alike -in passages of the simplest narrative, and -in those of the deepest emotion. Not only, -for example, are these lines of Cowper un-Homeric:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>So numerous seemed those fires the banks between</div> - <div class='line'>Of Xanthus, blazing, and the fleet of Greece</div> - <div class='line'>In prospect all of Troy;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>where the position of the word ‘blazing’ -gives an entirely un-Homeric movement to -this simple passage, describing the fires of -the Trojan camp outside of Troy; but the -following lines, in that very highly-wrought -passage where the horse of Achilles answers -his master’s reproaches for having left -Patroclus on the field of battle, are equally -un-Homeric:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>For not through sloth or tardiness on us</div> - <div class='line'>Aught chargeable, have Ilium’s sons thine arms</div> - <div class='line'>Stript from Patroclus’ shoulders; but a God</div> - <div class='line'>Matchless in battle, offspring of bright-haired</div> - <div class='line'>Latona, him contending in the van</div> - <div class='line'>Slew, for the glory of the chief of Troy.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>Here even the first inversion, ‘have Ilium’s -sons thine arms Stript from Patroclus’ -shoulders’, gives the reader a sense of a -movement not Homeric; and the second -inversion, ‘a God him contending in the van -Slew’, gives this sense ten times stronger. -Instead of moving on without check, as -in reading the original, the reader twice -finds himself, in reading the translation, -brought up and checked. Homer moves -with the same simplicity and rapidity -in the highly-wrought as in the simple -passage.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It is in vain that Cowper insists on his -fidelity: ‘my chief boast is that I have -adhered closely to my original’:—‘the -matter found in me, whether the reader like -it or not, is found also in Homer; and the -matter not found in me, how much soever -the reader may admire it, is found only in -Mr Pope’. To suppose that it is <i>fidelity</i> to -an original to give its matter, unless you at -the same time give its manner; or, rather, -to suppose that you can really give its -matter at all, unless you can give its manner, -is just the mistake of our pre-Raphaelite -school of painters, who do not understand -that the peculiar effect of nature resides in -the whole and not in the parts. So the -peculiar effect of a poet resides in his manner -and movement, not in his words taken separately. -It is well known how conscientiously -literal is Cowper in his translation -<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>of Homer. It is well known how extravagantly -free is Pope.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in16'>So let it be!</div> - <div class='line'>Portents and prodigies are lost on me;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>that is Pope’s rendering of the words,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Ξάνθε, τί μοι θάνατον μαντεύεαι; οὐδέ τί σε χρή·</span><a id='r3' /><a href='#f3' class='c009'><sup>[3]</sup></a></div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Xanthus, why prophesiest thou my death to me? thou needest not at all:</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>yet, on the whole, Pope’s translation of the -<i>Iliad</i> is more Homeric than Cowper’s, for -it is more rapid.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Pope’s movement, however, though rapid, -is not of the same kind as Homer’s; and -here I come to the real objection to rhyme -in a translation of Homer. It is commonly -said that rhyme is to be abandoned in a -translation of Homer, because ‘the exigencies -of rhyme’, to quote Mr Newman, -‘positively forbid faithfulness’; because -‘a just translation of any ancient poet in -rhyme’, to quote Cowper, ‘is impossible’. -This, however, is merely an accidental objection -to rhyme. If this were all, it might -be supposed, that if rhymes were more -abundant Homer could be adequately translated -in rhyme. But this is not so; there -is a deeper, a substantial objection to rhyme -in a translation of Homer. It is, that rhyme -inevitably tends to pair lines which in the -original are independent, and thus the movement -<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>of the poem is changed. In these -lines of Chapman, for instance, from Sarpedon’s -speech to Glaucus, in the twelfth -book of the <i>Iliad</i>:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in18'>O friend, if keeping back</div> - <div class='line'>Would keep back age from us, and death, and that we might not wrack</div> - <div class='line'>In this life’s human sea at all, but that deferring now</div> - <div class='line'>We shunned death ever,—nor would I half this vain valor show,</div> - <div class='line'>Nor glorify a folly so, to wish thee to advance;</div> - <div class='line'>But since we <i>must</i> go, though not here, and that besides the chance</div> - <div class='line'>Proposed now, there are infinite fates, etc.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Here the necessity of making the line,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Nor glorify a folly so, to wish thee to advance,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>rhyme with the line which follows it, entirely -changes and spoils the movement of the -passage.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in8'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">οὔτε κεν αὐτὸς ἐνὶ πρώτοισι μαχοίμην,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">οὔτε κέ σε στέλλοιμι μάχην ἐς κυδιάνειραν·</span><a id='r4' /><a href='#f4' class='c009'><sup>[4]</sup></a></div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Neither would I myself go forth to fight with the foremost,</div> - <div class='line'>Nor would I urge thee on to enter the glorious battle,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>says Homer; there he stops, and begins an -opposed movement:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">νῦν δ’—ἔμπης γὰρ Κῆρες ἐφεστᾶσιν θανάτοιο—</span></div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>But—for a thousand fates of death stand close to us always—</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>This line, in which Homer wishes to go away -<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>with the most marked rapidity from the -line before, Chapman is forced, by the necessity -of rhyming, intimately to connect -with the line before.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>But since we <i>must</i> go, though not here, and that besides the chance.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>The moment the word <i>chance</i> strikes our -ear, we are irresistibly carried back to <i>advance</i> -and to the whole previous line, which, -according to Homer’s own feeling, we ought -to have left behind us entirely, and to be -moving farther and farther away from.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Rhyme certainly, by intensifying antithesis, -can intensify separation, and this -is precisely what Pope does; but this balanced -rhetorical antithesis, though very -effective, is entirely un-Homeric. And this -is what I mean by saying that Pope fails to -render Homer, because he does not render -his plainness and directness of style and -diction. Where Homer marks separation -by moving away, Pope marks it by antithesis. -No passage could show this better -than the passage I have just quoted, on -which I will pause for a moment.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Robert Wood, whose <i>Essay on the Genius -of Homer</i> is mentioned by Goethe as one of -the books which fell into his hands when -his powers were first developing themselves, -and strongly interested him, relates of this -passage a striking story. He says that in -1762, at the end of the Seven Years’ War, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>being then Under-Secretary of State, he was -directed to wait upon the President of the -Council, Lord Granville, a few days before -he died, with the preliminary articles of the -Treaty of Paris. ‘I found him’, he continues, -‘so languid, that I proposed postponing -my business for another time; but -he insisted that I should stay, saying, it -could not prolong his life to neglect his -duty; and repeating the following passage -out of Sarpedon’s speech, he dwelled with -particular emphasis on the third line, which -recalled to his mind the distinguishing part -he had taken in public affairs:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὦ πέπον, εἰ μὲν γὰρ, πόλεμον περὶ τόνδε φυγόντε,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">αἰεὶ δὴ μέλλοιμεν ἀγήρω τ’ ἀθανάτω τε</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἔσσεσθ’, οὔτε κεν αὐτὸς ἐνὶ πρώτοισι μαχοίμην,</span><a id='r5' /><a href='#f5' class='c009'><sup>[5]</sup></a></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">οὔτε κέ σε στέλλοιμι μάχην ἐς κυδιάνειραν·</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">νῦν δ’—ἔμπης γὰρ Κῆρες ἐφεστᾶσιν θανάτοιο</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μυρίαι, ἃς οὐκ ἔστι φυγεῖν βρότον, οὐδ’ ὑπαλύξαι—</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἴομεν.</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>His Lordship repeated the last word several -times with a calm and determinate resignation; -and, after a serious pause of some -minutes, he desired to hear the Treaty read, -to which he listened with great attention, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>and recovered spirits enough to declare the -approbation of a dying statesman (I use his -own words) “on the most glorious war, -and most honourable peace, this nation ever -saw”’<a id='r6' /><a href='#f6' class='c009'><sup>[6]</sup></a>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I quote this story, first, because it is -interesting as exhibiting the English aristocracy -at its very height of culture, lofty spirit, -and greatness, towards the middle of the -18th century. I quote it, secondly, because -it seems to me to illustrate Goethe’s saying -which I mentioned, that our life, in Homer’s -view of it, represents a conflict and a hell; -and it brings out, too, what there is tonic -and fortifying in this doctrine. I quote it, -lastly, because it shows that the passage is -just one of those in translating which Pope -will be at his best, a passage of strong -emotion and oratorical movement, not of -simple narrative or description.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Pope translates the passage thus:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Could all our care elude the gloomy grave</div> - <div class='line'>Which claims no less the fearful than the brave,</div> - <div class='line'>For lust of fame I should not vainly dare</div> - <div class='line'>In fighting fields, nor urge thy soul to war:</div> - <div class='line'>But since, alas! ignoble age must come,</div> - <div class='line'>Disease, and death’s inexorable doom;</div> - <div class='line'>The life which others pay, let us bestow,</div> - <div class='line'>And give to fame what we to nature owe.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Nothing could better exhibit Pope’s prodigious -talent; and nothing, too, could be -<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>better in its own way. But, as Bentley -said, ‘You must not call it Homer’. One -feels that Homer’s thought has passed -through a literary and rhetorical crucible, -and come out highly intellectualised; come -out in a form which strongly impresses us, -indeed, but which no longer impresses us -in the same way as when it was uttered by -Homer. The antithesis of the last two -lines—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The life which others pay, let us bestow,</div> - <div class='line'>And give to fame what we to nature owe</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>is excellent, and is just suited to Pope’s -heroic couplet; but neither the antithesis -itself, nor the couplet which conveys it, -is suited to the feeling or to the movement -of the Homeric <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἴομεν</span>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>A literary and intellectualised language -is, however, in its own way well suited to -grand matters; and Pope, with a language -of this kind and his own admirable talent, -comes off well enough as long as he has -passion, or oratory, or a great crisis to deal -with. Even here, as I have been pointing -out, he does not render Homer; but he and -his style are in themselves strong. It is -when he comes to level passages, passages -of narrative or description, that he and his -style are sorely tried, and prove themselves -weak. A perfectly plain direct style can -of course convey the simplest matter as -naturally as the grandest; indeed, it must -be harder for it, one would say, to convey -<span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>a grand matter worthily and nobly, than to -convey a common matter, as alone such a -matter should be conveyed, plainly and -simply. But the style of Rasselas is incomparably -better fitted to describe a sage -philosophising than a soldier lighting his -camp-fire. The style of Pope is not the -style of Rasselas; but it is equally a literary -style, equally unfitted to describe a simple -matter with the plain naturalness of Homer.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Everyone knows the passage at the end -of the eighth book of the <i>Iliad</i>, where the -fires of the Trojan encampment are likened -to the stars. It is very far from my wish -to hold Pope up to ridicule, so I shall not -quote the commencement of the passage, -which in the original is of great and celebrated -beauty, and in translating which -Pope has been singularly and notoriously -fortunate. But the latter part of the passage, -where Homer leaves the stars, and -comes to the Trojan fires, treats of the plainest, -most matter-of-fact subject possible, -and deals with this, as Homer always deals -with every subject, in the plainest and -most straightforward style. ‘So many in -number, between the ships and the streams -of Xanthus, shone forth in front of Troy -the fires kindled by the Trojans. There -were kindled a thousand fires in the plain; -and by each one there sat fifty men in the -light of the blazing fire. And the horses, -munching white barley and rye, and standing -<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>by the chariots, waited for the bright-throned -Morning<a id='r7' /><a href='#f7' class='c009'><sup>[7]</sup></a>’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In Pope’s translation, this plain story -becomes the following:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>So many flames before proud Ilion blaze,</div> - <div class='line'>And brighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays;</div> - <div class='line'>The long reflections of the distant fires</div> - <div class='line'>Gleam on the walls, and tremble on the spires.</div> - <div class='line'>A thousand piles the dusky horrors gild,</div> - <div class='line'>And shoot a shady lustre o’er the field.</div> - <div class='line'>Full fifty guards each flaming pile attend,</div> - <div class='line'>Whose umbered arms, by fits, thick flashes send;</div> - <div class='line'>Loud neigh the coursers o’er their heaps of corn,</div> - <div class='line'>And ardent warriors wait the rising morn.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>It is for passages of this sort, which, after -all, form the bulk of a narrative poem, that -Pope’s style is so bad. In elevated passages -he is powerful, as Homer is powerful, -though not in the same way; but in plain -narrative, where Homer is still powerful and -delightful, Pope, by the inherent fault of -his style, is ineffective and out of taste. -Wordsworth says somewhere, that wherever -Virgil seems to have composed ‘with his eye -on the object’, Dryden fails to render him. -Homer invariably composes ‘with his eye -on the object’, whether the object be a -moral or a material one: Pope composes -with his eye on his style, into which he translates -his object, whatever it is. That, therefore, -which Homer conveys to us immediately, -Pope conveys to us through a medium. -He aims at turning Homer’s sentiments -<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>pointedly and rhetorically; at investing -Homer’s description with ornament and -dignity. A sentiment may be changed by -being put into a pointed and oratorical -form, yet may still be very effective in that -form; but a description, the moment it -takes its eyes off that which it is to describe, -and begins to think of ornamenting itself, -is worthless.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Therefore, I say, the translator of Homer -should penetrate himself with a sense of the -plainness and directness of Homer’s style; -of the simplicity with which Homer’s -thought is evolved and expressed. He has -Pope’s fate before his eyes, to show him -what a divorce may be created even between -the most gifted translator and Homer by an -artificial evolution of thought and a literary -cast of style.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Chapman’s style is not artificial and -literary like Pope’s nor his movement elaborate -and self-retarding like the Miltonic -movement of Cowper. He is plain-spoken, -fresh, vigorous, and, to a certain degree, -rapid; and all these are Homeric qualities. -I cannot say that I think the movement of -his fourteen-syllable line, which has been -so much commended, Homeric; but on -this point I shall have more to say by and -by, when I come to speak of Mr Newman’s -metrical exploits. But it is not distinctly -anti-Homeric, like the movement of Milton’s -blank verse; and it has a rapidity of its -<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>own. Chapman’s diction, too, is generally -good, that is, appropriate to Homer; above -all, the syntactical character of his style is -appropriate. With these merits, what prevents -his translation from being a satisfactory -version of Homer? Is it merely -the want of literal faithfulness to his original, -imposed upon him, it is said, by the exigencies -of rhyme? Has this celebrated -version, which has so many advantages, -no other and deeper defect than that? -Its author is a poet, and a poet, too, of the -Elizabethan age; the golden age of English -literature as it is called, and on the whole -truly called; for, whatever be the defects -of Elizabethan literature (and they are -great), we have no development of our -literature to compare with it for vigour -and richness. This age, too, showed what -it could do in translating, by producing a -master-piece, its version of the Bible.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Chapman’s translation has often been -praised as eminently Homeric. Keats’s fine -sonnet in its honour everyone knows; but -Keats could not read the original, and -therefore could not really judge the translation. -Coleridge, in praising Chapman’s -version, says at the same time, ‘It will -give you small idea of Homer’. But the -grave authority of Mr Hallum pronounces -this translation to be ‘often exceedingly -Homeric’; and its latest editor boldly -declares that by what, with a deplorable -<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>style, he calls ‘his own innative Homeric -genius’, Chapman ‘has thoroughly identified -himself with Homer’; and that ‘we -pardon him even for his digressions, for -they are such as we feel Homer himself -would have written’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I confess that I can never read twenty -lines of Chapman’s version without recurring -to Bentley’s cry, ‘This is not Homer!’ -and that from a deeper cause than any unfaithfulness -occasioned by the fetters of -rhyme.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I said that there were four things which -eminently distinguished Homer, and with a -sense of which Homer’s translator should -penetrate himself as fully as possible. One -of these four things was, the plainness and -directness of Homer’s ideas. I have just -been speaking of the plainness and directness -of his style; but the plainness and -directness of the contents of his style, of his -ideas themselves, is not less remarkable. -But as eminently as Homer is plain, so -eminently is the Elizabethan literature in -general, and Chapman in particular, fanciful. -Steeped in humours and fantasticality up -to its very lips, the Elizabethan age, newly -arrived at the free use of the human faculties -after their long term of bondage, and delighting -to exercise them freely, suffers from -its own extravagance in this first exercise -of them, can hardly bring itself to see an -object quietly or to describe it temperately. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>Happily, in the translation of the Bible, -the sacred character of their original inspired -the translators with such respect that they -did not dare to give the rein to their own -fancies in dealing with it. But, in dealing -with works of profane literature, in dealing -with poetical works above all, which highly -stimulated them, one may say that the -minds of the Elizabethan translators were -<i>too</i> active; that they could not forbear -importing so much of their own, and this -of a most peculiar and Elizabethan character, -into their original, that they effaced -the character of the original itself.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Take merely the opening pages to Chapman’s -translation, the introductory verses, -and the dedications. You will find:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>An Anagram of the name of our Dread Prince,</div> - <div class='line'>My most gracious and sacred Mæcenas,</div> - <div class='line'>Henry, Prince of Wales,</div> - <div class='line'>Our Sunn, Heyr, Peace, Life,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Henry, son of James the First, to whom -the work is dedicated. Then comes an -address,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>To the sacred Fountain of Princes,</div> - <div class='line'>Sole Empress of Beauty and Virtue, Anne, Queen</div> - <div class='line in14'>Of England, etc.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>All the Middle Age, with its grotesqueness, -its conceits, its irrationality, is still in these -opening pages; they by themselves are -sufficient to indicate to us what a gulf -divides Chapman from the ‘clearest-souled’ -of poets, from Homer, almost as great a gulf -<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>as that which divides him from Voltaire. -Pope has been sneered at for saying that -Chapman writes ‘somewhat as one might -imagine Homer himself to have written -before he arrived at years of discretion’. -But the remark is excellent: Homer expresses -himself like a man of adult reason, -Chapman like a man whose reason has not -yet cleared itself. For instance, if Homer -had had to say of a poet, that he hoped his -merit was now about to be fully established -in the opinion of good judges, he was as -incapable of saying this as Chapman says -it,—‘Though truth in her very nakedness -sits in so deep a pit, that from Gades to -Aurora, and Ganges, few eyes can sound -her, I hope yet those few here will so discover -and confirm that the date being out -of her darkness in this morning of our poet, -he shall now gird his temples with the sun’,—I -say, Homer was as incapable of saying -this in that manner, as Voltaire himself -would have been. Homer, indeed, has -actually an affinity with Voltaire in the unrivalled -clearness and straightforwardness -of his thinking; in the way in which he -keeps to one thought at a time, and puts -that thought forth in its complete natural -plainness, instead of being led away from -it by some fancy striking him in connection -with it, and being beguiled to wander off -with this fancy till his original thought, -in its natural reality, knows him no more. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>What could better show us how gifted a -race was this Greek race? The same -member of it has not only the power of -profoundly touching that natural heart of -humanity which it is Voltaire’s weakness -that he cannot reach, but can also address -the understanding with all Voltaire’s admirable -simplicity and rationality.</p> - -<p class='c005'>My limits will not allow me to do more -than shortly illustrate, from Chapman’s -version of the <i>Iliad</i>, what I mean when I -speak of this vital difference between Homer -and an Elizabethan poet in the quality of -their thought; between the plain simplicity -of the thought of the one, and the curious -complexity of the thought of the other. -As in Pope’s case, I carefully abstain from -choosing passages for the express purpose -of making Chapman appear ridiculous; -Chapman, like Pope, merits in himself all -respect, though he too, like Pope, fails to -render Homer.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In that tonic speech of Sarpedon, of -which I have said so much, Homer, you may -remember, has:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in6'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εἰ μὲν γὰρ, πόλεμον περὶ τόνδε φυγόντε,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">αἰεὶ δὴ μέλλοιμεν ἀγήρω τ’ ἀθανάτω τε</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἔσσεσθ’—</span></div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in12'>if indeed, but once <i>this</i> battle avoided,</div> - <div class='line'>We were for ever to live without growing old and immortal—</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Chapman cannot be satisfied with this, but -must add a fancy to it:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in24'><span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>if keeping back</div> - <div class='line'>Would keep back age from us, and death, and <i>that we might not wrack</i></div> - <div class='line'><i>In this life’s human sea at all</i>;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>and so on. Again; in another passage -which I have before quoted, where Zeus says -to the horses of Peleus,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in6'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">τί σφῶϊ δόμεν Πηλῆϊ ἀνάκτι</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">θνητῷ; ὑμεῖς δ’ ἐστὸν ἀγήρω τ’ ἀθανάτω τε</span>·<a id='r8' /><a href='#f8' class='c009'><sup>[8]</sup></a></div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Why gave we you to royal Peleus, to a mortal?</div> - <div class='line'>but ye are without old age, and immortal.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Chapman sophisticates this into:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Why gave we you t’ a mortal king, when immortality</div> - <div class='line'>And <i>incapacity of age so dignifies your states</i>?</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Again; in the speech of Achilles to his -horses, where Achilles, according to Homer, -says simply ‘Take heed that ye bring your -master safe back to the host of the Danaans, -in some other sort than the last time, when -the battle is ended’, Chapman sophisticates -this into:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><i>When with blood, for this day’s fast observed, revenge shall yield</i></div> - <div class='line'><i>Our heart satiety</i>, bring us off.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>In Hector’s famous speech, again, at his -parting from Andromache, Homer makes -him say: ‘Nor does my own heart so bid -me’ (to keep safe behind the walls), ‘since -I have learned to be staunch always, and to -fight among the foremost of the Trojans, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>busy on behalf of my father’s great glory, -and my own<a id='r9' /><a href='#f9' class='c009'><sup>[9]</sup></a>’. In Chapman’s hands this -becomes:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in16'>The spirit I first did breathe</div> - <div class='line'>Did never teach me that; much less, since the contempt of death</div> - <div class='line'>Was settled in me, <i>and my mind knew what a worthy was,</i></div> - <div class='line'><i>Whose office is to lead in fight, and give no danger pass</i></div> - <div class='line'><i>Without improvement. In this fire must Hector’s trial shine:</i></div> - <div class='line'><i>Here must his country, father, friends, be in him made divine.</i></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>You see how ingeniously Homer’s plain -thought is <i>tormented</i>, as the French would -say, here. Homer goes on: ‘For well I -know this in my mind and in my heart, -the day will be, when sacred Troy shall -perish’—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἔσσεται ἦμαρ, ὅτ’ ἄν ποτ’ ὀλώλῃ Ἴλιος ἱρή.</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Chapman makes this:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>And such a <i>stormy</i> day shall come, in mind and soul I know,</div> - <div class='line'>When sacred Troy <i>shall shed her towers, for tears of overthrow</i>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>I might go on for ever, but I could not give -you a better illustration than this last, of -what I mean by saying that the Elizabethan -poet fails to render Homer because he cannot -forbear to interpose a play of thought -between his object and its expression. -Chapman translates his object into Elizabethan, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>as Pope translates it into the -Augustan of Queen Anne; both convey it -to us through a medium. Homer, on the -other hand, sees his object and conveys it -to us immediately.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And yet, in spite of this perfect plainness -and directness of Homer’s style, in spite of -this perfect plainness and directness of his -ideas, he is eminently <i>noble</i>; he works as -entirely in the grand style, he is as grandiose, -as Phidias, or Dante, or Michael Angelo. -This is what makes his translators despair. -‘To give relief’, says Cowper, ‘to prosaic -subjects’ (such as dressing, eating, drinking, -harnessing, travelling, going to bed), that -is to treat such subjects nobly, in the grand -style, ‘without seeming unreasonably tumid, -is extremely difficult’. It <i>is</i> difficult, but -Homer has done it. Homer is precisely -the incomparable poet he is, because he -has done it. His translator must not be -tumid, must not be artificial, must not be -literary; true: but then also he must not -be commonplace, must not be ignoble. I -have shown you how translators of Homer -fail by wanting rapidity, by wanting simplicity -of style, by wanting plainness of -thought: in a second lecture I will show -you how a translator fails by wanting -nobility.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span> - <h2 id='part2' class='c003'><abbr title='2'>II</abbr></h2> -</div> -<p class='c004'>I must repeat what I said in beginning, -that the translator of Homer ought steadily -to keep in mind where lies the real test of -the success of his translation, what judges -he is to try to satisfy. He is to try to -satisfy <i>scholars</i>, because scholars alone have -the means of really judging him. A scholar -may be a pedant, it is true, and then his -judgment will be worthless; but a scholar -may also have poetical feeling, and then he -can judge him truly; whereas all the poetical -feeling in the world will not enable a -man who is not a scholar to judge him truly. -For the translator is to reproduce Homer, -and the scholar alone has the means of -knowing that Homer who is to be reproduced. -He knows him but imperfectly, -for he is separated from him by time, race, -and language; but he alone knows him -at all. Yet people speak as if there were -two real tribunals in this matter,—the -scholar’s tribunal, and that of the general -public. They speak as if the scholar’s -judgment was one thing, and the general -public’s judgment another; both with -their shortcomings, both with their liability -to error; but both to be regarded by the -translator. The translator who makes -verbal literalness his chief care ‘will’, -says a writer in the <i>National Review</i> whom -<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>I have already quoted, ‘be appreciated by -the scholar accustomed to test a translation -rigidly by comparison with the original, -to look perhaps with excessive care to finish -in detail rather than boldness and general -effect, and find pardon even for a version -that seems bare and bold, so it be scholastic -and faithful’. But, if the scholar in -judging a translation looks to detail rather -than to general effect, he judges it pedantically -and ill. The appeal, however, lies -not from the pedantic scholar to the general -public, which can only like or dislike Chapman’s -version, or Pope’s, or Mr Newman’s, -but cannot <i>judge</i> them; it lies from the -pedantic scholar to the scholar who is not -pedantic, who knows that Homer is Homer -by his general effect, and not by his single -words, and who demands but one thing in -a translation,—that it shall, as nearly as -possible, reproduce for him the <i>general effect</i> -of Homer. This, then, remains the one -proper aim of the translator: to reproduce -on the intelligent scholar, as nearly as possible, -the general effect of Homer. Except -so far as he reproduces this, he loses his -labour, even though he may make a spirited -<i>Iliad</i> of his own, like Pope, or translate -Homer’s <i>Iliad</i> word for word, like Mr Newman. -If his proper aim were to stimulate -in any manner possible the general public, -he might be right in following Pope’s example; -if his proper aim were to help -<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>schoolboys to construe Homer, he might -be right in following Mr Newman’s. But -it is not: his proper aim is, I repeat it yet -once more, to reproduce on the intelligent -scholar, as nearly as he can, the general -effect of Homer.</p> - -<p class='c005'>When, therefore, Cowper says, ‘My chief -boast is that I have adhered closely to my -original’; when Mr Newman says, ‘My -aim is to retain every peculiarity of the -original, to be <i>faithful</i>, exactly as is the -case with the draughtsman of the Elgin -marbles’; their real judge only replies: -‘It may be so: reproduce then upon us, -reproduce the effect of Homer, as a good -copy reproduces the effect of the Elgin -marbles’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>When, again, Mr Newman tells us that -‘by an exhaustive process of argument and -experiment’ he has found a metre which -is at once the metre of ‘the modern Greek -epic’, and a metre ‘like in moral genius’ -to Homer’s metre, his judge has still but -the same answer for him: ‘It may be so: -reproduce then on our ear something of the -effect produced by the movement of Homer’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But what is the general effect which -Homer produces on Mr Newman himself? -because, when we know this, we shall know -whether he and his judges are agreed at -the outset, whether we may expect him, -if he can reproduce the effect he feels, if -his hand does not betray him in the execution, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>to satisfy his judges and to succeed. -If, however, Mr Newman’s impression from -Homer is something quite different from -that of his judges, then it can hardly be -expected that any amount of labour or -talent will enable him to reproduce for them -<i>their</i> Homer.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Newman does not leave us in doubt -as to the general effect which Homer makes -upon him. As I have told you what is the -general effect which Homer makes upon -me,—that of a most rapidly moving poet, -that of a poet most plain and direct in his -style, that of a poet most plain and direct -in his ideas, that of a poet eminently noble,—so -Mr Newman tells us his general impression -of Homer. ‘Homer’s style’, he says, ‘is -direct, popular, forcible, quaint, flowing, -garrulous’. Again: ‘Homer rises and -sinks with his subject, is prosaic when it -is tame, is low when it is mean’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I lay my finger on four words in these -two sentences of Mr Newman, and I say -that the man who could apply those words -to Homer can never render Homer truly. -The four words are these: <i>quaint</i>, <i>garrulous</i>, -<i>prosaic</i>, <i>low</i>. Search the English language -for a word which does not apply to Homer, -and you could not fix on a better than -<i>quaint</i>, unless perhaps you fixed on one -of the other three.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Again; ‘to translate Homer suitably’, -says Mr Newman, ‘we need a diction sufficiently -<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>antiquated to obtain pardon of the -reader for its frequent homeliness’. ‘I -am concerned’, he says again, ‘with the -artistic problem of attaining a plausible -aspect of moderate antiquity, while remaining -easily intelligible’. And again, he -speaks of ‘the more antiquated style suited -to this subject’. Quaint! antiquated!—but -to whom? Sir Thomas Browne is -quaint, and the diction of Chaucer is antiquated: -does Mr Newman suppose that -Homer seemed quaint to Sophocles, when -he read him, as Sir Thomas Browne seems -quaint to us, when we read him? or that -Homer’s diction seemed antiquated to Sophocles, -as Chaucer’s diction seems antiquated -to us? But we cannot really know, -I confess, how Homer seemed to Sophocles: -well then, to those who can tell us how he -seems to them, to the living scholar, to our -only present witness on this matter,—does -Homer make on the Provost of Eton, when -he reads him, the impression of a poet -quaint and antiquated? does he make this -impression on Professor Thompson or Professor -Jowett. When Shakspeare says, -‘The princes <i>orgulous</i>’, meaning ‘the proud -princes’, we say, ‘This is antiquated’; -when he says of the Trojan gates, that they</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in14'>With massy staples</div> - <div class='line'>And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts</div> - <div class='line'><i>Sperr</i> up the sons of Troy,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>we say, ‘This is both quaint and antiquated’. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>But does Homer ever compose -in a language which produces on the scholar -at all the same impression as this language -which I have quoted from Shakspeare? -Never once. Shakspeare is quaint and antiquated -in the lines which I have just quoted; -but Shakspeare—need I say it?—can compose, -when he likes, when he is at his best, -in a language perfectly simple, perfectly -intelligible; in a language which, in spite -of the two centuries and a half which part -its author from us, stops us or surprises us -as little as the language of a contemporary. -And Homer has not Shakspeare’s variations: -Homer always composes as Shakspeare -composes at his best; Homer is always -simple and intelligible, as Shakspeare is -often; Homer is never quaint and antiquated, -as Shakspeare is sometimes.</p> - -<p class='c005'>When Mr Newman says that Homer is -garrulous, he seems, perhaps, to depart less -widely from the common opinion than when -he calls him quaint; for is there not Horace’s -authority for asserting that ‘the good -Homer sometimes nods’, <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>bonus dormitat -Homerus</i></span>? and a great many people have -come, from the currency of this well-known -criticism, to represent Homer to themselves -as a diffuse old man, with the full-stocked -mind, but also with the occasional slips and -weaknesses of old age. Horace has said -better things than his <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">‘bonus dormitat -Homerus’</span>; but he never meant by this, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>as I need not remind anyone who knows -the passage, that Homer was garrulous, or -anything of the kind. Instead, however, -of either discussing what Horace meant, or -discussing Homer’s garrulity as a general -question, I prefer to bring to my mind some -style which is garrulous, and to ask myself, -to ask you, whether anything at all of the -impression made by that style is ever made -by the style of Homer. The mediæval romancers, -for instance, are garrulous; the -following, to take out of a thousand instances -the first which comes to hand, is -in a garrulous manner. It is from the -romance of Richard Cœur de Lion.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Of my tale be not a-wondered!</div> - <div class='line'>The French says he slew an hundred</div> - <div class='line'>(Whereof is made this English saw)</div> - <div class='line'>Or he rested him any thraw.</div> - <div class='line'>Him followed many an English knight</div> - <div class='line'>That eagerly holp him for to fight</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>and so on. Now the manner of that composition -I call garrulous; everyone will -feel it to be garrulous; everyone will understand -what is meant when it is called garrulous. -Then I ask the scholar,—does -Homer’s manner ever make upon you, I -do not say, the same impression of its -garrulity as that passage, but does it make, -ever for one moment, an impression in the -slightest way resembling, in the remotest -degree akin to, the impression made by -that passage of the mediæval poet? I have -no fear of the answer.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>I follow the same method with Mr Newman’s -two other epithets, <i>prosaic</i> and <i>low</i>. -‘Homer rises and sinks with his subject’, -says Mr Newman; ‘is prosaic when it is -tame, is low when it is mean’. First I say, -Homer is never, in any sense, to be with -truth called prosaic; he is never to be -called low. He does not rise and sink with -his subject; on the contrary, his manner -invests his subject, whatever his subject -be, with nobleness. Then I look for an -author of whom it may with truth be said, -that he ‘rises and sinks with his subject, -is prosaic when it is tame, is low when it is -mean’. Defoe is eminently such an author; -of Defoe’s manner it may with perfect precision -be said, that it follows his matter; -his lifelike composition takes its character -from the facts which it conveys, not from -the nobleness of the composer. In <i>Moll -Flanders</i> and <i>Colonel Jack</i>, Defoe is undoubtedly -prosaic when his subject is tame, -low when his subject is mean. Does -Homer’s manner in the <i>Iliad</i>, I ask the -scholar, ever make upon him an impression -at all like the impression made by Defoe’s -manner in <i>Moll Flanders</i> and <i>Colonel Jack</i>? -Does it not, on the contrary, leave him with -an impression of nobleness, even when it -deals with Thersites or with Irus?</p> - -<p class='c005'>Well then, Homer is neither quaint, nor -garrulous, nor prosaic, nor mean: and Mr -Newman, in seeing him so, sees him differently -<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>from those who are to judge Mr Newman’s -rendering of him. By pointing out -how a wrong conception of Homer affects -Mr Newman’s translation, I hope to place -in still clearer light those four cardinal -truths which I pronounce essential for him -who would have a right conception of -Homer: that Homer is rapid, that he is -plain and direct in word and style, that he -is plain and direct in his ideas, and that he -is noble.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Newman says that in fixing on a style -for suitably rendering Homer, as he conceives -him, he ‘alights on the delicate line -which separates the <i>quaint</i> from the <i>grotesque</i>’. -‘I ought to be quaint’, he says, -‘I ought not to be grotesque’. This is a -most unfortunate sentence. Mr Newman -is grotesque, which he himself says he -ought not to be; and he ought not to be -quaint, which he himself says he ought to -be.</p> - -<p class='c005'>‘No two persons will agree’, says Mr -Newman, ‘as to where the quaint ends -and the grotesque begins’; and perhaps -this is true. But, in order to avoid all ambiguity -in the use of the two words, it is -enough to say, that most persons would -call an expression which produced on them -a very strong sense of its incongruity, and -which violently surprised them, <i>grotesque</i>; -and an expression, which produced on them -a slighter sense of its incongruity, and which -<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>more gently surprised them, <i>quaint</i>. Using -the two words in this manner, I say, that -when Mr Newman translates Helen’s words -to Hector in the sixth book,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Δᾶερ ἐμεῖο, κυνὸς κακομηχάνου, ὀκρυοέσσης</span><a id='r10' /><a href='#f10' class='c009'><sup>[10]</sup></a>,</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>O, brother thou of me, who am a mischief-working vixen,</div> - <div class='line'>A numbing horror,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>he is grotesque; that is, he expresses himself -in a manner which produces on us a -very strong sense of its incongruity, and -which violently surprises us. I say, again, -that when Mr Newman translates the common -line,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Τὴν δ’ ἠμείβετ’ ἔπειτα μέγας κορυθαίολος Ἕκτωρ,</span></div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Great Hector of the motley helm then spake to her responsive,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>or the common expression, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐϋκνήμιδες Ἀχαιοί</span>, -‘dapper-greaved Achaians’, he is quaint; -that is, he expresses himself in a manner -which produces on us a slighter sense of -incongruity, and which more gently surprises -us. But violent and gentle surprise -are alike far from the scholar’s spirit when -he reads in Homer <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κυνὸς κακομηχάνου</span>, or -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κορυθαίολος Ἕκτωρ</span>, or, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐϋκνήμιδες Ἀχαιοί</span>. -These expressions no more seem odd to -him than the simplest expressions in English. -He is not more checked by any feeling -<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>of strangeness, strong or weak, when he -reads them, than when he reads in an -English book ‘the painted savage’, or, -‘the phlegmatic Dutchman’. Mr Newman’s -renderings of them must, therefore, -be wrong expressions in a translation of -Homer, because they excite in the scholar, -their only competent judge, a feeling quite -alien to that excited in him by what they -profess to render.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Newman, by expressions of this kind, -is false to his original in two ways. He is -false to him inasmuch as he is ignoble; for -a noble air, and a grotesque air, the air of -the address,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Δᾶερ ἐμεῖο, κυνὸς κακομηχάνου, ὀκρυοέσσης,</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>and the air of the address,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>O, brother thou of me, who am a mischief-working vixen,</div> - <div class='line'>A numbing horror,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>are just contrary the one to the other: -and he is false to him inasmuch as he is -odd; for an odd diction like Mr Newman’s, -and a perfectly plain natural diction like -Homer’s,—‘dapper-greaved Achaians’ and -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐϋκνήμιδες Ἀχαιοί</span>,—are also just contrary -the one to the other. Where, indeed, -Mr Newman got his diction, with whom he -can have lived, what can be his test of antiquity -and rarity for words, are questions -which I ask myself with bewilderment. He -has prefixed to his translation a list of what -<span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>he calls ‘the more antiquated or rarer -words’ which he has used. In this list -appear, on the one hand, such words as -<i>doughty</i>, <i>grisly</i>, <i>lusty</i>, <i>noisome</i>, <i>ravin</i>, which -are familiar, one would think, to all the -world; on the other hand such words as -<i>bragly</i>, meaning, Mr Newman tells us, -‘proudly fine’; <i>bulkin</i>, ‘a calf’; <i>plump</i>, -a ‘mass’; and so on. ‘I am concerned’, -says Mr Newman, ‘with the artistic problem -of attaining a plausible aspect of -moderate antiquity, while remaining easily -intelligible’. But it seems to me that <i>lusty</i> -is not antiquated: and that <i>bragly</i> is not a -word readily understood. That this word, -indeed, and <i>bulkin</i>, may have ‘a plausible -aspect of moderate antiquity’, I admit; -but that they are ‘easily intelligible’, I -deny.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Newman’s syntax has, I say it with -pleasure, a much more Homeric cast than -his vocabulary; his syntax, the mode in -which his thought is evolved, although not -the actual words in which it is expressed, -seems to me right in its general character, -and the best feature of his version. It is -not artificial or rhetorical like Cowper’s -syntax or Pope’s: it is simple, direct, and -natural, and so far it is like Homer’s. It -fails, however, just where, from the inherent -fault of Mr Newman’s conception of Homer, -one might expect it to fail,—it fails in nobleness. -It presents the thought in a way -<span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>which is something more than unconstrained,—over-familiar; -something more than easy,—free -and easy. In this respect it is like -the movement of Mr Newman’s version, -like his rhythm, for this, too, fails, in spite -of some qualities, by not being noble enough; -this, while it avoids the faults of being slow -and elaborate, falls into a fault in the opposite -direction, and is slip-shod. Homer -presents his thought naturally; but when -Mr Newman has,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>A thousand fires along the plain, <i>I say</i>, that night were burning,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>he presents his thought familiarly; in a -style which may be the genuine style of -ballad-poetry, but which is not the style -of Homer. Homer moves freely; but -when Mr Newman has,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Infatuate! O that thou wert lord to some other army<a id='r11' /><a href='#f11' class='c009'><sup>[11]</sup></a>,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>he gives himself too much freedom; he -leaves us too much to do for his rhythm -ourselves, instead of giving to us a rhythm -<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>like Homer’s, easy indeed, but mastering -our ear with a fulness of power which is -irresistible.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I said that a certain style might be the -genuine style of ballad-poetry, but yet not -the style of Homer. The analogy of the -ballad is ever present to Mr Newman’s -thoughts in considering Homer; and perhaps -nothing has more caused his faults -than this analogy,—this popular, but, it is -time to say, this erroneous analogy. ‘The -moral qualities of Homer’s style’, says Mr -Newman, ‘being like to those of the English -ballad, we need a metre of the same genius. -Only those metres, which by the very possession -of these qualities are liable to degenerate -into <i>doggerel</i>, are suitable to -reproduce the ancient epic’. ‘The style of -Homer’, he says, in a passage which I have -before quoted, ‘is direct, popular, forcible, -quaint, flowing, garrulous: in all these respects -it is similar to the old English ballad’. -Mr Newman, I need not say, is by no means -alone in this opinion. ‘The most really -and truly Homeric of all the creations of -the English muse is’, says Mr Newman’s -critic in the <i>National Review</i>, ‘the ballad-poetry -of ancient times; and the association -between metre and subject is one that -it would be true wisdom to preserve’. ‘It -is confessed’, says Chapman’s last editor, -Mr Hooper, ‘that the fourteen-syllable -verse’ (that is, a ballad-verse) ‘is peculiarly -<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>fitting for Homeric translation’. And the -editor of Dr Maginn’s clever and popular -<i>Homeric Ballads</i> assumes it as one of his -author’s greatest and most undisputable -merits, that he was ‘the first who consciously -realised to himself the truth that Greek -ballads can be really represented in English -only by a similar measure’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>This proposition that Homer’s poetry is -<i>ballad-poetry</i>, analogous to the well-known -ballad-poetry of the English and other -nations, has a certain small portion of truth -in it, and at one time probably served a -useful purpose, when it was employed to -discredit the artificial and literary manner -in which Pope and his school rendered -Homer. But it has been so extravagantly -over-used, the mistake which it was useful -in combating has so entirely lost the public -favour, that it is now much more important -to insist on the large part of error contained -in it, than to extol its small part of truth. -It is time to say plainly that, whatever the -admirers of our old ballads may think, the -supreme form of epic poetry, the genuine -Homeric mould, is not the form of the -Ballad of Lord Bateman. I have myself -shown the broad difference between Milton’s -manner and Homer’s; but, after a course -of Mr Newman and Dr Maginn, I turn -round in desperation upon them and upon -the balladists who have misled them, and -I exclaim: ‘Compared with you, Milton -<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>is Homer’s double; there is, whatever you -may think, ten thousand times more of the -real strain of Homer in</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Blind Thamyris, and blind Mæonides,</div> - <div class='line'>And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>than in</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Now Christ thee save, thou proud portèr,</div> - <div class='line'>Now Christ thee save and see<a id='r12' /><a href='#f12' class='c009'><sup>[12]</sup></a>,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>or in</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>While the tinker did dine, he had plenty of wine<a id='r13' /><a href='#f13' class='c009'><sup>[13]</sup></a>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>For Homer is not only rapid in movement, -simple in style, plain in language, natural -in thought; he is also, and above all, <i>noble</i>. -I have advised the translator not to go into -the vexed question of Homer’s identity. -Yet I will just remind him that the grand -argument—or rather, not argument, for -the matter affords no data for arguing, but -the grand source from which conviction, -as we read the <i>Iliad</i>, keeps pressing in upon -us, that there is one poet of the <i>Iliad</i>, one -Homer—is precisely this nobleness of the -poet, this grand manner; we feel that the -analogy drawn from other joint compositions -does not hold good here, because those -works do not bear, like the <i>Iliad</i>, the magic -stamp of a master; and the moment you -have <i>anything</i> less than a masterwork, the -co-operation or consolidation of several poets -<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>becomes possible, for talent is not uncommon; -the moment you have <i>much</i> less than -a masterwork, they become easy, for mediocrity -is everywhere. I can imagine fifty -Bradies joined with as many Tates to make -the New Version of the Psalms. I can -imagine several poets having contributed -to any one of the old English ballads in -Percy’s collection. I can imagine several -poets, possessing, like Chapman, the Elizabethan -vigour and the Elizabethan mannerism, -united with Chapman to produce -his version of the <i>Iliad</i>. I can imagine -several poets, with the literary knack of the -twelfth century, united to produce the -<i>Nibelungen Lay</i> in the form in which we -have it,—a work which the Germans, in -their joy at discovering a national epic of -their own, have rated vastly higher than -it deserves. And lastly, though Mr Newman’s -translation of Homer bears the strong -mark of his own idiosyncrasy, yet I can -imagine Mr Newman and a school of adepts -trained by him in his art of poetry, jointly -producing that work, so that Aristarchus -himself should have difficulty in pronouncing -which line was the master’s, and which a -pupil’s. But I cannot imagine several poets, -or one poet, joined with Dante in the composition -of his <i>Inferno</i>, though many poets -have taken for their subject a descent into -Hell. Many artists, again, have represented -Moses; but there is only one Moses -<span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>of Michael Angelo. So the insurmountable -obstacle to believing the <i>Iliad</i> a consolidated -work of several poets is this: that the work -of great masters is unique; and the <i>Iliad</i> -has a great master’s genuine stamp, and that -stamp is <i>the grand style</i>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Poets who cannot work in the grand style -instinctively seek a style in which their -comparative inferiority may feel itself at -ease, a manner which may be, so to speak, -indulgent to their inequalities. The ballad-style -offers to an epic poet, quite unable to -fill the canvas of Homer, or Dante, or Milton, -a canvas which he is capable of filling. The -ballad-measure is quite able to give due -effect to the vigour and spirit which its -employer, when at his very best, may be -able to exhibit; and, when he is not at his -best, when he is a little trivial, or a little -dull, it will not betray him, it will not bring -out his weakness into broad relief. This -is a convenience; but it is a convenience -which the ballad-style purchases by resigning -all pretensions to the highest, to -the grand manner. It is true of its movement, -as it is <i>not</i> true of Homer’s, that it -is ‘liable to degenerate into doggerel’. It -is true of its ‘moral qualities’, as it is <i>not</i> -true of Homer’s, that ‘quaintness’ and -‘garrulity’ are among them. It is true of -its employers, as it is <i>not</i> true of Homer, -that they ‘rise and sink with their subject, -are prosaic when it is tame, are low when it -<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>is mean’. For this reason the ballad-style -and the ballad-measure are eminently <i>in</i>appropriate -to render Homer. Homer’s -manner and movement are always both -noble and powerful: the ballad-manner -and movement are often either jaunty and -smart, so not noble; or jog-trot and hum-drum, -so not powerful.