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by Homer

ADVERTISEMENT.

Having been led, during an interval of leisure, to translate, for my amusement, the first four books of the Iliad, and venturing, for the same reason, to print the first book, together with the Battle of the Frogs and Mice, and the two accompanying Hymns—it was not my design to have extended, beyond these, the compass of my little volume. My Publisher, however, suggesting that a slight addition would render its dimensions by no means inconveniently large, I was induced, after the sheets, originally intended, had been paged and struck off, to add the second book of the Iliad, with which the volume now concludes. I mention this circumstance in order to account for the appearance of the latter book in its present unusual position—divorced from its natural ally the first book, by the armed intervention of the Frogs and Mice, and the intrusion, of various species of contention; and to excel in the humblest of them is to possess some degree of merit, and to prefer some claim, however slight, to the public favour. He who cannot attain the richness and harmony of 'Pope' may yet hope to surpass him in fidelity; and though the spirit and freedom of 'Chapman' may not be easily outgone, his conciseness and poetical feeling have not much to intimidate a competitor of ordinary endowments.

"But to come closer to the question,—I hoped that to a fidelity equal to the most scrupulous of my predecessors, I might be found to unite a certain degree of vigour, and to atone for a defect. of poetical merit by conciseness and perspicuity. When I speak of fidelity, however, let it be observed, in justice to myself, that I carry the import of this word somewhat further than is usually done. I translate for the English reader, and do not think it sufficient to give him a loose idea of the original, but as fair and perfect a transcript of it as the difference of language will admit: at the same time it will, I trust, appear that I have not, in any instance, fallen into barbarisms or violated the idiom of my own country.

"It has been objected that my lines run into one another, and that they would have pleased more had the sense ended with the couplet. I once thought the same; and in many a school translation 'rhymed and rattled' on very glibly, and very much to my own satisfaction; but I subsequently formed a different (I must not say a more correct) opinion of the duty of a translator; and to that, notwithstanding the gentle admonitions which have been conveyed to me, I continue to adhere. It will be readily admitted that I have not adopted the most easy mode of translation;—since, not content with giving the author's sense, I have entered as far as it was in my power into his feelings, and exhibited as much of his manner, nay of his language (i. e. his words), as I possibly could. Expressions which have been usually avoided, as not germane to our tongue, are here hazarded, for the simple purpose of bringing 'Homer' as he wrote before the unlearned reader, who may be assured, that he will find, in few versions, as much of the original as in the present for this of course he must take my affirmation,—nor is this all, for I have given him no more than the original; all that will be found here, is to be found in 'Homer.'"

After all, however, I cannot help apprehending with Mr. Gifford himself, that to many "the mode here adopted will be less pleasing than a more splendid style of versification."—(Gifford's Introduction to Persius, p. ix—xi. 1817.)

Agreeing then, as I do, in toto, with the tenor of the foregoing observations, the appropriation of them to my own purpose will not, I trust, be deemed presumptuous; although my compliance. with the requisitions they contain may have been far more imperfect, and proportionably less successful, than that of the learned critic with whom they originated; and whose practice they so happily point out. It is impossible, however, in every instance to act up to the rules which we profess to adopt, and whose authority we do fully recognize. Consequently, in looking again over the following sheets, I discover more passages than one, in which these rules have been unnecessarily departed from. Such exceptions I believe to be neither very numerous nor very important: at any rate, it is now too late to correct them. I can therefore but advertise—and apologise for—their existence generally.^[1]

With respect to the notes, I have merely to remark, that, excepting the scriptural, and some few other familiar parallelisms, they are likely to present very little in the shape of direct illustration of the text. Sometimes a word, sometimes a bare allusion in the original, has served to recal a favourite passage to mind, and has thus become, as it were, a peg whereon to hang a few detached and, otherwise, unconnected fragments.^[2] Such is the light in which I would have the reader regard them—and as such, I hope they will not prove altogether uninteresting to him. As to the imitations of Homer which present themselves at every page of our English Poets, the field is so wide, and the flowers so endless, that I prefer leaving them for the reader's own gathering—if he choose to undertake the task. They began to multiply upon my hands so fast, that I was compelled to omit them, or suffer the notes to swell beyond all bounds and proportion.

1. Two, nevertheless, I will take the liberty of particularizing. The first occurs in my version of that noble line (the 49th of the first Book of the Iliad, page 3.) Δεινὴ δὲ κλαγγὴ κ. τ. λ. where, for the nervous simplicity of the original, I have substituted a vague and indefinite periphrasis. This error, too, is the less excusable on my part, from the line being rendered, word for word, and with excellent effect, in a "Specimen of an English Homer in Blank Verse," published anonymously in 1807; and also in the recent specimen of Mr. Sotheby.
   If permitted to make a second attempt, I would render the line, with its context, thus—though, after all, far from satisfactorily—
   "Then from the fleet sat for aloof—and drew
   His silver bow—fast forth the arrows flew—
   While ever as they fled—incessant rang
   That silver bow—and terrible the twang.
   
   
   Or perhaps in the following triplet—if the use of "yew," in the third line for "low," may be allowable:—an extension of meaning sanctioned, it may be observed, by the example of Dryden, in his Virgil.—En. ix. 854. xi. 1247.
   Then from the fleet sat far aloof—and threw
   An arrow forth—while ever as it flew,
   Dire was the twanging of his silver yew.
   
   
   The other needless departure from the letter of the Greek, which has been suggested to me by a critical friend, is my rendering of the 388th line of the first Book. It stands the 11th line from the bottom of page 16, infra; in place of which I would read the second verse of the couplet as follows:—
   Straight rose the king and uttered, in his pride,
   A ruffian threat:—that threat is ratified.
   
   
2. One striking parallel from Scripture is omitted, I observe, at p.39. where, with the beginning of Nestor's harangue, (note 29, page 11.) should be compared 2 Samuel i. 20, "Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Ascalon, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph." See also Micah i, 10.
   And with the commencement of Agamemnon's speech to Nestor, (last line at page 102, "Father of Greece," &c.) should be compared 2 Kings ii. 12. and xiii. 14. "My Father, my Father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof."
   Among a few other unnoticed errata, "Cat-and-Frog Fight" has been allowed to stand at page 61, under note 6. It should of course be "Cat-and-Mouse Fight" (Galeomyomachia), as indeed it corrects itself on the following page.