MR. BRYANT'S "THIRTY POEMS"
English synthesis. We have compared a few passages with the original, and are struck with their fidelity. Few words are added or omitted, and the sense is generally correct. But the very success of the translator's second intention has the effect of commonplace. Take the opening of the book:
Aurora, rising from her couch beside
The famed Tithonus, brought the light of day
To men and to immortals. Then the gods
Came to their seats in council. With them came
High thundering Jupiter, amongst them all
The mightiest. Pallas, mindful of the past,
Spoke of Ulysses and his many woes,
Grieved that he still was with the island nymph.
This exordium verges on the prosaic. Homer says the same thing, and in about the same space; but the stately choice and order of his language lift it to the dignity of epic verse. Another instance: the line,
Ulysses, the sagacious, answered her,
is a meagre substitute for the resonant and courtly
Τήν δ᾽ἀπαμειβόμενος προσέφη πολύμητις ᾽Οδυσσέυς.
Mr. Bryant's version loses the essential quality of rest, which makes the antique song carry us ever forward without palling to the ear. The genius of the Homeric ballad, like that of a skilfully managed fantasia, is to return incessantly to the "theme," and, after the long-
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