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The <i>Nibelungen Lay</i> affords a good illustration -of the qualities of the ballad-manner. -Based on grand traditions, which had found -expression in a grand lyric poetry, the -German epic poem of the <i>Nibelungen Lay</i>, -though it is interesting, and though it has -good passages, is itself anything rather than -a grand poem. It is a poem of which the -composer is, to speak the truth, a very -ordinary mortal, and often, therefore, like -other ordinary mortals, very prosy. It is in -a measure which eminently adapts itself to -this commonplace personality of its composer, -which has much the movement of -the well-known measures of Tate and Brady, -and can jog on, for hundreds of lines at a -time, with a level ease which reminds one -of Sheridan’s saying that easy writing may -be often such hard reading. But, instead of -occupying myself with the <i>Nibelungen Lay</i>, -I prefer to look at the ballad-style as directly -applied to Homer, in Chapman’s version and -Mr Newman’s, and in the <i>Homeric Ballads</i> -of Dr. Maginn.</p> - -<p class='c005'>First I take Chapman. I have already -<span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>shown that Chapman’s conceits are un-Homeric, -and that his rhyme is un-Homeric; -I will now show how his manner and movement -are un-Homeric. Chapman’s diction, -I have said, is generally good; but it must -be called good with this reserve, that, -though it has Homer’s plainness and directness, -it often offends him who knows Homer, -by wanting Homer’s nobleness. In a passage -which I have already quoted, the address -of Zeus to the horses of Achilles, where -Homer has,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἆ δειλώ, τι σφῶϊ δόμεν Πηλῆϊ ἄνακτι</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">θνητῷ; ὑμεῖς δ’ ἐστὸν ἀγήρω τ’ ἀθανάτω τε!</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἦ ἵνα δυστήνοισι μετ’ ἀνδράσιν ἄλγε’ ἔχητον</span><a id='r14' /><a href='#f14' class='c009'><sup>[14]</sup></a>;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Chapman has,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in18'><i>Poor wretched beasts</i>, said he,</div> - <div class='line'>Why gave we you to a mortal king, when immortality</div> - <div class='line'>And incapacity of age so dignifies your states?</div> - <div class='line'>Was it to haste<a id='r15' /><a href='#f15' class='c009'><sup>[15]</sup></a> the miseries poured out on human fates?</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>There are many faults in this rendering of -Chapman’s, but what I particularly wish -to notice in it is the expression ‘Poor -wretched beasts’ for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἆ δειλώ</span>. This expression -just illustrates the difference between -the ballad-manner and Homer’s. -The ballad-manner—Chapman’s manner—is, -I say, pitched sensibly lower than -Homer’s. The ballad-manner requires that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>an expression shall be plain and natural, -and then it asks no more. Homer’s manner -requires that an expression shall be plain -and natural, but it also requires that it -shall be noble. <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Ἆ δειλώ</span> is as plain, as -simple as ‘Poor wretched beasts’; but it -is also noble, which ‘Poor wretched beasts’ -is not. ‘Poor wretched beasts’ is, in truth, -a little over-familiar, but this is no objection -to it for the ballad-manner; it is good -enough for the old English ballad, good -enough for the <i>Nibelungen Lay</i>, good enough -for Chapman’s <i>Iliad</i>, good enough for Mr -Newman’s <i>Iliad</i>, good enough for Dr -Maginn’s <i>Homeric Ballads</i>; but it is not -good enough for Homer.</p> - -<p class='c005'>To feel that Chapman’s measure, though -natural, is not Homeric; that, though -tolerably rapid, it has not Homer’s rapidity; -that it has a jogging rapidity rather than a -flowing rapidity; and a movement familiar -rather than nobly easy, one has only, I -think, to read half a dozen lines in any -part of his version. I prefer to keep as -much as possible to passages which I have -already noticed, so I will quote the conclusion -of the nineteenth book, where -Achilles answers his horse Xanthus, who -has prophesied his death to him<a id='r16' /><a href='#f16' class='c009'><sup>[16]</sup></a>.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in22'>Achilles, far in rage,</div> - <div class='line'>Thus answered him:—It fits not thee thus proudly to presage</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>My overthrow. I know myself it is my fate to fall</div> - <div class='line'>Thus far from Phthia; yet that fate shall fail to vent her gall</div> - <div class='line'>Till mine vent thousands.—These words said, he fell to horrid deeds,</div> - <div class='line'>Gave dreadful signal, and forthright made fly his one-hoofed steeds.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>For what regards the manner of this passage, -the words ‘Achilles Thus answered him’, -and ‘I know myself it is my fate to fall -Thus far from Phthia’, are in Homer’s -manner, and all the rest is out of it. But -for what regards its movement, who, after -being jolted by Chapman through such -verse as this,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in8'>These words said, he fell to horrid deeds,</div> - <div class='line'>Gave dreadful signal, and forthright made fly his one-hoofed steeds,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>who does not feel the vital difference of -the movement of Homer,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἦ ῥα, καὶ ἐν πρώτοις ἰάχων ἔχε μώνυχας ἵππο υς?</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>To pass from Chapman to Dr Maginn. -His <i>Homeric Ballads</i> are vigorous and -genuine poems in their own way; they are -not one continual falsetto, like the pinch-beck -<i>Roman Ballads</i> of Lord Macaulay; -but just because they are ballads in their -manner and movement, just because, to -use the words of his applauding editor, Dr -Maginn has ‘consciously realised to himself -the truth that Greek ballads can be really -represented in English only by a similar -manner’,—just for this very reason they -<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>are not at all Homeric, they have not the -least in the world the manner of Homer. -There is a celebrated incident in the nineteenth -book of the <i>Odyssey</i>, the recognition -by the old nurse Eurycleia of a scar on the -leg of her master Ulysses, who has entered -his own hall as an unknown wanderer, and -whose feet she has been set to wash. ‘Then -she came near’, says Homer, ‘and began -to wash her master; and straightway she -recognised a scar which he had got in -former days from the white tusk of a wild -boar, when he went to Parnassus unto -Autolycus and the sons of Autolycus, his -mother’s father and brethren’<a id='r17' /><a href='#f17' class='c009'><sup>[17]</sup></a>. This, -‘really represented’ by Dr Maginn, in ‘a -measure similar’ to Homer’s, becomes:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>And scarcely had she begun to wash</div> - <div class='line'>Ere she was aware of the grisly gash</div> - <div class='line in4'>Above his knee that lay.</div> - <div class='line'>It was a wound from a wild boar’s tooth,</div> - <div class='line'>All on Parnassus’ slope,</div> - <div class='line'>Where he went to hunt in the days of his youth</div> - <div class='line'>With his mother’s sire,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>and so on. That is the true ballad-manner, -no one can deny; ‘all on Parnassus’ slope’ -is, I was going to say, the true ballad-slang; -but never again shall I be able to read</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>νίζε δ’ ἄῤ ἆσσον ἴουσα ἄναχθ’ ἑόν· αὐτίκα δ’ ἔγνω</div> - <div class='line'>οὐλήν,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>without having the destestable dance of -Dr Maginn’s</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>And scarcely had she begun to wash</div> - <div class='line'>Ere she was aware of the grisly gash,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>jigging in my ears, to spoil the effect of -Homer, and to torture me. To apply that -manner and that rhythm to Homer’s incidents, -is not to imitate Homer, but to -travesty him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Lastly I come to Mr Newman. His -rhythm, like Chapman’s and Dr Maginn’s, -is a ballad-rhythm, but with a modification -of his own. ‘Holding it’, he tells us, ‘as -an axiom, that rhyme must be abandoned’, -he found, on abandoning it, ‘an unpleasant -void until he gave a double ending to the -verse’. In short, instead of saying</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Good people all with one accord</div> - <div class='line'>Give ear unto my <i>tale</i>,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Mr Newman would say</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Good people all with one accord</div> - <div class='line'>Give ear unto my <i>story</i>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>A recent American writer<a id='r18' /><a href='#f18' class='c009'><sup>[18]</sup></a> gravely observes -that for his countrymen this rhythm has a -disadvantage in being like the rhythm of -the American national air <i>Yankee Doodle</i>, -and thus provoking ludicrous associations. -<i>Yankee Doodle</i> is not our national air: for -us Mr Newman’s rhythm has not this disadvantage. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>He himself gives us several -plausible reasons why this rhythm of his -really ought to be successful: let us examine -how far it <i>is</i> successful.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Newman joins to a bad rhythm so -bad a diction that it is difficult to distinguish -exactly whether in any given passage it is -his words or his measure which produces a -total impression of such an unpleasant kind. -But with a little attention we may analyse -our total impression, and find the share -which each element has in producing it. -To take the passage which I have so often -mentioned, Sarpedon’s speech to Glaucus. -Mr Newman translates this as follows:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>O gentle friend! if thou and I, from this encounter ’scaping,</div> - <div class='line'>Hereafter might for ever be from Eld and Death exempted</div> - <div class='line'>As heavenly gods, not I in sooth would fight among the foremost,</div> - <div class='line'>Nor liefly thee would I advance to man-ennobling battle.</div> - <div class='line'>Now,—sith ten thousand shapes of Death do any-gait pursue us</div> - <div class='line'>Which never mortal may evade, though sly of foot and nimble;—</div> - <div class='line'>Onward! and glory let us earn, or glory yield to someone.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Could all our care elude the gloomy grave</div> - <div class='line'>Which claims no less the fearful than the brave.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>I am not going to quote Pope’s version over -again, but I must remark in passing, how -much more, with all Pope’s radical difference -<span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>of manner from Homer, it gives us of the -real effect of</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εἰ μὲν γὰρ, πόλεμον περὶ τόνδε φυγόντε</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>than Mr Newman’s lines. And now, why -are Mr Newman’s lines faulty? They are -faulty, first, because, as a matter of diction, -the expressions ‘O gentle friend’, ‘eld’, -‘in sooth’, ‘liefly’, ‘advance’, ‘man-ennobling’, -‘sith’, ‘any-gait’, and ‘sly of -foot’, are all bad; some of them worse -than others, but all bad: that is, they all -of them as here used excite in the scholar, -their sole judge,—excite, I will boldly affirm, -in Professor Thompson or Professor Jowett,—a -feeling totally different from that excited -in them by the words of Homer which -these expressions profess to render. The -lines are faulty, secondly, because, as a -matter of rhythm, any and every line among -them has to the ear of the same judges (I -affirm it with equal boldness) a movement -as unlike Homer’s movement in the corresponding -line as the single words are unlike -Homer’s words. <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Οὔτε κέ σε στέλλοιμαι μάχην -ἐς κυδιάνειρν</span>,—‘Nor liefly thee would I advance -to man-ennobling battle’;—for -whose ears do those two rhythms produce -impressions of, to use Mr Newman’s own -words, ‘similar moral genius’?</p> - -<p class='c005'>I will by no means make search in Mr -Newman’s version for passages likely to -raise a laugh; that search, alas! would -<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>be far too easy. I will quote but one other -passage from him, and that a passage where -the diction is comparatively inoffensive, in -order that disapproval of the words may not -unfairly heighten disapproval of the rhythm. -The end of the nineteenth book, the answer -of Achilles to his horse Xanthus, Mr Newman -gives thus:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Chestnut! why bodest death to me? from thee this was not needed.</div> - <div class='line'>Myself right surely know alsó, that ’t is my doom to perish,</div> - <div class='line'>From mother and from father dear apart, in Troy; but never</div> - <div class='line'>Pause will I make of war, until the Trojans be glutted.</div> - <div class='line in2'>He spake, and yelling, held afront the single-hoofed horses.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Here Mr Newman calls Xanthus <i>Chestnut</i>, -indeed, as he calls Balius <i>Spotted</i>, and -Podarga <i>Spry-foot</i>; which is as if a Frenchman -were to call Miss Nightingale <i>Mdlle. -Rossignol</i>, or Mr Bright <i>M. Clair</i>. And -several other expressions, too, ‘yelling’, -‘held afront’, ‘single-hoofed’,—leave, to -say the very least, much to be desired. Still, -for Mr Newman, the diction of this passage -is pure. All the more clearly appears the -profound vice of a rhythm, which, with -comparatively few faults of words, can leave -a sense of such incurable alienation from -Homer’s manner as, ‘Myself right surely -know also that ’tis my doom to perish -compared with the <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εὖ νύ τοι οἶδα καὶ αὐτὸς, -ὅ μοι μόρος ἐνθάδ’ ὀλέσθαι</span> of Homer.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>But so deeply seated is the difference between -the ballad-manner and Homer’s, that -even a man of the highest powers, even a -man of the greatest vigour of spirit and of -true genius—the Coryphæus of balladists, -Sir Walter Scott—fails with a manner of -this kind to produce an effect at all like the -effect of Homer. ‘I am not so rash’, declares -Mr Newman, ‘as to say that if <i>freedom</i> -be given to rhyme as in Walter Scott’s -poetry’,—‘Walter Scott, by far the most -Homeric of our poets’, as in another place -he calls him,—‘a genius may not arise who -will translate Homer into the melodies of -<i>Marmion</i>’. ‘The <i>truly</i> classical and <i>truly</i> -romantic’, says Dr Maginn, ‘are one; -the moss-trooping Nestor reappears in the -moss-trooping heroes of Percy’s <i>Reliques</i>’; -and a description by Scott, which he quotes, -he calls ‘graphic, and therefore Homeric’. -He forgets our fourth axiom,—that Homer -is not <i>only</i> graphic; he is also noble, and -has the grand style. Human nature under -like circumstances is probably in all stages -much the same; and so far it may be said -that ‘the truly classical and the truly romantic -are one’; but it is of little use to -tell us this, because we know the human -nature of other ages only through the representations -of them which have come -down to us, and the classical and the romantic -modes of representation are so far -from being ‘one’, that they remain eternally -<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>distinct, and have created for us a separation -between the two worlds which they respectively -represent. Therefore to call -Nestor the ‘moss-trooping Nestor’ is absurd, -because, though Nestor may possibly -have been much the same sort of man as -many a moss-trooper, he has yet come to -us through a mode of representation so -unlike that of Percy’s <i>Reliques</i>, that instead -of ‘reappearing in the moss-trooping heroes’ -of these poems, he exists in our imagination -as something utterly unlike them, and as -belonging to another world. So the Greeks -in Shakspeare’s <i>Troilus and Cressida</i> are -no longer the Greeks whom we have known -in Homer, because they come to us through -a mode of representation of the romantic -world. But I must not forget Scott.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I suppose that when Scott is in what -may be called full ballad swing, no one will -hesitate to pronounce his manner neither -Homeric nor the grand manner. When he -says, for instance,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>I do not rhyme to that dull elf</div> - <div class='line'>Who cannot image to himself<a id='r19' /><a href='#f19' class='c009'><sup>[19]</sup></a>,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>and so on, any scholar will feel that <i>this</i> is -not Homer’s manner. But let us take -Scott’s poetry at its best; and when it is -at its best, it is undoubtedly very good -indeed:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Tunstall lies dead upon the field,</div> - <div class='line'>His life-blood stains the spotless shield;</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>Edmund is down,—my life is reft,—</div> - <div class='line'>The Admiral alone is left.</div> - <div class='line'>Let Stanley charge with spur of fire,—</div> - <div class='line'>With Chester charge, and Lancashire,</div> - <div class='line'>Full upon Scotland’s central host,</div> - <div class='line'>Or victory and England’s lost<a id='r20' /><a href='#f20' class='c009'><sup>[20]</sup></a>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>That is, no doubt, as vigorous as possible, -as spirited as possible; it is exceedingly -fine poetry. And still I say, it is not in -the grand manner, and therefore it is not -like Homer’s poetry. Now, how shall I -make him who doubts this feel that I say -true; that these lines of Scott are essentially -neither in Homer’s style nor in the grand -style? I may point out to him that the -movement of Scott’s lines, while it is rapid, -is also at the same time what the French -call <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>saccadé</i></span>, its rapidity is ‘jerky’; whereas -Homer’s rapidity is a flowing rapidity. But -this is something external and material; -it is but the outward and visible sign of an -inward and spiritual diversity. I may discuss -what, in the abstract, constitutes the -grand style; but that sort of general discussion -never much helps our judgment of -particular instances. I may say that the -presence or absence of the grand style can -only be spiritually discerned; and this is -true, but to plead this looks like evading -the difficulty. My best way is to take -eminent specimens of the grand style, and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>to put them side by side with this of Scott. -For example, when Homer says:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">άλλά, φίλος, θάνε καὶ σύ· τίη ὀλυφύρεαι οὕτως;</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κάθανε καὶ Πάτροκλος, ὅπερ σέο πολλὸν ἀμείνων</span><a id='r21' /><a href='#f21' class='c009'><sup>[21]</sup></a>,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>that is in the grand style. When Virgil -says:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Disce, puer, virtutem ex me verumque laborem,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Fortunam ex aliis</span><a id='r22' /><a href='#f22' class='c009'><sup>[22]</sup></a>,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>that is in the grand style. When Dante -says:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Lascio lo fele, et vo pei dolci pomi</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Promessi a me per lo verace Duca;</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Ma fino al centro pria convien ch’ io tomi</span><a id='r23' /><a href='#f23' class='c009'><sup>[23]</sup></a>,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>that is in the grand style. When Milton -says:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in14'>His form had yet not lost</div> - <div class='line'>All her original brightness, nor appeared</div> - <div class='line'>Less than archangel ruined, and the excess</div> - <div class='line'>Of glory obscured<a id='r24' /><a href='#f24' class='c009'><sup>[24]</sup></a>,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>that, finally, is in the grand style. Now -<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>let anyone after repeating to himself these -four passages, repeat again the passage of -Scott, and he will perceive that there is -something in style which the four first have -in common, and which the last is without; -and this something is precisely the grand -manner. It is no disrespect to Scott to say -that he does not attain to this manner in -his poetry; to say so, is merely to say that -he is not among the five or six supreme -poets of the world. Among these he is -not; but, being a man of far greater powers -than the ballad-poets, he has tried to give -to their instrument a compass and an elevation -which it does not naturally possess, -in order to enable him to come nearer to -the effect of the instrument used by the -great epic poets—an instrument which he -felt he could not truly use,—and in this -attempt he has but imperfectly succeeded. -The poetic style of Scott is—(it becomes -necessary to say so when it is proposed to -‘translate Homer into the melodies of -<i>Marmion</i>’)—it is, tried by the highest -standard, a bastard epic style; and that is -why, out of his own powerful hands, it has -had so little success. It is a less natural, -and therefore a less good style, than the -original ballad-style; while it shares with -the ballad-style the inherent incapacity of -rising into the grand style, of adequately -rendering Homer. Scott is certainly at his -best in his battles. Of Homer you could -<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>not say this; he is not better in his battles -than elsewhere; but even between the -battle-pieces of the two there exists all the -difference which there is between an able -work and a masterpiece.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Tunstall lies dead upon the field,</div> - <div class='line'>His life-blood stains the spotless shield:</div> - <div class='line'>Edmund is down,—my life is reft—</div> - <div class='line'>The Admiral alone is left.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>—‘For not in the hands of Diomede the son -of Tydeus rages the spear, to ward off destruction -from the Danaans; neither as yet -have I heard the voice of the son of Atreus, -shouting out of his hated mouth; but the -voice of Hector the slayer of men bursts -round me, as he cheers on the Trojans; -and they with their yellings fill all the plain, -overcoming the Achaians in the battle’.—I -protest that, to my feeling, Homer’s performance, -even through that pale and far-off -shadow of a prose translation, still has -a hundred times more of the grand manner -about it, than the original poetry of Scott.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Well, then, the ballad-manner and the -ballad-measure, whether in the hands of -the old ballad-poets, or arranged by Chapman, -or arranged by Mr Newman, or, even, -arranged by Sir Walter Scott, cannot -worthily render Homer. And for one -reason: Homer is plain, so are they; -Homer is natural, so are they; Homer is -spirited, so are they; but Homer is sustainedly -noble, and they are not. Homer -<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>and they are both of them natural, and -therefore touching and stirring; but the -grand style, which is Homer’s, is something -more than touching and stirring; it can -form the character, it is edifying. The old -English balladist may stir Sir Philip Sidney’s -heart like a trumpet, and this is much: but -Homer, but the few artists in the grand -style, can do more; they can refine the raw -natural man, they can transmute him. So -it is not without cause that I say, and say -again, to the translator of Homer: ‘Never -for a moment suffer yourself to forget our -fourth fundamental proposition, <i>Homer is -noble</i>’. For it is seen how large a share -this nobleness has in producing that general -effect of his, which it is the main business of -a translator to <i>re</i>produce.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I shall have to try your patience yet once -more upon this subject, and then my task -will be completed. I have shown what the -four axioms respecting Homer which I have -laid down, exclude, what they bid a translator -not to do; I have still to show what -they supply, what positive help they can -give to the translator in his work. I will -even, with their aid, myself try my fortune -with some of those passages of Homer which -I have already noticed; not indeed with -any confidence that I more than others can -succeed in adequately rendering Homer, but -in the hope of satisfying competent judges, -in the hope of making it clear to the future -<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>translator, that I at any rate follow a right -method, and that, in coming short, I come -short from weakness of execution, not from -original vice of design. This is why I have -so long occupied myself with Mr Newman’s -version; that, apart from all faults of execution, -his original design was wrong, and -that he has done us the good service of declaring -that design in its naked wrongness. -To bad practice he has prefixed the bad -theory which made the practice bad; he -has given us a false theory in his preface, -and he has exemplified the bad effects of -that false theory in his translation. It is -because his starting-point is so bad that he -runs so badly; and to save others from -taking so false a starting-point, may be to -save them from running so futile a course.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Newman, indeed, says in his preface, -that if anyone dislikes his translation, ‘he -has his easy remedy; to keep aloof from -it’. But Mr Newman is a writer of considerable -and deserved reputation; he is -also a Professor of the University of London, -an institution which by its position and by -its merits acquires every year greater importance. -It would be a very grave thing -if the authority of so eminent a Professor -led his students to misconceive entirely the -chief work of the Greek world; that work -which, whatever the other works of classical -antiquity have to give us, gives it more -abundantly than they all. The eccentricity -<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>too, the arbitrariness, of which Mr Newman’s -conception of Homer offers so signal -an example, are not a peculiar failing of -Mr Newman’s own; in varying degrees they -are the great defect of English intellect -the great blemish of English literature. -Our literature of the eighteenth century, -the literature of the school of Dryden, -Addison, Pope, Johnson, is a long reaction -against this eccentricity, this arbitrariness; -that reaction perished by its own faults, -and its enemies are left once more masters -of the field. It is much more likely that -any new English version of Homer will have -Mr Newman’s faults than Pope’s. Our -present literature, which is very far, certainly, -from having the spirit and power -of Elizabethan genius, yet has in its own -way these faults, eccentricity, and arbitrariness, -quite as much as the Elizabethan -literature ever had. They are the cause -that, while upon none, perhaps, of the -modern literatures has so great a sum of -force been expended as upon the English -literature, at the present hour this literature, -regarded not as an object of mere literary -interest but as a living intellectual instrument, -ranks only third in European effect and -importance among the literatures of Europe; -it ranks after the literatures of France and -Germany. Of these two literatures, as of -the intellect of Europe in general, the main -effort, for now many years, has been a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span><i>critical</i> effort; the endeavour, in all branches -of knowledge, theology, philosophy, history, -art, science,—to see the object as in itself it -really is. But, owing to the presence in -English literature of this eccentric and -arbitrary spirit, owing to the strong tendency -of English writers to bring to the consideration -of their object some individual fancy, -almost the last thing for which one would -come to English literature is just that very -thing which now Europe most desires—<i>criticism</i>. -It is useful to notice any signal -manifestation of those faults, which thus -limit and impair the action of our literature. -And therefore I have pointed out how widely, -in translating Homer, a man even of real -ability and learning may go astray, unless -he brings to the study of this clearest of -poets one quality in which our English -authors, with all their great gifts, are apt -to be somewhat wanting—simple lucidity -of mind.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 id='part3' class='c003'><abbr title='3'>III</abbr></h2> -</div> -<p class='c004'>Homer is rapid in his movement, Homer -is plain in his words and style, Homer is -simple in his ideas, Homer is noble in his -manner. Cowper renders him ill because -he is slow in his movement, and elaborate -in his style; Pope renders him ill because -he is artificial both in his style and in his -words; Chapman renders him ill because -<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>he is fantastic in his ideas; Mr Newman -renders him ill because he is odd in his -words and ignoble in his manner. All four -translators diverge from their original at -other points besides those named; but it is -at the points thus named that their divergence -is greatest. For instance, Cowper’s -diction is not as Homer’s diction, nor his -nobleness as Homer’s nobleness; but it is -in movement and grammatical style that -he is most unlike Homer. Pope’s rapidity -is not of the same sort as Homer’s rapidity, -nor are his plainness of ideas and his nobleness -as Homer’s plainness of ideas and -nobleness: but it is in the artificial character -of his style and diction that he is -most unlike Homer. Chapman’s movement, -words, style, and manner, are often -far enough from resembling Homer’s movement, -words, style, and manner; but it is -the fantasticality of his ideas which puts -him farthest from resembling Homer. Mr -Newman’s movement, grammatical style, -and ideas, are a thousand times in strong -contrast with Homer’s; still it is by the -oddness of his diction and the ignobleness -of his manner that he contrasts with Homer -the most violently.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Therefore the translator must not say to -himself: ‘Cowper is noble, Pope is rapid, -Chapman has a good diction, Mr Newman -has a good cast of sentence; I will avoid -Cowper’s slowness, Pope’s artificiality, Chapman’s -<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>conceits, Mr Newman’s oddity; I -will take Cowper’s dignified manner, Pope’s -impetuous movement, Chapman’s vocabulary, -Mr Newman’s syntax, and so make -a perfect translation of Homer’. Undoubtedly -in certain points the versions -of Chapman, Cowper, Pope, and Mr Newman, -all of them have merit; some of them -very high merit, others a lower merit; but -even in these points they have none of them -precisely the same kind of merit as Homer, -and therefore the new translator, even if -he can imitate them in their good points, -will still not satisfy his judge, the scholar, -who asks him for Homer and Homer’s kind -of merit, or, at least, for as much of them -as it is possible to give.</p> - -<p class='c005'>So the translator really has no good model -before him for any part of his work, and has -to invent everything for himself. He is -to be rapid in movement, plain in speech, -simple in thought, and noble; and <i>how</i> he -is to be either rapid, or plain, or simple, or -noble, no one yet has shown him. I shall -try to-day to establish some practical suggestions -which may help the translator of -Homer’s poetry to comply with the four -grand requirements which we make of him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>His version is to be rapid; and of course, -to make a man’s poetry rapid, as to make -it noble, nothing can serve him so much as -to have, in his own nature, rapidity and -nobleness. <i>It is the spirit that quickeneth</i>; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>and no one will so well render Homer’s -swift-flowing movement as he who has himself -something of the swift-moving spirit of -Homer. Yet even this is not quite enough. -Pope certainly had a quick and darting -spirit, as he had, also, real nobleness; yet -Pope does not render the movement of -Homer. To render this the translator must -have, besides his natural qualifications, an -appropriate metre.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I have sufficiently shown why I think -all forms of our ballad-metre unsuited to -Homer. It seems to me to be beyond -question that, for epic poetry, only three -metres can seriously claim to be accounted -capable of the grand style. Two of these -will at once occur to everyone,—the ten-syllable, -or so-called <i>heroic</i>, couplet, and -blank verse. I do not add to these the -Spenserian stanza, although Dr Maginn, -whose metrical eccentricities I have already -criticised, pronounces this stanza the one -right measure for a translation of Homer. -It is enough to observe that if Pope’s couplet, -with the simple system of correspondences -that its rhymes introduce, changes the movement -of Homer, in which no such correspondences -are found, and is therefore a -bad measure for a translator of Homer to -employ, Spenser’s stanza, with its far more -intricate system of correspondences, must -change Homer’s movement far more profoundly, -and must therefore be for the translator -<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>a far worse measure than the couplet -of Pope. Yet I will say, at the same time, -that the verse of Spenser is more fluid, slips -more easily and quickly along, than the -verse of almost any other English poet.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>By this the northern wagoner had set</div> - <div class='line'>His seven-fold team behind the steadfast star</div> - <div class='line'>That was in ocean waves yet never wet,</div> - <div class='line'>But firm is fixt, and sendeth light from far</div> - <div class='line'>To all that in the wide deep wandering are<a id='r25' /><a href='#f25' class='c009'><sup>[25]</sup></a>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>One cannot but feel that English verse has -not often moved with the fluidity and -sweet ease of these lines. It is possible -that it may have been this quality of -Spenser’s poetry which made Dr Maginn -think that the stanza of <i>The Faery Queen</i> -must be a good measure for rendering -Homer. This it is not: Spenser’s verse -is fluid and rapid, no doubt, but there are -more ways than one of being fluid and rapid, -and Homer is fluid and rapid in quite another -way than Spenser. Spenser’s manner is -no more Homeric than is the manner of -the one modern inheritor of Spenser’s -beautiful gift,—the poet, who evidently -caught from Spenser his sweet and easy-slipping -movement, and who has exquisitely -employed it; a Spenserian genius, nay, a -genius by natural endowment richer probably -than even Spenser; that light which -shines so unexpectedly and without fellow -in our century, an Elizabethan born too -<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>late, the early lost and admirably gifted -Keats.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I say then that there are really but three -metres,—the ten-syllable couplet, blank -verse, and a third metre which I will not -yet name, but which is neither the Spenserian -stanza nor any form of ballad-verse,—between -which, as vehicles for Homer’s -poetry, the translator has to make his -choice. Everyone will at once remember -a thousand passages in which both the ten-syllable -couplet and blank verse prove themselves -to have nobleness. Undoubtedly the -movement and manner of this,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Still raise for good the supplicating voice,</div> - <div class='line'>But leave to Heaven the measure and the choice,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>are noble. Undoubtedly, the movement -and manner of this:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>High on a throne of royal state, which far</div> - <div class='line'>Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>are noble also. But the first is in a rhymed -metre; and the unfitness of a rhymed metre -for rendering Homer I have already shown. -I will observe too, that the fine couplet -which I have quoted comes out of a satire, -a didactic poem; and that it is in didactic -poetry that the ten-syllable couplet has most -successfully essayed the grand style. In -narrative poetry this metre has succeeded -best when it essayed a sensibly lower style, -the style of Chaucer, for instance; whose -narrative manner, though a very good and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>sound manner, is certainly neither the grand -manner nor the manner of Homer.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The rhymed ten-syllable couplet being -thus excluded, blank verse offers itself for -the translator’s use. The first kind of -blank verse which naturally occurs to us -is the blank verse of Milton, which has been -employed, with more or less modification, -by Mr Cary in translating Dante, by Cowper, -and by Mr Wright in translating Homer. -How noble this metre is in Milton’s hands, -how completely it shows itself capable of -the grand, nay, of the grandest, style, I -need not say. To this metre, as used in -the <i>Paradise Lost</i>, our country owes the -glory of having produced one of the only -two poetical works in the grand style which -are to be found in the modern languages; -the <i>Divine Comedy</i> of Dante is the other. -England and Italy here stand alone; Spain, -France, and Germany, have produced great -poets, but neither Calderon, nor Corneille, -nor Schiller, nor even Goethe, has produced -a body of poetry in the true grand style, -in the sense in which the style of the body -of Homer’s poetry, or Pindar’s, or Sophocles’s, -is grand. But Dante has, and so -has Milton; and in this respect Milton possesses -a distinction which even Shakspeare, -undoubtedly the supreme poetical power in -our literature, does not share with him. -Not a tragedy of Shakspeare but contains -passages in the worst of all styles, the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>affected style; and the grand style, although -it may be harsh, or obscure, or -cumbrous, or over-laboured, is never affected. -In spite, therefore, of objections -which may justly be urged against the plan -and treatment of the <i>Paradise Lost</i>, in spite -of its possessing, certainly, a far less enthralling -force of interest to attract and to -carry forward the reader than the <i>Iliad</i> or -the <i>Divine Comedy</i>, it fully deserves, it can -never lose, its immense reputation; for, like -the <i>Iliad</i> and the <i>Divine Comedy</i>, nay, in -some respects to a higher degree than either -of them, it is in the grand style.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But the grandeur of Milton is one thing, -and the grandeur of Homer is another. -Homer’s movement, I have said again and -again, is a flowing, a rapid movement; -Milton’s, on the other hand, is a laboured, -a self-retarding movement. In each case, -the movement, the metrical cast, corresponds -with the mode of evolution of the thought, -with the syntactical cast, and is indeed -determined by it. Milton charges himself -so full with thought, imagination, knowledge, -that his style will hardly contain -them. He is too full-stored to show us -in much detail one conception, one piece -of knowledge; he just shows it to us in a -pregnant allusive way, and then he presses -on to another; and all this fulness, this -pressure, this condensation, this self-constraint, -enters into his movement, and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>makes it what it is,—noble, but difficult -and austere. Homer is quite different; he -says a thing, and says it to the end, and then -begins another, while Milton is trying to -press a thousand things into one. So that -whereas, in reading Milton, you never lose -the sense of laborious and condensed fulness, -in reading Homer you never lose the sense -of flowing and abounding ease. With -Milton line runs into line, and all is straitly -bound together: with Homer line runs off -from line, and all hurries away onward. -Homer begins, Μῆνιν ἄειδε, Θεά,—at the -second word announcing the proposed -action: Milton begins:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit</div> - <div class='line'>Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste</div> - <div class='line'>Brought death into the world, and all our woe,</div> - <div class='line'>With loss of Eden, till one greater Man</div> - <div class='line'>Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,</div> - <div class='line'>Sing, heavenly muse.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>So chary of a sentence is he, so resolute -not to let it escape him till he has crowded -into it all he can, that it is not till the -thirty-ninth word in the sentence that he -will give us the key to it, the word of action, -the verb. Milton says:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>O for that warning voice, which he, who saw</div> - <div class='line'>The Apocalypse, heard cry in heaven aloud.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>He is not satisfied, unless he can tell us, -all in one sentence, and without permitting -himself to actually mention the name, that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>the man who had the warning voice was -the same man who saw the Apocalypse. -Homer would have said, ‘O for that warning -voice, which <i>John</i> heard’—and if it had -suited him to say that John also saw the -Apocalypse, he would have given us that -in another sentence. The effect of this -allusive and compressed manner of Milton -is, I need not say, often very powerful; -and it is an effect which other great poets -have often sought to obtain much in the -same way: Dante is full of it, Horace is -full of it; but wherever it exists, it is always -an un-Homeric effect. ‘The losses of the -heavens’, says Horace, ‘fresh moons -speedily repair; we, when we have gone -down where the pious Æneas, where the -rich Tullus and Ancus are,—<span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>pulvis et umbra -sumus</i></span><a id='r26' /><a href='#f26' class='c009'><sup>[26]</sup></a>’. He never actually says <i>where</i> -we go to; he only indicates it by saying -that it is that place where Æneas, Tullus, -and Ancus are. But Homer, when he has -to speak of going down to the grave, says, -definitely, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><em class='gesperrt'>ἐς Ἐλύσιοv πεδιον</em>—ἀθάνατοι -πέμψουσιν</span><a id='r27' /><a href='#f27' class='c009'><sup>[27]</sup></a>,—‘The immortals shall send -thee <i>to the Elysian plain</i>’; and it is not -till after he has definitely said this, that -he adds, that it is there that the abode -of departed worthies is placed: <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὅθι ξανθὸς -Ῥαδάμανθυς</span>—‘Where the yellow-haired -Rhadamanthus is’. Again; Horace, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>having to say that punishment sooner or -later overtakes crime, says it thus:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Raro antecedentem scelestum</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Deseruit pede Pœna claudo</span><a id='r28' /><a href='#f28' class='c009'><sup>[28]</sup></a>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>The thought itself of these lines is familiar -enough to Homer and Hesiod; but neither -Homer nor Hesiod, in expressing it, could -possibly have so complicated its expression -as Horace complicates it, and purposely -complicates it, by his use of the word -<span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>deseruit</i></span>. I say that this complicated evolution -of the thought necessarily complicates -the movement and rhythm of a poet; and -that the Miltonic blank verse, of course the -first model of blank verse which suggests -itself to an English translator of Homer, -bears the strongest marks of such complication, -and is therefore entirely unfit to -render Homer.</p> - -<p class='c005'>If blank verse is used in translating -Homer, it must be a blank verse of which -English poetry, naturally swayed much by -Milton’s treatment of this metre, offers at -present hardly any examples. It must not -be Cowper’s blank verse, who has studied -Milton’s pregnant manner with such effect, -that, having to say of Mr Throckmorton -that he spares his avenue, although it is -the fashion with other people to cut down -theirs, he says that Benevolus ‘reprieves -<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>the obsolete prolixity of shade’. It must -not be Mr Tennyson’s blank verse.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>For all experience is an arch, wherethrough</div> - <div class='line'>Gleams that untravelled world, whose distance fades</div> - <div class='line'>For ever and for ever, as we gaze.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>It is no blame to the thought of those lines, -which belongs to another order of ideas than -Homer’s, but it is true, that Homer would -certainly have said of them, ‘It is to consider -too curiously to consider so’. It is -no blame to their rhythm, which belongs to -another order of movement than Homer’s, -but it is true that these three lines by themselves -take up nearly as much time as a -whole book of the <i>Iliad</i>. No; the blank -verse used in rendering Homer must be a -blank verse of which perhaps the best specimens -are to be found in some of the most -rapid passages of Shakspeare’s plays,—a -blank verse which does not dovetail its lines -into one another, and which habitually ends -its lines with monosyllables. Such a blank -verse might no doubt be very rapid in its -movement, and might perfectly adapt itself -to a thought plainly and directly evolved; -and it would be interesting to see it well -applied to Homer. But the translator who -determines to use it, must not conceal from -himself that in order to pour Homer into -the mould of this metre, he will have entirely -to break him up and melt him down, -with the hope of then successfully composing -<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>him afresh; and this is a process -which is full of risks. It may, no doubt, -be the real Homer that issues new from it; -it is not certain beforehand that it cannot -be the real Homer, as it is certain that -from the mould of Pope’s couplet or Cowper’s -Miltonic verse it cannot be the real -Homer that will issue; still, the chances of -disappointment are great. The result of -such an attempt to renovate the old poet -may be an Æson; but it may also, and -more probably will be a Pelias.</p> - -<p class='c005'>When I say this, I point to the metre -which seems to me to give the translator -the best chance of preserving the general -effect of Homer,—that third metre which -I have not yet expressly named, the hexameter. -I know all that is said against -the use of hexameters in English poetry; -but it comes only to this, that, among -us, they have not yet been used on any -considerable scale with success. <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>Solvitur -ambulando</i></span>: this is an objection which can -best be met by <i>producing</i> good English hexameters. -And there is no reason in the -nature of the English language why it -should not adapt itself to hexameters as -well as the German language does; nay, -the English language, from its greater -rapidity, is in itself better suited than -the German for them. The hexameter, -whether alone or with the pentameter, -possesses a movement, an expression, which -<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>no metre hitherto in common use amongst -us possesses, and which I am convinced -English poetry, as our mental wants multiply, -will not always be content to forgo. -Applied to Homer, this metre affords to -the translator the immense support of -keeping him more nearly than any other -metre to Homer’s movement; and, since -a poet’s movement makes so large a part -of his general effect, and to reproduce this -general effect is at once the translator’s -indispensable business and so difficult for -him, it is a great thing to have this part -of your model’s general effect already -given you in your metre, instead of -having to get it entirely for yourself.</p> - -<p class='c005'>These are general considerations; but -there are also one or two particular considerations -which confirm me in the opinion -that for translating Homer into English -verse the hexameter should be used. The -most successful attempt hitherto made at -rendering Homer into English, the attempt -in which Homer’s general effect has been -best retained, is an attempt made in the -hexameter measure. It is a version of the -famous lines in the third book of the <i>Iliad</i>, -which end with that mention of Castor and -Pollux from which Mr Ruskin extracts the -sentimental consolation already noticed by -me. The author is the accomplished Provost -of Eton, Dr Hawtrey; and this performance -of his must be my excuse for -<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>having taken the liberty to single him out -for mention, as one of the natural judges of -a translation of Homer, along with Professor -Thompson and Professor Jowett, -whose connection with Greek literature is -official. The passage is short<a id='r29' /><a href='#f29' class='c009'><sup>[29]</sup></a>; and Dr -<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>Hawtrey’s version of it is suffused with a -pensive grace which is, perhaps, rather more -Virgilian than Homeric; still it is the one -version of any part of the <i>Iliad</i> which in -some degree reproduces for me the original -effect of Homer: it is the best, and it is in -hexameters.</p> - -<p class='c005'>This is one of the particular considerations -that incline me to prefer the hexameter, -for translating Homer, to our established -metres. There is another. Most of you, -probably, have some knowledge of a poem -by Mr Clough, <i>The Bothie of Toper-na-fuosich</i>, -a long-vacation pastoral, in hexameters. -The general merits of that poem -I am not going to discuss: it is a serio-comic -<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>poem, and, therefore, of essentially -different nature from the <i>Iliad</i>. Still in -two things it is, more than any other English -poem which I can call to mind, like the -<i>Iliad</i>: in the rapidity of its movement, -and the plainness and directness of its style. -The thought of this poem is often curious -and subtle, and that is not Homeric; the -diction is often grotesque, and that is not -Homeric. Still by its rapidity of movement, -and plain and direct manner of presenting -the thought however curious in -itself, this poem, which, being as I say a -serio-comic poem, has a right to be grotesque, -is grotesque <i>truly</i>, not, like Mr Newman’s -version of the <i>Iliad</i>, <i>falsely</i>. Mr Clough’s -odd epithets, ‘The grave man nicknamed -Adam’, ‘The hairy Aldrich’, and so on, -grow vitally and appear naturally in their -place; while Mr Newman’s ‘dapper-greaved -Achaians’, and ‘motley-helmed Hector’, -have all the air of being mechanically elaborated -and artificially stuck in. Mr Clough’s -hexameters are excessively, needlessly -rough; still owing to the native rapidity -of this measure, and to the directness of -style which so well allies itself with it, his -composition produces a sense in the reader -which Homer’s composition also produces, -and which Homer’s translator ought to <i>re</i>-produce,—the -sense of having, within short -limits of time, a large portion of human life -presented to him, instead of a small portion.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>Mr Clough’s hexameters are, as I have -just said, too rough and irregular; and indeed -a good model, on any considerable -scale, of this metre, the English translator -will nowhere find. He must not follow the -model offered by Mr Longfellow in his -pleasing and popular poem of <i>Evangeline</i>; -for the merit of the manner and movement -of <i>Evangeline</i>, when they are at their best, -is to be tenderly elegant; and their fault, -when they are at their worst, is to be -lumbering; but Homer’s defect is not -lumberingness, neither is tender elegance -his excellence. The lumbering effect of -most English hexameters is caused by their -being much too dactylic<a id='r30' /><a href='#f30' class='c009'><sup>[30]</sup></a>; the translator -must learn to use spondees freely. Mr -Clough has done this, but he has not sufficiently -observed another rule which the translator -cannot follow too strictly; and that -is, to have no lines which will not, as it is -familiarly said, <i>read themselves</i>. This is of -the last importance for rhythms with which -the ear of the English public is not -thoroughly acquainted. Lord Redesdale, -in two papers on the subject of Greek and -Roman metres, has some good remarks on -<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>the outrageous disregard of quantity in -which English verse, trusting to its force -of accent, is apt to indulge itself. The -predominance of accent in our language is -so great, that it would be pedantic not to -avail oneself of it; and Lord Redesdale -suggests rules which might easily be pushed -too far. Still, it is undeniable that in -English hexameters we generally force the -quantity far too much; we rely on justification -by accent with a security which is -excessive. But not only do we abuse accent -by shortening long syllables and lengthening -short ones; we perpetually commit a far -worse fault, by requiring the removal of -the accent from its natural place to an unnatural -one, in order to make our line scan. -This is a fault, even when our metre is one -which every English reader knows, and -when we can see what we want and can -correct the rhythm according to our wish; -although it is a fault which a great master -may sometimes commit knowingly to produce -a desired effect, as Milton changes the -natural accent on the word <i>Tiresias</i> in the -line:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>And Tíresias and Phineus, prophets old;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>and then it ceases to be a fault, and becomes -a beauty. But it is a real fault, when -Chapman has:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>By him the golden-throned Queen slept, the Queen of Deities;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>for in this line, to make it scan, you have -to take away the accent from the word -<i>Queen</i>, on which it naturally falls, and to -place it on <i>throned</i>, which would naturally -be unaccented; and yet, after all, you get -no peculiar effect or beauty of cadence to -reward you. It is a real fault, when Mr -Newman has:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Infatuate! O that thou wert lord to some other army—</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>for here again the reader is required, not -for any special advantage to himself, but -simply to save Mr Newman trouble, to place -the accent on the insignificant word <i>wert</i>, -where it has no business whatever. But -it is still a greater fault, when Spenser has -(to take a striking instance):</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Wot ye why his mother with a veil hath covered his face?</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>for a hexameter; because here not only is -the reader causelessly required to make -havoc with the natural accentuation of the -line in order to get it to run as a hexameter; -but also he, in nine cases out of ten, will be -utterly at a loss how to perform the process -required, and the line will remain a mere -monster for him. I repeat, it is advisable -to construct <i>all</i> verses so that by reading -them naturally—that is, according to the -sense and legitimate accent,—the reader gets -the right rhythm; but, for English hexameters, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>that they be so constructed is indispensable.</p> - -<p class='c005'>If the hexameter best helps the translator -to the Homeric rapidity, what style may -best help him to the Homeric plainness -and directness? It is the merit of a metre -appropriate to your subject, that it in -some degree suggests and carries with itself -a style appropriate to the subject; the -elaborate and self-retarding style, which -comes so naturally when your metre is the -Miltonic blank verse, does not come naturally -with the hexameter; is, indeed, alien to it. -On the other hand, the hexameter has a -natural dignity which repels both the jaunty -style and the jog-trot style, to both of which -the ballad-measure so easily lends itself. -These are great advantages; and, perhaps, -it is nearly enough to say to the translator -who uses the hexameter that he cannot too -religiously follow, in style, the inspiration -of his metre. He will find that a loose -and idiomatic grammar—a grammar which -follows the essential rather than the -formal logic of the thought—allies itself excellently -with the hexameter; and that, -while this sort of grammar ensures plainness -and naturalness, it by no means comes -short in nobleness. It is difficult to pronounce, -certainly, what is idiomatic in the -ancient literature of a language which, -though still spoken, has long since entirely -adopted, as modern Greek has adopted, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>modern idioms. Still one may, I think, -clearly perceive that Homer’s grammatical -style is idiomatic,—that it may even be -called, not improperly, a loose grammatical -style<a id='r31' /><a href='#f31' class='c009'><sup>[31]</sup></a>. Examples, however, of what I -mean by a loose grammatical style, will be -of more use to the translator if taken from -English poetry than if taken from Homer. -I call it, then, a loose and idiomatic grammar -which Shakspeare uses in the last line of -the following three:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in14'>He’s here in double trust:</div> - <div class='line'>First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,</div> - <div class='line'><i>Strong both against the deed</i>;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>or in this:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Wit, <i>whither wilt</i>?