is, again, pure insertion, and a very feeble insertion too. Yet, for all this, the passage is quite in Pope's best manner. Cowper also is very good, though his opening lines hang heavily. We should demur to the expression "dire deformity;" and we doubt whether Διὸς τέρας even joined with αιγιόχοιο has the definiteness of meaning which he gives to it. Mr. Wright's version is more spirited than usual, and very carefully finished in detail. He is the only one who has correctly apprehended the nature of the agis, and not made it a shield. Also he has seen, as no one else has seen, the difficulty in the juxtaposition of ȧupíφαλος and τετραφάληρος, and is probably right in making the latter, not a mere lengthened form of Teтpápaλos, but a word from a different root, appearing also in paλnptówv, and either the name for the plume or an epithet of it. His translation of appiparos is perhaps open to question, but he has a right to hold his own opinion upon the subject. We may remark that he has lost the force of μúkov in translating it simply "opened." We have already trespassed far too much on the reader's attention with our quotations, but we could not expect to be pardoned if after all we did not give a passage from the episode of Hector and Andromache. Let us take the reply of Hector (b. vi. vv. 440-465), and first give attention to Chapman: "Be well assured, wife, all these things in my kind cares are weighed. But what a shame, and fear, it is to think how Troy would scorn (Both in her husbands and her wives, whom long-trained gowns adorn,) That I shall cowardly fly off! The spirit I first did breath Did never teach me that; much less, since the contempt of death Was settled in me, and my mind knew what a worthy was, Whose office is to lead in fight, and give no danger pass Without improvement. In this fire must Hector's trial shine; Here must his country, father, friends, be, in him, made divine. And such a stormy day shall come (in mind and soul I know) When sacred Troy shall shed her tow'rs for tears of overthrow, When Priam, all his birth and pow'r shall in those tears be drown'd. But neither Troy's posterity so much my soul doth wound, Priam, nor Hecuba herself, nor all my brother's woes (Who though so many, and so good, must all be food for foes) As thy sad state, when some rude Greek shall lead thee weeping hence, These free days clouded, and a night of captive violence Loading thy temples, out of which thine eyes must never see, But spin the Greek wives' webs of task, and their fetch-water be To Argos, from Messeides or clear Hyperia's spring; Which, howsoever thou abhorr'st, Fate's such a shrewish thing She will be mistress; whose curst hands, when they shall crush out cries From thy oppressions (being beheld by other enemies), Thus they will nourish thy extremes; This dame was Hector's wife, A man that at the wars of Troy did breathe the worthiest life Of all their army.' This again will rub thy fruitful wounds, To miss the man that to thy bands could give such narrow bounds. Cf. Smith, Dict. of Antiqq., s. v. + Cf. Buttm. Lexil. s. v. páλos, sect. 9. But that day shall not wound mine eyes; the solid heap of night Shall interpose, and stop mine ears against thy plaints and plight." This exhibits well old Chapman's strength and weakness. On the one hand, it is full of truth and force and life, deeply tinged with the Homeric spirit, and fairly faithful to the Homeric letter. Yet we have, as of old, to balance against these his unconquerable quaintness and Elizabethan conceits. How much of Chapman, how little of Homer, is there in the "shed her towers for tears of overthrow" and "in those tears be drowned;" and again, in the "night of captive violence," and the whole following line. "Nourish thy extremes," "to thy bands give narrow bounds," "solid heap of night," are all far too quaint even for ears tuned to Chapman's diction. Dryden here reappears as a translator, but with scanty success, as will be seen: "That and the rest are in my daily care. But, should I shun the dangers of the war, Shall Hector, born to war, his birthright yield, And still have been the foremost in the fight. Not Troy itself, though built by hands divine, My mother, nor my brothers of renown, Whose valour yet defends the unhappy town- But I, oppress'd with iron sleep before, We have not time, nor space, nor patience to criticise all this in detail. It is of course vigorous sounding English, for Dryden could write none other if he tried; but we believe that scarcely a line from beginning to end is Homeric, scarcely an idea undistorted, and the whole touching unconscious simplicity of the passage is turned into theatrical declamation. We have not space to quote Pope; but the reader will find that in his version, though the gross errors of Dryden's taste are avoided, in many undesirable points they have been followed, and that Pope has errors of his own as well. A detailed examination of both has been given by Professor Wilson. We may add, that both Dryden and Pope make Andromache embroider on her loom for her Argive task-mistress the sad tale of fallen Troy. The idea may be poetical, but it is not in Homer; Homer, we think, would rather have made such a work a labour of joy than of sorrow; and has more appropriately given it to her who alone owned in her heart a divided allegiance in Troy's death-struggle, the halfcontrite, half-complacent Traviata, whose character seems even yet to be an unfathomed mystery. Pope has also such expres sions as "weight of waters," "load of monumental clay," and others very contrary to the Homeric spirit. Still, his version will not be read without pleasure, and he has far excelled his great master Dryden. * Cowper has again reached, if not surpassed, his usual excellence, and has several very beautiful touches: "Thy cares are all mine also. But I dread The matron's scorn, the brave man's just disdain, Of Argos; there to labour at the loom Fast flow thy tears the while, and as he eyes Cf. b. iii. 125. That silent shower, some passing Greek shall say, Shall pierce mine ear, and thou be dragged away." We might object to an expression here and there, such as "senseless store," but the version must leave Pope and Dryden far behind, and as a whole it is more uniformly good than Chapman. It is true to Homer, and true to good taste and feeling, and will be the more valued as the reader dwells more and more on it. We wish to bring forward one specimen more of Sotheby, though we fear the present will hardly raise him in the opinion of scholars: "Hector replied, these all, O wife beloved, All that moves thee, my heart have deeply moved. The warrior Hector fears the war to wage. I know the day draws near when Troy shall fall, A voice will then be heard that thou must hear, This version must be pronounced, we fear, the most complete failure of all those which we have been comparing. The first three lines are feebly spun out into six. The line "When Priam and his nation perish all" is very bad indeed. Such expressions as "my peace destroy," "thee to Greece a prey," "grasp of war," and many others, seem very contrary to the spirit of Homer. Still worse is "measured wave," as a weak conceit for water; and the last line, as Professor Wilson has already observed, is "a poor impostor detected in the vain attempt to pass itself off for πρὶν γ ̓ ἔτι σῆς τε βοῆς σοῦ θ' ἑλκηθμοῖο πυθέσθαι.” "All these thy anxious cares are also mine, But o'er my mouldering corse may earth be piled, Here again, as before, our translator has taken the only safe course, and followed the Greek almost word for word. We cannot too much praise the scrupulous fidelity with which the passage has been rendered. Even the constant epithets KeσTTÉπλους, ἐϋμμελίω, χαλκοχιτώνων, ἱπποδάμων, all find their place, though of the other translators all have omitted some of them, and some perhaps all. No version can be completely faithful which omits a feature so characteristic of the author's manner. Let our readers but do Mr. Wright justice by comparing him. closely with the Greek; they will find him more literal even than Cowper, and nearly, though not perhaps quite, equal to him in taste and feeling. |