</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>What Shakspeare means is perfectly clear, -clearer, probably, than if he had said it in -a more formal and regular manner; but -his grammar is loose and idiomatic, because -he leaves out the subject of the verb ‘wilt’ -in the second passage quoted, and because, -in the first, a prodigious addition to the -sentence has to be, as we used to say in -our old Latin grammar days, <i>understood</i>, -before the word ‘both’ can be properly -<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>parsed. So, again, Chapman’s grammar is -loose and idiomatic where he says,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Even share hath he that keeps his tent, and <i>he to field</i> doth go,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>because he leaves out, in the second clause, -the relative which in formal writing would -be required. But Chapman here does not -lose dignity by this idiomatic way of expressing -himself, any more than Shakspeare -loses it by neglecting to confer on ‘both’ -the blessings of a regular government: -neither loses dignity, but each gives that -impression of a plain, direct, and natural -mode of speaking, which Homer, too, gives, -and which it is so important, as I say, that -Homer’s translator should succeed in giving. -Cowper calls blank verse ‘a style further -removed than rhyme from the vernacular -idiom, both in the language itself and in -the arrangement of it’; and just in proportion -as blank verse is removed from the -vernacular idiom, from that idiomatic style -which is of all styles the plainest and most -natural, blank verse is unsuited to render -Homer.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Shakspeare is not only idiomatic in his -grammar or style, he is also idiomatic in -his words or diction; and here too, his -example is valuable for the translator of -Homer. The translator must not, indeed, -allow himself all the liberty that Shakspeare -allows himself; for Shakspeare sometimes -uses expressions which pass perfectly well -<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>as he uses them, because Shakspeare thinks -so fast and so powerfully, that in reading -him we are borne over single words as by a -mighty current; but, if our mind were less -excited,—and who may rely on exciting our -mind like Shakspeare?—they would check -us. ‘To grunt and sweat under a weary -load’;—that does perfectly well where it -comes in Shakspeare; but if the translator -of Homer, who will hardly have wound our -minds up to the pitch at which these words -of Hamlet find them, were to employ, when -he has to speak of one of Homer’s heroes -under the load of calamity, this figure of -‘grunting’ and ‘sweating’ we should say, -<i>He Newmanises</i>, and his diction would offend -us. For he is to be noble; and no plea of -wishing to be plain and natural can get him -excused from being this: only, as he is to -be also, like Homer, perfectly simple and -free from artificiality, and as the use of -idiomatic expressions undoubtedly gives this -effect<a id='r32' /><a href='#f32' class='c009'><sup>[32]</sup></a>, he should be as idiomatic as he can -<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>be without ceasing to be noble. Therefore -the idiomatic language of Shakspeare—such -language as, ‘prate of his <i>whereabout</i>’; -‘<i>jump</i> the life to come’; ‘the damnation of -his <i>taking-off</i>’; ‘his <i>quietus make</i> with a -bare <i>bodkin</i>’—should be carefully observed -by the translator of Homer, although in -every case he will have to decide for himself -whether the use, by him, of Shakspeare’s -liberty, will or will not clash with his indispensable -duty of nobleness. He will find -one English book and one only, where, as -in the <i>Iliad</i> itself, perfect plainness of speech -is allied with perfect nobleness; and that -book is the Bible. No one could see this -more clearly than Pope saw it: ‘This pure -and noble simplicity’, he says, ‘is nowhere -in such perfection as in the Scripture and -Homer’: yet even with Pope a woman is -a ‘fair’, a father is a ‘sire’ and an old -man a ‘reverend sage’, and so on through -all the phrases of that pseudo-Augustan, -and most unbiblical, vocabulary. The -Bible, however, is undoubtedly the grand -mine of diction for the translator of Homer; -and, if he knows how to discriminate truly -between what will suit him and what will -not, the Bible may afford him also invaluable -lessons of style.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I said that Homer, besides being plain -in style and diction, was plain in the quality -of his thought. It is possible that a thought -may be expressed with idiomatic plainness, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>and yet not be in itself a plain thought. -For example, in Mr Clough’s poem, already -mentioned, the style and diction is almost -always idiomatic and plain, but the thought -itself is often of a quality which is not plain; -it is <i>curious</i>. But the grand instance of -the union of idiomatic expression with curious -or difficult thought is in Shakspeare’s -poetry. Such, indeed, is the force and -power of Shakspeare’s idiomatic expression, -that it gives an effect of clearness and vividness -even to a thought which is imperfect -and incoherent; for instance, when Hamlet -says,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>To take arms against a sea of troubles,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>the figure there is undoubtedly most faulty, -it by no means runs on four legs; but the -thing is said so freely and idiomatically, -that it passes. This, however, is not a -point to which I now want to call your -attention; I want you to remark, in Shakspeare -and others, only that which we may -directly apply to Homer. I say, then, that -in Shakspeare the thought is often, while -most idiomatically uttered, nay, while good -and sound in itself, yet of a quality which -is curious and difficult; and that this quality -of thought is something entirely un-Homeric. -For example, when Lady Macbeth says:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>Memory, the warder of the brain,</div> - <div class='line'>Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason</div> - <div class='line'>A limbeck only,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>this figure is a perfectly sound and correct -figure, no doubt; Mr Knight even calls it -a ‘happy’ figure; but it is a <i>difficult</i> figure: -Homer would not have used it. Again, -when Lady Macbeth says,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>When you durst do it, then you were a man;</div> - <div class='line'>And, to be more than what you were, you would</div> - <div class='line'>Be so much more the man,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>the thought in the two last of these lines is, -when you seize it, a perfectly clear thought, -and a fine thought; but it is a <i>curious</i> -thought: Homer would not have used it. -These are favourable instances of the union -of plain style and words with a thought not -plain in quality; but take stronger instances -of this union,—let the thought be not only -not plain in quality, but highly fanciful: -and you have the Elizabethan conceits; -you have, in spite of idiomatic style and -idiomatic diction, everything which is most -un-Homeric; you have such atrocities as -this of Chapman:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in6'>Fate shall fail to vent her gall</div> - <div class='line'>Till mine vent thousands.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>I say, the poets of a nation which has produced -such conceit as that, must purify -themselves seven times in the fire before -they can hope to render Homer. They must -expel their nature with a fork, and keep -crying to one another night and day: -‘Homer not only moves rapidly, not only -speaks idiomatically; he is, also, <i>free from -fancifulness</i>’.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>So essentially characteristic of Homer is -his plainness and naturalness of thought, -that to the preservation of this in his own -version the translator must without scruple -sacrifice, where it is necessary, verbal fidelity -to his original, rather than run any risk of -producing, by literalness, an odd and unnatural -effect. The double epithets so constantly -occurring in Homer must be dealt -with according to this rule; these epithets -come quite naturally in Homer’s poetry; -in English poetry they, in nine cases out of -ten, come, when literally rendered, quite -unnaturally. I will not now discuss why -this is so, I assume it as an indisputable -fact that it is so; that Homer’s <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μερόπων -ἀνθρώπων</span> comes to the reader as something -perfectly natural, while Mr Newman’s -‘voice-dividing mortals’ comes to him as -something perfectly unnatural. Well then, -as it is Homer’s general effect which we are -to reproduce, it is to be false to Homer to -be so verbally faithful to him as that we -lose this effect: and by the English translator -Homer’s double epithets must be, in -many places, renounced altogether; in all -places where they are rendered, rendered by -equivalents which come naturally. Instead -of rendering <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">θέτι τανύπεπλε</span> by Mr Newman’s -‘Thetis trailing-robed’, which brings to -one’s mind long petticoats sweeping a dirty -pavement, the translator must render the -Greek by English words which come as naturally -<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>to us as Milton’s words when he says, -‘Let gorgeous Tragedy With sceptred pall -come sweeping by’. Instead of rendering -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μώνυχας ἵππους</span> by Chapman’s ‘one-hoofed -steeds’, or Mr Newman’s ‘single-hoofed -horses’, he must speak of horses in a way -which surprises us as little as Shakspeare -surprises when he says, ‘Gallop apace, you -fiery-footed steeds’. Instead of rendering -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μελιηδέα θυμόν</span> by ‘life as honey pleasant’, -he must characterise life with the simple -pathos of Gray’s ‘warm precincts of the -cheerful day’. Instead of converting <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ποῖόν -σε ἔπoς φύγεν ἔρκος ὀδόντων;</span> into the portentous -remonstrance, ‘Betwixt the outwork -of thy teeth what word hath split’? -he must remonstrate in English as straightforward -as this of St Peter, ‘Be it far from -thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee’; -or as this of the disciples, ‘What is this that -he saith, a little while? we cannot tell what -he saith’. Homer’s Greek, in each of the -places quoted, reads as naturally as any of -those English passages: the expression no -more calls away the attention from the -sense in the Greek than in the English. -But when, in order to render literally in -English one of Homer’s double epithets, a -strange unfamiliar adjective is invented,—such -as ‘voice-dividing’ for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέρψς</span>,—an -improper share of the reader’s attention is -necessarily diverted to this ancillary word, -to this word which Homer never intended -<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>should receive so much notice; and a total -effect quite different from Homer’s is thus -produced. Therefore Mr Newman, though -he does not purposely import, like Chapman, -conceits of his own into the <i>Iliad</i>, does -actually import them; for the result of his -singular diction is to raise ideas, and odd -ideas, not raised by the corresponding diction -in Homer; and Chapman himself does no -more. Cowper says: ‘I have cautiously -avoided all terms of new invention, with an -abundance of which persons of more ingenuity -than judgment have not enriched -our language but encumbered it’; and -this criticism so exactly hits the diction of -Mr Newman that one is irresistibly led to -imagine his present appearance in the flesh -to be at least his second.</p> - -<p class='c005'>A translator cannot well have a Homeric -rapidity, style, diction, and quality of -thought, without at the same time having -what is the result of these in Homer,—nobleness. -Therefore I do not attempt to -lay down any rules for obtaining this effect -of nobleness,—the effect, too, of all others -the most impalpable, the most irreducible -to rule, and which most depends on the individual -personality of the artist. So I proceed -at once to give you, in conclusion, one -or two passages in which I have tried to -follow those principles of Homeric translation -which I have laid down. I give them, -it must be remembered, not as specimens of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>perfect translation, but as specimens of an -attempt to translate Homer on certain principles; -specimens which may very aptly -illustrate those principles by falling short -as well as by succeeding.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I take first a passage of which I have -already spoken, the comparison of the Trojan -fires to the stars. The first part of that -passage is, I have said, of splendid beauty; -and to begin with a lame version of that -would be the height of imprudence in me. -It is the last and more level part with which -I shall concern myself. I have already -quoted Cowper’s version of this part in -order to show you how unlike his stiff and -Miltonic manner of telling a plain story is -to Homer’s easy and rapid manner:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>So numerous seemed those fires the bank between</div> - <div class='line'>Of Xanthus, blazing, and the fleet of Greece,</div> - <div class='line'>In prospect all of Troy—</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>I need not continue to the end. I have also -quoted Pope’s version of it, to show you how -unlike his ornate and artificial manner is to -Homer’s plain and natural manner:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>So many flames before proud Ilion blaze,</div> - <div class='line'>And brighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays;</div> - <div class='line'>The long reflections of the distant fires</div> - <div class='line'>Gleam on the walls, and tremble on the spires,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>and much more of the same kind. I want -to show you that it is possible, in a plain -passage of this sort, to keep Homer’s simplicity -without being heavy and dull; and -to keep his dignity without bringing in pomp -<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>and ornament. ‘As numerous as are the -stars on a clear night’, says Homer,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>So shone forth, in front of Troy, by the bed of Xanthus,</div> - <div class='line'>Between that and the ships, the Trojans’ numerous fires.</div> - <div class='line'>In the plain there were kindled a thousand fires: by each one</div> - <div class='line'>There sat fifty men, in the ruddy light of the fire:</div> - <div class='line'>By their chariots stood the steeds, and champed the white barley</div> - <div class='line'>While their masters sat by the fire, and waited for Morning.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Here, in order to keep Homer’s effect of -perfect plainness and directness, I repeat -the word ‘fires’ as he repeats πυρά without -scruple; although in a more elaborate and -literary style of poetry this recurrence of -the same word would be a fault to be -avoided. I omit the epithet of Morning, -and whereas Homer says that the steeds -‘waited for Morning’, I prefer to attribute -this expectation of Morning to the master -and not to the horse. Very likely in this -particular, as in any other single particular, -I may be wrong: what I wish you to remark -is my endeavour after absolute plainness -of speech, my care to avoid anything which -may the least check or surprise the reader, -whom Homer does not check or surprise. -Homer’s lively personal familiarity with -war, and with the war-horse as his master’s -companion, is such that, as it seems to me, -his attributing to the one the other’s feelings -<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>comes to us quite naturally; but, from a -poet without this familiarity, the attribution -strikes as a little unnatural; and therefore, -as everything the least unnatural is un-Homeric, -I avoid it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Again, in the address of Zeus to the horses -of Achilles, Cowper has:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Jove saw their grief with pity, and his brows</div> - <div class='line'>Shaking, within himself thus, pensive, said.</div> - <div class='line in6'>‘Ah hapless pair! wherefore by gift divine</div> - <div class='line'>Were ye to Peleus given, a mortal king,</div> - <div class='line'>Yourselves immortal and from age exempt?’</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>There is no want of dignity here, as in the -versions of Chapman and Mr Newman, -which I have already quoted: but the whole -effect is much too slow. Take Pope:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Nor Jove disdained to cast a pitying look</div> - <div class='line'>While thus relenting to the steeds he spoke.</div> - <div class='line in6'>‘Unhappy coursers of immortal strain!</div> - <div class='line'>Exempt from age and deathless now in vain;</div> - <div class='line'>Did we your race on mortal man bestow</div> - <div class='line'>Only, alas! to share in mortal woe?’</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Here there is no want either of dignity or -rapidity, but all is too artificial. ‘Nor Jove -disdained’, for instance, is a very artificial -and literary way of rendering Homer’s -words and so is, ‘coursers of immortal -strain’.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Μυρομένω δ’ ἄρα τώ γε ἰδὼν, ἐλέησε Κρονίων.</span></div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>And with pity the son of Saturn saw them bewailing,</div> - <div class='line'>And he shook his head, and thus addressed his own bosom.</div> - <div class='line in6'><span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>‘Ah, unhappy pair, to Peleus why did we give you,</div> - <div class='line'>To a mortal? but ye are without old age and immortal.</div> - <div class='line'>Was it that ye, with man, might have your thousands of sorrows?</div> - <div class='line'>For than man, indeed, there breathes no wretcheder creature,</div> - <div class='line'>Of all living things, that on earth are breathing and moving’.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Here I will observe that the use of ‘own’, -in the second line for the last syllable of a -dactyl, and the use of ‘To a’, in the fourth, -for a complete spondee, though they do -not, I think, actually spoil the run of the -hexameter, are yet undoubtedly instances -of that over-reliance on accent, and too free -disregard of quantity, which Lord Redesdale -visits with just reprehension<a id='r33' /><a href='#f33' class='c009'><sup>[33]</sup></a>.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>I now take two longer passages in order -to try my method more fully; but I still -keep to passages which have already come -under our notice. I quoted Chapman’s -version of some passages in the speech of -Hector at his parting with Andromache. -One astounding conceit will probably still -be in your remembrance,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>When sacred Troy shall <i>shed her tow’rs for tears of overthrow</i>,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>as a translation of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὅτ’ ἄν ποτ’ ὀλώλῃ Ἴλιος ἰρή</span>. -I will quote a few lines which will give you, -also, the key-note to the Anglo-Augustan -manner of rendering this passage and to the -Miltonic manner of rendering it. What Mr -Newman’s manner of rendering it would be, -you can by this time sufficiently imagine for -yourselves. Mr Wright,—to quote for once -from his meritorious version instead of -Cowper’s, whose strong and weak points -are those of Mr Wright also,—Mr Wright -begins his version of this passage thus:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>All these thy anxious cares are also mine,</div> - <div class='line'>Partner beloved; but how could I endure</div> - <div class='line'>The scorn of Trojans and their long-robed wives,</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>Should they behold their Hector shrink from war,</div> - <div class='line'>And act the coward’s part! Nor doth my soul</div> - <div class='line'>Prompt the base thought.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>Ex pede Herculem</i></span>: you see just what the -manner is. Mr Sotheby, on the other hand -(to take a disciple of Pope instead of Pope -himself), begins thus:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>‘What moves thee, moves my mind,’ brave Hector said,</div> - <div class='line'>‘Yet Troy’s upbraiding scorn I deeply dread,</div> - <div class='line'>If, like a slave, where chiefs with chiefs engage,</div> - <div class='line'>The warrior Hector fears the war to wage.</div> - <div class='line'>Not thus my heart inclines.’</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>From that specimen, too, you can easily -divine what, with such a manner, will become -of the whole passage. But Homer -has neither</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>What moves thee, moves my mind,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>nor has he</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>All these thy anxious cares are also mine.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Ἦ καὶ ἐμοὶ τάδε πάντα μέλει, γύναι· ἀλλὰ μάλ’ αἰνῶς,</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>that is what Homer has, that is his style -and movement, if one could but catch it. -Andromache, as you know, has been entreating -Hector to defend Troy from within -the walls, instead of exposing his life, and, -with his own life, the safety of all those -dearest to him, by fighting in the open -plain. Hector replies:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Woman, I too take thought for this; but then I bethink me</div> - <div class='line'>What the Trojan men and Trojan women might murmur,</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>If like a coward I skulked behind, apart from the battle.</div> - <div class='line'>Nor would my own heart let me; my heart, which has bid me be valiant</div> - <div class='line'>Always, and always fighting among the first of the Trojans,</div> - <div class='line'>Busy for Priam’s fame and my own, in spite of the future.</div> - <div class='line'>For that day will come, my soul is assured of its coming,</div> - <div class='line'>It will come, when sacred Troy shall go to destruction,</div> - <div class='line'>Troy, and warlike Priam too, and the people of Priam.</div> - <div class='line'>And yet not that grief, which then will be, of the Trojans,</div> - <div class='line'>Moves me so much—not Hecuba’s grief, nor Priam my father’s,</div> - <div class='line'>Nor my brethren’s, many and brave, who then will be lying</div> - <div class='line'>In the bloody dust, beneath the feet of their foemen—</div> - <div class='line'>As thy grief, when, in tears, some brazen-coated Achaian</div> - <div class='line'>Shall transport thee away, and the day of thy freedom be ended.</div> - <div class='line'>Then, perhaps, thou shalt work at the loom of another, in Argos,</div> - <div class='line'>Or bear pails to the well of Messeïs, or Hypereia,</div> - <div class='line'>Sorely against thy will, by strong Necessity’s order.</div> - <div class='line'>And some man may say, as he looks and sees thy tears falling:</div> - <div class='line'><i>See, the wife of Hector, that great pre-eminent captain</i></div> - <div class='line'><i>Of the horsemen of Troy, in the day they fought for their city</i>.</div> - <div class='line'>So some man will say; and then thy grief will redouble</div> - <div class='line'>At thy want of a man like me, to save thee from bondage.</div> - <div class='line'>But let me be dead, and the earth be mounded above me,</div> - <div class='line'>Ere I hear thy cries, and thy captivity told of.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>The main question, whether or no this -version reproduces for him the movement -and general effect of Homer better than -other versions<a id='r34' /><a href='#f34' class='c009'><sup>[34]</sup></a> of the same passage, I leave -for the judgment of the scholar. But the -particular points, in which the operation -of my own rules is manifested, are as follows. -In the second line I leave out the epithet of -the Trojan women <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἑλκεσιπέπλους</span>, altogether. -In the sixth line I put in five words ‘in -spite of the future’, which are in the original -by implication only, and are not there -actually expressed. This I do, because -Homer, as I have before said, is so remote -from one who reads him in English, that -the English translator must be even plainer, -if possible, and more unambiguous than -Homer himself; the connection of meaning -must be even more distinctly marked in -the translation than in the original. For -in the Greek language itself there is something -which brings one nearer to Homer, -which gives one a clue to his thought, which -makes a hint enough; but in the English -language this sense of nearness, this clue, -is gone; hints are insufficient, everything -must be stated with full distinctness. In -the ninth line Homer’s epithet for Priam is -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐυμμελίω</span>,—‘armed with good ashen spear’, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>say the dictionaries; ‘ashen-speared’, -translates Mr Newman, following his own -rule to ‘retain every peculiarity of his -original’,—I say, on the other hand, that -ἐυμμελίω has not the effect of a ‘peculiarity’ -in the original, while ‘ashen-speared’ has -the effect of a ‘peculiarity’ in English; and -‘warlike’ is as marking an equivalent as I -dare give for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐυμμελίω</span>, for fear of disturbing -the balance of expression in Homer’s sentence. -In the fourteenth line, again, I translate -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">χαλκοχιτώνων</span> by ‘brazen-coated’. Mr -Newman, meaning to be perfectly literal, -translates it by ‘brazen-cloaked’, an expression -which comes to the reader oddly -and unnaturally, while Homer’s word comes -to him quite naturally; but I venture to -go as near to a literal rendering as ‘brazen-coated’, -because a ‘coat of brass’ is familiar -to us all from the Bible, and familiar, too, -as distinctly specified in connection with -the wearer. Finally, let me further illustrate -from the twentieth line the value which -I attach, in a question of diction, to the -authority of the Bible. The word ‘pre-eminent’ -occurs in that line; I was a little -in doubt whether that was not too bookish -an expression to be used in rendering Homer, -as I can imagine Mr Newman to have been -a little in doubt whether his ‘responsively -accosted’ for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀμειβόμενος προσέφη</span>, was not -too bookish an expression. Let us both, I -say, consult our Bibles: Mr Newman will -<span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>nowhere find it in his Bible that David, for -instance, ‘<i>responsively accosted</i> Goliath’; -but I do find in mine that ‘the right hand -of the Lord hath the <i>pre-eminence</i>’; and -forthwith I use ‘pre-eminent’, without -scruple. My Bibliolatry is perhaps excessive; -and no doubt a true poetic feeling -is the Homeric translator’s best guide in -the use of words; but where this feeling -does not exist, or is at fault, I think he -cannot do better than take for a mechanical -guide Cruden’s <i>Concordance</i>. To be sure, -here as elsewhere, the consulter must know -how to consult,—must know how very slight -a variation of word or circumstance makes -the difference between an authority in his -favour, and an authority which gives him -no countenance at all; for instance, the -‘Great simpleton!’ (for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέγα νήπιος</span>) of Mr -Newman, and the ‘Thou fool!’ of the -Bible, are something alike; but ‘Thou -fool!’ is very grand, and ‘Great simpleton!’ -is an atrocity. So, too, Chapman’s -‘Poor wretched beasts’ is pitched many -degrees too low; but Shakspeare’s ‘Poor -venomous fool, Be angry and despatch!’ -is in the grand style.</p> - -<p class='c005'>One more piece of translation and I have -done. I will take the passage in which -both Chapman and Mr Newman have already -so much excited our astonishment, -the passage at the end of the nineteenth -book of the <i>Iliad</i>, the dialogue between -<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>Achilles and his horse Xanthus, after the -death of Patroclus. Achilles begins:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>‘Xanthus and Balius both, ye far-famed seed of Podarga!</div> - <div class='line'>See that ye bring your master home to the host of the Argives</div> - <div class='line'>In some other sort than your last, when the battle is ended;</div> - <div class='line'>And not leave him behind, a corpse on the plain, like Patroclus’.</div> - <div class='line in6'>Then, from beneath the yoke, the fleet horse Xanthus addressed him:</div> - <div class='line'>Sudden he bowed his head, and all his mane, as he bowed it,</div> - <div class='line'>Streamed to the ground by the yoke, escaping from under the collar;</div> - <div class='line'>And he was given a voice by the white-armed Goddess Hera.</div> - <div class='line in6'>‘Truly, yet this time will we save thee, mighty Achilles!</div> - <div class='line'>But thy day of death is at hand; nor shall <i>we</i> be the reason—</div> - <div class='line'>No, but the will of heaven, and Fate’s invincible power.</div> - <div class='line'>For by no slow pace or want of swiftness of ours</div> - <div class='line'>Did the Trojans obtain to strip the arms from Patroclus;</div> - <div class='line'>But that prince among Gods, the son of the lovely-haired Leto,</div> - <div class='line'>Slew him fighting in front of the fray, and glorified Hector.</div> - <div class='line'>But, for us, we vie in speed with the breath of the West-Wind,</div> - <div class='line'>Which, men say, is the fleetest of winds; ’tis thou who art fated</div> - <div class='line'>To lie low in death, by the hand of a God and a Mortal’.</div> - <div class='line in6'>Thus far he; and here his voice was stopped by the Furies.</div> - <div class='line'>Then, with a troubled heart, the swift Achilles addressed him:</div> - <div class='line in6'><span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>‘Why dost thou prophesy so my death to me, Xanthus? It needs not.</div> - <div class='line'>I of myself know well, that here I am destined to perish,</div> - <div class='line'>Far from my father and mother dear: for all that I will not</div> - <div class='line'>Stay this hand from fight, till the Trojans are utterly routed</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in6'>So he spake, and drove with a cry his steeds into battle.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Here the only particular remark which -I will make is, that in the fourth and eighth -line the grammar is what I call a loose and -idiomatic grammar. In writing a regular -and literary style, one would in the fourth -line have to repeat before ‘leave’ the words -‘that ye’ from the second line, and to insert -the word ‘do’; and in the eighth line -one would not use such an expression as -‘he was given a voice’. But I will make -one general remark on the character of my -own translations, as I have made so many -on that of the translations of others. It is, -that over the graver passages there is shed -an air somewhat too strenuous and severe, -by comparison with that lovely ease and -sweetness which Homer, for all his noble -and masculine way of thinking, never loses.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Here I stop. I have said so much, because -I think that the task of translating -Homer into English verse both will be reattempted, -and may be reattempted successfully. -There are great works composed -of parts so disparate that one translator is -<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>not likely to have the requisite gifts for -poetically rendering all of them. Such are -the works of Shakspeare, and Goethe’s -<i>Faust</i>; and these it is best to attempt to -render in prose only. People praise Tieck -and Schlegel’s version of Shakspeare. I, for -my part, would sooner read Shakspeare in -the French prose translation, and that is -saying a great deal; but in the German -poets’ hands Shakspeare so often gets, -especially where he is humorous, an air -of what the French call <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>niaiserie</i></span>! and can -anything be more un-Shakspearian than -that? Again; Mr Hayward’s prose translation -of the first part of <i>Faust</i>—so good -that it makes one regret Mr Hayward should -have abandoned the line of translation for -a kind of literature which is, to say the least, -somewhat slight—is not likely to be surpassed -by any translation in verse. But -poems like the <i>Iliad</i>, which, in the main, -are in one manner, may hope to find a -poetical translator so gifted and so trained -as to be able to learn that one manner, and -to reproduce it. Only, the poet who would -reproduce this must cultivate in himself a -Greek virtue by no means common among -the moderns in general, and the English in -particular,—<i>moderation</i>. For Homer has -not only the English vigour, he has the -Greek grace; and when one observes the -bolstering, rollicking way in which his -English admirers—even men of genius like -<span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>the late Professor Wilson—love to talk of -Homer and his poetry, one cannot help -feeling that there is no very deep community -of nature between them and the -object of their enthusiasm. ‘It is very -well, my good friends’, I always imagine -Homer saying to them: if he could hear -them: ‘you do me a great deal of honour, -but somehow or other you praise me too -like barbarians’. For Homer’s grandeur is -not the mixed and turbid grandeur of the -great poets of the north, of the authors of -<i>Othello</i> and <i>Faust</i>; it is a perfect, a lovely -grandeur. Certainly his poetry has all the -energy and power of the poetry of our ruder -climates; but it has, besides, the pure lines -of an Ionian horizon, the liquid clearness -of an Ionian sky.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span> - <h2 id='reply1' class='c003'>Homeric Translation in Theory and Practice <br /> A Reply to Matthew Arnold <br /> By Francis W. Newman</h2> -</div> -<p class='c004'>It is so difficult, amid the press of literature, -for a mere versifier and translator to gain -notice at all, that an assailant may even do -one a service, if he so conduct his assault -as to enable the reader to sit in intelligent -judgment on the merits of the book assailed. -But when the critic deals out to the readers -only so much knowledge as may propagate -his own contempt of the book, he has undoubtedly -immense power to dissuade them -from wishing to open it. Mr Arnold writes -as openly aiming at this end. He begins by -complimenting me, as ‘a man of great -ability and genuine learning’; but on -questions of learning, as well as of taste, -he puts me down as bluntly, as if he had -meant, ‘a man totally void both of learning -and of sagacity’. He again and again -takes for granted that he has ‘the scholar’ -on his side, ‘the living scholar’, the man -<span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>who has learning and taste without pedantry. -He bids me please ‘the scholars’, -and go to ‘the scholars’ tribunal’; and -does not know that I did this, to the extent -of my opportunity, before committing myself -to a laborious, expensive and perhaps -thankless task. Of course he cannot guess, -what is the fact, that scholars of fastidious -refinement, but of a judgment which I -think far more masculine than Mr Arnold’s, -have passed a most encouraging sentence -on large specimens of my translations. I -at this moment count eight such names, -though of course I must not here adduce -them: nor will I further allude to it, than -to say, that I have no such sense either of -pride or of despondency, as those are liable -to, who are consciously isolated in their -taste.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Scholars are the tribunal of Erudition, but -of Taste the educated but unlearned public -is the only rightful judge; and to it I wish -to appeal. Even scholars collectively have -no right, and much less have single scholars, -to pronounce a final sentence on questions -of taste in their court. Where I differ in -Taste from Mr Arnold, it is very difficult -to find ‘the scholars’ tribunal even if I -acknowledged its absolute jurisdiction: but -as regards Erudition, this difficulty does -not occur, and I shall fully reply to the -numerous dogmatisms by which he settles -the case against me.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>But I must first avow to the reader my -own moderate pretensions. Mr Arnold begins -by instilling two errors which he does -not commit himself to assert. He says that -my work will <i>not</i> take rank as <i>the</i> standard -translation of Homer, but <i>other translations -will be made</i>: as if I thought otherwise! -If I have set the example of the right direction -in which translators ought to aim, of -course those who follow me will improve -upon me and supersede me. A man would -be rash indeed to withhold his version of a -poem of fifteen thousand lines, until he had, -to his best ability, imparted to them all -their final perfection. He might spend the -leisure of his life upon it. He would possibly -be in his grave before it could see the -light. If it then were published, and it -was founded on any new principle, there -would be no one to defend it from the -attacks of ignorance and prejudice. In the -nature of the case, his wisdom is to elaborate -in the first instance all the high and noble -parts <i>carefully</i>, and get through the inferior -parts <i>somehow</i>; leaving of necessity very -much to be done in successive editions, if -possibly it please general taste sufficiently -to reach them. A generous and intelligent -critic will test such a work mainly or solely -by the most noble parts, and as to the rest, -will consider whether the metre and style -adapts itself naturally to them also.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Next, Mr Arnold asks, ‘Who is to assure -<span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>Mr Newman, that when he has tried to -retain every peculiarity of his original, he -has done that for which Mr Newman enjoins -this to be done—adhered closely to Homer’s -manner and habit of thought? Evidently -the translator needs more practical directions -than these’. The tendency of this is, to -suggest to the reader that I am not aware -of the difficulty of rightly applying good -principles; whereas I have in this very -connection said expressly, that even when -a translator has got right principles, he is -liable to go wrong in the detail of their -application. This is as true of all the principles -which Mr Arnold can possibly give, -as of those which I have given; nor do I -for a moment assume, that in writing fifteen -thousand lines of verse I have not made -hundreds of blots.</p> - -<p class='c005'>At the same time Mr Arnold has overlooked -the point of my remark. Nearly -every translator before me has <i>knowingly</i>, -<i>purposely</i>, <i>habitually</i> shrunk from Homer’s -thoughts and Homer’s manner. The reader -will afterwards see whether Mr Arnold does -not justify them in their course. It is not -for those who are purposely unfaithful to -taunt me with the difficulty of being truly -faithful.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I have alleged, and, against Mr Arnold’s -flat denial, I deliberately repeat, that Homer -rises and sinks with his subject, and is often -homely or prosaic. I have professed as my -<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>principle, to follow my original in this -matter. It is unfair to expect of me -grandeur in trivial passages. If in any -place where Homer is <i>confessedly</i> grand -and noble, I have marred and ruined his -greatness, let me be reproved. But I shall -have occasion to protest, that Stateliness -is not Grandeur, Picturesqueness is not -Stately, Wild Beauty is not to be confounded -with Elegance: a Forest has its -swamps and brushwood, as well as its tall -trees.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The duty of one who <i>publishes</i> his censures -on me is, to select noble, greatly admired -passages, and confront me both with -a prose translation of the original (for the -public cannot go to the Greek) and also -with that which he judges to be a more -successful version than mine. Translation -being matter of compromise, and being -certain to fall below the original, when this -is of the highest type of grandeur; the -question is not, What translator is perfect? -but, Who is least imperfect? Hence the -only fair test is by comparison, when comparison -is possible. But Mr Arnold has not -put me to this test. He has quoted two -very short passages, and various single -lines, half lines and single words, from -me; and chooses to <i>tell</i> his readers that I -ruin Homer’s nobleness, when (if his censure -is just) he might make them <i>feel</i> it by -quoting me upon the most admired pieces. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>Now with the warmest sincerity I say: If -any English reader, after perusing my -version of four or five eminently noble -passages of sufficient length, side by side -with those of other translators, and (better -still) with a prose version also, finds in -them high qualities which I have destroyed; -I am foremost to advise him to shut my -book, or to consult it only (as Mr Arnold -suggests) as a schoolboy’s ‘help to construe’, -if such it can be. My sole object -is, to bring Homer before the unlearned -public: I seek no self-glorification: the -sooner I am superseded by a really better -translation, the greater will be my pleasure.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was not until I more closely read Mr -Arnold’s own versions, that I understood -how necessary is his repugnance to mine. -I am unwilling to speak of his metrical -efforts. I shall not say more than my -argument strictly demands. It here suffices -to state the simple fact, that for awhile I -seriously doubted whether he meant his first -specimen for metre at all. He seems distinctly -to say, he is going to give us English -Hexameters; but it was long before I could -believe that he had written the following -for that metre:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>So shone forth, in front of Troy, by the bed of Xanthus,</div> - <div class='line'>Between that and the ships, the Trojans’ numerous fires.</div> - <div class='line'>In the plain there were kindled a thousand fires: by each one</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>There sate fifty men, in the ruddy light of the fire.</div> - <div class='line'>By their chariots stood the steeds, and champ’d the white barley,</div> - <div class='line'>While their masters sate by the fire, and waited for Morning.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>I sincerely thought, this was meant for -prose; at length the two last lines opened -my eyes. He <i>does</i> mean them for Hexameters! -‘Fire’ ( = feuer) with him is a -spondee or trochee. The first line, I now -see, begins with three (quantitative) spondees, -and is meant to be spondaic in the -fifth foot. ‘Bed of, Between, In the’,—are -meant for spondees! So are ‘There -sate’, ‘<i>By</i> their’; though ‘Troy <i>by</i> the’ -was a dactyl. ‘Champ’d the white’ is a -dactyl. My ‘metrical exploits’ amaze Mr -Arnold (<abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 23); but my courage is timidity -itself compared to his.</p> - -<p class='c005'>His second specimen stands thus:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>And with pity the son of Saturn saw them bewailing,</div> - <div class='line'>And he shook his head, and thus address’d his own bosom:</div> - <div class='line'>Ah, unhappy pair! to Peleus why did we give you,</div> - <div class='line'>To a mortal? but ye are without old age and immortal.</div> - <div class='line'>Was it that ye with man, might have your thousands of sorrows?</div> - <div class='line'>For than man indeed there breathes no wretcheder creature,</div> - <div class='line'>Of all living things, that on earth are breathing and moving.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>Upon this he apologises for ‘To a’, intended -as a spondee in the fourth line, and ‘-dress’d -his own’ for a dactyl in the second; liberties -which, he admits, go rather far, but ‘do not -actually spoil the run of the hexameter’. -In a note, he attempts to palliate his deeds -by recriminating on Homer, though he will -not allow to me the same excuse. The -accent (it seems) on the second syllable of -αἰόλος makes it as impure a dactyl to a -Greek as ‘death-destin’d’ is to us! Mr -Arnold’s erudition in Greek metres is very -curious, if he can establish that they take -any cognisance <i>at all</i> of the prose accent, -or that <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">αἰολος</span> is quantitatively more or less -of a dactyl, according as the prose accent -is on one or other syllable. His ear also -must be of a very unusual kind, if it makes -out that ‘death-destin’d’ is anything but -a downright Molossus. Write it <i>dethdestind</i>, -as it is pronounced, and the eye, equally -with the ear, decides it to be of the same -type as the word <i>persistunt</i>. -In the lines just quoted, most readers will -be slow to believe, that they have to place -an impetus of the voice (an ictus metricus -at least) on Bétween, In´ the, Thére sate, -By´ their, A´nd with, A´nd he, Tó a, Fór -than, O´f all. Here, in the course of thirteen -lines, <i>composed as a specimen of style</i>, -is found the same offence nine times repeated, -to say nothing here of other deformities. -Now contrast Mr Arnold’s -<span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>severity against me<a id='r35' /><a href='#f35' class='c009'><sup>[35]</sup></a>, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>: ‘It is a real -fault when Mr Newman has:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Infátuáte! óh that thou wért | lord to some other army—</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>for here the reader is required, not for any -special advantage to himself, but <i>simply to -save Mr Newman trouble</i>, to place the accent -on the insignificant word <i>wert</i>, where it has -<i>no business whatever</i>’. Thus to the flaw -which Mr Arnold admits nine times in -thirteen pattern lines, he shows no mercy -in me, who have toiled through fifteen -thousand. Besides, on <i>wert</i> we are free at -pleasure to place or not to place the accent; -but in Mr Arnold’s <i>Bétween</i>, <i>Tó a</i>, etc., it -is impossible or offensive.</p> - -<p class='c005'>To avoid a needlessly personal argument, -I enlarge on the general question of hexameters. -Others, scholars of repute, have -given example and authority to English -hexameters. As matter of curiosity, as -erudite sport, such experiments may have -their value. I do not mean to express -indiscriminate disapproval, much less contempt. -I have myself privately tried the -same in Alcaics; and find the chief objection -to be, not that the task is impossible, -but that to execute it <i>well</i> is too difficult -for a language like ours, overladen with -consonants, and abounding with syllables -<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>neither distinctly long nor distinctly short, -but of every intermediate length. Singing -to a tune was essential to keep even Greek -or Roman poetry to true <i>time</i>; to the -English language it is of tenfold necessity. -But if <i>time</i> is abandoned (as in fact it always -is), and the prose accent has to do -duty for the ictus metricus, the moral genius -of the metre is fundamentally subverted. -What previously was steady duplicate time -(‘march-time’, as Professor Blackie calls -it) vacillates between duplicate and triplicate. -With Homer, a dactyl had nothing -in it <i>more tripping</i> than a spondee: a -crotchet followed by two quavers belongs -to as grave an anthem as two crotchets. -But Mr Arnold himself (<abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>) calls the -introduction of anapæsts by Dr Maginn into -our ballad measure, ‘a detestable dance’: -as in:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>And scarcely hád shĕ bĕgún to wash,</div> - <div class='line'>Ere shé wăs ăwáre ŏf thĕ grisly gash.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>I will not assert that this is everywhere -improper in the Odyssey; but no part of -the Iliad occurs to me in which it is proper, -and I have totally excluded it in my own -practice. I notice it but once in Mr Gladstone’s -specimens, and it certainly offends -my taste as out of harmony with the gravity -of the rest, viz.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>My ships shall bound ĭn thĕ morning’s light.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>In Shakspeare we have <i>i’th’</i> and <i>o’th’</i> for -<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>monosyllables, but (so scrupulous am I in -the midst of my ‘atrocities’) I never dream -of such a liberty myself, much less of avowed -‘anapæsts’. So far do I go in the opposite -direction, as to prefer to make such words -as <i>Danai</i>, <i>victory</i> three syllables, which even -Mr Gladstone and Pope accept as dissyllabic. -Some reviewers have called my metre <i>lege -solutum</i>; which is as ridiculous a mistake -as Horace made concerning Pindar. That, -in passing. But surely Mr Arnold’s severe -blow at Dr Maginn rebounds with double -force upon himself.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>To Péleus whý dĭd wĕ gíve you?—</div> - <div class='line'>Hécŭbă’s griéf nor Príăm my fáther’s—</div> - <div class='line'>Thoúsănds ŏf sórrows—</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>cannot be a <i>less</i> detestable jig than that of -Dr Maginn. And this objection holds -against every accentual hexameter, even -to those of Longfellow or Lockhart, if applied -to grand poetry. For bombast, in a -wild whimsical poem, Mr Clough has proved -it to be highly appropriate; and I think, -the more ‘rollicking’ is Mr Clough (if only -I understand the word) the more successful -his metre. Mr Arnold himself <i>feels</i> what -I say against ‘dactyls’, for on this very -ground he advises largely superseding them -by spondees; and since what he calls a -spondee is any pair of syllables of which the -former is accentuable, his precept amounts -to this, that the hexameter be converted -into a line of six accentual trochees, with -<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>free liberty left of diversifying it, in any -foot except the last, by Dr Maginn’s ‘detestable -dance’. What more severe condemnation -of the metre is imaginable than -this mere description gives? ‘Six trochees’ -seems to me the worst possible foundation -for an English metre. I cannot imagine -that Mr Arnold will give the slightest weight -to this, as a judgment from me; but I do -advise him to search in Samson Agonistes, -Thalaba, Kehama, and Shelley’s works, for -the phenomenon.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I have elsewhere insisted, but I here repeat, -that for a long poem a trochaic beginning -of the verse is most unnatural and -vexatious in English, because so large a -number of our sentences begin with unaccented -syllables, and the vigour of a trochaic -line eminently depends on the purity of its -initial trochee. Mr Arnold’s feeble trochees -already quoted (from <i>Bétween</i> to <i>Tó a</i>) are -all the fatal result of defying the tendencies -of our language.</p> - -<p class='c005'>If by a happy combination any scholar -could compose fifty <i>such</i> English hexameters, -as would convey a living likeness of the -Virgilian metre, I should applaud it as -valuable for initiating schoolboys into that -metre: but there its utility would end. -The method could not be profitably used for -translating Homer or Virgil, plainly because -it is impossible to say for whose service such -a translation would be executed. Those -<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>who can read the original will never care to -read <i>through</i> any translation; and the unlearned -look on all, even the best hexameters, -whether from Southey, Lockhart or Longfellow, -as odd and disagreeable prose. Mr -Arnold deprecates appeal to popular taste: -well he may! yet if the unlearned are to -be our audience, we cannot defy them. I -myself, before venturing to print, sought -to ascertain how unlearned women and -children would accept my verses. I could -boast how children and half-educated women -have extolled them; how greedily a working -man has inquired for them, without knowing -who was the translator; but I well know -that this is quite insufficient to establish the -merits of a translation. It is nevertheless <i>one</i> -point. ‘Homer is popular’, is one of the -very few matters of fact in this controversy -on which Mr Arnold and I are agreed. -‘English hexameters are not popular’, is -a truth so obvious, that I do not yet believe -he will deny it. Therefore, ‘Hexameters -are not the metre for translating Homer’. -<abbr class='spell'>Q. E. D.</abbr></p> - -<p class='c005'>I cannot but think that the very respectable -scholars who pertinaciously adhere to -the notion that English hexameters have -something ‘epical’ in them, have no vivid -<i>feeling</i> of the difference between Accent and -Quantity: and this is the less wonderful, -since so very few persons have ever actually -<i>heard</i> quantitative verse. I have; by -<span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>listening to Hungarian poems, read to me -by my friend Mr Francis Pulszky, a native -Magyar. He had not finished a single page, -before I complained gravely of the monotony. -He replied: ‘So do <i>we</i> complain of -it’: and then showed me, by turning the -pages, that the poet cut the knot which he -could not untie, by frequent changes of his -metre. Whether it was a change of mere -length, as from Iambic senarian to Iambic -dimeter; or implied a fundamental change -of time, as in music from <i>common</i> to <i>minuet</i> -time; I cannot say. But, to my ear, -nothing but a tune can ever save a quantitative -metre from hideous monotony. It is -like strumming a piece of very simple music -on a single note. Nor only so; but the most -beautiful of anthems, after it has been repeated -a hundred times on a hundred successive -verses, begins to pall on the ear. -How much more would an entire book of -Homer, if chanted at one sitting! I have -the conviction, though I will not undertake -to impart it to another, that if the living -Homer could sing his lines to us, they would -at first move in us the same pleasing interest -as an elegant and simple melody from an -African of the Gold Coast; but that, after -hearing twenty lines, we should complain -of meagreness, sameness, and <i>loss of moral -expression</i>; and should judge the style to -be <i>as</i> inferior to our own oratorical metres, -as the music of Pindar to our third-rate -<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>modern music. But if the poet, at our request, -instead of singing the verses, read or -spoke them, then from the loss of well-marked -time and the ascendency reassumed -by the prose-accent, we should be as helplessly -unable to <i>hear</i> any metre in them, as -are the modern Greeks.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I expect that Mr Arnold will reply to this, -that he <i>reads</i> and does not <i>sing</i> Homer, and -yet he finds his verses to be melodious and -not monotonous. To this, I retort, that he -begins by wilfully pronouncing Greek falsely, -according to the laws of <i>Latin</i> accent, and -artificially assimilating the Homeric to the -Virgilian line. Virgil has compromised between -the ictus metricus and the prose -accent, by exacting that the two coincide -in the two last feet and generally forbidding -it in the second and third foot. What is -called the ‘feminine cæsura’ gives (in the -Latin language) coincidence on the third -foot. Our extreme familiarity with these -laws of compromise enables us to anticipate -recurring sounds and satisfies our ear. But -the Greek prose accent, by reason of oxytons -and paroxytons, and accent on the ante-penultima -in spite of a long penultima, -totally resists all such compromise; and -proves that particular form of melody, -which our scholars enjoy in Homer, to be -an unhistoric imitation of Virgil.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I am aware, there is a bold theory, -whispered if not published, that,—so out-and-out -<span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span><i>Æolian</i> was Homer,—his laws of -accent must have been almost Latin. According -to this, Erasmus, following the track -of Virgil blindly, has taught us to pronounce -Euripides and Plato ridiculously ill, but -Homer, with an accuracy of accent which -puts Aristarchus to shame. This is no place -for discussing so difficult a question. Suffice -it to say, <i>first</i>, that Mr Arnold cannot take -refuge in such a theory, since he does not -admit that Homer was antiquated to Euripides; -<i>next</i>, that admitting the theory to -him, still the loss of the Digamma destroys -to him the true rhythm of Homer. I shall -recur to both questions below. I here add, -that our English pronunciation even of Virgil -often so ruins Virgil’s own <i>quantities</i>, that -there is something either of delusion or of -pedantry in our scholars’ self-complacency -in the rhythm which they elicit.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I think it fortunate for Mr Arnold, that -he had <i>not</i> ‘courage to translate Homer’; -for he must have failed to make it acceptable -to the unlearned. But if the public ear -prefers ballad metres, still (Mr Arnold assumes) -‘the scholar’ is with him in this -whole controversy. Nevertheless it gradually -comes out that neither is this the case, -but he himself is in the minority. P. <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, -he writes: ‘When one observes the -boistering, rollicking way in which Homer’s -English admirers—even men of genius, like -the late Professor Wilson—love to talk of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>Homer and his poetry, one cannot help -feeling that there is no very deep community -of nature between them and the -object of their enthusiasm.’ It does not -occur to Mr Arnold that the defect of perception -lies with himself, and that Homer -has more sides than he has discovered. He -deplores that Dr Maginn, and others whom -he names, err with me, in believing that -our ballad-style is the nearest approximation -to that of Homer; and avows that ‘<i>it is -time to say plainly</i>’ (<abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>) that Homer is -not of the ballad-type. So in <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, ‘—this -<i>popular</i>, but, <i>it is time to say</i>, this erroneous -analogy’ between the ballad and Homer. -Since it is reserved for Mr Arnold to turn -the tide of opinion; since it is a task not -yet achieved, but remains to be achieved by -his authoritative enunciation; he confesses -that hitherto I have with me the suffrage of -scholars. With this confession, a little more -diffidence would be becoming, if diffidence -were possible to the fanaticism with which -he idolises hexameters. P. <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, he says: -‘The hexameter has a natural dignity, -which repels both the jaunty style and the -jog-trot style, etc.... <i>The translator who uses -it cannot too religiously follow the</i> <span class='fss'>INSPIRATION -OF HIS METRE</span>’ etc. Inspiration from a metre -which has no recognised type? from a -metre which the <i>heart</i> and <i>soul</i> of the nation -ignores? I believe, if the metre can inspire -anything, it is to frolic and gambol -<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>with Mr Clough. Mr Arnold’s English hexameter -cannot be a higher inspiration to him, -than the true hexameter was to a Greek: -yet that metre inspired strains of totally -different essential genius and merit.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But I claim Mr Arnold himself as confessing -that our ballad <i>metre</i> is epical, when -he says that Scott is ‘<i>bastard</i>-epic’. I do -not admit that his quotations from Scott -are all Scott’s best, nor anything like it; -but if they were, it would only prove something -against Scott’s genius or talent, -nothing about his metre. The Κύπρια ἔπη -or <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Ἰλίου πέρσις</span> were probably very inferior -to the Iliad; but no one would on -that account call them or the Frogs and -Mice bastard-epic. No one would call a -bad tale of Dryden or of Crabbe bastard-epic. -The application of the word to Scott virtually -concedes what I assert. Mr Arnold also calls -Macaulay’s ballads ‘pinchbeck’; but a man -needs to produce something very noble himself, -before he can afford thus to sneer at -Macaulay’s ‘Lars Porsena’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Before I enter on my own ‘metrical exploits’, -I must get rid of a disagreeable -topic. Mr Arnold’s repugnance to them has -led him into forms of attack, which I do not -know how to characterize. I shall state my -complaints as concisely as I can, and so -leave them.</p> - -<p class='c005'>1. I do not seek for any similarity of -<i>sound</i> in an English accentual metre to that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>of a Greek quantitative metre; besides that -Homer writes in a highly vocalized tongue, -while ours is overfilled with consonants. I -have disowned this notion of similar rhythm -in the strongest terms (<abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <abbr title='17'>xvii</abbr> of my Preface), -expressly because some critics had -imputed this aim to me in the case of -Horace. I summed up: ‘It is not audible -sameness of metre, but a likeness of moral -genius which is to be aimed at’. I contrast -the audible to the moral. Mr Arnold suppresses -this contrast, and writes as follows, -<abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 34. Mr Newman tells us that he has -found a metre like in moral genius to -Homer’s. His judge has still the same -answer: reproduce <span class='fss'>THEN</span> <i>on our ear</i> something -of ‘the effect produced by the <i>movement</i> -of Homer’. He recurs to the same -fallacy in <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 57. ‘For whose <span class='fss'>EAR</span> do those -two <i>rhythms</i> produce impressions of (<i>to use -Mr Newman’s own words</i>) “similar moral -genius”’? His reader will naturally suppose -that ‘like in moral genius’ is with me -an eccentric phrase for ‘like in musical -cadence’. The only likeness to the ear -which I have admitted, is, that the one and -the other are primitively made <i>for music</i>. -That, Mr Arnold knows, is a matter of fact, -whether a ballad be well or ill written. If -he pleases, he may hold the rhythm of our -metre to be necessarily inferior to Homer’s -and to his own; but when I fully explained -in my preface what were my tests of ‘like -<span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>moral genius’, I cannot understand his suppressing -them, and perverting the sense of -my words.</p> - -<p class='c005'>2. In <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, Mr Arnold quotes Chapman’s -translation of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἆ δείλω</span>, ‘Poor wretched -<i>beasts</i>’ (of Achilles’ horses), on which he -comments severely. He does <i>not</i> quote me. -Yet in <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>, after exhibiting Cowper’s -translation of the same passage, he adds: -‘There is no want of dignity here, as in the -versions of Chapman and of <i>Mr Newman, -which I have already quoted</i>’. Thus he leads -the reader to believe that I have the same -phrase as Chapman! In fact, my translation -is:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Ha! why on Peleus, mortal prince,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Bestowed we <i>you</i>, unhappy!</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>If he had done me the justice of quoting, -it is possible that some readers would not -have thought my rendering intrinsically -‘wanting in dignity’, or less noble than -Mr Arnold’s own, which is:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Ah! unhappy pair! to Peleus<a id='r36' /><a href='#f36' class='c009'><sup>[36]</sup></a> why did we give you,</div> - <div class='line'>To a mortal?</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>In <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, he with very gratuitous insult -remarks, that ‘Poor wretched beasts’ is -a little over-familiar; but this is no objection -to it for the ballad-manner<a id='r37' /><a href='#f37' class='c009'><sup>[37]</sup></a>: <i>it is good -<span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>enough</i> ... <i>for Mr Newman’s Iliad</i>, ... -etc.’ Yet I myself have <i>not</i> thought it -good enough for my Iliad.</p> - -<p class='c005'>3. In <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, Mr Arnold gives his own -translation of the discourse between Achilles -and his horse; and prefaces it with the -words, ‘I will take the passage in which -both Chapman and Mr Newman <i>have already -so much excited our astonishment</i>’. -But he did not quote my translation of the -noble part of the passage, consisting of 19 -lines; he has merely quoted<a id='r38' /><a href='#f38' class='c009'><sup>[38]</sup></a> the tail of -it, 5 lines; which are altogether inferior. -Of this a sufficient indication is, that Mr -Gladstone has translated the 19 and omitted -the 5. I shall below give my translation -parallel to Mr Gladstone’s. The curious -reader may compare it with Mr Arnold’s, -if he choose.</p> - -<p class='c005'>4. In <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, Mr Arnold quotes from -Chapman as a translation of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὅταν ποτ’ ὀλώλῃ -Ιλιος ἱρὴ</span>,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>‘When sacred Troy shall <i>shed her tow’rs for tears of overthrow</i>’;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>and adds: ‘What Mr Newman’s manner -of rendering would be, you can by this -time sufficiently imagine for yourselves’. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span><i>Would be!</i> Why does he set his readers to -‘imagine’, when in fewer words he could -tell them what my version <i>is</i>? It stands -thus:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>A day, when sacred Ilium | for overthrow is destin’d,—</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>which may have faults unperceived by me, -but is in my opinion far better than Mr -Arnold’s, and certainly did not deserve to -be censured side by side with Chapman’s -absurdity. I must say plainly; a critic -has no right to hide what I have written, -and stimulate his readers to despise me -by these <i>indirect</i> methods.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I proceed to my own metre. It is exhibited -in this stanza of Campbell:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>By this the storm grew loud apace:</div> - <div class='line in2'>The waterwraith was shrieking,</div> - <div class='line'>And in the scowl of heav’n each face</div> - <div class='line in2'>Grew dark as they were speaking.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Whether I use this metre well or ill, I maintain -that it is essentially a noble metre, a -popular metre, a metre of great capacity. -<i>It is essentially the national ballad metre</i>, -for the double rhyme is an accident. Of -<i>course</i> it can be applied to low, as well as -to high subjects; else it would <i>not</i> be -popular: it would <i>not</i> be ‘of a like moral -genius’ to the Homeric metre, which was -available equally for the comic poem -<i>Margites</i>, for the precepts of Pythagoras, -for the pious prosaic hymn of Cleanthes, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>for the driest prose of a naval catalogue<a id='r39' /><a href='#f39' class='c009'><sup>[39]</sup></a>, -in short, <i>for all early thought</i>. Mr Arnold -appears to forget, though he cannot be ignorant, -that prose-composition is later than -Homer, and that in the epical days every -initial effort at prose history was carried -on in <i>Homeric doggerel</i> by the Cyclic poets, -who traced the history of Troy <i>ab ovo</i> in -consecutive chronology. I say, he is merely -inadvertent, he cannot be ignorant, that the -Homeric <i>metre</i>, like my metre, subserves -prosaic thought with the utmost facility; -but I hold it to be, not indavertence, but -blindness, when he does not see that Homer’s -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">τὸν δ’ ἀπαμειβόμενος</span> is a line of as thoroughly -unaffected <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>oratio pedestris</i></span> as any -verse of Pythagoras or Horace’s Satires. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>But on diction I defer to speak, till I have -finished the topic of metre.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I do not say that any measure is faultless. -Every measure has its foible: mine -has that fault which every uniform line -must have; it is liable to monotony. This -is evaded of course, as in the hexameter or -rather as in Milton’s line, first, by varying -the cæsura, secondly, by varying certain -feet, within narrow and well understood -limits, thirdly, by irregularity in the strength -of accents, fourthly, by varying the weight -of the unaccented syllables also. All these -things are needed, <i>for the mere sake of -breaking uniformity</i>. I will not here assert -that Homer’s many marvellous freedoms, -such as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἑκηβόλου Ἀπόλλωνος</span>, were dictated -by this aim, like those in the <i>Paradise -Lost</i>; but I do say, that it is most unjust, -most unintelligent, in critics, to produce -<i>single</i> lines from me, and criticize them -as rough or weak, instead of examining them -and presenting them as part of <i>a mass</i>. -How would Shakspeare stand this sort of -test? nay, or Milton? The metrical laws -of a long poem cannot be the same as of a -sonnet: single verses are organic elements -of a great whole. A crag must not be cut -like a gem. Mr Arnold should remember -Aristotle’s maxim, that popular eloquence -(and such is Homer’s) should be broad, -rough and highly coloured, like scene painting, -not polished into delicacy like miniature. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>But I speak now of metre, not yet of diction. -In <i>any</i> long and popular poem it is a mistake -to wish every line to conform severely -to a few types; but to claim this of a translator -of <i>Homer</i> is a doubly unintelligent -exaction, when Homer’s own liberties transgress -all bounds; many of them being feebly -disguised by later double spellings, as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εἵως, -εἷος</span>, invented for his special accommodation.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The Homeric verse has a rhythmical advantage -over mine in less rigidity of cæsura. -Though the Hexameter was made out of -two Doric lines, yet no division of sense, -no pause of the voice or thought, is exacted -between them. The chasm between two -English verses is deeper. Perhaps, on the -side of syntax, a <i>four + three</i> English metre -drives harder towards monotony than -Homer’s own verse. For other reasons, -it lies under a like disadvantage, compared -with Milton’s metre. The secondary -cæsuras possible in the four feet are of -course less numerous than those in the five -feet, and the three-foot verse has still less -variety. To my taste, it is far more pleasing -that the short line recur less regularly; just -as the parœmiac of Greek anapæsts is less -pleasant in the Aristophanic tetrameter, than -when it comes frequent but not expected. -This is a main reason why I prefer Scott’s -free metre to my own; yet, without rhyme, -I have not found how to use his freedom. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>Mr Arnold wrongly supposes me to have -overlooked his main and just objections to -rhyming Homer; viz. that so many Homeric -lines are intrinsically made for isolation. -In <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <abbr title='9'>ix</abbr> of my Preface I called it a fatal -embarrassment. But the objection applies -in its full strength only against Pope’s -rhymes, not against Walter Scott’s.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Gladstone has now laid before the -public his own specimens of Homeric translation. -Their dates range from 1836 to -1859. It is possible that he has as strong -a distaste as Mr Arnold for my version; -for he totally ignores the archaic, the rugged, -the boisterous element in Homer. But as -to metre, he gives me his full suffrage. He -has lines with four accents, with three, and -a few with two; not one with five. On the -whole, his metre, his cadences, his varying -rhymes, are those of Scott. He has more -trochaic lines than I approve. He is truthful -to Homer on many sides; and (such is -the delicate grace and variety admitted by -the rhyme) his verses are more pleasing than -mine. I do not hesitate to say, that if <i>all</i> -Homer could be put before the public in the -same style equally well with his best pieces, -a translation executed on my principles -could not live in the market at its side; -and certainly I should spare my labour. -I add, that I myself prefer the former piece -which I quote to my own, even while I see -his defects: for I hold that his graces, at -<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>which I cannot afford to aim, more than -make up for his losses. After this confession, -I frankly contrast his rendering of -the two noblest passages with mine, that the -reader may see, what Mr Arnold does not -show, my weak and strong sides.</p> -<p class='c004'><span class='sc'>Gladstone</span>, Iliad 4, 422</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>As when the billow gathers fast</div> - <div class='line in2'>With slow and sullen roar</div> - <div class='line'>Beneath the keen northwestern blast</div> - <div class='line in2'>Against the sounding shore:</div> - <div class='line'>First far at sea it rears its crest,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Then bursts upon the beach,</div> - <div class='line'>Or<a id='r40' /><a href='#f40' class='c009'><sup>[40]</sup></a> with proud arch and swelling breast,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Where headlands outward reach,</div> - <div class='line'>It smites their strength, and bellowing flings</div> - <div class='line in2'>Its silver foam afar;</div> - <div class='line'>So, stern and thick, the Danaan kings</div> - <div class='line in2'>And soldiers marched to war.</div> - <div class='line'>Each leader gave his men the word;</div> - <div class='line'>Each warrior deep in silence heard.</div> - <div class='line'>So mute they march’d, thou could’st not ken</div> - <div class='line'>They were a mass of speaking men:</div> - <div class='line'>And as they strode in martial might,</div> - <div class='line'>Their flickering arms shot back the light.</div> - <div class='line'>But as at even the folded sheep</div> - <div class='line in2'>Of some rich master stand,</div> - <div class='line'>Ten thousand thick their place they keep,</div> - <div class='line in2'>And bide the milkman’s hand,</div> - <div class='line'>And more and more they bleat, the more</div> - <div class='line in2'>They hear their lamblings cry;</div> - <div class='line'>So, from the Trojan host, uproar</div> - <div class='line in2'>And din rose loud and high.</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>They were a many-voicèd throng:</div> - <div class='line in2'>Discordant accents there,</div> - <div class='line'>That sound from many a differing tongue,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Their differing race declare.</div> - <div class='line'>These, Mars had kindled for the fight;</div> - <div class='line'>Those, starry-ey’d Athenè’s might,</div> - <div class='line'>And savage Terror and Affright,</div> - <div class='line'>And Strife, insatiate of wars,</div> - <div class='line'>The sister and the mate of Mars:</div> - <div class='line'>Strife, that, a pigmy at her birth,</div> - <div class='line in2'>By gathering rumour fed,</div> - <div class='line'>Soon plants her feet upon the earth,</div> - <div class='line in2'>And in the heav’n her head.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>I add my own rendering of the same; -somewhat corrected, but only in the direction -of my own principles and against -Arnold’s.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>As when the surges of the deep,    by Western blore uphoven,</div> - <div class='line'>Against the ever-booming strand     dash up in roll successive;</div> - <div class='line'>A head of waters swelleth first     aloof; then under harried</div> - <div class='line'>By the rough bottom, roars aloud;    till, hollow at the summit,</div> - <div class='line'>Sputtering the briny foam abroad,    the huge crest tumbleth over:</div> - <div class='line'>So then the lines of Danaï,     successive and unceasing,</div> - <div class='line'>In battle’s close array mov’d on.     To his own troops each leader</div> - <div class='line'>Gave order: dumbly went the rest     (nor mightèst thou discover,</div> - <div class='line'>So vast a train of people held     a voice within their bosom),</div> - <div class='line'>In silence their commanders fearing:     all the ranks wellmarshall’d</div> - <div class='line'>Were clad in crafty panoply,     which glitter’d on their bodies.</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>Meantime, as sheep within the yard     of some great cattle-master,</div> - <div class='line'>While the white milk is drain’d from them,     stand round in number countless,</div> - <div class='line'>And, grievèd by their lambs’ complaint,     respond with bleat incessant;</div> - <div class='line'>So then along their ample host     arose the Troian hurly.</div> - <div class='line'>For neither common words spake théy,     nor kindred accent utter’d;</div> - <div class='line'>But mingled was the tongue of men     from divers places summon’d.</div> - <div class='line'>By Arès these were urgèd on,     those by grey-ey’d Athenè,</div> - <div class='line'>By Fear, by Panic, and by Strife     immeasurably eager,</div> - <div class='line'>The sister and companion<a id='r41' /><a href='#f41' class='c009'><sup>[41]</sup></a>     of hero-slaying Arès,</div> - <div class='line'>Who truly doth at first her crest     but humble rear; thereafter,</div> - <div class='line'>Planting upon the ground her feet,     her head in heaven fixeth.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'><span class='sc'>Gladstone</span>, Iliad 19, 403</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Hanging low his auburn head,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Sweeping with his mane the ground,</div> - <div class='line'>From beneath his collar shed,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Xanthus, hark! a voice hath found,</div> - <div class='line'>Xanthus of the flashing feet:</div> - <div class='line'>Whitearm’d Herè gave the sound.</div> - <div class='line'>‘Lord Achilles, strong and fleet!</div> - <div class='line'>Trust us, we will bear thee home;</div> - <div class='line'>Yet cometh nigh thy day of doom:</div> - <div class='line'>No doom of ours, but doom that stands</div> - <div class='line'>By God and mighty Fate’s commands.</div> - <div class='line'>’Twas not that we were slow or slack</div> - <div class='line'>Patroclus lay a corpse, his back</div> - <div class='line'>All stript of arms by Trojan hands.</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>The prince of gods, whom Leto bare,</div> - <div class='line'>Leto with the flowing hair,</div> - <div class='line'>He forward fighting did the deed,</div> - <div class='line'>And gave to Hector glory’s meed.</div> - <div class='line'>In toil for thee, we will not shun</div> - <div class='line'>Against e’en Zephyr’s breath to run,</div> - <div class='line'>Swiftest of winds: but all in vain:</div> - <div class='line'>By God and man shalt thou be slain.’</div> - <div class='line in2'>He spake: and here, his words among,</div> - <div class='line'>Erinnys bound his faltering tongue.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Beginning with Achilles’ speech, I render -the passage parallel to Gladstone thus.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>‘<i>Chestnut</i> and <i>Spotted</i>! noble pair!     farfamous brood of <i>Spry-foot</i>!</div> - <div class='line'>In other guise now ponder ye     your charioteer to rescue</div> - <div class='line'>Back to the troop of Danaï,     when we have done with battle:</div> - <div class='line'>Nor leave him dead upon the field,     as late ye left Patroclus’.</div> - <div class='line'>But him the dapplefooted steed     under the yoke accosted;</div> - <div class='line'>(And droop’d his auburn head aside     straightway; and through the collar,</div> - <div class='line'>His full mane, streaming to the ground,     over the yoke was scatter’d:</div> - <div class='line'>Him Juno, whitearm’d goddess, then     with voice Of man endowèd):</div> - <div class='line'>‘Now and again we verily     will save and more than save thee,</div> - <div class='line'>Dreadful Achilles! yet for thee     the deadly day approacheth.</div> - <div class='line'>Not ours the guilt; but mighty God     and stubborn Fate are guilty.</div> - <div class='line'>Not by the slowness of our feet     or dulness of our spirit</div> - <div class='line'>The Troians did thy armour strip     from shoulders of Patroclus;</div> - <div class='line'>But the exalted god, for whom     brighthair’d Latona travail’d,</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>Slew him amid the foremost rank     and glory gave to Hector.</div> - <div class='line'>Now we, in coursing, pace would keep     even with breeze of Zephyr,</div> - <div class='line'>Which speediest they say to be:     but for thyself ’tis fated</div> - <div class='line'>By hand of hero and of God     in mighty strife to perish</div> - <div class='line'>So much he spake: thereat his voice     the Furies stopp’d for ever.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Now if any fool ask, Why does not Mr -Gladstone translate <i>all</i> Homer? any fool -can reply with me, Because he is Chancellor -of the Exchequer. A man who has talents -and acquirements adequate to translate -Homer <i>well</i> into <i>rhyme</i>, is almost certain -to have other far more urgent calls for the -exercise of such talents.</p> - -<p class='c005'>So much of metre. At length I come to -the topic of Diction, where Mr Arnold and -I are at variance not only as to taste, but -as to the main facts of Greek literature. -I had called Homer’s style quaint and garrulous; -and said that he rises and falls -with his subject, being prosaic when it is -tame, and low when it is mean. I added -no proof; for I did not dream that it was -needed. Mr Arnold not only absolutely -denies all this, and denies it without proof; -but adds, that these assertions prove my -incompetence, and account for my total -and conspicuous failure. His whole attack -upon my diction is grounded on a passage -which I must quote at length; for it is so -<span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>confused in logic, that I may otherwise be -thought to garble it, <abbr title='pages'>pp.</abbr> <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>‘Mr Newman speaks of the more antiquated -style suited to this subject. Quaint! -Antiquated! but to whom? Sir Thomas -Browne is quaint, and the diction of Chaucer -is antiquated: does Mr Newman suppose -that Homer seemed quaint to Sophocles, -as Chaucer’s diction seems antiquated to -us? But we cannot really know, I confess -(!!), how Homer seemed to Sophocles. Well -then, to those who can tell us how he seems -to them, to the living scholar, to our only -present witness on this matter—does Homer -make on the Provost of Eton, when he reads -him, the impression of a poet quaint and -antiquated! does he make this impression -on Professor Thompson or Professor Jowett? -When Shakspeare says, “The Princes orgulous”, -meaning “the proud princes”, -we say, “This is antiquated”. When he -says of the Trojan gates, that they,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in14'>With massy staples</div> - <div class='line'>And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts</div> - <div class='line'><i>Sperr</i> up the sons of Troy,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>we say, “This is both quaint and antiquated”. -But does Homer ever compose in a language, -which produces on the scholar at all the -same impression as this language which I -have quoted from Shakspeare? Never -once. Shakspeare is quaint and antiquated -in the lines I have just quoted; but Shakspeare, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>need I say it? can compose, when -he likes, when he is at his best, in a language -perfectly simple, perfectly intelligible; in -a language, which, in spite of the two centuries -and a half which part its author from us, -stops or surprises us as little as the language -of a contemporary. And Homer has not -Shakspeare’s variations. Homer always -composes, as Shakspeare composes at his -best. Homer is always simple and intelligible, -as Shakspeare is often; Homer is -never quaint and antiquated, as Shakspeare -is sometimes’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>If Mr Arnold were to lay before none -but Oxford students assertions concerning -Greek literature so startlingly erroneous as -are here contained, it would not concern me to -refute or protest against them. The young -men who read Homer and Sophocles and -Thucydides, nay, the boys who read Homer -and Xenophon, would know his statements to -be against the most notorious and elementary -fact: and the Professors, whom he quotes, -would only lose credit, if they sanctioned the -use he makes of their names. But when he -publishes the book for the unlearned in -Greek, among whom I must include a great -number of editors of magazines, I find Mr -Arnold to do a public wrong to literature, -and a private wrong to my book. If I am -silent, such editors may easily believe that -I have made an enormous blunder in treating -the dialect of Homer as antiquated. If -<span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>those who are ostensibly scholars, thus assail -my version, and the great majority of -magazines and reviews ignore it, its existence -can never become known to the public; -or it will exist not to be read, but to be -despised without being opened; and it -must perish as many meritorious books -perish. I but lately picked up, new, and -for a fraction of its price, at a second-hand -stall, a translation of the Iliad by <abbr class='spell'>T. S.</abbr> -Brandreth, Esq. (Pickering, London), into -Cowper’s metre, which is, as I judge, immensely -superior to Cowper. Its date is -1846: I had never heard of it. It seems -to have perished uncriticized, unreproved, -unwept, unknown. I do not wish my -progeny to die of neglect, though I am -willing that it should be slain in battle. -However, just because I address myself to -the public <i>unlearned</i> in Greek, and because -Mr Arnold lays before <i>them</i> a new, paradoxical, -monstrously erroneous representation -of facts, with the avowed object of staying the -plague of my Homer; I am forced to reply -to him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Knowingly or unknowingly, he leads his -readers to confuse four different questions: -1. whether Homer is thoroughly intelligible -to modern scholars; 2. whether Homer was -antiquated to the Athenians of Themistocles -and Pericles; 3. whether he was thoroughly -understood by them; 4. whether he is, -absolutely, an antique poet.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>I feel it rather odd, that Mr Arnold begins -by complimenting me with ‘genuine learning’, -and proceeds to appeal from me to -the ‘living scholar’. (What if I were -bluntly to reply: ‘Well! I am the living -scholar’?) After starting the question, -how Homer’s style appeared to Sophocles, -he suddenly enters a plea, under form of a -concession [‘I confess’!], as a pretence for -carrying the cause into a new court, that -of the Provost of Eton and two Professors, -into which court I have no admission; and -then, of his own will, pronounces a sentence -in the name of these learned men. Whether -they are pleased with this parading of their -name in behalf of paradoxical error, I may -well doubt: and until they indorse it themselves, -I shall treat Mr Arnold’s process as a -piece of forgery. But, be this as it may, I -cannot allow him to ‘confess’ for me against -me: let him confess for himself that he does -not know, and not for me, who know perfectly -well, whether Homer seemed quaint -or antiquated to Sophocles. Of course he -did, as every beginner must know. Why, -if I were to write <i>mon</i> for <i>man</i>, <i>londis</i> for -<i>lands</i>, <i>nesties</i> for <i>nests</i>, <i>libbard</i> for <i>leopard</i>, -<i>muchel</i> for <i>much</i>, <i>nap</i> for <i>snap</i>, <i>green-wood -shaw</i> for <i>greenwood shade</i>, Mr Arnold would -call me antiquated, although every word -would be intelligible. Can he possibly be -ignorant, that this exhibits but the smallest -part of the chasm which separates the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>Homeric dialect not merely from the Attic -prose, but from Æschylus when he borrows -most from Homer? Every sentence of -Homer was more or less antiquated to -Sophocles, who could no more help feeling -at every instant the foreign and antiquated -character of the poetry, than an Englishman -can help feeling the same in reading Burns’ -poems. Would <i>mon</i>, <i>londis</i>, <i>libbard</i>, <i>withouten</i>, -<i>muchel</i> be antiquated or foreign, and -are <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Πηληϊάδαο</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Πηλείδου, ὁσσάτιος</span> for -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὅσος, ἤϋτε</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὡς, στήῃ</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">στῇ, τεκέεσσι</span> -for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">τέκνοις, τοῖσδεσσι</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">τοῖσδε, πολέες</span> for -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">πολλοὶ, μεσοηγὺς</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μεταξὺ, αἶα</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">γῆ, εἴβω</span> -for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">λείβω</span>, and five hundred others, less -antiquated or less foreign? Homer has -archaisms in every variety; some rather -recent to the Athenians, and carrying their -minds back only to Solon, as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">βασιλῆος</span> -for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">βασίλεως</span>; others harsher, yet varying -as dialect still, as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ξεῖνος</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ξένος, τίε</span> for -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐτίμα, ἀνθεμόεις</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀνθηρὸς, κέκλυθι</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κλύε</span> -or <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἄκουσον, θαμὺς</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">θαμινὸς</span> or <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">συχνὸς, -ναιετάοντες</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ναίοντες</span> or <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">οἰκοῦντες</span>: others -varying in the root, like a new language, -as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἄφενος</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">πλοῦτος, ἰότης</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">βούλημα, τῆ</span> -for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">δέξαι</span>, under which head are heaps of -strange words, as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀκὴν, χώομαι, βιὸς, κῆλα, -μέμβλωκε, γέντο, πέπον</span>, etc. etc. Finally -comes a goodly lot of words which to this -day are most uncertain in sense. My -learned colleague Mr Malden has printed a -paper on Homeric words, misunderstood -<span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>by the later poets. Buttmann has written -an octavo volume (I have the English -translation, <i>containing 548 pages</i>) to discuss -106 ill-explained Homeric words. Some -of these Sophocles may have understood, -though we do not; but even if so, -they were not the less antiquated to him. -If there has been any perfect traditional -understanding of Homer, we should not need -to deal with so many words by elaborate -argument. On the face of the Iliad alone -every learner must know how many difficult -adjectives occur: I write down on the spur -of the moment and without reference, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κρήγυον, -ἀργὸς, ἀδινὸς, ἄητος, αἴητος, νώροψ, ἦνοψ, -εἰλίποδες, ἕλιξ, ἑλικῶπες, ἔλλοπες, μέροπες, -ἠλίβατος, ἠλέκτωρ, αἰγίλιψ, σιγαλόεις, ἰόμωρος, -ἐγχεσίμωρος, πέπονες, ἠθεῖος</span>. If Mr Arnold -thought himself wiser than all the world of -Greek scholars, he would not appeal to -them, but would surely enlighten us all: he -would tell me, for instance, what <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἔλλοπες</span> -means, which Liddell and Scott do not -pretend to understand; or <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἠθεῖος</span>, of which -they give three different explanations. But -he does not write as claiming an independent -opinion, when he flatly opposes me -and sets me down; he does but use surreptitiously -the name of the ‘living scholar’ -against me.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But I have only begun to describe the -marked chasm often separating Homer’s -dialect from everything Attic. It has a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>wide diversity of grammatical inflections, -far beyond such vowel changes of dialect -as answer to our provincial pronunciations. -This begins with new case-endings to the -nouns; in -θι, -θεν, -δε, -φι, proceeds to -very peculiar pronominal forms, and then -to strange or irregular verbal inflections, -infinitives in -μεν, -μεναι, imperfects in --εσκε, presents in -αθω, and an immensity -of strange adverbs and conjunctions. In -Thiersch’s Greek Grammar, after the Accidence -of common Greek is added as supplement -an Homeric Grammar: and in it the -Homeric Noun and Verb occupy (in the -English Translation) 206 octavo pages. -Who ever heard of a Spenserian Grammar? -How many pages could be needed to explain -Chaucer’s grammatical deviations -from modern English? The bare fact of -Thiersch having written so copious a grammar -will enable even the unlearned to understand -the monstrous misrepresentation of -Homer’s dialect, on which Mr Arnold has -based his condemnation of my Homeric -diction. Not wishing to face the plain and -undeniable facts which I have here recounted, -Mr Arnold makes a ‘confession’ -that we know nothing about them! and -then appeals to three learned men whether -Homer is antiquated to <i>them</i>; and expounds -this to mean, <i>intelligible to them</i>! Well: -if they have learned <i>modern</i> Greek, of course -they may understand it; but Attic Greek -<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>alone will not teach it to them. Neither -will it teach them <i>Homer’s</i> Greek. The -difference of the two is in some directions -so vast, that they may deserve to be called -two languages as much as Portuguese and -Spanish.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Much as I have written, a large side of -the argument remains still untouched. The -orthography of Homer was revolutionized -in adapting it to Hellenic use, and in the -process not only were the grammatical -forms tampered with, but at least one consonant -was suppressed. I am sure Mr -Arnold has heard of the Digamma, though -he does not see it in the current Homeric -text. By the re-establishment of this letter, -no small addition would be made to the -‘oddity’ of the sound to the ears of Sophocles. -That the unlearned in Greek may -understand this, I add, that what with us -is written <i>eoika</i>, <i>oikon</i>, <i>oinos</i>, <i>hekas</i>, <i>eorga</i>, -<i>eeipe</i>, <i>eleli</i>χθη, were with the poet <i>wewoika</i>, -<i>wīkon</i>, <i>wīnos</i>, <i>wekas</i> (or <i>swekas</i>?), <i>weworga</i>, -<i>eweipe</i>, <i>eweli</i>χθη<a id='r42' /><a href='#f42' class='c009'><sup>[42]</sup></a>; and so with very many -other words, in which either the metre or the -grammatical formation helps us to detect -a lost consonant, and the analogy of other -dialects or languages assures us that it is -<span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span><i>w</i> which has been lost. Nor is this all; -but in certain words <i>sw</i> seems to have -vanished. What in our text is <i>hoi</i>, <i>heos</i>, -<i>hekuros</i>, were probably <i>woi</i> and <i>swoi</i>, <i>weos</i> -and <i>sweos</i>, <i>swekuros</i>. Moreover the received -spelling of many other words is -corrupt: for instance, <i>deos</i>, <i>deidoika</i>, -<i>eddeisen</i>, <i>periddeisas</i>, <i>addees</i>. The true root -must have had the form <i>dwe</i> or <i>dre</i> or <i>dhe</i>. -That the consonant lost was really <i>w</i>, is -asserted by Benfey from the Sanscrit <i>dvish</i>. -Hence the true forms are <i>dweos</i>, <i>dedwoika</i>, -<i>edweisen</i>, etc.... Next, the initial <i>l</i> of -Homer had in some words a stronger pronunciation, -whether λλ or χλ, as in <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">λλιταὶ, -λλίσσομαι, λλωτὸς, λλιτανεύω</span>. I have met -with the opinion that the consonant lost in -<i>anax</i> is not <i>w</i> but <i>k</i>; and that Homer’s -<i>kanax</i> is connected with English <i>king</i>. The -relations of <i>wergon</i>, <i>weworga</i>, <i>wrexai</i>, to -English <i>work</i> and <i>wrought</i> must strike everyone; -but I do not here press the phenomena -of the Homeric <i>r</i> (although it became <i>br</i> in -strong Æolism), because they do not differ -from those in Attic. The Attic forms <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εἴληφα, -εἴλεγμαι</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">λέληφα</span>, etc., point to -a time when the initial λ of the roots -was a double letter. A root λλαβ would -explain Homer’s ἔλλαβε. If λλ<a id='r43' /><a href='#f43' class='c009'><sup>[43]</sup></a> approached -<span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>to its Welsh sound, that is, to χλ, -it is not wonderful that such a pronunciation -as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">οφρᾰ λλαβωμεν</span> was possible: but it is -singular that the <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὕδατι χλιαρῷ</span> of Attic is -written <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">λιαρῷ</span> in our Homeric text, though -the metre needs a double consonant. Such -phenomena as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">χλιαρὸς</span> and <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">λιαρὸς, εἴβω</span> -and <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">λειβω, ἴα</span> and <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μία, εἴμαρμαι</span> and <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἔμμορε, -αἶα</span> and <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">γαῖα, γέντο</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἕλετο, ἰωκὴ</span> and -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἴωξις</span> with <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">διώκω</span>, need to be reconsidered -in connection. The <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εἰς ἅλα ἇλτο</span> of our -Homer was perhaps <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εἰς ἅλα σάλλτο</span>: when -λλ was changed into λ, they compensated -by circumflexing the vowel. I might add -the query, Is it so certain that his <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">θεαων</span> -was θ<i>eāwōn</i>, and not θ<i>eārōn</i>, analogous to -Latin <i>dearum</i>? But dropping here everything -that has the slightest uncertainty, -the mere restoration of the <i>w</i> where it is -most necessary, makes a startling addition -to the antiquated sound of the Homeric -text. The reciters of Homer in Athens -must have dropped the <i>w</i>, since it is never -written. Nor indeed would Sophocles have -introduced in his <i>Trachiniæ</i>, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἁ δέ οἱ φίλα -δάμαρ</span> ... leaving a hiatus most offensive -to the Attics, in mere imitation of -Homer, if he had been accustomed to hear -from the reciters, <i>de woi</i> or <i>de swoi</i>. In -other words also, as in <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">οὐλόμενος</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὀλόμενος</span>, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>later poets have slavishly followed -Homer into irregularities suggested by his -peculiar metre. Whether Homer’s <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ᾱθανατος, -αμμορος</span> ... rose out of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ανθάνατος, ἄνμορος</span> -... is wholly unimportant when we remember -his <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Ᾱπόλλωνος</span>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But this leads to remark on the acuteness -of Mr Arnold’s ear. I need not ask whether -he recites the Α differently in <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Ἆρες, Ἄρες,</span> -and in, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Ᾰπόλλων Ᾱπολλωνος</span>. He will not -allow anything antiquated in Homer; and -therefore it is certain that he recites,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">αιδοιος τε μοι εσσι, φιλε εκυρε, δεινος τε</span></div> - <div class='line'>and—<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ουδε εοικε—</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>as they are printed, and admires the rhythm. -When he endures with exemplary patience -such hiatuses, such dactyls as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἑεκυ, ουδεε</span>, -such a spondee as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ρε δει</span>, I can hardly -wonder at his complacency in his own -spondees “Between,” “To a.” He finds -nothing wrong in <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">και πεδια λωτευντα</span> or <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">πολλα -λισσομενη</span>. But Homer sang,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">φιλε swεκυρε δwεινος τε—ουδε wεwοικε—</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">και πεδια λλωτευντα ... πολλα λλισσομενη.</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Mr Arnold is not satisfied with destroying -Quantity alone. After theoretically substituting -Accent for it in his hexameters, -he robs us of Accent also; and presents to -us the syllables “to a,” <i>both short</i> and <i>both -necessarily unaccented</i>, for a Spondee, in a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>pattern piece seven lines long, and with an -express and gratuitous remark, that in -using ‘to a’ for a Spondee, he has perhaps -relied too much on accent. I hold up these -phenomena in Mr Arnold as a warning to -all scholars, of the pit of delusion into which -they will fall, if they allow themselves to -talk fine about the ‘Homeric rhythm’ <i>as -now heard</i>, and the duty of a translator -to reproduce something of it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It is not merely the sound and the metre -of Homer, which are impaired by the loss -of his radical <i>w</i>; in extreme cases the sense -also is confused. Thus if a scholar be asked, -what is the meaning of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐείσατο</span> in the Iliad? -he will have to reply: If it stands for -<i>eweisato</i>, it means, ‘he was like’, and is -related to the English root <i>wis</i> and <i>wit</i>, -<abbr title='germanic'>Germ.</abbr> <i>wiss</i>, <abbr title='latin'>Lat.</abbr> <i>vid</i>; but it may also mean -‘he went’—a very eccentric Homerism,—in -which case we should perhaps write it -<i>eyeisato</i>, as in old English we have <i>he yode</i> -or <i>yede</i> instead of <i>he goed</i>, <i>gaed</i>, since too -the current root in Greek and Latin <i>i</i> (go) -may be accepted as <i>ye</i>, answering to German -<span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>geh</i></span>, English <i>go</i>. Thus two words, <i>eweisato</i>, -‘he was like’, <i>eyeisato</i>, ‘he went’, are -confounded in our text. I will add, that -in the Homeric</p> - -<p class='c010'>—<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἤϋτε wέθνεα (<i>y</i>)εῖσι</span>—(<abbr title='iliad'><i>Il.</i></abbr> 2, 87)</p> - -<p class='c011'>—<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">διὰ πρὸ δὲ (<i>y</i>)είσατο καὶ τῆς</span> (<abbr title='iliad'><i>Il.</i></abbr> 4, 138)</p> - -<p class='c008'><i>my</i> ear misses the consonant, though Mr -<span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>Arnold’s (it seems) does not. If we were -ordered to read <i>dat ting</i> in Chaucer for <i>that -thing</i>, it would at first ‘surprise’ us as -‘grotesque’, but after this objection had -vanished, we should still feel it ‘antiquated’. -The confusion of <i>thick</i> and <i>tick</i>, <i>thread</i> and -<i>tread</i>, may illustrate the possible effect of -dropping the <i>w</i> in Homer. I observe that -Benfey’s Greek Root Lexicon has a list of -454 digammated words, most of which -are Homeric. But it is quite needless to -press the argument to its full.</p> - -<p class='c005'>If as much learning had been spent on -the double λ and on the <i>y</i> and <i>h</i> of Homer, -as on the digamma, it might perhaps now -be conceded that we have lost, not one, -but three or four consonants from his text. -That λ in <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">λύω</span> or <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">λούω</span> was ever a complex -sound in Greek, I see nothing to indicate; -hence <i>that</i> λ, and the λ of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">λιταὶ, λιαρὸς,</span> -seem to have been different consonants in -Homer, as <i>l</i> and <i>ll</i> in Welsh. As to <i>h</i> and -<i>y</i> I assert nothing, except that critics appear -too hastily to infer, that if a consonant has -disappeared, it must needs be <i>w</i>. It is -credible that the Greek <i>h</i> was once strong -enough to stop hiatus or elision, as the -English, and much more the Asiatic <i>h</i>. The -later Greeks, after turning the character H -into a vowel, seem to have had no idea of -a consonant <i>h</i> in the middle of a word, nor -any means of writing the consonant <i>y</i>. -Since G passes through <i>gh</i> into the sounds -<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span><i>h</i>, <i>w</i>, <i>y</i>, <i>f</i> (as in English and German is -obvious), it is easy to confound them all -under the compendious word ‘digamma’. -I should be glad to know that Homer’s -forms were as well understood by modern -scholars as Mr Arnold lays down.</p> - -<p class='c005'>On his quotation from Shakspeare, I -remark, 1. ‘Orgulous’, from French <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">‘orgueilleux’</span>, -is intelligible to all who know -French, and is comparable to Sicilian words -in Æschylus. 2. It is contrary to fact to -say, that Homer has not words, and words -in great plenty, as unintelligible to later -Greeks, as ‘orgulous’ to us. 3. <i>Sperr</i>, -for <i>Bar</i>, as <i>Splash</i> for <i>Plash</i>, is much less -than the diversity which separates Homer -from the spoken Attic. What is <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">σμικρὸς</span> for -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μικρὸς</span> to compare with <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἠβαιὸς</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μικρός</span>? -4. Mr Arnold (as I understand him) blames -Shakspeare for being sometimes antiquated: -I do not blame him, nor yet Homer for the -same; but neither can I admit the contrast -which he asserts. He says: ‘Shakspeare -can compose, when he is at his best, in a -language perfectly intelligible, in spite of the -two centuries and a half which part him -from us. <i>Homer has not Shakspeare’s variations</i>: -he is never antiquated, as Shakspeare -is sometimes’. I certainly find the -very same variations in Homer, as Mr -Arnold finds in Shakspeare. My reader -unlearned in Greek might hastily infer from -the facts just laid before him, that Homer -<span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>is always equally strange to a purely Attic -ear: but is not so. The dialects of Greece -did indeed differ strongly, as broad Scotch -from English; yet as we know, Burns is -sometimes perfectly intelligible to an -Englishman, sometimes quite unintelligible. -In spite of Homer’s occasional wide receding -from Attic speech, he as often comes -close to it. For instance, in the first -piece quoted above from Gladstone, the -simile occupying five (Homeric) lines would -<i>almost</i> go down in Sophocles, if the Tragedian -had chosen to use the metre. There -is but one out-and-out Homeric word in it -(<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐπασσύτερος</span>): and even that is used -once in an Æschylean chorus. There are -no strange inflections, and not a single -digamma is sensibly lost. Its peculiarities -are only -εϊ for ει, ἐὸν for ὂν, and δέ τε for -δέ, which could not embarrass the hearer -as to the sense. I myself reproduce much -the same result. Thus in my translation -of these five lines I have the antiquated -words <i>blore</i> for <i>blast</i>, <i>harry</i> for <i>harass</i> (<i>harrow</i>, -<i>worry</i>), and the antiquated participle <i>hoven</i> -from <i>heave</i>, as <i>cloven</i>, <i>woven</i> from <i>cleave</i>, -<i>weave</i>. The whole has thus just a tinge of -antiquity, as had the Homeric passage to -the Attics, without any need of aid from -a Glossary. But at other times the aid is -occasionally convenient, just as in Homer -or Shakspeare.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Arnold plays fallaciously on the words -<span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>familiar and unfamiliar. Homer’s words -may have been <i>familiar</i> to the Athenians -(<i>i.e.</i> often heard), even when they were <i>not</i> -understood, but, at most, were guessed at; -or when, being understood, they were still -felt and known to be utterly foreign. Of -course, when thus ‘familiar’, they could -not ‘surprise’ the Athenians, as Mr Arnold -complains that my renderings surprise the -English. Let mine be heard as Pope or -even Cowper has been heard, and no one -will be ‘surprised’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Antiquated words are understood well by -some, ill by others, not at all by a third -class; hence it is difficult to decide the -limits of a glossary. Mr Arnold speaks -scornfully of me (he wonders <i>with whom -Mr Newman can have lived</i>), that I use the -words which I use, and explain those which -I explain. He censures my little Glossary, -for containing three words which he did not -know, and some others, which, he says, -are ‘familiar to all the world’. It is clear, -he will never want a stone to throw at me. -I suppose I am often guilty of keeping low -company. I have found ladies whom no -one would guess to be so ill-educated, who -yet do not distinctly know what <i>lusty</i> -means; but have an uncomfortable feeling -that it is very near to <i>lustful</i>; and understand -<i>grisly</i> only in the sense of <i>grizzled</i>, <i>grey</i>. -Great numbers mistake the sense of Buxom, -Imp, Dapper, deplorably. I no more wrote -<span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>my Glossary than my translation for persons -so highly educated as Mr Arnold.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But I must proceed to remark: Homer -might have been as unintelligible to Pericles, -as was the court poet of king Crœsus, and -yet it might be highly improper to translate -him into an old English dialect; namely, -if he had been the typical poet of a logical -and refined age. <i>Here is the real question</i>;—is -he absolutely antique, or only antiquated -relatively, as Euripides is now antiquated? -A modern Greek statesman, -accomplished for every purpose of modern -business, might find himself quite perplexed -by the infinitives, the numerous participles, -the optatives, the datives, by the particle -ἂν, and by the whole syntax of Euripides, -as also by many special words; but this -would never justify us in translating Euripides -into any but a most refined style. -Was Homer of this class? I say, that he -<i>not only was</i> antiquated, relatively to -Pericles, but <i>is also</i> absolutely antique, -being the poet of a barbarian age. Antiquity -in poets is not (as Horace stupidly -imagines in the argument of the horse’s -tail) a question of years, but of intrinsic -qualities. Homer sang to a wholly unfastidious -audience, very susceptible to the -marvellous, very unalive to the ridiculous, -capable of swallowing with reverence the -most grotesque conceptions. Hence nothing -is easier than to turn Homer to ridicule. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>The fun which Lucian made of his mythology, -a rhetorical critic like Mr Arnold -could make of his diction, if he understood -it as he understands mine. He takes credit -to himself for <i>not</i> ridiculing me; and is not -aware, that I could not be like Homer -without being easy to ridicule. An intelligent -child is the second-best reader of -Homer. The best of all is a scholar of -highly masculine taste; the worst of all is -a fastidious and refined man, to whom -everything quaint seems ignoble and contemptible.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I might have supposed that Mr Arnold -thinks Homer to be a polished drawing-room -poet, like Pope, when I read in him -this astonishing sentence, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 35. ‘Search -the English language for a word which does -<i>not</i> apply to Homer, and you could not fix -on a better word than <i>quaint</i>’. But I am -taken aback at finding him praise the diction -of Chapman’s translation in contrast to -mine. Now I never open Chapman, without -being offended at his pushing Homer’s -quaintness most unnecessarily into the -grotesque. Thus in Mr Gladstone’s first -passage above, where Homer says that the -sea ‘sputters out the foam’, Chapman -makes it, ‘<i>all her back in bristles set, spits</i> -every way <i>her</i> foam’, obtruding what may -remind one of a cat or a stoat. I hold -<i>sputter</i> to be epical<a id='r44' /><a href='#f44' class='c009'><sup>[44]</sup></a>, because it is strong; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>but <i>spit</i> is feeble and mean. In passing, -I observe that the universal praise given to -Chapman as ‘Homeric’ (a praise which I -have too absolutely repeated, perhaps -through false shame of depreciating my -only rival) is a testimony to me that I -rightly appreciate Homeric style; for my -style is Chapman’s softened, purged of conceits -and made far more melodious. Mr -Arnold leaves me to wonder, how, with his -disgust at me, he can avoid feeling tenfold -disgust at Chapman; and to wonder also -what he <i>means</i>, by so blankly contradicting -my statement that Homer is quaint; and -why he so vehemently resents it. He does -not vouchsafe to me or to his readers one -particle of disproof or of explanation.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I regard it as quaint in Homer to call Juno -<i>white-arm’d goddess</i> and <i>large-ey’d</i>. (I have -not rendered <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">βοῶπις</span> <i>ox-ey’d</i>, because in a -case of doubt I shrank to obtrude anything -so grotesque to us.) It is quaint to say, -‘the lord of bright-haired Juno lightens’ -for ‘it lightens’; or ‘my heart in my -<i>shaggy</i> bosom is divided’, for ‘I doubt’: -quaint to call waves <i>wet</i>, milk <i>white</i>, blood -<i>dusky</i>, horses <i>singlehoofed</i>, a hero’s hand -<i>broad</i>, words <i>winged</i>, Vulcan <i>Lobfoot</i> (<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Κυλλοποδίων</span>), -a maiden <i>fair-ankled</i>, the Greeks -<span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span><i>wellgreav’d</i>, a spear <i>longshadowy</i>, battle and -council <i>man-ennobling</i>, one’s knees <i>dear</i>, and -many other epithets. Mr Arnold most -gratuitously asserts that the sense of these -had evaporated to the Athenians. If that -were true, it would not signify to this argument. -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Δαιμόνιος</span> (possessed by an elf or -dæmon) so lost its sense in Attic talk, that -although Æschylus has it in its true meaning, -some college tutors (I am told) render -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὦ δαιμόνιε</span> in Plato, ‘my very good sir!’ -This is surely no good reason for mistranslating -the word in Homer. If Mr Arnold -could prove (what he certainly cannot) that -Sophocles had forgotten the derivation of -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐϋκνημῖδες</span> and <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐϋμμελίης</span>, and understood -by the former nothing but ‘full armed’ and -by the latter (as he says) nothing but ‘war-like’, -this would not justify his blame of -me for rendering the words correctly. If -the whole Greek nation by long familiarity -had become inobservant of Homer’s ‘oddities’ -(conceding this for the moment), that -also would be no fault of mine. That -Homer <i>is</i> extremely peculiar, even if the -Greeks had become deadened to the sense -of it, the proof on all sides is overpowering.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It is very quaint to say, ‘the outwork -(or rampart) of the teeth’ instead of ‘the -lips’. If Mr Arnold will call it ‘portentous’ -in my English, let him produce some shadow -of reason for denying it to be portentous -in Greek. Many phrases are so quaint as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>to be almost untranslatable, as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μήστωρ -φόβοιο</span> (deviser of fear?) <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μήστωρ ἀϋτῆς</span> -(deviser of outcry?): others are quaint to -the verge of being comical, as to call a man -an <i>equipoise</i> (<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀτάλαντος</span>) to a god, and to -praise eyes for having a <i>curl</i> in them<a id='r45' /><a href='#f45' class='c009'><sup>[45]</sup></a>. It -is quaint to make Juno call Jupiter <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">αἰνότατε</span> -(grimmest? direst?), whether she is in -good or bad humour with him, and to call -a Vision <i>ghastly</i>, when it is sent with a -pleasant message. It is astonishingly quaint -to tell how many oxen every fringe of -Athene’s ægis was worth.—It is quaint to -call Patroclus ‘a great simpleton’, for not -foreseeing that he would lose his life in -rushing to the rescue of his countrymen. -(I cannot receive Mr Arnold’s suggested -Biblical correction ‘Thou fool’! which he -thinks grander: first, because grave moral -rebuke is utterly out of place; secondly, -because the Greek cannot mean this;—it -means infantine simplicity, and has precisely -the colour of the word which I have -used.)—It is quaint to say: ‘Patroclus -kindled a great fire, <i>godlike man</i>’! or, -‘Automedon held up the meat, <i>divine</i> -Achilles slic’d it’: quaint to address a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>young friend as ‘Oh<a id='r46' /><a href='#f46' class='c009'><sup>[46]</sup></a> pippin’! or ‘Oh -softheart’! or ‘Oh pet’! whichever is -the true translation. It is quaint to compare -Ajax to an ass whom boys are belabouring, -Ulysses to a pet ram, Agamemnon -in two lines to three gods, and in the third -line to a bull; the Myrmidons to wasps, -Achilles to a grampus chasing little fishes, -Antilochus to a wolf which kills a dog and -runs away. Menelaus striding over Patroclus’s -body to a heifer defending her first-born. -It is quaint to say that Menelaus -was as brave as a bloodsucking fly, that -Agamemnon’s sobs came thick as flashes of -lightning; and that the Trojan mares, -while running, groaned like overflowing -rivers. All such similes come from a mind -quick to discern similarities, but <i>very dull -to feel incongruities</i>; unaware therefore -that it is on a verge where the sublime -easily turns into the ludicrous; a mind and -heart inevitably quaint to the very core. -What is it in Vulcan, when he would comfort -his mother under Jupiter’s threat, to -make jokes about the severe mauling which -he himself formerly received, and his terror -lest she should be now beaten? Still more -quaint (if <i>rollicking</i> is not the word), is the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>address by which Jupiter tries to ingratiate -himself with Juno: viz. he recounts to her -all his unlawful amours, declaring that in -none of them was he so smitten as now. I -have not enough of the γενναῖος εὐηθεία, -the barbarian simple-heartedness, needed by -a reader of Homer, to get through this speech -with gravity. What shall I call it, certainly -much worse than quaint, that the poet adds: -Jupiter was more enamoured than at his -<i>stolen</i> embrace in their first bed ‘secretly -from their dear parents’? But to develop -Homer’s inexhaustible quaintnesses, of -which Mr Arnold denies the existence, seems -to me to need a long treatise. It is not to -be expected, that one who is blind to superficial -facts so very prominent as those which -I have recounted, should retain any delicate -perception of the highly coloured, intense, -and very eccentric diction of Homer, even -if he has ever understood it, which he forces -me to doubt. He sees nothing ‘odd’ in -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κυνὸς κακομηχάνου</span>, or in <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κυνόμυια</span>, ‘thou -dogfly’! He replaces to his imagination -the flesh and blood of the noble barbarian -by a dim feeble spiritless outline.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I have not adduced, in proof of Homer’s -quaintness, the monstrous simile given to -us in Iliad 13, 754; viz. Hector ‘darted -forward screaming like a snowy mountain, -and flew through the Trojans and allies’: -for I cannot believe that the poet wrote -anything so absurd. Rather than admit -<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>this, I have suggested that the text is -corrupt, and that for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὄρεϊ νιφόεντι</span> we -should read <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὀρνέῳ θύοντι</span>, ‘darted forth -screaming <i>like a raging bird</i>’. Yet, as far -as I know, I am the first man that has here -impugned the text. Mr Brandreth is faithful -in his rendering, except that he says -<i>shouting</i> for <i>screaming</i>:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>‘He said; and like a snowy mountain, rush’d</div> - <div class='line'>Shouting; and flew through Trojans and allies.’</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Chapman, Cowper, and Pope strain and -twist the words to an impossible sense, -putting in something about <i>white plume</i>, -which they fancy suggested a snowy mountain; -but they evidently accept the Greek -as it stands, unhesitatingly. I claim this -phenomenon in proof that to all commentators -and interpreters hitherto Homer’s -quaintness has been such an <i>axiom</i>, that they -have even acquiesced unsuspiciously in an -extravagance which goes far beyond oddity. -Moreover the reader may augur by my -opposite treatment of the passage, with -what discernment Mr Arnold condemns -me of obtruding upon Homer gratuitous -oddities which equal the conceits of Chapman.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But, while thus vindicating <i>Quaintness</i> -as an essential quality of Homer, do I regard -it as a weakness to be apologized for? Certainly -not; for it is a condition of his cardinal -excellences. He could not otherwise -be <i>Picturesque</i> as he is. So volatile is his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>mind, that what would be a Metaphor in a -more logical and cultivated age, with him -riots in Simile which overflows its banks. -His similes not merely go beyond<a id='r47' /><a href='#f47' class='c009'><sup>[47]</sup></a> the -mark of likeness; in extreme cases they -even turn into contrariety. If he were not -so carried away by his illustration, as to -forget what he is illustrating (which belongs -to a quaint mind), he would never paint -for us such full and splendid pictures. -Where a logical later poet would have said -that Menelaus</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>With <i>eagle-eye</i> survey’d the field,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>the mere metaphor contenting him; Homer -says:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Gazing around on every side,     in fashion of an eagle,</div> - <div class='line'>Which, of all heaven’s fowl, they say,     to scan the earth is keenest:</div> - <div class='line'>Whose eye, when loftiest he hangs,     not the swift hare escapeth,</div> - <div class='line'>Lurking amid a leaf-clad bush:     but straight at it he souseth,</div> - <div class='line'>Unerring; and with crooked gripe     doth quickly rieve its spirit.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>I feel this long simile to be a disturbance -of the logical balance, such as belongs to -the lively eye of the savage, whose observation -is intense, his concentration of reasoning -<span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>powers feeble. Without this, we should -never have got anything so picturesque.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Homer never sees things <i>in the same proportions</i> -as we see them. To omit his -digressions, and what I may call his ‘impertinences’, -in order to give to his argument -that which Mr Arnold is pleased to call the -proper ‘balance’, is to value our own logical -minds, more than his picturesque<a id='r48' /><a href='#f48' class='c009'><sup>[48]</sup></a> but -illogical mind.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Arnold says that I am not quaint, but -grotesque, in my rendering of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κυνὸς -κακομηχάνου</span>. I do not hold the phrase -to be quaint: to me it is excessively coarse. -When Jupiter calls Juno ‘a bitch’, of course -he means a snarling cur; hence my rendering, -‘vixen’ (or she-fox), is there perfect, -since we say <i>vixen</i> of an irascible woman. -But Helen had no such evil tempers, and -beyond a doubt she meant to ascribe impurity -to herself. I have twice committed -a pious fraud by making her call herself ‘a -vixen’, where ‘bitch’ is the only faithful -rendering; and Mr Arnold, instead of -thanking me for throwing a thin veil over -<span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>Homer’s deformity, assails me for my phrase -as intolerably grotesque.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He further forbids me to invent new -compound adjectives, as fair-thron’d, rill-bestream’d; -because they strike us as new, -though Homer’s epithets (he says) did not -so strike the Greeks: hence they derange -attention from the main question. I hold -this doctrine of his (conceding his fact for -a moment) to be destructive of all translation -whatever, into prose or poetry. When -Homer tells us that Achilles’ horses were -munching lotus and parsley, Pope renders -it by ‘the horses grazed’, and does not say -on what. Using Mr Arnold’s principles, -he might defend himself by arguing: ‘The -Greeks, being familiar with such horsefood, -were not struck by it as new, as my reader -would be. I was afraid of telling him <i>what</i> -the horses were eating, lest it should derange -the balance of his mind, and injuriously -divert him from the main idea of the -sentence’. But, I find, readers are indignant -on learning Pope’s suppression: -they feel that he has defrauded them of a -piece of interesting information.—In short, -how <i>can</i> an Englishman read any Greek -composition and be affected by it as Greeks -were? In a piece of Euripides my imagination -is caught by many things, which he -never intended or calculated for the prominence -which they actually get in my -mind. This or that absurdity in mythology, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>which passed with him as matter of -course, may monopolize my main attention. -Our minds are not passive recipients of this -or that poet’s influence; but the poet is -the material on which our minds actively -work. If an unlearned reader thinks it -very ‘odd’ of Homer (the first time he hears -it) to call Aurora ‘fair-thron’d’, so does a -boy learning Greek think it odd to call her -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εὔθρονος</span>. Mr Arnold ought to blot every -odd Homeric epithet out of his <i>Greek</i> Homer -(or never lend the copy to a youthful -learner) if he desires me to expunge ‘fair-thron’d’ -from the translation. Nay, I -think he should conceal that the Morning -was esteemed as a goddess, though she had -no altars or sacrifice. It is <i>all</i> odd. But -that is just why people want to read an -English Homer,—to know all his oddities, -exactly as learned men do. He is the -phenomenon to be studied. His peculiarities, -pleasant or unpleasant, are to be made -known, precisely because of his great eminence -and his substantial deeply seated -worth. Mr Arnold writes like a timid -biographer, fearful to let too much of his -friend come out. So much as to the substance. -As to mere words, here also I hold -the very reverse of Mr Arnold’s doctrine. -I do not feel free to translate οὐρανομήκης -by ‘heaven-kissing’, precisely <i>because</i> -Shakspeare has used the last word. It -is his property, as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐϋκνημῖδες, ἐϋμμελίης,</span> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κυδιάνειρα</span>, etc., are Homer’s property. I -could not use it without being felt to <i>quote</i> -Shakspeare, which would be highly inappropriate -in a Homeric translation. But -<i>if</i> nobody had ever yet used the phrase -‘heaven-kissing’ (or if it were current -without any proprietor) <i>then</i> I should be -quite free to use it as a rendering of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">οὐρανομήκης</span>. -I cannot assent to a critic killing -the vital powers of our tongue. If Shakspeare -might invent the compound ‘heaven-kissing’, -or ‘man-ennobling’, so might -William Wordsworth or Matthew Arnold; -and so might I. Inspiration is not dead, -nor yet is the English language.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Arnold is slow to understand what -I think very obvious. Let me then put a -case. What if I were to scold a missionary -for rendering in Feejee the phrase ‘kingdom -of heaven’ and ‘Lamb of God’ accurately; -also ‘saints’ and other words <i>characteristic -of the New Testament</i>? I might urge against -him: ‘This and that sounds very <i>odd</i> to -the Feejees: that cannot be right, for it -did <i>not</i> seem odd to the Nicene bishops. -The latter had forgotten that <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">βασιλεία</span> meant -“kingdom”; they took the phrase “kingdom -of God” collectively to mean “the -Church”. The phrase did not surprise -them. As to “Lambs”, the Feejees are not -accustomed to sacrifice, and cannot be expected -to know of themselves what “Lamb -of God” means, as Hebrews did. The -<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>courtiers of Constantine thought it very -natural to be called <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἅγιοι</span>, for they were -accustomed to think every baptised person -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἅγιος</span>; but to the baptised courtiers of -Feejee it really seems very <i>odd</i> to be called -<i>saints</i>. You disturb the balance of their -judgment’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The missionary might reply: ‘You seemed -to be ashamed of the oddities of the Gospel. -I am not. They grow out of its excellences -and cannot be separated. By avoiding a -few eccentric phrases you will do little to -remove the deep-seated eccentricity of its -very essence. Odd and eccentric it will -remain, unless you despoil it of its heart, -and reduce it to a fashionable philosophy’. -And just so do I reply to Mr Arnold. The -Homeric style (whether it be that of an -individual or of an age) is peculiar, is ‘odd’, -if Mr Arnold like the word, to the very core. -Its eccentricities in epithet are mere efflorescences -of its essential eccentricity. If -Homer could cry out to us, I doubt not he -would say, as Oliver Cromwell to the -painter, ‘Paint me just I am, <i>wart and all</i>’: -but if the true Homer could reappear, I am -sure Mr Arnold would start from him just -as a bishop of Rome from a fisherman -apostle. If a translator of the Bible honours -the book by his close rendering of its characteristics, -however ‘odd’, so do I honour -Homer by the same. Those characteristics, -the moment I produce them, Mr -<span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>Arnold calls <i>ignoble</i>. Well: be it so; but -I am not to blame for them. They exist -whether Mr Arnold likes them or not.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I will here observe that he bids me -paraphrase <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">τανύπεπλος</span> (trailing-robed) into -something like, ‘Let gorgeous Tragedy -With sceptred pall come sweeping by’. I -deliberately judge, that to paraphrase an -otiose epithet is the very worst thing that -can be done: to omit it entirely would be -better. I object even to Mr Gladstone’s</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in6'>... whom Leto bare,</div> - <div class='line'>Leto with the flowing hair.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>For the repetition overdoes the prominence -of the epithet. Still more extravagant is -Mr Arnold in wishing me to turn ‘single-hoofed -horses’ in to ‘something which <i>as -little surprises us</i> as “Gallop apace, you -fiery-footed steeds”’: <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 96. To reproduce -Shakspeare would be in any case a ‘surprising’ -mode of translating Homer: but -the principle which changes ‘single-hoofed’ -into a different epithet which the translator -thinks <i>better</i>, is precisely that which for -more than two centuries has made nearly -all English translation worthless. To throw -the poet into your crucible, and bring out -old Pelias young, is not a hopeful process. -I had thought, the manly taste of this day -had outgrown the idea that a translator’s -business is to melt up the old coin and -stamp it with a modern image. I am -<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>wondering that I should have to write -against such notions: I would not take the -trouble, only that they come against me -from an Oxford Professor of Poetry.</p> - -<p class='c005'>At the same time, his doctrine, as I have -said, goes far beyond compound epithets. -Whether I say ‘motley-helmèd Hector’ or -‘Hector of the motley helm’, ‘silver-footed -Thetis’ or ‘Thetis of the silver foot’, ‘man-ennobling -combat’ or ‘combat which ennobles -man’, the novelty is so nearly on a -par, that he cannot condemn one and justify -the other on this score. Even Pope falls -far short of the false taste which would -plane down every Homeric prominence: for -he prizes an elegant epithet like ‘silver-footed’, -however new and odd.</p> - -<p class='c005'>From such a Homer as Mr Arnold’s -specimens and principles would give us, -no one could <i>learn</i> anything; no one could -have any motive for reading the translation. -He smooths down the stamp of Homer’s -coin, till nothing is left even for microscopic -examination. When he forbids me (<abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>) -to let my reader know that Homer calls -horses ‘single-hoofed’, of course he would -suppress also the epithets ‘white milk’, -‘dusky blood’, ‘dear knees’, ‘dear life’, -etc. His process obliterates everything -characteristic, great or small.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Arnold condemns my translating certain -names of horses. He says (<abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>8): -‘Mr Newman calls Xanthus <i>Chesnut</i>; as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>he calls Balius <i>Spotted</i> and Podarga <i>Spry-foot</i>: -which is as if a Frenchman were to -call Miss Nightingale <i>Mdelle. Rossignol</i>, or -Mr Bright <i>M. Clair</i>’. He is very wanting -in discrimination. If I had translated -Hector into <i>Possessor</i> or Agamemnon into -<i>Highmind</i>, his censure would be just. A -Miss White may be a brunette, a Miss Brown -may be a blonde: we utter the proper names -of men and women without any remembrance -of their intrinsic meaning. But it is different -with many names of domestic animals. We -never call a dog <i>Spot</i>, unless he is spotted; -nor without consciousness that the name -expresses his peculiarity. No one would -give to a black horse the name Chesnut; -nor, if he had called a chesnut horse by -the name Chesnut, would he ever forget -the meaning of the name while he used it. -The Greeks called a chesnut horse <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><i>xanthos</i></span> -and a spotted horse <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><i>balios</i></span>; therefore, until -Mr Arnold proves the contrary, I believe -that they never read the names of Achilles’ -two horses without a sense of their meaning. -Hence the names ought to be translated; -while Hector and Laomedon ought not. The -same reasoning applies to Podarga, though -I do not certainly understand <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀργός</span>. I have -taken it to mean <i>sprightly</i>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Arnold further asserts, that Homer is -never ‘garrulous’. Allowing that too many -others agree with me, he attributes our error -to giving too much weight to a sentence in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>Horace! I admire Horace as an ode-writer, -but I do not revere him as a critic, -any more than as a moral philosopher. I -say that Homer is garrulous, because I see -and feel it. Mr Arnold puts me into a most -unwelcome position. I have a right to say, -I have some enthusiasm for Homer. In -the midst of numerous urgent calls of duty -and taste, I devoted every possible quarter -of an hour for two years and a half to translate -the Iliad, toiling unremittingly in my -vacations and in my walks, and going to -large expenses of money, in order to put the -book before the unlearned; and this, though -I am not a Professor of Poetry nor even of -Greek. Yet now I am forced to appear as -Homer’s disparager and accuser! But if -Homer were always a poet, he could not be, -what he is, so many other things beside -poet. As the Egyptians paint in their -tombs processes of art, not because they -are beautiful or grand, but from a mere -love of imitating; so Homer narrates perpetually -from a mere love of chatting. In -how thoroughly Egyptian a way does he tell -the process of cutting up an ox and making -<i>kebâb</i>; the process of bringing a boat to -anchor and carefully putting by the tackle; -the process of taking out a shawl from a -chest, where it lies at the very bottom! -With what glee he repeats the secret talk -of the gods; and can tell all about the -toilet of Juno. Every particular of trifling -<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>actions comes out with him, as, the opening -of a door or box with a key. He tells who -made Juno’s earrings or veil or the shield -of Ajax, the history of Agamemnon’s breast-plate, -and in what detail a hero puts on his -pieces of armour. I would not press the -chattiness of Pandarus, Glaucus, Nestor, -Æneas, in the midst of battle; I might -press his description of wounds. Indeed I -have said enough, and more than enough, -against Mr Arnold’s novel, unsupported, -paradoxical assertion.—But this is connected -with another subject. I called -Homer’s manner ‘direct’: Mr Arnold (if -I understand) would supersede this by his -own epithet ‘rapid’. But I cannot admit -the exchange: Homer is often the opposite -of rapid. Amplification is his characteristic, -as it must be of every improvisatore, -every popular orator: condensation indeed -is improper for anything but written style; -written to be read privately. But I regard -as Homer’s worst defect, his lingering over -scenes of endless carnage and painful -wounds. He knows to half an inch where -one hero hits another and how deep. They -arm: they approach: they encounter: we -have to listen to stereotype details again -and again. Such a style is anything but -‘rapid’. Homer’s garrulity often leads -him into it; yet he can do far better, as -in a part of the fight over Patroclus’s body, -and other splendid passages.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>Garrulity often vents itself in expletives. -Mr Arnold selects for animadversion this -line of mine (<abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 41),</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>‘A thousand fires along the plain, <i>I say</i>, that night were gleaming’.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>He says: ‘This may be the genuine style -of ballad poetry, but it is <i>not</i> the style of -Homer’. I reply; my use of expletives -is moderate indeed compared to Homer’s. -Mr Arnold writes, as if quite unaware that -such words as the intensely prosaic ἄρα, and -its abbreviations ἂρ, ῥα, with τοι, τε, δὴ, -μάλα, ἦ, ἦ ῥα νυ, περ, overflow in epic style; -and that a pupil who has mastered the very -copious stock of Attic particles, is taken -quite aback by the extravagant number in -Homer. Our expletives are generally more -offensive, because longer. My principle is, -to admit only such expletives as <i>add energy</i>, -and savour of antiquity. To the feeble -expletives of mean ditties I am not prone. -I once heard from an eminent counsellor the -first lesson of young lawyers, in the following -doggerel:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>He who holds his lands in fee,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Need neither quake nor quiver:</div> - <div class='line'>For I humbly conceive, look ye, do ye see?</div> - <div class='line in2'>He holds his lands for ever.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>The ‘humbly conceiving’ certainly outdoes -Homer. Yet if the poet had chosen (as -he <i>might</i> have chosen) to make Polydamas -or Glaucus say:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Ὅστις ἐπετράφθη τέμενος πίστει βασιλῆος,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">φημί τοι, οὗτος ἀνὴρ οὔτ’ ἂρ τρέμει οὔτε φοβεῖται·</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">δὴ μάλα γάρ ῥα ἑὰς κρατέοι κεν ἐσαιὲν ἀρούρας:</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>I rather think the following would be a fair -prose rendering: ‘Whoso hath been entrusted -with a demesne under pledge with -the king (I tell you); this man neither -trembleth (you see) nor feareth: for (look -ye!) he (verily) may hold (you see) his lands -for ever’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Since Mr Arnold momentarily appeals to -me on the chasm between Attic and Homeric -Greek, I turn the last piece into a style <i>far -less</i> widely separated from modern English -than Homer from Thucydides.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Dat mon, quhich hauldeth Kyngis-af</div> - <div class='line in2'>Londis yn féo, niver</div> - <div class='line'>(I tell ’e) feereth aught; sith hee</div> - <div class='line in2'>Doth hauld hys londis yver.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>I certainly do <i>not</i> recommend this style to -a translator, yet it would have its advantage. -Even with a smaller change of dialect it -would aid us over Helen’s self-piercing denunciation, -‘approaching to Christian penitence’, -as some have judged it.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Quoth she, I am a gramsome bitch,</div> - <div class='line in2'>If woman bitch may bee.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>But in behalf of the poet I must avow: -when one considers how dramatic he is, it -is marvellous how little in him can offend. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>For this very reason he is above needing -tender treatment from a translator, but can -bear faithful rendering, not only better -than Shakspeare but better than Pindar -or Sophocles.</p> - -<p class='c005'>When Mr Arnold denies that Homer is -ever prosaic or homely, his own specimens -of translation put me into despair of convincing -him; for they seem to me a very -anthology of prosaic flatness. Phrases, -which are not in themselves bad, if they -were elevated by something in the syntax -or rhythm distinguishing them from prose, -become in him prose out-and-out. ‘To -Peleus why did we give you, to a mortal’? -‘In the plain <i>there</i> were kindled a thousand -fires; by each one <i>there</i> sate fifty men’. -[At least he might have left out the expletive.] -‘By their chariots stood the -steeds, and champed the white barley; -while their masters sate by the fire and -waited for morning’. ‘Us, whose portion -for ever Zeus has made it, from youth <i>right -up</i> to age, to be winding skeins of grievous -wars, till <i>every soul of us</i> perish’. The words -which I here italicize, seem to me below -noble ballad. What shall I say of ‘I bethink -me what the Trojan men and Trojan -women might murmur’. ‘Sacred Troy -shall <i>go to destruction</i>’. ‘Or bear pails to -the well of Messeϊs’. ‘See, the wife of -Hector, that great pre-eminent captain of -the horsemen of Troy, <i>in the day they fought</i> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>for their city’, for, ‘<i>who was</i> captain in the -day <i>on which</i>——’. ‘Let me be dead and the -earth be mounded (?) above me, ere I hear -thy cries, and thy captivity<a id='r49' /><a href='#f49' class='c009'><sup>[49]</sup></a> <i>told of</i>’. ‘By -no slow pace or want of swiftness <i>of ours</i><a id='r50' /><a href='#f50' class='c009'><sup>[50]</sup></a> -did the Trojans <i>obtain to strip</i> the arms of -Patroclus’. ‘Here I am destined to perish, -far from my father and mother dear; <i>for -all that</i>, I will not’, etc. ‘Dare they not -enter the fight, or stand in the council of -heroes, <i>all</i> for fear of the shame and the -<i>taunts my crime</i> has awakened?’ One who -regards all this to be high poetry,—emphatically -‘noble’,—may well think <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">τὸν δ’ ἀπαμειβόμενος</span> -or ‘with him there came forty -black galleys’, or the broiling of the beef -collops, to be such. When Mr Arnold regards -‘no want of swiftness of <i>ours</i>’; ‘for -all that’, in the sense of nevertheless; ‘<i>all</i> -for fear’, <i>i.e.</i> because of the fear; <i>not</i> to be -prosaic: my readers, however ignorant of -Greek, will dispense with further argument -from me. Mr Arnold’s inability to discern -prose in Greek is not to be trusted.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>But I see something more in this phenomenon. -Mr Arnold is an original poet; -and, as such, certainly uses a diction far -more elevated than he here puts forward to -represent Homer. He calls his Homeric -diction <i>plain</i> and <i>simple</i>. Interpreting these -words from the contrast of Mr Arnold’s own -poems, I claim his suffrage as on my side, that -Homer is often in a style much lower than -what the moderns esteem to be poetical. -But I protest, that he carries it <i>very much</i> -too far, and levels the noblest down to the -most negligent style of Homer. The poet -is <i>not</i> always so ‘ignoble’, as the unlearned -might infer from my critic’s specimens. He -never drops so low as Shakspeare; yet if he -were as sustained as Virgil or Milton, he -would with it lose his vast superiority over -these, his rich variety. That the whole first -book of the Iliad is pitched lower than the -rest, though it has vigorous descriptions, -is denoted by the total absence of simile in -it: for Homer’s kindling is always indicated -by simile. The second book rises on -the first, until the catalogue of ships, which -(as if to atone for its flatness) is ushered in -by five consecutive similes. In the third -and fourth books the poet continues to rise, -and almost culminates in the fifth; but then -seems to restrain himself, lest nothing grander -be left for Achilles. Although I do not believe -in a unity of authorship between the -Odyssey and the Iliad, yet in the Iliad itself -<span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>I see such unity, that I cannot doubt its -negligences to be from art. (The monstrous -speech of Nestor in the 11th book is a case -by itself. About 100 lines have perhaps -been added later, for reasons other than -literary.) I observe that just before the -poet is about to bring out Achilles in his -utmost splendour, he has three-quarters of a -book comparatively tame, with a ridiculous -legend told by Agamemnon in order to cast -his own sins upon Fate. If Shakspeare introduces -coarse wrangling, buffoonery, or -mean superstition, no one claims or wishes -this to be in a high diction or tragic rhythm; -and why should anyone wish such a thing -from Homer or Homer’s translator? I find -nothing here in the poet to apologize for; -but much cause for indignation, when the -unlearned public is misled by translators -or by critics to expect delicacy and elegance -out of place. But I beg the unlearned to -judge for himself whether Homer <i>can</i> have -intended such lines as the following for -poetry, and whether I am bound to make -them any better than I do.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Then visiting he urged each man with words,</div> - <div class='line'>Mesthles and Glaucus and Medon and Thersilochus</div> - <div class='line'>And Asteropæus and Deisenor and Hippothoüs</div> - <div class='line'>And Phorkys and Chromius and Ennomus the augur.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>He has lines in plenty as little elevated. -If they came often in masses, it would be -best to translate them into avowed prose: -but since gleams of poetry break out amid -<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>what is flattest, I have no choice but to -imitate Homer in retaining a uniform, but -easy and unpretending metre. Mr Arnold -calls my metre ‘slip-shod’: if it can rise -into grandeur when needful, the epithet is -a praise.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Of course I hold the Iliad to be <i>generally</i> -noble and grand. Very many of the poet’s -conceptions were grand to him, mean to us: -especially is he mean and absurd in scenes -of conflict between the gods. Besides, he -is disgusting and horrible occasionally in -word and thought; as when Hecuba wishes -to ‘cling on Achilles and eat up his liver’; -when (as Jupiter says) Juno would gladly -eat Priam’s children raw; when Jupiter -hanged Juno up and fastened a pair of -anvils to her feet; also in the description -of dreadful wounds, and the treatment -which (Priam says) dogs give to an old -man’s corpse. The descriptions of Vulcan -and Thersites are ignoble; so is the mode -of mourning for Hector adopted by Priam; -so is the treatment of the populace by -Ulysses, which does but reflect the manners -of the day. I am not now blaming Homer -for these things; but I say no treatment -can elevate the subject; the translator -must not be expected to make noble what -is not so intrinsically.</p> - -<p class='c005'>If anyone think that I am disparaging -Homer, let me remind him of the horrid -grossnesses of Shakspeare, which yet are -<span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>not allowed to lessen our admiration of -Shakspeare’s grandeur. The Homer of the -Iliad is morally pure and often very tender; -but to expect refinement and universal delicacy -of expression in that stage of civilization -is quite anachronistic and unreasonable. -As in earlier England, so in Homeric Greece, -even high poetry partook of the coarseness -of society. This was probably inevitable, -precisely because Greek epic poetry was so -<i>natural</i>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Arnold says that I make Homer’s -nobleness <i>eminently ignoble</i>. This suggests -to me to quote a passage, not because I -think myself particularly successful in it, -but because the poet is evidently aiming -to be grand, when his mightiest hero puts -forth mighty boastings, offensive to some -of the gods. It is the speech of Achilles -over the dead body of Asteropæus (Iliad -21, 184). Whether I make it ignoble, by -my diction or my metre, the reader must -judge.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Lie as thou art. ’Tis hard for thee     to strive against the children</div> - <div class='line'>Of overmatching Saturn’s son,     tho’ offspring of a River.</div> - <div class='line'>Thou boastest, that thy origin     is from a Stream broad-flówing;</div> - <div class='line'>I boast, from mighty Jupiter     to trace my first beginning.</div> - <div class='line'>A man who o’er the Myrmidons     holdeth wide rule, begat me,</div> - <div class='line'>Peleus; whose father Æacus     by Jupiter was gotten.</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>Rivers, that trickle to the sea,     than Jupiter are weaker;</div> - <div class='line'>So, than the progeny of Jove,     weaker a River’s offspring.</div> - <div class='line'>Yea, if he aught avail’d to help,     behold! a mighty River</div> - <div class='line'>Beside thee here: but none can fight     with Jove, the child of Saturn.</div> - <div class='line'>Not royal Acheloïus     with him may play the equal.</div> - <div class='line'>Nor e’en the amplebosom’d strength     of deeply-flowing Ocean:</div> - <div class='line'>Tho’ from his fulness every Sea     and every River welleth,</div> - <div class='line'>And all the ever-bubbling springs     and eke their vasty sources.</div> - <div class='line'>Yet at the lightning-bolt of Jove     doth even Ocean shudder,</div> - <div class='line'>And at the direful thunder-clap,     when from the sky it crasheth.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Mr Arnold has in some respects attacked -me discreetly; I mean, where he has said -that which damages me with his readers, -and yet leaves me no possible reply. What -is easier than for one to call another ignoble? -what more damaging? what harder to refute? -Then when he speaks of my ‘metrical -exploits’ how can I be offended? to -what have I to reply? His words are expressive -either of compliment or of contempt; -but in either case are untangible. -Again: when he would show how tender he -has been of my honour, and how unwilling -to expose my enormities, he says: <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 57: -‘I will by no means search in Mr Newman’s -version for passages likely to raise a laugh: -that search, <i>alas!</i> would be far too easy’; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>I find the pity which the word <i>alas!</i> expresses, -to be very clever, and very effective -against me. But, I think, he was not discreet, -but very unwise, in making dogmatic -statements on the ground of erudition, many -of which I have exposed; and about which -much more remains to be said than space -will allow me.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In his denial that Homer is ‘garrulous’, -he complains that so many think him to be -‘diffuse’. Mr Arnold, it seems, is unaware -of that very prominent peculiarity; which -suits ill even to Mr Gladstone’s style. Thus, -where Homer said (and I said) in a passage -quoted above, ‘people that have <i>a voice in -their bosom</i>’, Mr Gladstone has only ‘<i>speaking</i> -men’. I have noticed the epithet -<i>shaggy</i> as quaint, in ‘His heart in his shaggy -bosom was divided’, where, in a moral -thought, a physical epithet is obtruded. -But even if ‘shaggy’ be dropped, it remains -diffuse (and characteristically so) to -say ‘my <i>heart in my bosom</i> is divided’, for -‘I doubt’. So—‘I will speak what <i>my -heart in my bosom</i> bids me’. So, Homer -makes men think <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κατὰ φρένα καὶ κατὰ -θυμὸν</span>, ‘in their heart <i>and mind</i>’; and -deprives them of ‘mind and soul’. Also: -‘this appeared to him <i>in his mind</i> to be -the best counsel’. Mr Arnold assumes -tones of great superiority; but every school-boy -knows that diffuseness is a distinguishing -characteristic of Homer. Again, the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>poet’s epithets are often selected by their -convenience for his metre; sometimes perhaps -even appropriated for no other cause. -No one has ever given any better reason -why Diomedes and Menelaus are almost -exclusively called <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">βοὴν ἀγαθὸς</span>, except that -it suits the metre. This belongs to the improvisatore, -the negligent, the ballad style. -The word <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐϋμμελίης</span>, which I with others -render ‘ashen-speared’, is said of Priam, -of Panthus, and of sons of Panthus. Mr -Arnold rebukes me, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 106, for violating -my own principles. ‘I say, on the other -hand, that <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εὐμμελίω</span> has <i>not</i> the effect<a id='r51' /><a href='#f51' class='c009'><sup>[51]</sup></a> -of a peculiarity in the original, while “ashen-speared” -<i>has</i> the effect of a peculiarity in -the English: and “warlike” is as marking -an equivalent as I dare give for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐϋμμελίω</span>, -<i>for fear of disturbing the balance of expression</i> -in Homer’s sentence’. Mr Arnold cannot -write a sentence on Greek, without showing -an ignorance hard to excuse in one who -thus comes forward as a vituperating censor. -<i>Warlike</i> is a word current in the lips and -books of all Englishmen: <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐϋμμελίης</span> is a -word <i>never</i> used, never, I believe, in all -Greek literature, by anyone but Homer. -If he does but turn to Liddell and Scott, -he will see their statement, that the Attic -<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>form <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εὐμελίας</span> is only to be found in -grammars. He is here, as always, wrong -in his facts. The word is most singular -in Greek; more singular by far than ‘ashen-spear’d’ -in English, because it is more -obscure, as is its special application to one -or two persons: and in truth I have doubted -whether we any better understand Eumelian -Priam than Gerenian Nestor.—Mr Arnold -presently imputes to me the opinion that -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">χιτὼν</span> means ‘a cloak’, <i>which he does not -dispute</i>; but if I had thought it necessary -to be literal, I must have rendered <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">χαλκοχίτωνες</span> -brazen-shirted. He suggests to me -the rendering ‘brazen-coated’, which I have -used in <abbr title='iliad'>Il.</abbr> 4, 285 and elsewhere. I have -also used ‘brazen-clad’, and I now prefer -‘brazen-mail’d’. I here wish only to press -that Mr Arnold’s criticism proceeds on a -false fact. Homer’s epithet was <i>not</i> a -familiar word at Athens (in any other sense -than as Burns or Virgil may be familiar to -Mr Arnold), but was strange, unknown even -to their poets; hence his demand that I -shall use a word already familiar in English -poetry is doubly baseless. The later poets -of Greece have plenty of words beginning -with <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">χαλκο-</span>; but this one word is exclusively -Homer’s.—Everything that I have -now said, may be repeated still more pointedly -concerning <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐϋκνημῖδες</span>, inasmuch as directing -attention to leg-armour is peculiarly -quaint. No one in all Greek literature (as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>far as I know) names the word but Homer; -and yet Mr Arnold turns on me with his ever -reiterated, ever unsupported, assertions and -censures, of course assuming that ‘the -scholar’ is with him. (I have no theory -at hand, to explain why he regards his own -word to suffice without attempt at proof.) -The epithet is intensely peculiar; and I -observe that Mr Arnold has not dared to -suggest a translation. It is clear to me that -he is ashamed of my poet’s oddities; and -has no mode of escaping from them but by -bluntly denying facts. Equally peculiar to -Homer are the words <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κυδιάνειρα, τανύπεπλος</span> -and twenty others, equally unknown to Attic -the peculiar compound <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μελιήδης</span> (adopted -from Homer by Pindar), about all which -he carps at me on false grounds. But I -pass these, and speak a little more at length -about <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροπες</span>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Will the reader allow me to vary these -tedious details, by imagining a conversation -between the Aristophanic Socrates and his -clownish pupil Strepsiades. I suppose the -philosopher to be instructing him in the -higher Greek, Homer being the text.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> Now Streppy, tell me what <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροπες -ἄνθρωποι</span> means?</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> Let me see: <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροπες</span>? that must -mean ‘half-faced’.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> Nonsense, silly fellow: think again.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> Well then: <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροπες</span>, half-eyed, -squinting.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> No; you are playing the fool: it -is not our ὀπ in <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὄψις, ὄψομαι, κάτοπτρον</span>, -but another sort of ὀπ.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> Why, you yesterday told me that -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">οἴνοπα</span> was ‘wine-faced’, and <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">αἴθοπα</span> -‘blazing-faced’, something like our <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">αἰθίοψ</span>.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> Ah! well: it is not so wonderful -that you go wrong. It is true, there is -also <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">νῶροψ, στέροψ, ἦνοψ</span>. Those might -mislead you: <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροψ</span> is rather peculiar. Now -cannot you think of any characteristic of -mankind, which <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροπες</span> will express. How -do men differ from other animals?</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> I have it! I heard it from your -young friend Euclid. <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Μέροψ ἐστὶν ἄνθρωπος</span>, -‘man is a cooking animal’.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> You stupid lout! what are you at? -what do you mean?</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> Why, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροψ</span>, from <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μείρω</span>, I distribute, -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὄψον</span> sauce.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> No, no: <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὄψον</span> has the ὀψ, with -radical immovable ς in it; but here ὀπ is -the root, and ς is movable.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> Now I have got it; <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μείρω</span>, I distribute, -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὀπὸν</span>, juice, rennet.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> Wretched man! you must forget -your larder and your dairy, if ever you are -to learn grammar.—Come Streppy: leave -rustic words, and think of the language of -the gods. Did you ever hear of the brilliant -goddess Circe and of her <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὄπα καλὴν</span>?</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> Oh yes; Circe and her beautiful -face.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> I told you, <i>no</i>! you forgetful fellow. -It is <span class='fss'>ANOTHER</span> ὀπ. Now I will ask you in a -different way. Do you know why we call -fishes <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἔλλοπες</span>?</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> I suppose, because they are cased -in scales.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> That is not it. (And yet I am not -sure. Perhaps the fellow is right, after all.) -Well, we will not speak any more of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἔλλοπες</span>. -But did you never hear in Euripides, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">οὐκ -ἔχω γεγωνεῖν ὄπα</span>? What does that mean?</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> ‘I am not able to shout out, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὦ -πόποι’</span>.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> No, no, Streppy: but Euripides -often uses ὄπα. He takes it from Homer, -and it is akin to ἐπ, not to <i>our</i> ὀπ and much -less to πόποι. What does <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἔπη</span> mean?</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> It means such lines as the diviners -sing.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> So it does in Attic, but Homer uses -it for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ῥήματα</span>, words; indeed we also sometimes.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> Yes, yes, I do know it. All is -right.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> I think you do: well, and <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὂψ</span> means -a voice, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">φωνὴ</span>.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> How you learned men like to puzzle -us! I often have heard <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὀπι, ὄπα</span> in the -Tragedies, but never quite understood it. -What a pity they do not say <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">φωνὴ</span> when -they mean <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">φωνή</span>.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> We have at last made one step. -Now what is <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροψ? μέροπες ἄνθρωποι</span>.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Μείρω</span>, I divide, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὄπα, φωνὴν</span>, voice; -‘voice-dividing’: what <i>can</i> that mean?</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> You have heard a wild dog howl, -and a tame dog bark: tell me how they -differ.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> The wild dog gives a long long -<i>oo-oo</i>, which changes like a trumpet if you -push your hand up and down it; and the -tame dog says <i>bow, wow, wow</i>, like two or -three panpipes blown one after another.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> Exactly; you see the tame dog is -humanized: he <i>divides his voice</i> into syllables, -as men do. ‘Voice-dividing’ means -‘speaking in syllables’.</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='strepsiades'><i>Strep.</i></abbr> Oh, how clever you are!</p> - -<p class='c005'><abbr title='socrates'><i>Soc.</i></abbr> Well then, you understand; ‘Voice-dividing’ -means <i>articulating</i>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Arnold will see in the Scholiast on -Iliad 1, 250, precisely this order of analysis -for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροπες</span>. It seems to me to give not -a traditional but a grammatical explanation. -Be that as it may, it indicates that a Greek -had to pass through <i>exactly the same process</i> -in order to expound <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροπες</span>, as an -Englishman to get sense out of ‘voice-dividing’. -The word is twice used by -Æschylus, who affects Homeric words, and -once by Euripides (Iph. T.) in the connection -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">πολέσιν μερόπων</span>, where the very unusual -Ionism <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">πολέσιν</span> shows in how Homeric a -region is the poet’s fancy. No other word -ending in οψ except <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροψ</span> can be confidently -assigned to the root ὂψ, a voice. <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"> Ἦνοψ</span> in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>Homer (itself of most uncertain sense and -derivation) is generally referred to the other -ὄψ. The sense of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἔλλοψ</span> again<a id='r52' /><a href='#f52' class='c009'><sup>[52]</sup></a> is very -uncertain. Every way therefore <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροψ</span> is -‘odd’ and obscure. The phrase ‘articulating’ -is utterly prosaic and inadmissible. -<i>Vocal</i> is rather too Latinized for my style, -and besides, is apt to mean <i>melodious</i>. The -phrase ‘voice-dividing’ is indeed easier -to us than μέροπες can have been to the -Athenians, because we all know what <i>voice</i> -means, but they had to be taught scholastically -what <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὄπα</span> meant; nor would easily -guess that ὂψ in <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροψ</span> had a sense, differing -from ὂψ in <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">(ἀ)στέροψ οἶνοψ, αἶθοψ, αἶθίοψ, -νῶροψ (ἦνοψ), χάροψ</span>. Finally, since <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροπες</span> -is only found in the plural, it remains an -open question, whether it does not mean -‘speaking various languages’. Mr Arnold -will find that Stephanus and Scapula treat -it as doubtful, though Liddell and Scott do -not name the second interpretation. I -desired to leave in the English all the uncertainty -of the Greek: but my critic is -unencumbered with such cares.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Hitherto I have been unwillingly thrown -into nothing but antagonism to Mr Arnold, -who thereby at least adds tenfold value to -his praise, and makes me proud when he -<span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>declares that the <i>structure</i> of my sentences -is good and Homeric. For this I give the -credit to my metre, which alone confers -on me this cardinal advantage. But in -turn I will compliment Mr Arnold at the -expense of some other critics. He does -know, and they do not, the difference of -<i>flowing</i> and <i>smooth</i>. A mountain torrent -is flowing, but often very rough; such is -Homer. The ‘staircases of Neptune’ on -the canal of Languedoc are smooth, but do -not flow: you have to descend abruptly -from each level to the next. It would be -unjust to say absolutely, that such is Pope’s -smoothness; yet often, I feel, this censure -would not be too severe. The rhyme forces -him to so frequent a change of the nominative, -that he becomes painfully discontinuous, -where Homer is what Aristotle -calls ‘long-linked’. At the same time, in -our language, in order to impart a flowing -style, good structure does not suffice. A -principle is needed, unknown to the Greeks; -viz. the natural divisions of the sentence -oratorically, must coincide with the divisions -of the verse musically. To attain this -<i>always</i> in a long poem, is very difficult to -a translator who is scrupulous as to tampering -with the sense. I have not always been -successful in this. But before any critic -passes on me the general sentence that I -am ‘deficient in flow’, let him count up -the proportion of instances in which he -<span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>can justly make the complaint, and mark -whether they occur in elevated passages.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I shall now speak of the peculiarities of my -diction, under three heads: 1. old or antiquated -words; 2. coarse words expressive -of outward actions, but having no moral -colour; 3. words of which the sense has -degenerated in modern days.</p> - -<p class='c005'>1. Mr Arnold appears to regard what is -<i>antiquated</i> as <i>ignoble</i>. I think him, as usual, -in fundamental error. In general the nobler -words come from ancient style, and in no -case can it be said that old words (as such) -are ignoble. To introduce such terms as -<i>whereat</i>, <i>therefrom</i>, <i>quoth</i>, <i>beholden</i>, <i>steed</i>, <i>erst</i>, -<i>anon</i>, <i>anent</i>, into the midst of style which in -all other respects is modern and prosaic, would -be like to that which we often hear from -half-educated people. The want of harmony -makes us regard it as low-minded and uncouth. -From this cause (as I suspect) has -stolen into Mr Arnold’s mind the fallacy, -that the words themselves are uncouth<a id='r53' /><a href='#f53' class='c009'><sup>[53]</sup></a>. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>But the words are excellent, if only they are -in proper keeping with the general style.—Now -it is very possible, that in some passages, -few or many, I am open to the charge -of having mixed old and new style unskilfully; -but I cannot admit that the old -words (as such) are ignoble. No one speaks -of Spenser’s dialect, nay, nor of Thomson’s; -although with Thomson it was assumed, -exactly as by me, but to a far greater extent, -and without any such necessity as -urges me. As I have stated in my preface, -a broad tinge of antiquity in the style is -essential, to make Homer’s barbaric puerilities -and eccentricities less offensive. (Even -Mr Arnold would admit this, if he admitted -my <i>facts</i>: but he denies that there is anything -eccentric, antique, quaint, barbaric -in Homer: that is his <i>only</i> way of resisting -my conclusion.) If Mr Gladstone were able -to give his valuable time to work out an -entire Iliad in his refined modern style, I -feel confident that he would find it impossible -to deal faithfully with the eccentric phraseology -and with the negligent parts of the -poem. I have the testimony of an unfriendly -reviewer, that I am the first and -<i>only</i> translator that has dared to give -Homer’s constant epithets and not conceal -<span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>his forms of thought: of course I could not -have done this in modern style. The lisping -of a child is well enough from a child, but -is disgusting in a full-grown man. Cowper -and Pope systematically cut out from -Homer whatever they cannot make <i>stately</i>, -and harmonize with modern style: even -Mr Brandreth often shrinks, though he is -brave enough to say <i>ox-eyed Juno</i>. Who -then can doubt the extreme unfitness of -their metre and of their modern diction? -My opposers never fairly meet the argument. -Mr Arnold, when most gratuitously censuring -my mild rendering of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κυνὸς κακομηχάνου -ὀκρυοέσσης</span>, <i>does not dare to suggest any -English for it himself</i>. Even Mr Brandreth -skips it. It is not merely offensive words; -but the purest and simplest phrases, as a -man’s ‘dear life’, ‘dear knees’, or his -‘tightly-built house’, are a stumbling-block -to translators. No stronger proof is -necessary, or perhaps is possible, than these -phenomena give, that to shed an antique -hue over Homer is of first necessity to a -translator: without it, <i>injustice</i> is done both -to the reader and to the poet. Whether I -have managed the style well, is a separate -question, and is matter of detail. I may -have sometimes done well, sometimes ill; -but I claim that my critics shall judge me -from a broader ground, and shall not pertinaciously -go on comparing my version -with modern style, and condemning me as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>(what they are pleased to call) <i>inelegant</i> -because it is not like refined modern poetry, -when it specially avoids to be such. They -never deal thus with Thomson or Chatterton, -any more than with Shakspeare or Spenser.</p> - -<p class='c005'>There is no sharp distinction possible between -the foreign and the antiquated in -language. What is obsolete with us, may -still live somewhere: as, what in Greek is -called Poetic or Homeric, may at the same -time be living Æolic. So, whether I take -a word from Spenser or from Scotland, is -generally unimportant. I do not remember -more than four Scotch words, which I have -occasionally adopted for convenience; viz. -Callant, young man; Canny, right-minded; -Bonny, handsome; to Skirl, to cry shrilly. -A trochaic word, which I cannot get in -English, is sometimes urgently needed. It -is astonishing to me that those who ought -to know both what a large mass of antique -and foreign-sounding words an Athenian -found in Homer, and how many Doric or -Sicilian forms as well as Homeric words the -Greek tragedians <i>on principle</i> brought into -their songs, should make the outcry that -they do against my very limited use of that -which has an antique or Scotch sound. -Classical scholars ought to set their faces -against the double heresy, of trying to enforce, -that foreign poetry, however various, -shall be all rendered into one English dialect, -and that this shall, in order of words -<span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>and in diction, closely approximate to polished -prose. From an Oxford Professor I -should have expected the very opposite -spirit to that which Mr Arnold shows. He -ought to know and feel that one glory of -Greek poetry is its great internal variety. -He admits the principle that old words are -a source of ennoblement for diction, when -he extols the Bible as his standard: for -surely he claims no rhetorical inspiration -for the translators. Words which have -come to us in a sacred connection, no doubt, -gain a sacred hue, but they must not be -allowed to desecrate other old and excellent -words. Mr Arnold informs his Oxford -hearers that ‘his Bibliolatry is perhaps excessive’. -So the public will judge, if he -say that <i>wench</i>, <i>whore</i>, <i>pate</i>, <i>pot</i>, <i>gin</i>, <i>damn</i>, -<i>busybody</i>, <i>audience</i>, <i>principality</i>, <i>generation</i>, -are epical noble words because they are -in the Bible, and that <i>lief</i>, <i>ken</i>, <i>in sooth</i>, -<i>grim</i>, <i>stalwart</i>, <i>gait</i>, <i>guise</i>, <i>eld</i>, <i>hie</i>, <i>erst</i>, are -bad, because they are not there. Nine -times out of ten, what are called ‘poetical’ -words, are nothing but antique words, and -are made ignoble by Mr Arnold’s doctrine. -His very arbitrary condemnation of <i>eld</i>, -<i>lief</i>, <i>in sooth</i>, <i>gait</i>, <i>gentle friend</i> in one passage -of mine as ‘bad words’, is probably due to -his monomaniac fancy that there is nothing -quaint and nothing antique in Homer. -Excellent and noble as are these words -which he rebukes, excellent even for Æschylus, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>I should doubt the propriety of using -them in the dialogue of Euripides; on the -level of which he seems to think Homer -to be.</p> - -<p class='c005'>2. Our language, especially the Saxon -part of it, abounds with vigorous monosyllabic -verbs, and dissyllabic frequentatives -derived from them, indicative of strong -physical action. For these words (which, -I make no doubt, Mr Arnold regards as -ignoble plebeians), I claim Quiritarian rights: -but I do not wish them to displace patricians -from high service. Such verbs as <i>sweat</i>, -<i>haul</i>, <i>plump</i>, <i>maul</i>, <i>yell</i>, <i>bang</i>, <i>splash</i>, <i>smash</i>, -<i>thump</i>, <i>tug</i>, <i>scud</i>, <i>sprawl</i>, <i>spank</i>, etc., I hold -(in their purely physical sense) to be eminently -epical: for the epic revels in descriptions -of violent action to which they are -suited. Intense muscular exertion in every -form, intense physical action of the surrounding -elements, with intense ascription -or description of size or colour;—together -make up an immense fraction of the poem. -To cut out these words is to emasculate the -epic. Even Pope admits such words. My -eye in turning his pages was just now -caught by: ‘They tug, they sweat’. Who -will say that ‘tug’, ‘sweat’ are admissible, -but ‘bang’, ‘smash’, ‘sputter’ are inadmissible? -Mr Arnold resents my saying -that Homer is often homely. He is homely -expressly because he is natural. The epical -diction admits both the gigantesque and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>the homely: it inexorably refuses the conventional, -under which is comprised a vast -mass of what some wrongly call elegant. -But while I justify the use of homely words -in a primary physical, I depreciate them in -a secondary moral sense. Mr Arnold clearly -is dull to this distinction, or he would not -utter against me the following taunt, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 91:</p> - -<p class='c005'>‘<i>To grunt and sweat under a weary load</i> -does perfectly well where it comes in Shakspeare: -but if the translator of Homer, -who will hardly have wound up our minds -to the pitch at which these words of Hamlet -find them, were to employ, when he has to -speak of Homer’s heroes under the load of -calamity, this figure of “grunting” and -“sweating”, we should say, <i>He Newmanizes</i>’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Arnold here not only makes a mistake, -he propagates a slander; as if I had ever -used such words as <i>grunt</i> and <i>sweat</i> morally. -If Homer in the Iliad spoke of grunting -swine, as he does of sweating steeds, so -should I. As the coarse metaphors here -quoted from Shakspeare are utterly opposed -to Homer’s style, to obtrude them on him -would be a gross offence. Mr Arnold sends -his readers away with the belief that this -is my practice, though he has not dared to -assert it. I <i>bear</i> such coarseness in Shakspeare, -not because I am ‘wound up to a -high pitch’ by him, ‘borne away by a -mighty current’ (which Mr Arnold, with -ingenious unfairness to me, assumes to be -<span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>certain in a reader of Shakspeare and all -but impossible in a reader of Homer), but -because I know, that in Shakspeare’s time -all literature was coarse, as was the speech -of courtiers and of the queen herself. Mr -Arnold imputes to me Shakspeare’s coarseness, -from which I instinctively shrink; -and when his logic leads to the conclusion, -‘he Shakspearizes’, he with gratuitous -rancour turns it into ‘he Newmanizes’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Some words which with the Biblical translators -seem to have been noble, I should not -now dare to use in the primitive sense. For -instance, ‘His iniquity shall fall upon his -own <i>pate</i>’. Yet I think <i>pate</i> a good metaphorical -word and have used it of the sea-waves, -in a bold passage, <abbr title='iliad'>Il.</abbr> 13, 795:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Then ón rush’d théy, with weight and mass     like to a troublous whirlwind,</div> - <div class='line'>Which from the thundercloud of Jove     down on the campaign plumpeth,</div> - <div class='line'>And doth the briny flood bestir     with an unearthly uproar:</div> - <div class='line'>Then in the everbrawling sea     full many a billow splasheth,</div> - <div class='line'>Hollow, and bald with hoary <i>pate</i>,     one racing after other.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Is there really no ‘mighty current’ here, -to sweep off petty criticism?</p> - -<p class='c005'>I have a remark on the strong physical -word ‘plumpeth’ here used. It is fundamentally -Milton’s, ‘plump down he drops -ten thousand fathom deep’; <i>plumb</i> and -<i>plump</i> in this sense are clearly the same -<span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>root. I confess I have not been able to -find the <i>verb</i> in an old writer, though it is -so common now. Old writers do not say -‘to plumb down’, but ‘to <i>drop</i> plumb down’. -Perhaps in a second edition (if I reach to it), -I may alter the words to ‘plumb ... droppeth’, -on this ground; but I do turn sick -at the mawkishness of critics, one of whom, -who ought to know better, tells me that the -word <i>plump</i> reminds him ‘of the crinolined -hoyden of a boarding-school’!! If he had -said, ‘It is too like the phrase of a sailor, -of a peasant, of a schoolboy’, this objection -would be at least intelligible. However: -the word is intended to express the <i>violent -impact of a body descending from aloft</i>, and -it <i>does</i> express it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Arnold censures me for representing -Achilles as <i>yelling</i>. He is depicted by the -poet as in the most violent physical rage, -boiling over with passion and wholly uncontrouled. -He smacks his two thighs at once; -he rolls on the ground, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέγας μεγαλωστὶ</span>; -he defiles his hair with dust; he rends it; -he grinds his teeth; fire flashes from his -eyes; but—he may not ‘yell’, that would -not be <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>comme il faut</i></span>! We shall agree, -that in peace nothing so becomes a hero as -modest stillness; but that ‘Peleus’ son, -insatiate of combat’, full of the fiercest -pent-up passion, should vent a little of it in -a <i>yell</i>, seems to me quite in place. That -the Greek <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἰάχων</span> is not necessarily to be so -<span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>rendered, I am aware; but it is a very -vigorous word, like <i>peal</i> and <i>shriek</i>; neither -of which would here suit. I sometimes -render it <i>skirl</i>: but ‘battle-yell’ is a received -rightful phrase. Achilles is not a -stately Virgilian <i>pius Æneas</i>, but is a far -wilder barbarian.</p> - -<p class='c005'>After Mr Arnold has laid upon me the -sins of Shakspeare, he amazes me by adding, -<abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 92: ‘The idiomatic language of Shakspeare, -such language as “prate of his <i>whereabout</i>”, -“<i>jump</i> the life to come”, “the -damnation of his <i>taking-off</i>”, “<i>quietus make</i> -with a bare bodkin”, should be carefully -observed by the translator of Homer; although -in every case he will have to decide -for himself, whether the use, by him, of -Shakspeare’s liberty, will or will not clash -with his indispensable duty of nobleness’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Of the Shakspearianisms here italicized by -Mr Arnold, there is not one which I could -endure to adopt. ‘His whereabout’, I -regard as the flattest prose. (The word -<i>prate</i> is a plebeian which I admit in its own -low places; but how Mr Arnold can approve -of it, consistently with his attacks on me, -I do not understand.) Damnation and -Taking-off (for Guilt and Murder), and Jump, -I absolutely reject; and ‘quietus make’ -would be nothing but an utterly inadmissible -<i>quotation</i> from Shakspeare. <i>Jump</i> as an -active verb is to me monstrous, but <i>Jump</i> -is just the sort of modern prose word which -<span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>is not noble. <i>Leap</i>, <i>Bound</i>, for great action, -<i>Skip</i>, <i>Frisk</i>, <i>Gambol</i> for smaller, are all -good.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I have shown against Mr Arnold—(1) that -Homer was out-and-out antiquated to the -Athenians, even when perfectly understood -by them; (2) that his conceptions, similes, -phraseology and epithets are habitually -quaint, strange, unparalleled in Greek literature; -and pardonable only to semibarbarism; -(3) that they are intimately related -to his noblest excellences; (4) that many -words are so peculiar as to be still doubtful -to us; (5) I have indicated that some of his -descriptions and conceptions are horrible to -us, though they are not so to his barbaric -auditors; (6) that considerable portions of -the poem are not poetry, but rhythmical -prose like Horace’s Satires, and are interesting -to us not as poetry but as portraying -the manners or sentiments of the day. I -now add (7) what is inevitable in all high -and barbaric poetry, perhaps in all high -poetry, many of his energetic descriptions -are expressed in <i>coarse physical words</i>. I -do not here attempt proof, for it might need -a treatise: but I give one illustration; <abbr title='iliad'>Il.</abbr> -13, 136, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Τρῶες προὒτυψαν ἀολλέες</span>. Cowper, -misled by the <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>ignis fatuus</i></span> of ‘stateliness’, -renders it absurdly</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><i>The pow’rs of Ilium</i> gave the first assault,</div> - <div class='line'><i>Embattled</i> close;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>but it is strictly, ‘The Trojans <i>knocked-forward</i> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>(or, thumped, <i>butted</i>, forward) in -close pack’. The verb is too coarse for -later polished prose, and even the adjective -is very strong (<i>packed together</i>). I believe, -that ‘Forward in <i>pack</i> the Troians <i>pitch’d</i>’, -would not be really unfaithful to the Homeric -colour; and I maintain that ‘Forward in -mass the Troians pitch’d’, would be an irreprovable -rendering.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Dryden in this respect is in entire harmony -with Homeric style. No critic deals -fairly with me in isolating any of these -strong words, and then appealing to his -readers whether I am not ignoble. Hereby -he deprives me of the <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀγὼν</span>, the ‘mighty -current’ of Mr Arnold, and he misstates -the problem; which is, whether the word -is suitable, <i>then</i> and <i>there</i>, for the work required -of it, as the coalman at the pit, the -clown in the furrow, the huntsman in the -open field.</p> - -<p class='c005'>3. There is a small number of words not -natural plebeians, but patricians on which -a most unjust bill of attainder has been -passed, which I seek to reverse. On the -first which I name, Mr Arnold will side with -me, because it is a Biblical word, <i>wench</i>. -In Lancashire I believe that at the age -of about sixteen a ‘girl’ turns into ‘a -wench’, or as we say ‘a young woman’. -In Homer, ‘girl’ and ‘young woman’ are -alike inadmissible; ‘maid’ or ‘maiden’ -will not always suit, and ‘wench’ is the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>natural word. I do not know that I have -used it three times, but I claim a right of -using it, and protest against allowing the -heroes of slang to deprive us of excellent -words by their perverse misuse. If the -imaginations of some men are always in -satire and in low slang, so much the worse -for them: but the more we yield to such -demands, the more will be exacted. I expect, -before long, to be told that <i>brick</i> is an -ignoble word, meaning a jolly fellow, and -that <i>sell</i>, <i>cut</i> are out of place in Homer. -My metre, it seems, is inadmissible with -some, because it is the metre of Yankee -Doodle! as if Homer’s metre were not that -of the Margites. Every noble poem is liable -to be travestied, as the Iliad and Æschylus -and Shakspeare have been. Every burlesque -writer uses the noble metre, and caricatures -the noble style. Mr Arnold says, -I must not render τανύπεπλος ‘trailing-rob’d’, -because it reminds him of ‘long -petticoats sweeping a dirty pavement’. -What a confession as to the state of his -imagination! Why not, of ‘a queen’s robe -trailing on a marble pavement’? Did he -never read</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">πέπλον μὲν κατέχευεν ἑανὸν πατρὸς ἐτ’ οὔδει?</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>I have digressed: I return to words -which have been misunderstood. A second -word is of more importance, <i>Imp</i>; which -properly means a Graft. The best translation -<span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὦ Λήδας ἔρνος</span> to my mind, is, -‘O Imp of Leda’! for neither ‘bud of -Leda’, nor ‘scion of Leda’ satisfy me: -much less ‘sprig’ or ‘shoot of Leda’. The -theological writers so often used the phrase -‘imp of Satan’ for ‘child of the devil’, -that (since Bunyan?) the vulgar no longer -understand that <i>imp</i> means <i>scion</i>, <i>child</i>, -and suppose it to mean ‘little devil’. A -Reviewer has omitted to give his unlearned -readers any explanation of the word (though -I carefully explained it) and calls down their -indignation upon me by his censures, which -I hope proceeded from carelessness and -ignorance.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Even in Spenser’s Fairy Queen the word -retains its rightful and noble sense:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Well worthy <i>imp</i>! then said the lady, etc.,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>and in North’s Plutarch,</p> - -<p class='c005'>‘He took upon him to protect him from -them all, and not to suffer so goodly an <i>imp</i> -[Alcibiades] to lose the good fruit of his -youth’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Dryden uses the verb, To imp; to graft, -insert.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I was quite aware that I claimed of my -readers a certain strength of mind, when -I bid them to forget the defilements which -vulgarity has shed over the noble word Imp, -and carry their imaginations back two or -three centuries: but I did not calculate -that any critic would call Dainty grotesque. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>This word is equivalent in meaning to Delicate -and Nice, but has precisely the epical -character in which both those words are -deficient. For instance, I say, that after -the death of Patroclus, the coursers ‘stood -motionless’,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Drooping tōwārd the ground their heads,     and down their plaintive eyelids</div> - <div class='line'>Did warm tears trickle to the ground,     their charioteer bewailing.</div> - <div class='line'>Defilèd were their <i>dainty</i> manes,     over the yoke-strap dropping.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>A critic who objects to this, has to learn -English from my translation. Does he -imagine that Dainty can mean nothing but -‘over-particular as to food’?</p> - -<p class='c005'>In the compound Dainty-cheek’d, Homer -shows his own epic peculiarity. It is imitated -in the similar word <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εὐπάρᾳος</span> applied -to the Gorgon Medusa by Pindar: but not -in the Attics. I have somewhere read, that -the rudest conception of female beauty is -that of a brilliant red <i>plump</i> cheek; such -as an English clown admires (was this what -Pindar meant?); the second stage looks -to the delicacy of tint in the cheek (this -is Homer’s <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">καλλιπάρῃος</span>:) the third looks -to shape (this is the <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εὒμορφος</span> of the Attics, -the <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>formosus</i></span> of the Latins, and is seen in the -Greek sculpture); the fourth and highest -looks to moral expression: this is the idea -of Christian Europe. That Homer rests exclusively -in the second or semibarbaric -<span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>stage, it is not for me to say, but, as far -as I am able, to give to the readers of my -translation materials for their own judgment. -From the vague word <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εἶδος</span>, <i>species</i>, <i>appearance</i>, -it cannot be positively inferred whether -the poet had an eye for Shape. The epithets -curl-eyed and fine-ankled decidedly suggest -that he had; except that his application of -the former to the entire nation of the Greeks -makes it seem to be of foreign tradition, -and as unreal as brazen-<i>mailed</i>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Another word which has been ill-understood -and ill-used, is <i>dapper</i>. Of the epithet -dappergreav’d for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐϋκνημὶς</span> I certainly am -not enamoured, but I have not yet found a -better rendering. It is easier to carp at my -phrase, than to suggest a better. The word -<i>dapper</i> in Dutch = German <span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>tapfer</i></span>; and like -the Scotch <i>braw</i> or <i>brave</i> means with us <i>fine</i>, -<i>gallant</i>, <i>elegant</i>. I have read the line of an -old poet,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The dapper words which lovers use,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>for <i>elegant</i>, I suppose; and so ‘the dapper -does’ and ‘dapper elves’ of Milton must -refer to elegance or refined beauty. What -is there<a id='r54' /><a href='#f54' class='c009'><sup>[54]</sup></a> ignoble in such a word? ‘Elegant’ -and ‘pretty’ are inadmissible in epic -poetry: ‘dapper’ is logically equivalent, -and <i>has the epic colour</i>. Neither ‘fair’ nor -‘comely’ here suit. As to the school translation -<span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>of ‘wellgreav’d’, every common -Englishman on hearing the sound receives -it as ‘wellgrieved’, and to me it is very -unpleasing. A part of the mischief, a large -part of it, is in the word <i>greave</i>; for <i>dapper-girdled</i> -is on the whole well-received. But -what else can we say for <i>greave</i>? leggings? -gambados?</p> - -<p class='c005'>Much perhaps remains to be learnt concerning -Homer’s perpetual epithets. My -very learned colleague Goldstücke, Professor -of Sanscrit, is convinced that the -epithet <i>cow-eyed</i> of the Homeric Juno is an -echo of the notion of Hindoo poets, that -(if I remember his statement) ‘the sun-beams -are the <i>cows</i> of heaven’. The sacred -qualities of the Hindoo cow are perhaps not -to be forgotten. I have myself been struck -by the phrase <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">διϊπετέος ποτάμοιο</span> as akin -to the idea that the Ganges falls from -Mount Meru, the Hindoo Olympus. Also -the meaning of two other epithets has been -revealed to me from the pictures of Hindoo -ladies. First, <i>curl-eyed</i>, to which I have -referred above; secondly, <i>rosy-fingered -Aurora</i>. For Aurora is an ‘Eastern lady’; -and, as such, has the tips of her fingers dyed -rosy-red, whether by henna or by some -more brilliant drug. Who shall say that -the kings and warriors of Homer do not derive -from the East their epithet ‘Jove-nurtured’? -or that this or that goddess -is not called ‘golden-throned’ or ‘fair-throned’ -<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>in allusion to Assyrian sculptures -or painting, as Rivers probably drew their -later poetical attribute ‘bull-headed’ from -the sculpture of fountains? It is a familiar -remark, that Homer’s poetry presupposes -a vast pre-existing art and material. Much -in him was traditional. Many of his wild -legends came from Asia. He is to us much -beside a poet; and that a translator -should assume to cut him down to the -standard of modern taste, is a thought -which all the higher minds of this age have -outgrown. How much better is that reverential -Docility, which with simple and -innocent wonder, receives the oddest notions -of antiquity as material of instruction yet -to be revealed, than the self-complacent -Criticism, which pronouncing everything -against modern taste to be grotesque<a id='r55' /><a href='#f55' class='c009'><sup>[55]</sup></a> and -contemptible, squares the facts to its own -‘Axioms’! <i>Homer is noble: but this or -that epithet is not noble: therefore we must -explode it from Homer!</i> I value, I maintain, -I struggle for the ‘high a priori road’ in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>its own place; but certainly not in historical -literature. To read Homer’s own thoughts -is to wander in a world abounding with freshness: -but if we insist on treading round and -round in our own footsteps, we shall never -ascend those heights whence the strange -region is to be seen. Surely an intelligent -learned critic ought to inculcate on the unlearned, -that if they would get instruction -from Homer, they must not expect to have -their ears tickled by a musical sound as of a -namby-pamby poetaster; but must look on -a metre as doing its duty, when it ‘strings -the mind up to the necessary pitch’ in -elevated passages; and that instead of demanding -of a translator everywhere a rhythmical -perfection which perhaps can only be -attained by a great sacrifice of higher qualities, -they should be willing to submit to -a small part of that ruggedness, which Mr -Arnold cheerfully bears in Homer himself -through the loss of the Digamma. And -now, for a final protest. To be <i>stately</i> is -not to be <i>grand</i>. Nicolas of Russia may -have been stately like Cowper, Garibaldi is -grand like the true Homer. A diplomatic -address is stately; it is not grand, nor often -noble. To expect a translation of Homer -to be <i>pervadingly elegant</i>, is absurd; Homer -is not such, any more than is the side of an -Alpine mountain. The elegant and the -picturesque are seldom identical, however -much of delicate beauty may be interstudded -<span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>in the picturesque; but this has always got -plenty of what is shaggy and uncouth, without -which contrast the full delight of beauty -would not be attained. I think Moore in -his characteristic way tells of a beauty</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Shining on, shining on, by no shadow made tender,</div> - <div class='line'>Till love falls asleep in the sameness of splendour.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Such certainly is not Homer’s. His beauty, -when at its height, is <i>wild</i> beauty: it smells -of the mountain and of the sea. If he be -compared to a noble animal, it is not to such -a spruce rubbed-down Newmarket racer as -our smooth translators would pretend, but -to a wild horse of the Don Cossacks: and -if I, instead of this, present to the reader -nothing but a Dandie Dinmont’s pony, this, -as a first approximation, is a valuable step -towards the true solution.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Before the best translation of the Iliad -of which our language is capable can be -produced, the English public has to unlearn -the false notion of Homer which his <i>deliberately -faithless</i> versifiers have infused. Chapman’s -conceits unfit his translation for -instructing the public, even if his rhythm -‘jolted’ less, if his structure were simpler, -and his dialect more intelligible. My version, -if allowed to be read, will prepare the -public to receive a version better than -mine. I regard it as a question about to -open hereafter, whether a translator of -Homer ought not to adopt the old dissyllabic -<span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span><i>landis</i>, <i>houndis</i>, <i>hartis</i>, etc., instead -of our modern unmelodious <i>lands</i>, <i>hounds</i>, -<i>harts</i>; whether the <i>ye</i> or <i>y</i> before the past -participle may not be restored; the want -of which confounds that participle with the -past tense. Even the final -en of the plural -of verbs (we dancen, they singen, etc.) still -subsists in Lancashire. It deserves consideration -whether by a <i>few</i> such slight -grammatical retrogressions into antiquity -a translator of Homer might not add much -melody to his poem and do good service -to the language.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span> - <h2 id='reply2' class='c003'>Last Words on Translating Homer <br /> A Reply to Francis W. Newman <br /> By Matthew Arnold</h2> -</div> -<p class='c012'>‘Multi, qui persequuntur me, et tribulant me: a -testimoniis non declinavi.’</p> -<p class='c004'>Buffon, the great French naturalist, imposed -on himself the rule of steadily abstaining -from all answer to attacks made -upon him. <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">‘Je n’ai jamais répondu à -aucune critique’</span>, he said to one of his -friends who, on the occasion of a certain -criticism, was eager to take up arms in his -behalf; <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">‘je n’ai jamais répondu à aucune -critique, et je garderai le même silence sur -celle-ci’</span>. On another occasion, when accused -of plagiarism, and pressed by his -friends to answer, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">‘Il vaut mieux’</span>, he said, -<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">‘laisser ces mauvaises gens dans l’incertitude’</span>. -Even when reply to an attack -was made successfully, he disapproved of -it, he regretted that those he esteemed -should make it. Montesquieu, more sensitive -<span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>to criticism than Buffon, had answered, -and successfully answered, an attack made -upon his great work, the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Esprit des Lois</i></span>, -by the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Gazetier Janséniste</i></span>. This Jansenist -Gazetteer was a periodical of those times, -a periodical such as other times, also, have -occasionally seen, very pretentious, very -aggressive, and, when the point to be seized -was at all a delicate one, very apt to miss -it. ‘Notwithstanding this example’, said -Buffon, who, as well as Montesquieu, had -been attacked by the Jansenist Gazetteer, -‘notwithstanding this example, I think I -may promise my course will be different. -I shall not answer a single word’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And to anyone who has noticed the baneful -effects of the controversy, with all its -train of personal rivalries and hatreds, on -men of letters or men of science; to anyone -who has observed how it tends to impair, -not only their dignity and repose, but -their productive force, their genuine activity; -how it always checks the free play -of the spirit, and often ends by stopping -it altogether; it can hardly seem doubtful -that the rule thus imposed on himself by -Buffon was a wise one. His own career, -indeed, admirably shows the wisdom of it. -That career was as glorious as it was serene; -but it owed to its serenity no small part of -its glory. The regularity and completeness -with which he gradually built up the great -work which he had designed, the air of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span>equable majesty which he shed over it, -struck powerfully the imagination of his -contemporaries, and surrounded Buffon’s -fame with a peculiar respect and dignity. -‘He is’, said Frederick the Great of him, -‘the man who has best deserved the great -celebrity which he has acquired’. And this -regularity of production, this equableness -of temper, he maintained by his resolute -disdain of personal controversy.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Buffon’s example seems to me worthy of -all imitation, and in my humble way I mean -always to follow it. I never have replied, -I never will reply, to any literary assailant; -in such encounters tempers are lost, the -world laughs, and truth is not served. -Least of all should I think of using this -Chair as a place from which to carry on -such a conflict. But when a learned and -estimable man thinks he has reason to complain -of language used by me in this Chair, -when he attributes to me intentions and -feelings towards him which are far from -my heart, I owe him some explanation, -and I am bound, too, to make the explanation -as public as the words which gave -offence. This is the reason why I revert -once more to the subject of translating -Homer. But being thus brought back to -that subject, and not wishing to occupy -you solely with an explanation which, after -all, is Mr Newman’s affair and mine, not -the public’s, I shall take the opportunity, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>not certainly to enter into any conflict with -anyone, but to try to establish our old friend, -the coming translator of Homer, yet a little -firmer in the positions which I hope we have -now secured for him; to protect him against -the danger of relaxing, in the confusion of -dispute, his attention to those matters which -alone I consider important for him; to save -him from losing sight, in the dust of the -attacks delivered over it, of the real body -of Patroclus. He will, probably, when he -arrives, requite my solicitude very ill, and -be in haste to disown his benefactor: but -my interest in him is so sincere that I can -disregard his probable ingratitude.</p> - -<p class='c005'>First, however, for the explanation. Mr -Newman has published a reply to the remarks -which I made on his translation of the <i>Iliad</i>. -He seems to think that the respect which at -the outset of those remarks I professed for -him must have been professed ironically; -he says that I use ‘forms of attack against -him which he does not know how to characterize’; -that I ‘speak scornfully’ of him, -treat him with ‘gratuitous insult, gratuitous -rancour’; that I ‘propagate slanders’ -against him, that I wish to ‘damage him -with my readers’, to ‘stimulate my readers -to despise’ him. He is entirely mistaken. -I respect Mr Newman sincerely; I respect -him as one of the few learned men we have, -one of the few who love learning for its own -sake; this respect for him I had before I -<span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>read his translation of the <i>Iliad</i>, I retained -it while I was commenting on that translation, -I have not lost it after reading his -reply. Any vivacities of expression which -may have given him pain I sincerely regret, -and can only assure him that I used them -without a thought of insult or rancour. -When I took the liberty of creating the -verb <i>to Newmanize</i>, my intentions were no -more rancorous than if I had said to <i>Miltonize</i>; -when I exclaimed, in my astonishment -at his vocabulary, ‘With whom can Mr -Newman have lived’? I meant merely to -convey, in a familiar form of speech, the -sense of bewilderment one has at finding a -person to whom words one thought all the -world knew seem strange, and words one -thought entirely strange, intelligible. Yet -this simple expression of my bewilderment -Mr Newman construes into an accusation -that he is ‘often guilty of keeping low company’, -and says that I shall ‘never want a -stone to throw at him’. And what is -stranger still, one of his friends gravely -tells me that Mr Newman ‘lived with the -fellows of Balliol’. As if that made Mr -Newman’s glossary less inexplicable to me! -As if he could have got his glossary from -the fellows of Balliol! As if I could believe -that the members of that distinguished -society, of whose discourse, not so many -years afterwards, I myself was an unworthy -hearer, were in Mr Newman’s time so far -<span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span>removed from the Attic purity of speech -which we all of us admired, that when one -of them called a calf a <i>bulkin</i>, the rest ‘easily -understood’ him; or, when he wanted to -say that a newspaper-article was ‘proudly -fine’, it mattered little whether he said it -was that or <i>bragly</i>! No; his having lived -with the fellows of Balliol does not explain -Mr Newman’s glossary to me. I will no -longer ask ‘with whom he can have lived’, -since that gives him offence; but I must -still declare that where he got his test of -rarity or intelligibility for words is a mystery -to me.</p> - -<p class='c005'>That, however, does not prevent me from -entertaining a very sincere respect for Mr -Newman, and since he doubts it, I am glad -to reiterate my expression of it. But the -truth of the matter is this: I unfeignedly -admire Mr Newman’s ability and learning; -but I think in his translation of Homer he -has employed that ability and learning quite -amiss. I think he has chosen quite the -wrong field for turning his ability and learning -to account. I think that in England, partly -from the want of an Academy, partly from -a national habit of intellect to which that -want of an Academy is itself due, there -exists too little of what I may call a public -force of correct literary opinion, possessing -within certain limits a clear sense of what -is right and wrong, sound and unsound, -and sharply recalling men of ability and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>learning from any flagrant misdirection of -these their advantages. I think, even, that -in our country a powerful misdirection of -this kind is often more likely to subjugate -and pervert opinion than to be checked -and corrected by it<a id='r56' /><a href='#f56' class='c009'><sup>[56]</sup></a>. Hence a chaos of -false tendencies, wasted efforts, impotent -conclusions, works which ought never to -have been undertaken. Anyone who can -introduce a little order into this chaos by -establishing in any quarter a single sound -rule of criticism, a single rule which clearly -marks what is right as right, and what is -wrong as wrong, does a good deed; and his -deed is so much the better the greater force -he counteracts of learning and ability applied -to thicken the chaos. Of course no -one can be sure that he has fixed any such -rules; he can only do his best to fix them; -but somewhere or other, in the literary -opinion of Europe, if not in the literary -opinion of one nation, in fifty years, if not -in five, there is a final judgment on these -<span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>matters, and the critic’s work will at last -stand or fall by its true merits.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Meanwhile, the charge of having in one -instance misapplied his powers, of having -once followed a false tendency, is no such -grievous charge to bring against a man; -it does not exclude a great respect for himself -personally, or for his powers in the -happiest manifestations of them. False -tendency is, I have said, an evil to which -the artist or the man of letters in England -is peculiarly prone; but everywhere in our -time he is liable to it,—the greatest as well -as the humblest. ‘The first beginnings of -my <i>Wilhelm Meister</i>’, says Goethe, ‘arose -out of an obscure sense of the great truth -that man will often attempt something of -which nature has denied him the proper -powers, will undertake and practise something -in which he cannot become skilled. -An inward feeling warns him to desist’ -(yes, but there are, unhappily, cases of absolute -judicial blindness!), ‘nevertheless he -cannot get clear in himself about it, and is -driven along a false road to a false goal, -without knowing how it is with him. To -this we may refer everything which goes by -the name of false tendency, dilettanteism, -and so on. A great many men waste in -this way the fairest portion of their lives, -and fall at last into wonderful delusion’. -Yet after all, Goethe adds, it sometimes -happens that even on this false road a man -<span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>finds, not indeed that which he sought, -but something which is good and useful for -him; ‘like Saul, the son of Kish, who went -forth to look for his father’s asses, and found -a kingdom’. And thus false tendency as -well as true, vain effort as well as fruitful, -go together to produce that great movement -of life, to present that immense and -magic spectacle of human affairs, which -from boyhood to old age fascinates the gaze -of every man of imagination, and which -would be his terror, if it were not at the -same time his delight.</p> - -<p class='c005'>So Mr Newman may see how wide-spread -a danger it is, to which he has, as I think, -in setting himself to translate Homer, fallen -a prey. He may be well satisfied if he can -escape from it by paying it the tribute of -a single work only. He may judge how -unlikely it is that I should ‘despise’ him -for once falling a prey to it. I know far -too well how exposed to it we all are; how -exposed to it I myself am. At this very -moment, for example, I am fresh from -reading Mr Newman’s Reply to my Lectures, -a reply full of that erudition in which (as -I am so often and so good-naturedly reminded, -but indeed I know it without being -reminded) Mr Newman is immeasurably my -superior. Well, the demon that pushes us -all to our ruin is even now prompting me -to follow Mr Newman into a discussion -about the digamma, and I know not what -<span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span>providence holds me back. And some day, -I have no doubt, I shall lecture on the -language of the Berbers, and give him his -entire revenge.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But Mr Newman does not confine himself -to complaints on his own behalf, he complains -on Homer’s behalf too. He says -that my ‘statements about Greek literature -are against the most notorious and elementary -fact’; that I ‘do a public wrong -to literature by publishing them’; and -that the Professors to whom I appealed in -my three Lectures, ‘would only lose credit -if they sanctioned the use I make of their -names’. He does these eminent men the -kindness of adding, however, that ‘whether -they are pleased with this parading of their -names in behalf of paradoxical error, he -may well doubt’, and that ‘until they endorse -it themselves, he shall treat my process -as a piece of forgery’. He proceeds -to discuss my statements at great length, -and with an erudition and ingenuity which -nobody can admire more than I do. And -he ends by saying that my ignorance is great.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Alas! that is very true. Much as Mr -Newman was mistaken when he talked of -my rancour, he is entirely right when he -talks of my ignorance. And yet, perverse -as it seems to say so, I sometimes find myself -wishing, when dealing with these matters -of poetical criticism, that my ignorance -were even greater than it is. To handle -<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>these matters properly there is needed a -poise so perfect that the least overweight -in any direction tends to destroy the balance. -Temper destroys it, a crotchet destroys -it, even erudition may destroy it. -To press to the sense of the thing itself with -which one is dealing, not to go off on some -collateral issue about the thing, is the hardest -matter in the world. The ‘thing itself’ -with which one is here dealing, the critical -perception of poetic truth, is of all things -the most volatile, elusive, and evanescent; -by even pressing too impetuously after it, -one runs the risk of losing it. The critic -of poetry should have the finest tact, the -nicest moderation, the most free, flexible, -and elastic spirit imaginable; he should be -indeed the ‘ondoyant et divers’, the <i>undulating -and diverse</i> being of Montaigne. -The less he can deal with his object simply -and freely, the more things he has to take -into account in dealing with it, the more, -in short, he has to encumber himself, so -much the greater force of spirit he needs -to retain his elasticity. But one cannot -exactly have this greater force by wishing -for it; so, for the force of spirit one has, -the load put upon it is often heavier than it -will well bear. The late Duke of Wellington -said of a certain peer that ‘it was a great -pity his education had been so far too much -for his abilities’. In like manner, one often -sees erudition out of all proportion to its -<span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>owner’s critical faculty. Little as I know, -therefore, I am always apprehensive, in -dealing with poetry, lest even that little -should prove ‘too much for my abilities’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>With this consciousness of my own lack -of learning, nay, with this sort of acquiescence -in it, with this belief that for the -labourer in the field of poetical criticism -learning has its disadvantages, I am not -likely to dispute with Mr Newman about -matters of erudition. All that he says on -these matters in his Reply I read with great -interest; in general I agree with him; but -only, I am sorry to say, up to a certain -point. Like all learned men, accustomed -to desire definite rules, he draws his conclusions -too absolutely; he wants to include -too much under his rules; he does not quite -perceive that in poetical criticism the shade, -the fine distinction, is everything; and that, -when he has once missed this, in all he says -he is in truth but beating the air. For instance: -because I think Homer noble, he -imagines I must think him elegant; and -in fact he says in plain words that I do -think him so, that to me Homer seems -‘pervadingly elegant’. But he does not. -Virgil is elegant, ‘pervadingly elegant’, -even in passages of the highest emotion:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in28'>O, ubi campi,</div> - <div class='line'>Spercheosque, et virginibus bacchata Lacænis</div> - <div class='line'>Taygeta<a id='r57' /><a href='#f57' class='c009'><sup>[57]</sup></a>!</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>Even there Virgil, though of a divine elegance, -is still elegant, but Homer is not -elegant; the word is quite a wrong one -to apply to him, and Mr Newman is quite -right in blaming anyone he finds so applying -it. Again; arguing against my assertion -that Homer is not quaint, he says: -‘It is quaint to call waves <i>wet</i>, milk <i>white</i>, -blood <i>dusky</i>, horses <i>single-hoofed</i>, words -winged, Vulcan <i>Lobfoot</i> (<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Κυλλοποδίων</span>), a -spear <i>longshadowy</i>‘, and so on. I find I -know not how many distinctions to draw -here. I do not think it quaint to call -waves <i>wet</i>, or milk <i>white</i>, or words <i>winged</i>; -but I do think it quaint to call horses <i>single-hoofed</i>, -or Vulcan <i>Lobfoot</i>, or a spear <i>longshadowy</i>. -As to calling blood <i>dusky</i>, I do -not feel quite sure; I will tell Mr Newman -my opinion when I see the passage in which -he calls it so. But then, again, because it -is quaint to call Vulcan <i>Lobfoot</i>, I cannot -admit that it was quaint to call him <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Κυλλοποδίων</span>; -nor that, because it is quaint to -call a spear <i>longshadowy</i>, it was quaint to -call it <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">δολιχόσκιον</span>. Here Mr Newman’s -erudition misleads him: he knows the -literal value of the Greek so well, that he -thinks his literal rendering identical with -the Greek, and that the Greek must stand -or fall along with his rendering. But the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>real question is, not whether he has given -us, so to speak, full change for the Greek, -but <i>how</i> he gives us our change: we want -it in gold, and he gives it us in copper. -Again: ‘It is quaint’, says Mr Newman, -‘to address a young friend as “O Pippin”! -it is quaint to compare Ajax to an ass whom -boys are belabouring’. Here, too, Mr Newman -goes much too fast, and his category of -quaintness is too comprehensive. To address -a young friend as ‘O Pippin’! is, I -cordially agree with him, very quaint; although -I do not think it was quaint in -Sarpedon to address Glaucus as ὦ πέπον: -but in comparing, whether in Greek or in -English, Ajax to an ass whom boys are -belabouring, I do not see that there is of -necessity anything quaint at all. Again; -because I said that <i>eld</i>, <i>lief</i>, <i>in sooth</i>, and -other words, are, as Mr Newman uses them -in certain places, bad words, he imagines -that I must mean to stamp these words -with an absolute reprobation; and because -I said that ‘my Bibliolatry is excessive’, -he imagines that I brand all words as ignoble -which are not in the Bible. Nothing of the -kind: there are no such absolute rules to -be laid down in these matters. The Bible -vocabulary is to be used as an assistance, -not as an authority. Of the words which, -placed where Mr Newman places them, I -have called bad words, everyone may be -excellent in some other place. Take <i>eld</i>, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>for instance: when Shakspeare, reproaching -man with the dependence in which his youth -is passed, says:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in12'>all thy blessed youth</div> - <div class='line'>Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms</div> - <div class='line'>Of palsied <i>eld</i>, ...</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>it seems to me that <i>eld</i> comes in excellently -there, in a passage of curious meditation; -but when Mr Newman renders <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀγήρω τ’ -ἀθανάτω τε</span> by ‘from <i>Eld</i> and Death exempted’, -it seems to me he infuses a tinge -of quaintness into the transparent simplicity -of Homer’s expression, and so I call <i>eld</i> a -bad word in that place.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Once more. Mr Newman lays it down -as a general rule that ‘many of Homer’s -energetic descriptions are expressed in coarse -physical words’. He goes on: ‘I give -one illustration,—<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Τρῶες προὔτυψαν ἀολλέες</span>. -Cowper, misled by the <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>ignis fatuus</i></span> of -“stateliness” renders it absurdly:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The powers of Ilium gave the first assault</div> - <div class='line'>Embattled close;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>but it is, strictly, “The Trojans <i>knocked -forward</i> (or, thumped, butted forward) <i>in -close pack</i>”. The verb is too coarse for -later polished prose, and even the adjective -is very strong (<i>packed together</i>). I believe -that “forward in pack the Trojans pitched”, -would not be really unfaithful to the Homeric -colour; and I maintain that “forward in -mass the Trojans pitched”, would be an -<span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span>irreprovable rendering’. He actually gives -us all that as if it were a piece of scientific -deduction; and as if, at the end, he had -arrived at an incontrovertible conclusion. -But, in truth, one cannot settle these matters -quite in this way. Mr Newman’s general -rule may be true or false (I dislike to meddle -with general rules), but every part in what -follows must stand or fall by itself, and its -soundness or unsoundness has nothing at -all to do with the truth or falsehood of Mr -Newman’s general rule. He first gives, as -a strict rendering of the Greek, ‘The Trojans -knocked forward (or, thumped, butted forward), -in close pack’. I need not say that, -as a ‘strict rendering of the Greek’, this is -good; all Mr Newman’s ‘strict renderings of -the Greek’ are sure to be, as such, good; -but ‘in close pack’, for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀολλέες</span>, seems to -me to be what Mr Newman’s renderings are -not always,—an excellent <i>poetical rendering</i> -of the Greek; a thousand times better, -certainly, than Cowper’s ‘embattled close’. -Well, but Mr Newman goes on: ‘I believe -that, “forward in pack the Trojans pitched”, -would not be really unfaithful to the -Homeric colour’. Here, I say, the Homeric -colour is half washed out of Mr Newman’s -happy rendering of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀολλέες</span>; while in -‘pitched’ for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">προὔτυψαν</span>, the literal fidelity -of the first rendering is gone, while certainly -no Homeric colour has come in its place. -Finally, Mr Newman concludes: ‘I maintain -<span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>that “forward in mass the Trojans pitched”, -would be an irreprovable rendering’. Here, -in what Mr Newman fancies his final moment -of triumph, Homeric colour and literal -fidelity have alike abandoned him altogether; -the last stage of his translation is -much worse than the second, and immeasurably -worse than the first.</p> - -<p class='c005'>All this to show that a looser, easier -method than Mr Newman’s must be taken, -if we are to arrive at any good result in -these questions. I now go on to follow Mr -Newman a little further, not at all as wishing -to dispute with him, but as seeking (and this -is the true fruit we may gather from criticisms -upon us) to gain hints from him for -the establishment of some useful truth -about our subject, even when I think him -wrong. I still retain, I confess, my conviction -that Homer’s characteristic qualities -are rapidity of movement, plainness of words -and style, simplicity and directness of ideas, -and, above all, nobleness, the grand manner. -Whenever Mr Newman drops a word, -awakens a train of thought, which leads me -to see any of these characteristics more -clearly, I am grateful to him; and one or -two suggestions of this kind which he -affords, are all that now, having expressed -my sorrow that he should have misconceived -my feelings towards him, and pointed -out what I think the vice of his method of -criticism, I have to notice in his Reply.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>Such a suggestion I find in Mr Newman’s -remarks on my assertion that the translator -of Homer must not adopt a quaint and -antiquated style in rendering him, because -the impression which Homer makes upon -the living scholar is not that of a poet -quaint and antiquated, but that of a poet -perfectly simple, perfectly intelligible. I -added that we cannot, I confess, really -know how Homer seemed to Sophocles, -but that it is impossible to me to believe -that he seemed to him quaint and antiquated. -Mr Newman asserts, on the other -hand, that I am absurdly wrong here; that -Homer seemed ‘out and out’ quaint and -antiquated to the Athenians; that ‘every -sentence of him was more or less antiquated -to Sophocles, who could no more help -feeling at every instant the foreign and -antiquated character of the poetry than an -Englishman can help feeling the same in -reading Burns’ poems’. And not only -does Mr Newman say this, but he has managed -thoroughly to convince some of his -readers of it. ‘Homer’s Greek’, says one -of them, ‘certainly seemed antiquated to -the historical times of Greece. Mr Newman, -taking a far broader historical and philological -view than Mr Arnold, stoutly maintains -that it did seem so.’ And another says: -‘Doubtless Homer’s dialect and diction were -as hard and obscure to a later Attic Greek -as Chaucer to an Englishman of our day.’</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span>Mr Newman goes on to say, that not only -was Homer antiquated relatively to Pericles, -but he is antiquated to the living scholar; -and, indeed, is in himself ‘absolutely antique, -being the poet of a barbarian age’. He -tells us of his ‘inexhaustible quaintnesses’, -of his ‘very eccentric diction’; and he -infers, of course, that he is perfectly right -in rendering him in a quaint and antiquated -style.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Now this question, whether or no Homer -seemed quaint and antiquated to Sophocles, -I call a delightful question to raise. It is -not a barren verbal dispute; it is a question -‘drenched in matter’, to use an expression -of Bacon; a question full of flesh and blood, -and of which the scrutiny, though I still -think we cannot settle absolutely, may yet -give us a directly useful result. To scrutinize -it may lead us to see more clearly -what sort of a style a modern translator -of Homer ought to adopt.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Homer’s verses were some of the first -words which a young Athenian heard. He -heard them from his mother or his nurse -before he went to school; and at school, -when he went there, he was constantly -occupied with them. So much did he hear -of them that Socrates proposes, in the -interests of morality, to have selections -from Homer made, and placed in the hands -of mothers and nurses, in his model republic; -in order that, of an author with whom they -<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>were sure to be so perpetually conversant, -the young might learn only those parts -which might do them good. His language -was as familiar to Sophocles, we may be -quite sure, as the language of the Bible is -to us.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Nay, more. Homer’s language was not, -of course, in the time of Sophocles, the spoken -or written language of ordinary life, any -more than the language of the Bible, any -more than the language of poetry, is with -us; but for one great species of composition, -epic poetry, it was still the current language; -it was the language in which everyone who -made that sort of poetry composed. Everyone -at Athens who dabbled in epic poetry, -not only understood Homer’s language, he -possessed it. He possessed it as everyone -who dabbles in poetry with us, possesses -what may be called the poetical vocabulary, -as distinguished from the vocabulary of -common speech and of modern prose: -I mean, such expressions as <i>perchance</i> for -<i>perhaps</i>, <i>spake</i> for <i>spoke</i>, <i>aye</i> for <i>ever</i>, <i>don</i> -for <i>put on</i>, <i>charméd</i> for <i>charm’d</i>, and thousands -of others.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I might go to Burns and Chaucer, and, -taking words and passages from them, ask -if they afforded any parallel to a language -so familiar and so possessed. But this I -will not do, for Mr Newman himself supplies -me with what he thinks a fair parallel, in -its effect upon us, to the language of Homer -<span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>in its effect upon Sophocles. He says that -such words as <i>mon</i>, <i>londis</i>, <i>libbard</i>, <i>withouten</i>, -<i>muchel</i>, give us a tolerable but incomplete -notion of this parallel; and he finally exhibits -the parallel in all its clearness, by this -poetical specimen:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Dat mon, quhich hauldeth Kyngis af</div> - <div class='line in2'>Londis yn féo, niver</div> - <div class='line'>(I tell ’e) feereth aught; sith hee</div> - <div class='line in2'>Doth hauld hys londis yver.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Now, does Mr Newman really think that -Sophocles could, as he says, ‘no more help -feeling at every instant the foreign and -antiquated character of Homer, than an -Englishman can help feeling the same in -hearing these lines’? Is he quite sure of -it? He says he is; he will not allow of -any doubt or hesitation in the matter. I -had confessed we could not really know -how Homer seemed to Sophocles; ‘Let Mr -Arnold confess for himself’, cries Mr Newman, -‘and not for me, who know perfectly -well’. And this is what he knows!</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr Newman says, however, that I ‘play -fallaciously on the words familiar and unfamiliar’; -that ‘Homer’s words may have -been familiar to the Athenians (<i>i.e.</i> often -heard) even when they were either not -understood by them or else, being understood, -were yet felt and known to be utterly -foreign. Let my renderings’, he continues, -‘be heard, as Pope or even Cowper has been -heard, and no one will be “surprised”’.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>But the whole question is here. The -translator must not assume that to have -taken place which has not taken place, -although, perhaps, he may wish it to have -taken place, namely, that his diction is -become an established possession of the -minds of men, and therefore is, in its proper -place, familiar to them, will not ‘surprise’ -them. If Homer’s language was familiar, -that is, often heard, then to his language -words like <i>londis</i> and <i>libbard</i>, which are not -familiar, offer, for the translator’s purpose, -no parallel. For some purpose of the philologer -they may offer a parallel to it; for the -translator’s purpose they offer none. The -question is not, whether a diction is antiquated -for current speech, but whether it -is antiquated for that particular purpose -for which it is employed. A diction that -is antiquated for common speech and common -prose, may very well not be antiquated -for poetry or certain special kinds of prose. -‘Peradventure there shall be ten found -there’, is not antiquated for Biblical prose, -though for conversation or for a newspaper -it is antiquated. ‘The trumpet spake not -to the arméd throng’, is not antiquated for -poetry, although we should not write in a -letter, ‘he <i>spake</i> to me’, or say, ‘the -British soldier is <i>arméd</i> with the Enfield -rifle’. But when language is antiquated -for that particular purpose for which it is -employed, as numbers of Chaucer’s words, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>for instance, are antiquated for poetry, -such language is a bad representative of -language which, like Homer’s, was never -antiquated for that particular purpose for -which it was employed. I imagine that -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Πηληϊάδεω</span> for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Πηλείδου</span>, in Homer, no -more sounded antiquated to Sophocles, than -<i>arméd</i> for <i>arm’d</i>, in Milton, sounds antiquated -to us; but Mr Newman’s <i>withouten</i> -and <i>muchel</i> do sound to us antiquated, even -for poetry, and therefore they do not correspond -in their effect upon us with Homer’s -words in their effect upon Sophocles. When -Chaucer, who uses such words, is to pass -current amongst us, to be familiar to us, -as Homer was familiar to the Athenians, -he has to be modernized, as Wordsworth -and others set to work to modernize him; -but an Athenian no more needed to have -Homer modernized, than we need to have -the Bible modernized, or Wordsworth himself.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Therefore, when Mr Newman’s words -<i>bragly</i>, <i>bulkin</i>, and the rest, are an established -possession of our minds, as Homer’s -words were an established possession of an -Athenian’s mind, he may use them; but not -till then. Chaucer’s words, the words of -Burns, great poets as these were, are yet -not thus an established possession of an -Englishman’s mind, and therefore they -must not be used in rendering Homer into -English.</p> - -<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span>Mr Newman has been misled just by -doing that which his admirer praises him -for doing, by taking a ‘far broader historical -and philological view than mine’. Precisely -because he has done this, and has applied -the ‘philological view’ where it was not -applicable, but where the ‘poetical view’ -alone was rightly applicable, he has fallen -into error.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It is the same with him in his remarks on -the difficulty and obscurity of Homer. -Homer, I say, is perfectly plain in speech, -simple, and intelligible. And I infer from -this that his translator, too, ought to be -perfectly plain in speech, simple, and intelligible; -ought not to say, for instance, -in rendering</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Οὔτε κέ σε στέλλοιμι μάχην ἐς κυδιάνειραν ...</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>‘Nor liefly thee would I advance to man-ennobling -battle’,—and things of that kind. -Mr Newman hands me a list of some twenty -hard words, invokes Buttmann, Mr Malden, -and M. Benfey, and asks me if I think myself -wiser than all the world of Greek scholars, -and if I am ready to supply the deficiencies -of Liddell and Scott’s <i>Lexicon</i>! But here, -again, Mr Newman errs by not perceiving -that the question is not one of scholarship, -but of a poetical translation of Homer. -This, I say, should be perfectly simple and -intelligible. He replies by telling me that -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀδινὸς, εἰλίποδες</span>, and <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">σιγαλόεις</span> are hard -<span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>words. Well, but what does he infer from -that? That the poetical translation, in his -rendering of them, is to give us a sense of -the difficulties of the scholar, and so is to -make his translation obscure? If he does -not mean that, how, by bringing forward -these hard words, does he touch the question -whether an English version of Homer should -be plain or not plain? If Homer’s poetry, -as poetry, is in its general effect on the -poetical reader perfectly simple and intelligible, -the uncertainty of the scholar about -the true meaning of certain words can never -change this general effect. Rather will the -poetry of Homer make us forget his philology, -than his philology make us forget his -poetry. It may even be affirmed that everyone -who reads Homer perpetually for the -sake of enjoying his poetry (and no one who -does not so read him will ever translate him -well), comes at last to form a perfectly clear -sense in his own mind for every important -word in Homer, such as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀδινὸς</span>, or <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἠλίβατος</span>, -whatever the scholar’s doubts about the -word may be. And this sense is present -to his mind with perfect clearness and fulness, -whenever the word recurs, although -as a scholar he may know that he cannot -be sure whether this sense is the right one -or not. But poetically he feels clearly -about the word, although philologically he -may not. The scholar in him may hesitate, -like the father in Sheridan’s play; but the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>reader of poetry in him is, like the governor, -fixed. The same thing happens to us with -our own language. How many words occur -in the Bible, for instance, to which thousands -of hearers do not feel sure they attach the -precise real meaning; but they make out -<i>a</i> meaning for them out of what materials -they have at hand; and the words, heard -over and over again, come to convey this -meaning with a certainty which poetically -is adequate, though not philologically. How -many have attached a clear and poetically -adequate sense to ‘<i>the beam</i>’ and ‘<i>the -mote</i>’, though not precisely the right one! -How clearly, again, have readers got a sense -from Milton’s words, ‘grate on their <i>scrannel</i> -pipes’, who yet might have been puzzled -to write a commentary on the word <i>scrannel</i> -for the dictionary! So we get a clear sense -from <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀδινὸs</span> as an epithet for grief, after -often meeting with it and finding out all -we can about it, even though that all be -philologically insufficient; so we get a clear -sense from <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εἰλίποδες</span> as an epithet for cows. -And this his clear poetical sense about the -words, not his philological uncertainties -about them, is what the translator has to -convey. Words like <i>bragly</i> and <i>bulkin</i> offer -no parallel to these words; because the -reader, from his entire want of familiarity -with the words bragly and bulkin, has no -clear sense of them poetically.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Perplexed by his knowledge of the philological -<span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>aspect of Homer’s language, encumbered -by his own learning, Mr Newman, I -say, misses the poetical aspect, misses that -with which alone we are here concerned. -‘Homer <i>is</i> odd’, he persists, fixing his eyes -on his own philological analysis of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μώνυξ</span>, -and <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέροψς</span>, and <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Κυλλοποδίων</span>, and not on -these words in their synthetic character;—just -as Professor Max Müller, going a little -farther back, and fixing his attention on the -elementary value of the word <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">θυγάτηρ</span>, might -say Homer was ‘odd’ for using <i>that</i> word;—‘if -the whole Greek nation, by long -familiarity, had become inobservant of -Homer’s oddities’, of the oddities of this -‘noble barbarian’, as Mr Newman elsewhere -calls him, this ‘noble barbarian’ with the -‘lively eye of the savage’, ‘that would be -no fault of mine. That would not justify -Mr Arnold’s blame of me for rendering the -words correctly’. <i>Correctly</i>,—ah, but what -<i>is</i> correctness in this case? This correctness -of his is the very rock on which Mr Newman -has split. He is so correct that at last he -finds peculiarity everywhere. The true -knowledge of Homer becomes at last, in -his eyes, a knowledge of Homer’s ‘peculiarities, -pleasant and unpleasant’. Learned -men know these ‘peculiarities’, and Homer -is to be translated because the unlearned -are impatient to know them too. ‘That’, -he exclaims, ‘is just why people want to -read an English Homer, <i>to know all his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>oddities, just as learned men do</i>’. Here I -am obliged to shake my head, and to declare -that, in spite of all my respect for Mr Newman, -I cannot go these lengths with him. -He talks of my ‘monomaniac fancy that -there is nothing quaint or antique in -Homer’. Terrible learning, I cannot help -in my turn exclaiming, terrible learning, -which discovers so much!</p> - -<p class='c005'>Here, then, I take my leave of Mr Newman, -retaining my opinion that his version -of Homer is spoiled by his making Homer -odd and ignoble; but having, I hope, -sufficient love for literature to be able to -canvass works without thinking of persons, -and to hold this or that production cheap, -while retaining a sincere respect, on other -grounds, for its author.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In fulfilment of my promise to take this -opportunity for giving the translator of -Homer a little further advice, I proceed to -notice one or two other criticisms which I -find, in like manner, <i>suggestive</i>; which give -us an opportunity, that is, of seeing more -clearly, as we look into them, the true -principles on which translation of Homer -should rest. This is all I seek in criticisms; -and, perhaps (as I have already said) it is -only as one seeks a positive result of this -kind, that one can get any fruit from them. -Seeking a negative result from them, personal -altercation and wrangling, one gets -no fruit; seeking a positive result, the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>elucidation and establishment of one’s ideas, -one may get much. Even bad criticisms -may thus be made suggestive and fruitful. -I declared, in a former lecture on this subject, -my conviction that criticism is not the -strong point of our national literature. -Well, even the bad criticisms on our present -topic which I meet with, serve to illustrate -this conviction for me. And thus one is -enabled, even in reading remarks which for -Homeric criticism, for their immediate subject, -have no value, which are far too personal -in spirit, far too immoderate in temper, -and far too heavy-handed in style, for the -delicate matter they have to treat, still to -gain light and confirmation for a serious -idea, and to follow the Baconian injunction, -<i>semper aliquid addiscere</i>, always to be adding -to one’s stock of observation and knowledge. -Yes, even when we have to do with -writers who, to quote the words of an exquisite -critic, the master of us all in criticism, -M. Sainte-Beuve, remind us, when they -handle such subjects as our present, of -‘Romans of the fourth or fifth century, -coming to hold forth, all at random, in -African style, on papers found in the desk -of Augustus, Mæcenas, or Pollio’, even then -we may instruct ourselves if we may regard -ideas and not persons; even then we may -enable ourselves to say, with the same critic -describing the effect made upon him by -D’Argenson’s <i>Memoirs</i>: ‘My taste is revolted, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>but I learn something; <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Je suis -choqué mais je suis instruit</i></span>’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But let us pass to criticisms which are -suggestive directly and not thus indirectly -only, criticisms by examining which we may -be brought nearer to what immediately interests -us, the right way of translating -Homer.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I said that Homer did not rise and sink -with his subject, was never to be called -prosaic and low. This gives surprise to -many persons, who object that parts of -the <i>Iliad</i> are certainly pitched lower than -others, and who remind me of a number -of absolutely level passages in Homer. But -I never denied that a <i>subject</i> must rise and -sink, that it must have its elevated and its -level regions; all I deny is, that a poet -can be said to rise and sink when all that -he, as a poet, can do, is perfectly well done; -when he is perfectly sound and good, that -is, perfect as a poet, in the level regions of -his subject as well as in its elevated regions. -Indeed, what distinguishes the greatest -masters of poetry from all others is, that -they are perfectly sound and poetical in -these level regions of their subject, in these -regions which are the great difficulty of all -poets but the very greatest, which they -never quite know what to do with. A poet -may sink in these regions by being falsely -grand as well as by being low; he sinks, -in short, whenever he does not treat his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>matter, whatever it is, in a perfectly good -and poetic way. But, so long as he treats -it in this way, he cannot be said to <i>sink</i>, -whatever his matter may do. A passage -of the simplest narrative is quoted to me -from Homer:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὤτρυνεν δὲ ἕκαστον ἐποιχόμενος ἐπέεσσιν,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Μέσθλην τε, Γλαῦκόν τε, Μέδοντά τε, θερσιλοχόν τε</span> ...<a id='r58' /><a href='#f58' class='c009'><sup>[58]</sup></a></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>and I am asked, whether Homer does not -sink <i>there</i>; whether he ‘<i>can</i> have intended -such lines as those for poetry’? My answer -is: Those lines are very good poetry indeed, -poetry of the best class, <i>in that place</i>. But -when Wordsworth, having to narrate a very -plain matter, tries <i>not</i> to sink in narrating -it, tries, in short, to be what is falsely called -poetical, he does sink, although he sinks -by being pompous, not by being low.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Onward we drove beneath the Castle; caught,</div> - <div class='line'>While crossing Magdalen Bridge, a glimpse of Cam,</div> - <div class='line'>And at the Hoop alighted, famous inn.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>That last line shows excellently how a poet -may sink with his subject by resolving not -to sink with it. A page or two farther on, -the subject rises to grandeur, and then -Wordsworth is nobly worthy of it:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The antechapel, where the statue stood</div> - <div class='line'>Of Newton with his prism and silent face,</div> - <div class='line'>The marble index of a mind for ever</div> - <div class='line'>Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>But the supreme poet is he who is thoroughly -sound and poetical, alike when his subject -is grand, and when it is plain: with him -the subject may sink, but never the poet. -But a Dutch painter does not rise and sink -with his subject; Defoe, in <i>Moll Flanders</i>, -does not rise and sink with his subject, -in so far as an artist cannot be said to sink -who is sound in his treatment of his subject, -however plain it is: yet Defoe, yet a Dutch -painter, may in one sense be said to sink -with their subject, because though sound -in their treatment of it, they are not <i>poetical</i>, -poetical in the true, not the false sense of -the word; because, in fact, they are not -in the grand style. Homer can in no sense -be said to sink with his subject, because -his soundness has something more than -literal naturalness about it; because his -soundness is the soundness of Homer, of -a great epic poet; because, in fact, he is -in the grand style. So he sheds over the -simplest matter he touches the charm of his -grand manner; he makes everything noble. -Nothing has raised more questioning among -my critics than these words, <i>noble</i>, <i>the grand -style</i>. People complain that I do not define -these words sufficiently, that I do not tell -them enough about them. ‘The grand -style, but what <i>is</i> the grand style’? they -cry; some with an inclination to believe -in it, but puzzled; others mockingly and -with incredulity. Alas! the grand style -<span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>is the last matter in the world for verbal -definition to deal with adequately. One -may say of it as is said of faith: ‘One must -feel it in order to know what it is’. But, -as of faith, so too one may say of nobleness, -of the grand style: ‘Woe to those who -know it not’! Yet this expression, though -indefinable, has a charm; one is the better -for considering it; <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>bonum est, nos hic esse</i></span>; -nay, one loves to try to explain it, though -one knows that one must speak imperfectly. -For those, then, who ask the question, -What is the grand style? with sincerity, -I will try to make some answer, inadequate -as it must be. For those who ask it mockingly -I have no answer, except to repeat -to them, with compassionate sorrow, the -Gospel words: <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>Moriemini in peccatis vestris</i></span>, -Ye shall die in your sins.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But let me, at any rate, have the pleasure -of again giving, before I begin to try and -define the grand style, a specimen of what -it <i>is</i>.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Standing on earth, not wrapt above the pole,</div> - <div class='line'>More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged</div> - <div class='line'>To hoarse or mute, though fall’n on evil days,</div> - <div class='line'>On evil days though fall’n, and evil tongues....</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>There is the grand style in perfection; and -anyone who has a sense for it, will feel it -a thousand times better from repeating -those lines than from hearing anything I -can say about it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Let us try, however, what <i>can</i> be said, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span>controlling what we say by examples. I think -it will be found that the grand style arises -in poetry, <i>when a noble nature, poetically -gifted, treats with simplicity or with severity a -serious subject</i>. I think this definition will be -found to cover all instances of the grand style -in poetry which present themselves. I think -it will be found to exclude all poetry which -is not in the grand style. And I think it -contains no terms which are obscure, which -themselves need defining. Even those who -do not understand what is meant by calling -poetry noble, will understand, I imagine, -what is meant by speaking of a noble nature -in a man. But the noble or powerful -nature—the <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>bedeutendes Individuum</i></span> of -Goethe—is not enough. For instance, Mr -Newman has zeal for learning, zeal for thinking, -zeal for liberty, and all these things are -noble, they ennoble a man; but he has not -the poetical gift: there must be the poetical -gift, the ‘divine faculty’, also. And, besides -all this, the subject must be a serious -one (for it is only by a kind of licence that -we can speak of the grand style in comedy); -and it must be treated <i>with simplicity or -severity</i>. Here is the great difficulty: the -poets of the world have been many; there -has been wanting neither abundance of -poetical gift nor abundance of noble natures; -but a poetical gift so happy, in a noble -nature so circumstanced and trained, that -the result is a continuous style, perfect in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span>simplicity or perfect in severity, has been -extremely rare. One poet has had the gifts -of nature and faculty in unequalled fulness, -without the circumstances and training -which make this sustained perfection of -style possible. Of other poets, some have -caught this perfect strain now and then, -in short pieces or single lines, but have not -been able to maintain it through considerable -works; others have composed all -their productions in a style which, by -comparison with the best, one must call -secondary.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The best model of the grand style simple -is Homer; perhaps the best model of the -grand style severe is Milton. But Dante is -remarkable for affording admirable examples -of both styles; he has the grand style -which arises from simplicity, and he has -the grand style which arises from severity; -and from him I will illustrate them both. -In a former lecture I pointed out what that -severity of poetical style is, which comes -from saying a thing with a kind of intense -compression, or in an illusive, brief, almost -haughty way, as if the poet’s mind were -charged with so many and such grave -matters, that he would not deign to treat -any one of them explicitly. Of this severity -the last line of the following stanza of the -<i>Purgatory</i> is a good example. Dante has -been telling Forese that Virgil had guided -him through Hell, and he goes on:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Indi m’ han tratto su gli suoi conforti,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Salendo e rigirando la Montagna</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="it" xml:lang="it"><i>Che drizza voi che il mondo fece torti</i></span><a id='r59' /><a href='#f59' class='c009'><sup>[59]</sup></a>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>‘Thence hath his comforting aid led me up, -climbing and circling the Mountain, <i>which -straightens you whom the world made crooked</i>’. -These last words, <span lang="it" xml:lang="it">‘la Montagna <i>che drizza voi -che il mondo fece torti</i>’</span>, ‘the Mountain <i>which -straightens you whom the world made crooked</i>’, -for the Mountain of Purgatory, I call an excellent -specimen of the grand style in -severity, where the poet’s mind is too full -charged to suffer him to speak more explicitly. -But the very next stanza is a -beautiful specimen of the grand style in -simplicity, where a noble nature and a -poetical gift unite to utter a thing with the -most limpid plainness and clearness:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Tanto dice di farmi sua compagna</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Ch’ io sarὸ là dove fia Beatrice;</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Quivi convien che senza lui rimagna</span><a id='r60' /><a href='#f60' class='c009'><sup>[60]</sup></a>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>‘So long’, Dante continues, ‘so long he -(Virgil) saith he will bear me company, -until I shall be there where Beatrice is; -there it behoves that without him I remain’. -But the noble simplicity of that -in the Italian no words of mine can render.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Both these styles, the simple and the -severe, are truly grand; the severe seems, -perhaps, the grandest, so long as we attend -most to the great personality, to the noble -<span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>nature, in the poet its author; the simple -seems the grandest when we attend most -to the exquisite faculty, to the poetical gift. -But the simple is no doubt to be preferred. -It is the more <i>magical</i>: in the other there -is something intellectual, something which -gives scope for a play of thought which may -exist where the poetical gift is either wanting -or present in only inferior degree: the -severe is much more imitable, and this a -little spoils its charm. A kind of semblance -of this style keeps Young going, one -may say, through all the nine parts of that -most indifferent production, the <i>Night -Thoughts</i>. But the grand style in simplicity -is inimitable:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in12'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">αἰὼν ἀσφαλὴς</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">οὐκ ἔγεντ’ οὔτ’ Αἰακίδᾳ παρὰ Πηλεῖ,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">οὔτε παρ’ ἀντιθέῳ Κάδμῳ· λέγονται μὰν βροτῶν</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὄλβον ὑπέρτατον οἱ σχεῖν, οἵ τε καὶ χρυσαμπύκων</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μελπομενᾶν ἐν ὄρει Μοισᾶν, καὶ ἐν ἑπταπύλοις</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἄϊον Θήβαις</span> ..<a id='r61' /><a href='#f61' class='c009'><sup>[61]</sup></a>..</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>There is a limpidness in that, a want of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span>salient points to seize and transfer, which -makes imitation impossible, except by a -genius akin to the genius which produced it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Greek simplicity and Greek grace are inimitable; -but it is said that the <i>Iliad</i> may -still be ballad-poetry while infinitely superior -to all other ballads, and that, in my specimens -of English ballad-poetry, I have been -unfair. Well, no doubt there are better -things in English ballad-poetry than</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Now Christ thee save, thou proud portér, ...</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>but the real strength of a chain, they say, -is the strength of its weakest link; and -what I was trying to show you was, that the -English ballad-style is not an instrument -of enough compass and force to correspond -to the Greek hexameter; that, owing to an -inherent weakness in it as an epic style, -it easily runs into one or two faults, either -it is prosaic and humdrum, or, trying to -avoid that fault, and to make itself lively -(<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>se faire vif</i></span>), it becomes pert and jaunty. -To show that, the passage about King -Adland’s porter serves very well. But these -degradations are not proper to a true epic -instrument, such as the Greek hexameter.</p> - -<p class='c005'>You may say, if you like, when you find -Homer’s verse, even in describing the -plainest matter, neither humdrum nor -jaunty, that this is because he is so incomparably -better a poet than other balladists, -because he is Homer. But take the whole -<span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span>range of Greek epic poetry, take the later -poets, the poets of the last ages of this -poetry, many of them most indifferent, -Coluthus, Tryphiodorus, Quintus of Smyrna, -Nonnus. Never will you find in this instrument -of the hexameter, even in their -hands, the vices of the ballad-style in the -weak moments of this last: everywhere the -hexameter, a noble, a truly epical instrument, -rather resists the weakness of its employer -than lends itself to it. Quintus of Smyrna -is a poet of merit, but certainly not a poet -of a high order: with him, too, epic poetry, -whether in the character of its prosody or -in that of its diction, is no longer the epic -poetry of earlier and better times, nor epic -poetry as again restored by Nonnus: but -even in Quintus of Smyrna, I say, the hexameter -is still the hexameter; it is a style -which the ballad-style, even in the hands -of better poets, cannot rival. And in the -hands of inferior poets, the ballad-style -sinks to vices of which the hexameter, even -in the hands of a Tryphiodorus, never can -become guilty.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But a critic, whom it is impossible to read -without pleasure, and the disguise of whose -initials I am sure I may be allowed to penetrate, -Mr Spedding says that he ‘denies -altogether that the metrical movement of -the English hexameter has any resemblance -to that of the Greek’. Of course, in that -case, if the two metres in no respect correspond, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>praise accorded to the Greek hexameter -as an epical instrument will not extend -to the English. Mr Spedding seeks to -establish his proposition by pointing out -that the system of accentuation differs in -the English and in the Virgilian hexameter; -that in the first, the accent and the long -syllable (or what has to do duty as such) -coincide, in the second they do not. He -says that we cannot be so sure of the accent -with which Greek verse should be read as -of that with which Latin should; but that -the lines of Homer in which the accent and -the long syllable coincide, as in the English -hexameter, are certainly very rare. He -suggests a type of English hexameter in -agreement with the Virgilian model, and -formed on the supposition that ‘quantity -is as distinguishable in English as in Latin -or Greek by any ear that will attend to it’. -Of the truth of this supposition he entertains -no doubt. The new hexameter will, Mr -Spedding thinks, at least have the merit -of resembling, in its metrical movement, -the classical hexameter, which merit the -ordinary English hexameter has not. But -even with this improved hexameter he is not -satisfied; and he goes on, first to suggest -other metres for rendering Homer, and -finally to suggest that rendering Homer is -impossible.</p> - -<p class='c005'>A scholar to whom all who admire Lucretius -owe a large debt of gratitude, Mr -<span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>Munro, has replied to Mr Spedding. Mr -Munro declares that ‘the accent of the old -Greeks and Romans resembled our accent -only in name, in reality was essentially -different’; that ‘our English reading of -Homer and Virgil has in itself no meaning’; -and that ‘accent has nothing to do with -the Virgilian hexameter’. If this be so, -of course the merit which Mr Spedding attributes -to his own hexameter, of really -corresponding with the Virgilian hexameter, -has no existence. Again; in contradiction -to Mr Spedding’s assertion that -lines in which (in our reading of them) the -accent and the long syllable coincide<a id='r62' /><a href='#f62' class='c009'><sup>[62]</sup></a>, as -in the ordinary English hexameter, are ‘rare -even in Homer’, Mr Munro declares that -such lines, ‘instead of being rare, are among -the very commonest types of Homeric -rhythm’. Mr Spedding asserts that ‘quantity -is as distinguishable in English as in -Latin or Greek by any ear that will attend -to it’; but Mr Munro replies, that in English -‘neither his ear nor his reason recognises any -real distinction of quantity except that -which is produced by accentuated and unaccentuated -syllables’. He therefore arrives -at the conclusion that in constructing -English hexameters, ‘quantity must be -<span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>utterly discarded; and longer or shorter -unaccentuated syllables can have no meaning, -except so far as they may be made to -produce sweeter or harsher sounds in the -hands of a master’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It is not for me to interpose between two -such combatants; and indeed my way lies, -not up the highroad where they are contending, -but along a bypath. With the -absolute truth of their general propositions -respecting accent and quantity, I have -nothing to do; it is most interesting and -instructive to me to hear such propositions -discussed, when it is Mr Munro or Mr -Spedding who discusses them; but I have -strictly limited myself in these Lectures to -the humble function of giving practical advice -to the translator of Homer. He, I -still think, must not follow so confidently, -as makers of English hexameters have -hitherto followed, Mr Munro’s maxim, -<i>quantity may be utterly discarded</i>. He must -not, like Mr Longfellow, make <i>seventeen</i> a -dactyl in spite of all the length of its last -syllable, even though he can plead that in -counting we lay the accent on the first -syllable of this word. He may be far from -attaining Mr Spedding’s nicety of ear; may -be unable to feel that ‘while <i>quantity</i> is a -dactyl, <i>quiddity</i> is a tribrach’, and that -‘<i>rapidly</i> is a word to which we find no -parallel in Latin’; but I think he must -bring himself to distinguish, with Mr Spedding, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>between ‘<i>th’ o’er</i>-wearied eyelid’, and -‘<i>the</i> wearied eyelid’, as being, the one a -correct ending for a hexameter, the other -an ending with a false quantity in it; instead -of finding, with Mr Munro, that this -distinction ‘conveys to his mind no intelligible -idea’. He must temper his belief -in Mr Munro’s dictum, <i>quantity must be -utterly discarded</i>, by mixing with it a belief -in this other dictum of the same author, -<i>two or more consonants take longer time in -enunciating than one</i><a id='r63' /><a href='#f63' class='c009'><sup>[63]</sup></a>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Criticism is so apt in general to be vague -and impalpable, that when it gives us a -solid and definite possession, such as is Mr -Spedding’s parallel of the Virgilian and the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span>English hexameter with their difference of -accentuation distinctly marked, we cannot -be too grateful to it. It is in the way in -which Mr Spedding proceeds to press his -conclusions from the parallel which he has -drawn out, that his criticism seems to me -to come a little short. Here even he, I -think, shows (if he will allow me to say so) -a little of that want of pliancy and suppleness -so common among critics, but so -dangerous to their criticism; he is a little -too absolute in imposing his metrical laws; -he too much forgets the excellent maxim -of Menander, so applicable to literary criticism:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Καλὸν οἱ νόμοι σφόδρ’ εἰσίν· ὁ δ’ ὁρῶν τοὺς νόμους</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">λίαν ἀκριβῶς, συκοφάντης φαίνεται·</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>‘Laws are admirable things; but he who -keeps his eye too closely fixed upon them, -runs the risk of becoming’, let us say, a -purist. Mr Spedding is probably mistaken -in supposing that Virgil pronounced his -hexameters as Mr Spedding pronounces -them. He is almost certainly mistaken in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>supposing that Homer pronounced his hexameters -as Mr Spedding pronounces Virgil’s. -But this, as I have said, is not a question -for us to treat; all we are here concerned -with is the imitation, by the English hexameter, -of the ancient hexameter <i>in its effect -upon us moderns</i>. Suppose we concede to -Mr Spedding that his parallel proves our -accentuation of the English and of the -Virgilian hexameter to be different: what -are we to conclude from that; how will a -criticism, not a formal, but a substantial -criticism, deal with such a fact as that? -Will it infer, as Mr Spedding infers, that the -English hexameter, therefore, must not pretend -to reproduce better than other rhythms -the movement of Homer’s hexameter for -us, that there can be no correspondence at -all between the movement of these two hexameters, -that if we want to have such a correspondence, -we must abandon the current -English hexameter altogether, and adopt in -its place a new hexameter of Mr Spedding’s -Anglo-Latin type, substitute for lines like -the</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Clearly the rest I behold of the dark-eyed sons of Achaia ...</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>of Dr Hawtrey, lines like the</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Procession, complex melodies, pause, quantity, accent,</div> - <div class='line'>After Virgilian precedent and practice, in order ...</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>of Mr Spedding? To infer this, is to go, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>as I have complained of Mr Newman for -sometimes going, a great deal too fast. I -think prudent criticism must certainly recognise, -in the current English hexameter, -a fact which cannot so lightly be set aside; -it must acknowledge that by this hexameter -the English ear, the genius of the English -language, have, in their own way, adopted, -have <i>translated</i> for themselves the Homeric -hexameter; and that a rhythm which has -thus grown up, which is thus, in a manner, -the production of nature, has in its general -type something necessary and inevitable, -something which admits change only within -narrow limits, which precludes change that -is sweeping and essential. I think, therefore, -the prudent critic will regard Mr -Spedding’s proposed revolution as simply -impracticable. He will feel that in English -poetry the hexameter, if used at all, must -be, in the main, the English hexameter now -current. He will perceive that its having -come into existence as the representative -of the Homeric hexameter, proves it to -have, for the English ear, a certain correspondence -with the Homeric hexameter, -although this correspondence may be, from -the difference of the Greek and English -languages, necessarily incomplete. This -incompleteness he will endeavour<a id='r64' /><a href='#f64' class='c009'><sup>[64]</sup></a>, as he -<span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span>may find or fancy himself able, gradually -somewhat to lessen through minor changes, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_264'>264</span>suggested by the ancient hexameter, but -respecting the general constitution of the -modern: the notion of making it disappear -altogether by the critic’s inventing in his -closet a new constitution of his own for the -English hexameter, he will judge to be a -chimerical dream.</p> - -<p class='c005'>When, therefore, Mr Spedding objects to -the English hexameter, that it imperfectly -represents the movement of the ancient -hexameters, I answer: We must work with -the tools we have. The received English -type, in its general outlines, is, for England, -the necessary given type of this metre; it -is by rendering the metrical beat of its -pattern, not by rendering the accentual -beat of it, that the English language has -adapted the Greek hexameter. To render -the metrical beat of its pattern is something; -by effecting so much as this the -English hexameter puts itself in closer relations -with its original, it comes nearer to -its movement than any other metre which -does not even effect so much as this; but -Mr Spedding is dissatisfied with it for not -effecting more still, for not rendering the -accentual beat too. If he asks me <i>why</i> the -English hexameter has not tried to render -this too, <i>why</i> it has confined itself to rendering -the metrical beat, <i>why</i>, in short, it is -itself, and not Mr Spedding’s new hexameter, -that is a question which I, whose only business -is to give practical advice to a translator, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span>am not bound to answer; but I will -not decline to answer it nevertheless. I will -suggest to Mr Spedding that, as I have already -said, the modern hexameter is merely -an attempt to imitate the effect of the -ancient hexameter, as read by us moderns; -that the great object of its imitation has -been the hexameter of Homer; that of this -hexameter such lines as those which Mr -Spedding declares to be so rare, even in -Homer, but which are in truth so common, -lines in which the quantity and the reader’s -accent coincide, are, for the English reader, -just from that simplicity (for him) of rhythm -which they owe to this very coincidence, the -master-type; that so much is this the case -that one may again and again notice an -English reader of Homer, in reading lines -where his Virgilian accent would not coincide -with the quantity, abandoning this -accent, and reading the lines (as we say) -<i>by quantity</i>, reading them as if he were -scanning them; while foreigners neglect -our Virgilian accent even in reading Virgil, -read even Virgil by quantity, making the -accents coincide with the long syllables. -And no doubt the hexameter of a kindred -language, the German, based on this mode -of reading the ancient hexameter, has had -a powerful influence upon the type of its -English fellow. But all this shows how -extremely powerful accent is for us moderns, -since we find not even Greek and Latin -<span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>quantity perceptible enough without it. Yet -in these languages, where we have been accustomed -always to look for it, it is far -more perceptible to us Englishmen than in -our own language, where we have not been -accustomed to look for it. And here is the -true reason why Mr Spedding’s hexameter -is not and cannot be the current English -hexameter, even though it is based on the -accentuation which Englishmen give to all -Virgil’s lines, and to many of Homer’s,—that -the quantity which in Greek or Latin -words we feel, or imagine we feel, even -though it be unsupported by accent, we do -not feel or imagine we feel in English words -when it is thus unsupported. For example, -in repeating the Latin line</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Ipsa tibi blandos <i>fundent</i> cunabula flores,</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>an Englishman feels the length of the second -syllable of <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>fundent</i></span>, although he lays the -accent on the first; but in repeating Mr -Spedding’s line,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Softly cometh slumber <i>closing</i> th’ o’erwearied eyelid,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>the English ear, full of the accent on the first -syllable of <i>closing</i>, has really no sense at all -of any length in its second. The metrical -beat of the line is thus quite destroyed.</p> - -<p class='c005'>So when Mr Spedding proposes a new -Anglo-Virgilian hexameter he proposes an -impossibility; when he ‘denies altogether -that the metrical movement of the English -<span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>hexameter has <i>any</i> resemblance to that of -the Greek’, he denies too much; when he -declares that, ‘were every other metre impossible, -an attempt to translate Homer -into English hexameters might be permitted, -<i>but that such an attempt he himself would -never read</i>’, he exhibits, it seems to me, a -little of that obduracy and over-vehemence -in liking and disliking,—a remnant, I suppose, -of our insular ferocity,—to which -English criticism is so prone. He ought -to be enchanted to meet with a good attempt -in any metre, even though he would never -have advised it, even though its success -be contrary to all his expectations; for it -is the critic’s first duty—prior even to his -duty of stigmatizing what is bad—<i>to welcome -everything that is good</i>. In welcoming -this, he must at all times be ready, like the -Christian convert, even to burn what he -used to worship, and to worship what he -used to burn. Nay, but he need not be -thus inconsistent in welcoming it; he may -retain all his principles: principles endure, -circumstances change; absolute success is -one thing, relative success another. Relative -success may take place under the -most diverse conditions; and it is in appreciating -the good in even relative success, -it is in taking into account the change of -circumstances, that the critic’s judgment is -tested, that his versatility must display -itself. He is to keep his idea of the best, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>of perfection, and at the same time to be -willingly accessible to every second best -which offers itself. So I enjoy the ease -and beauty of Mr Spedding’s stanza,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Therewith to all the gods in order due ...</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>I welcome it, in the absence of equally good -poetry in another metre<a id='r65' /><a href='#f65' class='c009'><sup>[65]</sup></a>, although I still -<span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span>think the stanza unfit to render Homer -thoroughly well, although I still think other -metres fit to render him better. So I concede -to Mr Spedding that every form of -translation, prose or verse, must more or -less break up Homer in order to reproduce -him; but then I urge that that form which -needs to break him up least is to be preferred. -So I concede to him that the test proposed -by me for the translator—a competent -scholar’s judgment whether the translation -more or less reproduces for him the effect -of the original—is not perfectly satisfactory; -but I adopt it as the best we can get, as the -only test capable of being really applied; -for Mr Spedding’s proposed substitute, the -translations making the same effect, more -or less, upon the unlearned which the original -makes upon the scholar, is a test which -can never really be applied at all. These -two impressions, that of the scholar, and -that of the unlearned reader, can, practically, -never be accurately compared; they are, -and must remain, like those lines we read -of in Euclid, which, though produced ever -so far, can never meet. So, again, I concede -that a good verse-translation of Homer, or, -indeed, of any poet, is very difficult, and -that a good prose-translation is much easier; -but then I urge that a verse-translation, -while giving the pleasure which Pope’s has -given, might at the same time render Homer -more faithfully than Pope’s; and that this -<span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>being possible, we ought not to cease wishing -for a source of pleasure which no prose-translation -can ever hope to rival.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Wishing for such a verse-translation of -Homer, believing that rhythms have natural -tendencies which, within certain limits, inevitably -govern them; having little faith, -therefore, that rhythms which have manifested -tendencies utterly un-Homeric can -so change themselves as to become well -adapted for rendering Homer, I have looked -about for the rhythm which seems to depart -least from the tendencies of Homer’s -rhythm. Such a rhythm I think may be -found in the English hexameter, somewhat -modified. I look with hope towards continued -attempts at perfecting and employing -this rhythm; but my belief in the immediate -success of such attempts is far less confident -than has been supposed. Between the recognition -of this rhythm as ideally the best, -and the recommendation of it to the translator -for instant practical use, there must -come all that consideration of circumstances, -all that pliancy in foregoing, under the pressure -of certain difficulties, the absolute best, -which I have said is so indispensable to the -critic. The hexameter is, comparatively, -still unfamiliar in England; many people -have a great dislike to it. A certain degree -of unfamiliarity, a certain degree of dislike, -are obstacles with which it is not wise to -contend. It is difficult to say at present -<span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>whether the dislike to this rhythm is so -strong and so wide-spread that it will prevent -its ever becoming thoroughly familiar. -I think not, but it is too soon to decide. -I am inclined to think that the dislike of -it is rather among the professional critics -than among the general public; I think the -reception which Mr Longfellow’s <i>Evangeline</i> -has met with indicates this. I think that -even now, if a version of the <i>Iliad</i> in English -hexameters were made by a poet who, like -Mr Longfellow, has that indefinable quality -which renders him popular, something <i>attractive</i> -in his talent, which communicates -itself to his verses, it would have a great -success among the general public. Yet a -version of Homer in hexameters of the -<i>Evangeline</i> type would not satisfy the judicious, -nor is the definite establishment of this -type to be desired; and one would regret -that Mr Longfellow should, even to popularise -the hexameter, give the immense -labour required for a translation of Homer -when one could not wish his work to stand. -Rather it is to be wished that by the efforts -of poets like Mr Longfellow in original -poetry, and the efforts of less distinguished -poets in the task of translation, the hexameter -may gradually be made familiar to -the ear of the English public; at the same -time that there gradually arises, out of all -these efforts, an improved type of this -rhythm; a type which some man of genius -<span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span>may sign with the final stamp, and employ -in rendering Homer; a hexameter which -may be as superior to Vosse’s as Shakspeare’s -blank verse is superior to Schiller’s. I am -inclined to believe that all this travail will -actually take place, because I believe that -modern poetry is actually in want of such -an instrument as the hexameter.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In the meantime, whether this rhythm -be destined to success or not, let us steadily -keep in mind what originally made us turn -to it. We turned to it because we required -certain Homeric characteristics in a translation -of Homer, and because all other -rhythms seemed to find, from different -causes, great difficulties in satisfying this -our requirement. If the hexameter is impossible, -if one of these other rhythms must -be used, let us keep this rhythm always in -mind of our requirements and of its own -faults, let us compel it to get rid of these -latter as much as possible. It may be -necessary to have recourse to blank verse; -but then blank verse must <i>de-Cowperize</i> -itself, must get rid of the habits of stiff -self-retardation which make it say ‘<i>Not -fewer</i> shone’, for ‘<i>So many shone</i>’. Homer -moves swiftly: blank verse <i>can</i> move -swiftly if it likes, but it must remember -that the movement of such lines as</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>A thousand fires were burning, and by each ...</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>is just the slow movement which makes us -<span class='pageno' id='Page_273'>273</span>despair of it. Homer moves with noble -ease: blank verse must not be suffered to -forget that the movement of</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Came they not over from sweet Lacedæmon ...</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>is ungainly. Homer’s expression of his -thought is simple as light: we know how -blank verse affects such locutions as</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>While the steeds <i>mouthed their corn aloof</i> ...</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>and such models of expressing one’s thought -are sophisticated and artificial.</p> - -<p class='c005'>One sees how needful it is to direct incessantly -the English translator’s attention -to the essential characteristics of Homer’s -poetry, when so accomplished a person as -Mr Spedding, recognising these characteristics -as indeed Homer’s, admitting them to -be essential, is led by the ingrained habits -and tendencies of English blank verse thus -repeatedly to lose sight of them in translating -even a few lines. One sees this yet -more clearly, when Mr Spedding, taking -me to task for saying that the blank verse -used for rendering Homer ‘must not be -Mr Tennyson’s blank verse’, declares that -in most of Mr Tennyson’s blank verse all -Homer’s essential characteristics, ‘rapidity -of movement, <i>plainness of words and style</i>, -<i>simplicity and directness of ideas</i>, and, above -all, nobleness of manner, are as conspicuous -as in Homer himself’. This shows, it seems -to me, how hard it is for English readers -of poetry, even the most accomplished, to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_274'>274</span>feel deeply and permanently what Greek -plainness of thought and Greek simplicity -of expression really are: they admit the -importance of these qualities in a general -way, but they have no ever-present sense -of them; and they easily attribute them -to any poetry which has other excellent -qualities, and which they very much admire. -No doubt there are plainer things in Mr -Tennyson’s poetry than the three lines I -quoted; in choosing them, as in choosing -a specimen of ballad-poetry, I wished to -bring out clearly, by a strong instance, the -qualities of thought and style to which I -was calling attention; but when Mr Spedding -talks of a plainness of thought <i>like -Homer’s</i>, of a plainness of speech <i>like -Homer’s</i>, and says that he finds these constantly -in Mr Tennyson’s poetry, I answer -that these I do not find there at all. Mr -Tennyson is a most distinguished and -charming poet; but the very essential -characteristic of his poetry is, it seems to -me, an extreme subtlety and curious elaborateness -of thought, an extreme subtlety -and curious elaborateness of expression. In -the best and most characteristic productions -of his genius, these characteristics are most -prominent. They are marked characteristics, -as we have seen, of the Elizabethan -poets; they are marked, though not the -essential, characteristics of Shakspeare himself. -Under the influences of the nineteenth -<span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span>century, under wholly new conditions of -thought and culture, they manifest themselves -in Mr Tennyson’s poetry in a wholly -new way. But they are still there. The -essential bent of his poetry is towards such -expressions as</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in22'>O’er the sun’s bright eye</div> - <div class='line'>Drew the vast eyelid of an inky cloud;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>When the cairned mountain was a shadow, sunned</div> - <div class='line'>The world to peace again;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The fresh young captains flashed their glittering teeth,</div> - <div class='line'>The huge bush-bearded barons heaved and blew;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>He bared the knotted column of his throat,</div> - <div class='line'>The massive square of his heroic breast,</div> - <div class='line'>And arms on which the standing muscle sloped</div> - <div class='line'>As slopes a wild brook o’er a little stone,</div> - <div class='line'>Running too vehemently to break upon it.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>And this way of speaking is the least <i>plain</i>, -the most <i>un-Homeric</i>, which can possibly -be conceived. Homer presents his thought -to you just as it wells from the source of -his mind: Mr Tennyson carefully distils his -thought before he will part with it. Hence -comes, in the expression of the thought, a -heightened and elaborate air. In Homer’s -poetry it is all natural thoughts in natural -words; in Mr Tennyson’s poetry it is all -distilled thoughts in distilled words. Exactly -this heightening and elaboration may -be observed in Mr Spedding’s</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>While the steeds <i>mouthed their corn aloof</i></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span>(an expression which might have been Mr -Tennyson’s), on which I have already commented; -and to one who is penetrated with -a sense of the real simplicity of Homer, this -subtle sophistication of the thought is, I -think, very perceptible even in such lines -as these,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>And drunk delight of battle with my peers,</div> - <div class='line'>Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>which I have seen quoted as perfectly -Homeric. Perfect simplicity can be obtained -only by a genius of which perfect -simplicity is an essential characteristic.</p> - -<p class='c005'>So true is this, that when a genius essentially -subtle, or a genius which, from -whatever cause, is in its essence not truly -and broadly simple, determines to be perfectly -plain, determines not to admit a -shade of subtlety or curiosity into its expression, -it cannot ever then attain real -simplicity; it can only attain a semblance -of simplicity<a id='r66' /><a href='#f66' class='c009'><sup>[66]</sup></a>. French criticism, richer in -its vocabulary than ours, has invented a -useful word to distinguish this semblance -(often very beautiful and valuable) from -the real quality. The real quality it calls -<span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>simplicité</i></span>, the semblance <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>simplesse</i></span>. The -one is natural simplicity, the other is artificial -simplicity. What is called simplicity -in the productions of a genius essentially -not simple, is, in truth, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>simplesse</i></span>. The two -are distinguishable from one another the -moment they appear in company. For instance, -let us take the opening of the narrative -in Wordsworth’s <i>Michael</i>:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Upon the forest-side in Grasmere Vale</div> - <div class='line'>There dwelt a shepherd, Michael was his name;</div> - <div class='line'>An old man, stout of heart, and strong of limb.</div> - <div class='line'>His bodily frame had been from youth to age</div> - <div class='line'>Of an unusual strength; his mind was keen,</div> - <div class='line'>Intense, and frugal, apt for all affairs;</div> - <div class='line'>And in his shepherd’s calling he was prompt</div> - <div class='line'>And watchful more than ordinary men.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Now let us take the opening of the narrative -in Mr Tennyson’s <i>Dora</i>:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>With Farmer Allan at the farm abode</div> - <div class='line'>William and Dora. William was his son,</div> - <div class='line'>And she his niece. He often looked at them,</div> - <div class='line'>And often thought, ‘I’ll make them man and wife’.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>The simplicity of the first of these passages -is <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>simplicité</i></span>; that of the second, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>simplesse</i></span>. -Let us take the end of the same two poems: -first, of <i>Michael</i>:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The cottage which was named the Evening Star</div> - <div class='line'>Is gone, the ploughshare has been through the ground</div> - <div class='line'>On which it stood; great changes have been wrought</div> - <div class='line'>In all the neighbourhood: yet the oak is left</div> - <div class='line'>That grew beside their door: and the remains</div> - <div class='line'>Of the unfinished sheepfold may be seen</div> - <div class='line'>Beside the boisterous brook of Green-head Ghyll.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span>And now, of <i>Dora</i>:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in16'>So those four abode</div> - <div class='line'>Within one house together; and as years</div> - <div class='line'>Went forward, Mary took another mate:</div> - <div class='line'>But Dora lived unmarried till her death.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>A heedless critic may call both of these -passages simple if he will. Simple, in a -certain sense, they both are; but between -the simplicity of the two there is all the -difference that there is between the simplicity -of Homer and the simplicity of Moschus.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But, whether the hexameter establish itself -or not, whether a truly simple and rapid -blank verse be obtained or not, as the -vehicle for a standard English translation -of Homer, I feel sure that this vehicle will -not be furnished by the ballad-form. On -this question about the ballad-character of -Homer’s poetry, I see that Professor Blackie -proposes a compromise: he suggests that -those who say Homer’s poetry is pure ballad-poetry, -and those who deny that it is ballad-poetry -at all, should split the difference -between them; that it should be agreed -that Homer’s poems are ballads <i>a little</i>, -but not so much as some have said. I am -very sensible to the courtesy of the terms -in which Mr Blackie invites me to this -compromise; but I cannot, I am sorry to -say, accept it; I cannot allow that Homer’s -poetry is ballad-poetry at all. A want of -capacity for sustained nobleness seems to -me inherent in the ballad-form when employed -<span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span>for epic poetry. The more we examine -this proposition, the more certain, -I think, will it become to us. Let us but -observe how a great poet, having to deliver -a narrative very weighty and serious, instinctively -shrinks from the ballad-form as -from a form not commensurate with his -subject-matter, a form too narrow and -shallow for it, and seeks for a form which -has more amplitude and impressiveness. -Everyone knows the <i>Lucy Gray</i> and the -<i>Ruth</i> of Wordsworth. Both poems are excellent; -but the subject-matter of the -narrative of <i>Ruth</i> is much more weighty -and impressive to the poet’s own feeling -than that of the narrative of <i>Lucy Gray</i>, -for which latter, in its unpretending simplicity, -the ballad-form is quite adequate. -Wordsworth, at the time he composed <i>Ruth</i>, -his great time, his <i>annus mirabilis</i>, about -1800, strove to be simple; it was his mission -to be simple; he loved the ballad-form, he -clung to it, because it was simple. Even -in <i>Ruth</i> he tried, one may say, to use it; -he would have used it if he could: but -the gravity of his matter is too much for -this somewhat slight form; he is obliged -to give to his form more amplitude, more -augustness, to shake out its folds.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The wretched parents all that night</div> - <div class='line in2'>Went shouting far and wide;</div> - <div class='line'>But there was neither sound nor sight</div> - <div class='line in2'>To serve them for a guide.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_280'>280</span>That is beautiful, no doubt, and the form -is adequate to the subject-matter. But take -this, on the other hand:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>I, too, have passed her on the hills,</div> - <div class='line'>Setting her little water-mills</div> - <div class='line in2'>By spouts and fountains wild;</div> - <div class='line'>Such small machinery as she turned,</div> - <div class='line'>Ere she had wept, ere she had mourned,</div> - <div class='line in2'>A young and happy child.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Who does not perceive how the greater -fulness and weight of his matter has here -compelled the true and feeling poet to adopt -a form of more <i>volume</i> than the simple -ballad-form?</p> - -<p class='c005'>It is of narrative poetry that I am speaking; -the question is about the use of the ballad-form -for <i>this</i>. I say that for this poetry -(when in the grand style, as Homer’s is) -the ballad-form is entirely inadequate; and -that Homer’s translator must not adopt it, -because it even leads him, by its own weakness, -away from the grand style rather than -towards it. We must remember that the -matter of narrative poetry stands in a -different relation to the vehicle which conveys -it, is not so independent of this vehicle, -so absorbing and powerful in itself, as the -matter of purely emotional poetry. When -there comes in poetry what I may call the -<i>lyrical cry</i>, this transfigures everything, -makes everything grand; the simplest -form may be here even an advantage, because -the flame of the emotion glows through -<span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span>and through it more easily. To go again -for an illustration to Wordsworth; our -great poet, since Milton, by his performance, -as Keats, I think, is our great poet by his -gift and promise; in one of his stanzas -to the Cuckoo, we have:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>And I can listen to thee yet;</div> - <div class='line in2'>Can lie upon the plain</div> - <div class='line'>And listen, till I do beget</div> - <div class='line in2'>That golden time again.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Here the lyrical cry, though taking the -simple ballad-form, is as grand as the lyrical -cry coming in poetry of an ampler form, -as grand as the</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>An innocent life, yet far astray!</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>of <i>Ruth</i>; as the</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>There is a comfort in the strength of love</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>of <i>Michael</i>. In this way, by the occurrence -of this lyrical cry, the ballad-poets themselves -rise sometimes, though not so often -as one might perhaps have hoped, to the -grand style.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>O lang, lang may their ladies sit,</div> - <div class='line'>Wi’ their fans into their hand,</div> - <div class='line'>Or ere they see Sir Patrick Spence</div> - <div class='line'>Come sailing to the land.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>O lang, lang may the ladies stand,</div> - <div class='line'>Wi’ their gold combs in their hair,</div> - <div class='line'>Waiting for their ain dear lords,</div> - <div class='line'>For they’ll see them nae mair.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>But from this impressiveness of the ballad-form, -when its subject-matter fills it over -and over again, is, indeed, in itself, all in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>all, one must not infer its effectiveness when -its subject-matter is not thus overpowering, -in the great body of a narrative.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But, after all, Homer is not a better poet -than the balladists, because he has taken -in the hexameter a better instrument; he -took this instrument because he was a -<i>different</i> poet from them; so different, not -only so much better, but so essentially -different, that he has not to be classed -with them at all. Poets receive their distinctive -character, not from their subject, -but from their application to that subject -of the ideas (to quote the <i>Excursion</i>)</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>On God, on Nature, and on human life,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>which they have acquired for themselves. -In the ballad-poets in general, as in men -of a rude and early stage of the world, in -whom their humanity is not yet variously -and fully developed, the stock of these ideas -is scanty, and the ideas themselves not very -effective or profound. From them the narrative -itself is the great matter, not the -spirit and significance which underlies the -narrative. Even in later times of richly -developed life and thought, poets appear -who have what may be called a <i>balladist’s -mind</i>; in whom a fresh and lively curiosity -for the outward spectacle of the world is -much more strong than their sense of the -inward significance of that spectacle. When -they apply ideas to their narrative of human -<span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span>events, you feel that they are, so to speak, -travelling out of their own province: in -the best of them you feel this perceptibly, -but in those of a lower order you feel it very -strongly. Even Sir Walter Scott’s efforts -of this kind, even, for instance, the</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Breathes there the man with soul so dead,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>or the</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>O woman! in our hours of ease,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>even these leave, I think, as high poetry, -much to be desired; far more than the same -poet’s descriptions of a hunt or a battle. -But Lord Macaulay’s</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Then out spake brave Horatius,</div> - <div class='line in2'>The captain of the gate:</div> - <div class='line'>‘To all the men upon this earth</div> - <div class='line in2'>Death cometh soon or late’.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>(and here, since I have been reproached -with undervaluing Lord Macaulay’s <i>Lays -of Ancient Rome</i>, let me frankly say that, -to my mind, a man’s power to detect the -ring of false metal in those Lays is a good -measure of his fitness to give an opinion -about poetical matters at all), I say, Lord -Macaulay’s</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>To all the men upon this earth</div> - <div class='line in2'>Death cometh soon or late,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>it is hard to read without a cry of pain. -But with Homer it is very different. This -‘noble barbarian’, this ‘savage with the -lively eye’, whose verse, Mr Newman thinks, -would affect us, if we could hear the living -Homer, ‘like an elegant and simple melody -<span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span>from an African of the Gold Coast’, is never -more at home, never more nobly himself, -than in applying profound ideas to his -narrative. As a poet he belongs, narrative -as is his poetry, and early as is his date, -to an incomparably more developed spiritual -and intellectual order than the balladists, -or than Scott and Macaulay; he is here as -much to be distinguished from them, and -in the same way, as Milton is to be distinguished -from them. He is, indeed, rather -to be classed with Milton than with the -balladists and Scott; for what he has in -common with Milton, the noble and profound -application of ideas to life is the most -essential part of poetic greatness. The most -essentially grand and characteristic things -of Homer are such things as</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἔτλην δ’, οἷ’ οὔπω τις ἐπιχθόνιος βροτὸς ἂλλος,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀνδρὸς παιδοφόνοιο ποτὶ στόμα χεῖρ’ ὀρέγεσθαι</span><a id='r67' /><a href='#f67' class='c009'><sup>[67]</sup></a>,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>or as</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">καὶ σὲ, γέρον, τὸ πρὶν μὲν ἀκούομεν ὄλβιον εἶναι</span><a id='r68' /><a href='#f68' class='c009'><sup>[68]</sup></a>,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span>or as</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ὥς γὰρ ἐπεκλώσαντο θεοὶ δειλοῖσι βροτοῖσιν,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ζώειν ἀχνυμένους· αὐτοὶ δὲ τ’ ἀκηδέες εἰσίν</span><a id='r69' /><a href='#f69' class='c009'><sup>[69]</sup></a>,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>and of these the tone is given, far better -than by anything of the balladists, by such -things as the</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Io no piangeva: sì dentro impietrai:</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Piangevan elli</span> ...<a id='r70' /><a href='#f70' class='c009'><sup>[70]</sup></a></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>of Dante; or the</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Fall’n Cherub! to be weak is miserable</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>of Milton.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I suppose I must, before I conclude, say -a word or two about my own hexameters; -and yet really, on such a topic, I am almost -ashamed to trouble you. From those perishable -objects I feel, I can truly say, a most -Oriental detachment. You yourselves are -witnesses how little importance, when I -offered them to you, I claimed for them, -how humble a function I designed them -to fill. I offered them, not as specimens -of a competing translation of Homer, but as -illustrations of certain canons which I had -been trying to establish for Homer’s poetry. -I said that these canons they might very well -<span class='pageno' id='Page_286'>286</span>illustrate by failing as well as by succeeding: -if they illustrate them in any manner, I am -satisfied. I was thinking of the future -translator of Homer, and trying to let him -see as clearly as possible what I meant by -the combination of characteristics which I -assigned to Homer’s poetry, by saying that -this poetry was at once rapid in movement, -plain in words and style, simple and direct -in its ideas, and noble in manner. I do not -suppose that my own hexameters are rapid -in movement, plain in words and style, -simple and direct in their ideas, and noble -in manner; but I am in hopes that a translator, -reading them with a genuine interest -in his subject, and without the slightest -grain of personal feeling, may see more -clearly, as he reads them, what I meant by -saying that Homer’s poetry is all these. -I am in hopes that he may be able to seize -more distinctly, when he has before him my</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>So shone forth, in front of Troy, by the bed of the Xanthus,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>or my</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Ah, unhappy pair, to Peleus why did we give you?</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>or my</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>So he spake, and drove with a cry his steeds into battle,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>the exact points which I wish him to avoid -in Cowper’s</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>So numerous seemed those fires the banks between,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_287'>287</span>or in Pope’s</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Unhappy coursers of immortal strain,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>or in Mr Newman’s</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>He spake, and, yelling, held a-front his single-hoofed horses.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>At the same time there may be innumerable -points in mine which he ought to avoid also. -Of the merit of his own compositions no -composer can be admitted the judge.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But thus humbly useful to the future -translator I still hope my hexameters may -prove; and he it is, above all, whom one -has to regard. The general public carries -away little from discussions of this kind, -except some vague notion that one advocates -English hexameters, or that one has -attacked Mr Newman. On the mind of an -adversary one never makes the faintest impression. -Mr Newman reads all one can -say about diction, and his last word on the -subject is, that he ‘regards it as a question -about to open hereafter, whether a translator -of Homer ought not to adopt the old -dissyllabic <i>landis</i>, <i>houndis</i>, <i>hartis</i>’ (for lands, -hounds, harts), and also ‘the final <i>en</i> of the -plural of verbs (we <i>dancen</i>, they <i>singen</i>, etc.), -which still subsists in Lancashire’. A certain -critic reads all one can say about style, and -at the end of it arrives at the inference that, -‘after all, there is some style grander than -the grand style itself, since Shakspeare has -not the grand manner, and yet has the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_288'>288</span>supremacy over Milton’; another critic -reads all one can say about rhythm, and the -result is, that he thinks Scott’s rhythm, in -the description of the death of Marmion, -all the better for being <i>saccadé</i>, because the -dying ejaculations of Marmion were likely -to be ‘jerky’. How vain to rise up early, -and to take rest late, from any zeal for -proving to Mr Newman that he must not, -in translating Homer, say <i>houndis</i> and -<i>dancen</i>; or to the first of the two critics -above quoted, that one poet may be a greater -poetical force than another, and yet have a -more unequal style; or to the second, that -the best art, having to represent the death -of a hero, does not set about imitating his -dying noises! Such critics, however, provide -for an opponent’s vivacity the charming -excuse offered by Rivarol for his, when he -was reproached with giving offence by it: -‘Ah’! he exclaimed, ‘no one considers -how much pain every man of taste has had -to <i>suffer</i>, before he ever inflicts any’.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It is for the future translator that one -must work. The successful translator of -Homer will have (or he cannot succeed) -that true sense for his subject, and that disinterested -love for it, which are, both of -them, so rare in literature, and so precious; -he will not be led off by any false scent; -he will have an eye for the real matter, and -where he thinks he may find any indication -of this, no hint will be too slight for him, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_289'>289</span>no shade will be too fine, no imperfections -will turn him aside, he will go before his -adviser’s thought, and help it out with his -own. This is the sort of student that a -critic of Homer should always have in his -thoughts; but students of this sort are -indeed rare.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And how, then, can I help being reminded -what a student of this sort we have just lost -in Mr Clough, whose name I have already -mentioned in these lectures? He, too, was -busy with Homer; but it is not on that -account that I now speak of him. Nor do -I speak of him in order to call attention to -his qualities and powers in general, admirable -as these were. I mention him because, -in so eminent a degree, he possessed -these two invaluable literary qualities, a true -sense for his object of study, and a single-hearted -care for it. He had both; but he -had the second even more eminently than -the first. He greatly developed the first -through means of the second. In the study -of art, poetry, or philosophy, he had the -most undivided and disinterested love for -his object in itself, the greatest aversion to -mixing up with it anything accidental or -personal. His interest was in literature -itself; and it was this which gave so rare -a stamp to his character, which kept him -so free from all taint of littleness. In the -saturnalia of ignoble personal passions, of -which the struggle for literary success, in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_290'>290</span>old and crowded communities, offers so sad -a spectacle, he never mingled. He had not -yet traduced his friends, nor flattered his -enemies, nor disparaged what he admired, -nor praised what he despised. Those who -knew him well had the conviction that, even -with time, these literary arts would never -be his. His poem, of which I before spoke, -has some admirable Homeric qualities;—out-of-doors -freshness, life, naturalness, -buoyant rapidity. Some of the expressions -in that poem, ‘<i>Dangerous Corrievreckan ... -Where roads are unknown to Loch Nevish</i>’, -come back now to my ear with the true -Homeric ring. But that in him of which -I think oftenest is the Homeric simplicity -of his literary life.</p> - -<p class='c005'>THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div><span class='large'>Footnotes</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='footnote' id='f1'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r1'>1</a>. </span><i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='3'>iii</abbr>. 243.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f2'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r2'>2</a>. </span><i>Briefwechsel zwischen Schiller und Goethe</i>, <abbr title='6'>vi.</abbr> 230.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f3'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r3'>3</a>. </span><i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='19'>xix.</abbr> 420.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f4'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r4'>4</a>. </span><i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='12'>xii.</abbr> 324.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f5'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r5'>5</a>. </span>These are the words on which Lord Granville -‘dwelled with particular emphasis’.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f6'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r6'>6</a>. </span>Robert Wood, <i>Essay on the Original Genius -and Writings of Homer</i>, London, 1775, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <abbr title='7'>vii.</abbr></p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f7'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r7'>7</a>. </span><i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='8'>viii.</abbr> 560.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f8'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r8'>8</a>. </span><i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='17'>xvii.</abbr> 443.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f9'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r9'>9</a>. </span><i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='6'>vi.</abbr> 444.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f10'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r10'>10</a>. </span><i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='6'>vi.</abbr> 344.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f11'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r11'>11</a>. </span>From the reproachful answer of Ulysses to -Agamemnon, who had proposed an abandonment -of their expedition. This is one of the ‘tonic’ -passages of the <i>Iliad</i>, so I quote it:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Ah, unworthy king, some other inglorious army</div> - <div class='line'>Should’st thou command, not rule over <i>us</i>, whose portion for ever</div> - <div class='line'>Zeus hath made it, from youth right up to age, to be winding</div> - <div class='line'>Skeins of grievous wars, till every soul of us perish.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='14'>xiv.</abbr> 84.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f12'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r12'>12</a>. </span>From the ballad of <i>King Estmere</i>, in Percy’s -<i>Reliques of Ancient English Poetry</i>, <abbr title='1'>i</abbr>. 69 (<abbr title='edition'>edit.</abbr> of -1767).</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f13'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r13'>13</a>. </span><i>Reliques</i>, <abbr title='1'>i.</abbr> 241</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f14'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r14'>14</a>. </span><i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='17'>xvii.</abbr> 443.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f15'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r15'>15</a>. </span>All the editions which I have seen have ‘haste’, -but the right reading must certainly be ‘taste’.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f16'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r16'>16</a>. </span><i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='19'>xix.</abbr> 419.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f17'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r17'>17</a>. </span><i>Odyssey</i>, <abbr title='19'>xix.</abbr> 392.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f18'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r18'>18</a>. </span>Mr Marsh, in his <i>Lectures on the English -Language</i>, New York, 1860, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 520.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f19'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r19'>19</a>. </span><i>Marmion</i>, canto <abbr title='6'>vi.</abbr> 38.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f20'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r20'>20</a>. </span><i>Marmion</i>, canto <abbr title='6'>vi.</abbr> 29.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f21'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r21'>21</a>. </span>‘Be content, good friend, die also thou! why -lamentest thou thyself on this wise? Patroclus, too, -died, who was a far better than thou.’—<i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='21'>xxi.</abbr> -106.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f22'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r22'>22</a>. </span>‘From me, young man, learn nobleness of soul -and true effort: learn success from others.’—<i>Æneid</i>, -<abbr title='12'>xii.</abbr> 435.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f23'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r23'>23</a>. </span>‘I leave the gall of bitterness, and I go for the -apples of sweetness promised unto me by my faithful -Guide; but far as the centre it behoves me first to -fall.’—<i>Hell</i>, <abbr title='16'>xvi.</abbr> 61.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f24'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r24'>24</a>. </span><i>Paradise Lost</i>, <abbr title='1'>i.</abbr> 591.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f25'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r25'>25</a>. </span><i>The Faery Queen</i>, Canto <abbr title='2'>ii.</abbr> stanza <abbr title='1'>I.</abbr></p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f26'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r26'>26</a>. </span><i>Odes</i>, <abbr title='4'>IV.</abbr> <abbr title='7'>vii.</abbr> 13.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f27'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r27'>27</a>. </span><i>Odyssey</i> <abbr title='4'>iv.</abbr> 563.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f28'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r28'>28</a>. </span><i>Odes</i>, <abbr title='3'>III.</abbr> <abbr title='2'>ii.</abbr> 31.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f29'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r29'>29</a>. </span>So short, that I quote it entire:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Clearly the rest I behold of the dark-eyed sons of Achaia;</div> - <div class='line'>Known to me well are the faces of all; their names I remember;</div> - <div class='line'>Two, two only remain, whom I see not among the commanders,</div> - <div class='line'>Castor fleet in the car,—Polydeukes brave with the cestus,—</div> - <div class='line'>Own dear brethren of mine,—one parent loved us as infants.</div> - <div class='line'>Are they not here in the host, from the shores of loved Lacedæmon,</div> - <div class='line'>Or, though they came with the rest in ships that bound through the waters,</div> - <div class='line'>Dare they not enter the fight or stand in the council of Heroes,</div> - <div class='line'>All for fear of the shame and the taunts my crime has awakened?</div> - <div class='line in2'>So said she;—they long since in Earth’s soft arms were reposing,</div> - <div class='line'>There, in their own dear land, their Fatherland, Lacedæmon.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><i>English Hexameter Translations</i>, London,</div> - <div class='line'>1847, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 242.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>I have changed Dr Hawtrey’s ‘Kastor’, ‘Lakedaimon’, -back to the familiar ‘Castor’, ‘Lacedæmon’, -in obedience to my own rule that everything <i>odd</i> is -to be avoided in rendering Homer, the most natural -and least odd of poets. I see Mr Newman’s critic in -the <i>National Review</i> urges our generation to bear -with the unnatural effect of these rewritten Greek -names, in the hope that by this means the effect of -them may have to the next generation become natural. -For my part, I feel no disposition to pass all my own -life in the wilderness of pedantry, in order that a -posterity which I shall never see may one day enter -an orthographical Canaan; and, after all, the real -question is this: whether our living apprehension of -the Greek world is more checked by meeting in an -English book about the Greeks, names not spelt letter -for letter as in the original Greek, or by meeting -names which make us rub our eyes and call out, -‘How exceedingly odd!’</p> - -<p class='c005'>The Latin names of the Greek deities raise in most -cases the idea of quite distinct personages from the -personages whose idea is raised by the Greek names. -Hera and Juno are actually, to every scholar’s imagination, -two different people. So in all these cases the -Latin names must, at any inconvenience, be abandoned -when we are dealing with the Greek world. -But I think it can be in the sensitive imagination of -Mr Grote only, that ‘Thucydides’ raises the idea of -a different man from <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><b>Θουκυδίδης</b></span>.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f30'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r30'>30</a>. </span>For instance; in a version (I believe, by the late -Mr Lockhart) of Homer’s description of the parting -of Hector and Andromache, there occurs, in the first -five lines, but one spondee besides the necessary -spondees in the sixth place; in the corresponding -five lines of Homer there occur ten. See <i>English -Hexameter Translations</i>, 244.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f31'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r31'>31</a>. </span>See for instance, in the <i>Iliad</i>, the loose construction -of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><b>ὅστε</b></span>, <abbr title='17'>xvii.</abbr> 658; that of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><b>ἴδοιτο</b></span>, <abbr title='17'>xvii.</abbr> 681; -that of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><b>οἵτε</b></span>, <abbr title='18'>xviii.</abbr> 209; and the elliptical construction -at <abbr title='19'>xix.</abbr> 42, 43; also the idiomatic construction of -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><b>ἐγὼν ὅδε παρασχεῖν</b></span>, <abbr title='19'>xix.</abbr> 140. These instances are -all taken within a range of a thousand lines; anyone -may easily multiply them for himself.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f32'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r32'>32</a>. </span>Our knowledge of Homer’s Greek is hardly such -as to enable us to pronounce quite confidently what is -idiomatic in his diction, and what is not, any more -than in his grammar; but I seem to myself clearly -to recognise an idiomatic stamp in such expressions as -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><b>τολυπεύειν πολέμους</b></span>, <abbr title='14'>xiv.</abbr> 86; <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><b>φάος ἐν νήεσσιν θήῃς</b></span>, -<abbr title='16'>xvi.</abbr> 94; <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><b>τιν’ οἴω ἀσπασίως αὐτῶν γόνυ κάμψειν</b></span>, <abbr title='19'>xix.</abbr> -71; <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><b>κλοτοπεύειν</b></span>, <abbr title='19'>xix.</abbr> 149; and many others. The -first-quoted expression, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><b>τολυπεύειν ἀργαλέους πολέμους</b></span>, -seems to me to have just about the same degree -of freedom as the ‘<i>jump</i> the life to come’, or the -‘<i>shuffle off</i> this mortal coil’, of Shakspeare.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f33'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r33'>33</a>. </span>It must be remembered, however, that, if we -disregard quantity too much in constructing English -hexameters, we also disregard accent too much in -reading Greek hexameters. We read every Greek -dactyl so as to make a pure dactyl of it; but, to a -Greek, the accent must have hindered many dactyls -from sounding as pure dactyls. When we read -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><b>αἰόλος</b> ἵππος</span>, for instance, or <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><b>αἰγιόχοιο</b></span>, the -dactyl in each of these cases is made by us as pure a -dactyl as ‘Tityre’, or ‘dignity’; but to a Greek it -was not so. To him <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">αἰόλος</span> must have been nearly -as impure a dactyl as ‘death-destined’ is to us; and -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">αἰγιόχ</span> nearly as impure as the ‘dressed his own’ of -my text. Nor, I think, does this right mode of -pronouncing the two words at all spoil the run of the -line as a hexameter. The effect of <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc"><b>αἰόλλος</b> ἵππος</span> -(or something like that), though not <i>our</i> effect, is not -a disagreeable one. On the other hand, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κορυθαιόλος</span> -as a paroxytonon, although it has the respectable -authority of Liddell and Scott’s <i>Lexicon</i> (following -Heyne), is certainly wrong; for then the word cannot -be pronounced without throwing an accent on the -first syllable as well as the third, and <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μέγας -<b>κοῤῥυθαιόλλος</b> Ἕκτωρ</span> would have been to a -Greek as intolerable an ending for a hexameter -line as ‘accurst <i>orphanhood-destined</i> houses’ would -be to us. The best authorities, accordingly, -accent <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κορυθαίολος</span> as a proparoxytonon.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f34'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r34'>34</a>. </span>Dr Hawtrey also has translated this passage; but -here, he has not, I think, been so successful as in his -‘Helen on the walls of Troy’.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f35'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r35'>35</a>. </span>He attacks the same line also in <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>; but I do -not claim this as a mark, how free I am from the -fault.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f36'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r36'>36</a>. </span>If I had used such a double dative, as ‘to Peleus -to a mortal’, what would he have said of my syntax?</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f37'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r37'>37</a>. </span>Ballad-<i>manner</i>! The prevalent ballad-<i>metre</i> is -the Common Metre of our Psalm tunes: and yet he -assumes that whatever is in this metre must be on the -same level. I have professed (<abbr title='preface'>Pref.</abbr> <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <abbr title='10'>x</abbr>) that our -<i>existing</i> old ballads are ‘poor and mean’, and are -not my pattern.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f38'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r38'>38</a>. </span>He has also overlooked the misprint <i>Trojans</i>, -where I wrote <i>Troïans</i> (in three syllables), and has -thus spoiled one verse out of the five.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f39'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r39'>39</a>. </span>As a literary curiosity I append the sentence of a -learned reviewer concerning this metre of Campbell. -‘It is a metre fit for introducing anything or translating -anything; a metre that <i>nothing can elevate, or -degrade, or improve, or spoil</i>; in which all subjects -will sound alike. A theorem of Euclid, a leading -article from the <i>Times</i>, a dialogue from the last new -novel, could all be reduced to it with the slightest -possible verbal alteration’. [Quite true of Greek -hexameter or Shakspeare’s line. It is a <i>virtue</i> in -the metres]. ‘To such a mill all would be grist that -came near it, and <i>in no grain that had once passed -through it would human ingenuity ever detect again -a characteristic quality</i>’. This writer is a stout -maintainer that English ballad metre is the right -one for translating Homer: only, somehow, he shuts -his eyes to the fact that Campbell’s <i>is</i> ballad metre! -Sad to say, extravagant and absurd assertions, like -these, though anonymous, can, by a parade of learning, -do much damage to the sale of a book in verse.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f40'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r40'>40</a>. </span>I think he has mistaken the <i>summit</i> of the wave -for a <i>headland</i>, and has made a single description -into two, by the word <i>Or</i>: but I now confine my regard -to the metre and general effect of the style.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f41'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r41'>41</a>. </span><i>Companion</i>, in four syllables, is in Shakspeare’s -style; with whom habitually the termination <i>-tion</i> -is two.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f42'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r42'>42</a>. </span>By corrupting the past tenses of <i>welisso</i> into a -false similarity to the past tenses of <i>elelizo</i>, the old -editors superimposed a new and false sense on the -latter verb; which still holds its place in our dictionaries, -as it deceived the Greeks themselves.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f43'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r43'>43</a>. </span>That λλ <i>in Attic</i> was sounded like French <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>l -mouillée</i></span>, is judged probable by the learned writer -of the article L (Penny Cyclop.), who urges that -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μᾶλλον</span> is for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">μάλιον</span>, and compares <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">φυλλο</span> with <i>folio</i>, -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">αλλο</span> with <i>alio</i>, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἁλλ</span> with <i>sali</i>.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f44'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r44'>44</a>. </span>Men who can bear ‘belch’ in poetry, nowadays -pretend that ‘sputter’ is indelicate. They find -Homer’s <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀποπτύει</span> to be ‘elegant’, but <i>sputter</i>—not! -‘No one would guess from Mr Newman’s coarse -phrases how <i>elegant</i> is Homer’!!</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f45'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r45'>45</a>. </span>In a Note to my translation (overlooked by more -than one critic) I have explained <i>curl-ey’d</i>, carefully, -but not very accurately perhaps; as I had not before -me the picture of the Hindoo lady to which I referred. -The whole <i>upper eyelid</i>, when <i>open</i>, may be called -the curl; for it is shaped like a buffalo’s horns. This -accounts for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἑλικοβλέφαρος</span>, ‘having a curly eye<i>lid</i>’.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f46'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r46'>46</a>. </span>I thought I had toned it down pretty well, in -rendering it ‘O gentle friend’! Mr Arnold rebukes -me for this, without telling me what I ought to say, -or what is my fault. One thing is certain, that the -Greek is most <i>odd</i> and peculiar.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f47'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r47'>47</a>. </span>In the noble simile of the sea-tide, quoted <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> <a href='#Page_138'>138</a> -above, only the two first of its five lines are to the -purpose. Mr Gladstone, seduced by rhyme, has so -tapered off the point of the similitude, that only a -microscopic reader will see it.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f48'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r48'>48</a>. </span>It is very singular that Mr Gladstone should -imagine such a poet to have no eye for colour. I -totally protest against his turning Homer’s paintings -into leadpencil drawings. I believe that <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">γλαυκὸς</span> is -grey (silvergreen), <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">χάροψ</span> blue; and that <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">πρασινὸς</span>, -‘leek-colour’, was too mean a word for any poets, -early or late, to use for ‘green’, therefore <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">χλωρὸς</span> -does duty for it. <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Κῦμα πορφύρεον</span> is surely ‘the -purple wave’, and <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἰοειδέα πόντον</span> ‘the violet sea’.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f49'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r49'>49</a>. </span>He pares down <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἑλκηθμοῖο</span> (the dragging away of a -woman by the hair) into ‘captivity’! Better surely -is my ‘ignoble’ version: ‘Ere-that I see thee <i>dragg’d -away</i>, and hear thy shriek of anguish’.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f50'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r50'>50</a>. </span>He means <i>ours</i> for two syllables. ‘Swiftness of -ours’ is surely ungrammatical. ‘A galley of my own’ = -one of my own galleys; but ‘a father of mine’, -is absurd, since each has but one father. I confess -I have myself been seduced into writing ‘those two -eyes of his’, to avoid ‘<i>those his</i> two eyes’: but I have -since condemned and altered it.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f51'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r51'>51</a>. </span>Of course no peculiarity of phrase has <i>the effect</i> of -peculiarity on a man who has imperfect acquaintance -with the delicacies of a language; who, for instance, -thinks that <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἑλκηθμὸς</span> means <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">δουλεία</span>.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f52'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r52'>52</a>. </span><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Ἐλλὸς</span> needs light and gives none. Benfey suggests -that it is for <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἐνεὸς</span>, as <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἄλλος</span>, <i>alius</i>, for Sanscrit -<span lang="sa" xml:lang="sa"><i>anya</i></span>. He with me refers <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἔλλοψ</span> to <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">λέπω</span>. Cf. <i>squamigeri</i> -in Lucretius.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f53'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r53'>53</a>. </span>I do not see that Mr Arnold has any right to -reproach <i>me</i>, because <i>he</i> does not know Spenser’s -word ‘bragly’ (which I may have used twice in the -Iliad), or Dryden’s word ‘plump’, for a mass. The -former is so near in sound to <i>brag</i> and <i>braw</i>, that an -Englishman who is once told that it means ‘proudly -fine’, ought thenceforward to find it very intelligible: -the latter is a noble modification of the vulgar <i>lump</i>. -That he can carp as he does against these words and -against <i>bulkin</i> (= young bullock) as unintelligible, is -a testimony how little I have imposed of difficulty -on my readers. Those who know <i>lambkin</i> cannot -find <i>bulkin</i> very hard. Since writing the above, I -see a learned writer in the Philological Museum illustrates -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἴλη</span> by the old English phrase ‘a plump of -spears’.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f54'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r54'>54</a>. </span>I observe that Lord Lyttelton renders Milton’s -<i>dapper elf</i> by <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ῥαδινὰ</span>, ‘softly moving’.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f55'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r55'>55</a>. </span>Mr Arnold calls it an unfortunate sentence of -mine: ‘I ought to be quaint; I ought not to be -grotesque’. I am disposed to think him right, but -for reasons very opposite to those which he assigns. -I have ‘unfortunately’ given to querulous critics a -cue for attacking me unjustly. I should rather have -said: ‘We ought to be <i>quaint</i>, and not to shrink -from that which the fastidious modern will be sure -to call <i>grotesque</i> in English, when he is too blunted -by habit, or too poor a scholar to discern it in the -Greek’.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f56'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r56'>56</a>. </span>‘It is the fact, that scholars of fastidious refinement, -but of a judgment which I think far more -masculine than Mr Arnold’s, have passed a most -encouraging sentence on large specimens of my translation. -I at present count eight such names’.—‘Before -venturing to print, I sought to ascertain how -unlearned women and children would accept my -verses. I could boast how children and half-educated -women have extolled them, how greedily -a working man has inquired for them, without knowing -who was the translator’.—<span class='sc'>Mr Newman’s</span> Reply, -<abbr title='pages'>pp.</abbr> <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>, <i>supra</i>.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f57'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r57'>57</a>. </span>‘O for the fields of Thessaly and the streams of -Spercheios! O for the hills alive with the dances of -the Laconian maidens, the hills of Taygetus’!—<i>Georgics</i>, -<abbr title='2'>ii.</abbr> 486.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f58'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r58'>58</a>. </span><i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='17'>xvii</abbr>, 216.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f59'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r59'>59</a>. </span><i>Purgatory</i>, <abbr title='23'>xxiii</abbr>, 124.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f60'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r60'>60</a>. </span><i>Purgatory</i>, <abbr title='23'>xxiii</abbr>, 127.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f61'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r61'>61</a>. </span>‘A secure time fell to the lot neither of Peleus -the son of Æacus, nor of the godlike Cadmus; howbeit -these are said to have had, of all mortals, the -supreme of happiness, who heard the golden-snooded -Muses sing, one of them on the mountain (Pelion), -the other in seven-gated Thebus’.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f62'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r62'>62</a>. </span>Lines such as the first of the <i>Odyssey</i></p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὅς μάλα πολλὰ</span>....</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f63'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r63'>63</a>. </span>Substantially, however, in the question at issue -between Mr Munro and Mr Spedding, I agree with -Mr Munro. By the italicized words in the following -sentence, ‘The rhythm of the Virgilian hexameter -depends entirely on <i>cæsura</i>, <i>pause</i>, and a due arrangement -of words’, he has touched, it seems to -me, in the constitution of this hexameter, the central -point which Mr Spedding misses. The accent, or -<i>heightened tone</i>, of Virgil in reading his own hexameters, -was probably far from being the same thing -as the accent or <i>stress</i> with which we read them. -The general effect of each line, in Virgil’s mouth, -was probably therefore something widely different -from what Mr Spedding assumes it to have been: an -ancient’s accentual reading was something which -allowed the metrical beat of the Latin line to be far -more perceptible than our accentual reading allows it -to be.</p> - -<p class='c005'>On the question as to the <i>real</i> rhythm of the ancient -hexameter, Mr Newman has in his <i>Reply</i> a page quite -admirable for force and precision. Here he is in his -element, and his ability and acuteness have their -proper scope. But it is true that the <i>modern</i> reading -of the ancient hexameter is what the modern -hexameter has to imitate, and that the English reading -of the Virgilian hexameter is as Mr Spedding describes -it. Why this reading has not been imitated by the -English hexameter, I have tried to point out in the -text.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f64'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r64'>64</a>. </span>Such a minor change I have attempted by occasionally -shifting, in the first foot of the hexameter, -the accent from the first syllable to the second. In -the current English hexameter, it is on the first. -Mr Spedding, who proposes radically to subvert the -constitution of this hexameter, seems not to understand -that anyone can propose to modify it partially; -he can comprehend revolution in this metre, but not -reform. Accordingly he asks me how I can bring -myself to say, ‘<i>Bé</i>tween that and the ships’, or -‘<i>Thére</i> sat fifty men’; or how I can reconcile such -forcing of the accent with my own rule, that ‘hexameters -must <i>read themselves</i>’. Presently he says that -he cannot believe I do pronounce these words so, but -that he thinks I leave out the accent in the first foot -altogether, and thus get a hexameter with only five -accents. He will pardon me: I pronounce, as I -suppose he himself does, if he reads the words -naturally, ‘Be<i>tween</i> that and the ships’, and ‘There -<i>sát</i> fifty men’. Mr Spedding is familiar enough with -this accent on the second syllable in Virgil’s hexameters; -in ‘et <i>té</i> montosæ’, or ‘Ve<i>ló</i>ces jaculo’. -Such a change is an attempt to relieve the monotony -of the current English hexameter by occasionally -altering the position of one of its accents; it is not -an attempt to make a wholly new English hexameter -by habitually altering the position of four of them. -Very likely it is an unsuccessful attempt; but at any-rate -it does not violate what I think is the fundamental -rule for English hexameters, that may be such -as to <i>read themselves</i> without necessitating, on the -reader’s part, any non-natural putting-on or taking-off -accent. Hexameters like these of Mr Longfellow,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>‘In that delightful land which is washed by the Delaware’s waters’,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>and,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>‘As if they fain would appease the Dryads, whose haunts they molested’,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>violate this rule; and they are very common. I think -the blemish of Mr Dart’s recent meritorious version of -the <i>Iliad</i> is that it contains too many of them.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f65'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r65'>65</a>. </span>As I welcome another more recent attempt in -stanza,—Mr Worsley’s version of the <i>Odyssey</i> in -Spenser’s measure. Mr Worsley does me the honour -to notice some remarks of mine on this measure: I -had said that its greater intricacy made it a worse -measure than even the ten-syllable couplet to employ -for rendering Homer. He points out, in answer, -that ‘the more complicated the correspondences in -a poetical measure, the less obtrusive and absolute -are the rhymes’. This is true, and subtly remarked; -but I never denied that the single shocks of rhyme -in the couplet were more <i>strongly felt</i> than those in -the stanza; I said that the more frequent recurrence -of the same rhyme, in the stanza, necessarily made -this measure more <i>intricate</i>. The stanza repacks -Homer’s matter yet more arbitrarily, and therefore -changes his movement yet more radically, than the -couplet. Accordingly, I imagine a nearer approach -to a perfect translation of Homer is possible in the -couplet, well managed, than in the stanza, however -well managed. But meanwhile Mr Worsley, applying -the Spenserian stanza, that beautiful romantic measure, -to the most romantic poem of the ancient world; -making this stanza yield him, too (what it never -yielded to Byron), its treasures of fluidity and sweet -ease; above all, bringing to his task a truly poetical -sense and skill, has produced a version of the <i>Odyssey</i> -much the most pleasing of those hitherto produced, -and which is delightful to read.</p> - -<p class='c005'>For the public this may well be enough, nay, more -than enough; but for the critic even this is not yet -quite enough.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f66'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r66'>66</a>. </span>I speak of poetic genius as employing itself upon -narrative or dramatic poetry,—poetry in which the -poet has to go out of himself and to create. In -lyrical poetry, in the direct expression of personal -feeling, the most subtle genius may, under the -momentary pressure of passion, express itself simply. -Even here, however, the native tendency will generally -be discernible.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f67'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r67'>67</a>. </span>‘And I have endured—the like whereof no soul -upon the earth hath yet endured—to carry to my lips -the hand of him who slew my child’.—<i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='24'>xxiv.</abbr> -505.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f68'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r68'>68</a>. </span>‘Nay and thou too, old man, in times past wert, -as we hear, happy’.—<i>Iliad</i>, <abbr title='24'>xxiv.</abbr> 543. In the -original this line, for mingled pathos and dignity, -is perhaps without a rival even in Homer.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f69'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r69'>69</a>. </span>’For so have the gods spun our destiny to us -wretched mortals,—that we should live in sorrow; -but they themselves are without trouble’.—<i>Iliad</i>, -<abbr title='24'>xxiv</abbr>. 525.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f70'> -<p class='c005'><span class='label'><a href='#r70'>70</a>. </span>‘<i>I</i> wept not: so of stone grew I within:—<i>they</i> -wept’.—<i>Hell</i>, <abbr title='33'>xxxiii</abbr>. 49 (Carlyle’s Translation, -slightly altered).</p> -</div> - -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<hr /> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> - -<div class='tnotes'> - - <ul class='ul_1 c002'> - <li>Transcriber’s Note: - <ul class='ul_2'> - <li>Footnotes have been collected at the end of the text, and are linked for ease of - reference. - </li> - </ul> - </li> - </ul> - -</div> - -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<hr class="pgx" /> -<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON TRANSLATING HOMER***</p> -<p>******* This file should be named 65381-h.htm or 65381-h.zip *******</p> -<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/5/3/8/65381">http://www.gutenberg.org/6/5/3/8/65381</a></p> -<p> -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed.</p> - -<p>Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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