Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

Or,

Nor was that cry by Neftor unperceiv'd
Iliad, xiv. 1.

Tho' drinking.'

Archer fhrew-tongued! fpie-maiden! man of curls!”
Il. xi. 469.

Thus Diomede reproaches Paris : but how much better do we recognise the gallant fon of Tydeus in Pope's verfion?

-thou conq'ror of the fair,

Thou woman-warrior with the curling hair,

Vain Archer !'

Homer cannot be acquitted of having fometimes put very vulgar language into the mouth of the emprefs of Heaven (Hom. iv. 21.): fhe fcolds with equal energy in the translation:

• What word hath pafs'd thy lips, Jove most severe !
How wouldst thou render fruitless all thy pains?
The fweat that I have pour'd? my steeds themselves
Have fainted while I gather'd Greece in arms
For punishment of Priam and his fons.

Do it. But small thy praise shall be in heav'n.’

We cannot refift the pleasure of tranfcribing Pope's verfion; who has preferved the original spirit, and done away all its groffnefs: a ftory does not depend more on the manner in which it is told, than a fentiment.

Shall then, O tyrant of th' ethereal reign,

My schemes, my labors, and my hopes be vain?
Have I for this thook Ilium with alarms,
Affembled nations, fet two worlds in arms?
To spread the war I fiew from shore to shore,

Th' immortal courfers fcarce the labor bore.

(At length ripe vengeance o'er their heads impends,)
But Jove himself the faithlefs race defends.

Loth as thou art to punish lawlefs luft,

Not all the gods are partial and unjust.’

Such lines as thefe convey a much juster idea of the spirit of the original than the others, however exact. Pope reminds us of a line in Johnfon's funeral infcription on Goldfmith:

Nihil feré quod tetigit non ornavit.

His elevation of numerous paffages, in the original flat and infipid; ftrengthening thofe that are feeble; foftening others that are grofs; and, by a kind of chemical procefs, converting drofs into gold; operating on them like fteel on flint, and bringing forth latent fire; commands our admiration and

S 2

applause,

applause. Let it, however, be acknowledged that he has fometimes fruftrated his own intentions of elevating Homer's fentiments, and dignifying his heroic characters, by too great an anxiety to adorn them: he often fubftitutes the trappings of modern finery for the plain and graceful veft of antiquity. Mr. Cowper profeffes himself to be one of his warmest admirers; but remarks, his deviations are fo many [the accufation cannot be totally denied] that, valuable as his work is on fome accounts, it was yet in the humble province of a translator, that I thought it poffible even for me to follow him with fome advantage.' In point of fidelity there is certainly no comparifon; but Mr. C. is occafionally too faithful: a verbal tranflation not only deftroys the fpirit, but fometimes falfifies the meaning of the ori ginal.

A fingle word may ferve as an inftance: Hero (Heps) has with us a determinate fenfe, and is appropriated to military charac ters; but it is not fo in Homer: he prefixes it to many names in the Odyffey, on whom, had he firft written in English, he would never have beftowed it. We have the Hero Halitherfes, the Hero Egyptus, the Hero Medon, and the Hero Megapenthes; yet no military exploit is recorded or alluded to of either. Mr. C. therefore fhould not have adopted the fame word. The first is never mentioned but as a foothfayer: nothing appears of the second, but that he was an old man, and of fome confequence in Ithaca: and the third was an herald, who (fo far from being an hero, according to our acceptation of the word,) concealed himfelf in an ox's hide during the flaughter of the fuitors, and could fcarcely believe himself alive after he had been allured of fafety and protection by Ulyffes himself. With the bard Phemius he repaired to the altar of Jupiter.

Odyff. xxii. 380.

Παντοσε παπταίνοντε φονον ποτιδεγμένω αιει. The fourth is faid to have been born to Menelaus in his age (THλUYETOS *). Yet Menelaus was one of the youngest of the Gre cian kings at the commencement of the Trojan war: much younger than Ulyffes, whofe abfence is moft pathetically deplored by an enamoured goddess, and whose perfonal beauties captivate a king's youthful daughter, nearly at the fame period; and who afterwards is defcribed as no way enfeebled by the lapfe of time. If we date the age of Megapenthes, who is mentioned as a hero and a bridegroom t, from his father's beginning to grow old, as that muit, according to common calculation, be fome years after Ulyfles would feel the effects of time, it reduces his period of existence to lefs than nothing. We notice this little

This word may poffibly be rendered natus procul abfente patre: but if that is admillible, Mr. C. fhould not have tranflated it as above." † Odyd. iv. 13.

overfight,

overfight, as we shall a few others; they at least strike us as fuch, on account of Mr. Cowper's unqualified affertion, that Homer has been charged with now and then a nap, a crime of which I am perfuaded he is never guilty.'

We shall proceed to mention a few of these errors, for they cannot be called crimes; and it is surprising that fo few marks of inattention or forgetfulness fhould occur in poems of fuch magnitude, containing fo great a variety of characters and intricacy of fable.-Memnon (Odyff. iv. 188.) is mentioned as having killed Antilochus, the fon of Neftor: but in the Iliad, Memnon is faid to have been flain by Achilles even before the commencement of the action of that poem, and Antilochus is one of the furviving heroes at its conclufion. Пautas, much-suffering, is an epithet as frequently applied to Ulyffes + in the Iliad as in the Odyfley, yet at that time he had suffered no hardships but fuch as were fhared in common with other heroes. Ajax (Hom. Il. xv. 823.) fights with a long pole or mace. At the conclufion of the book, in which he is reprefented as engaged inceffantly in action, his offenfive weapon is changed, we know

This anticipation of an epithet afterwards peculiarly his, may lead us to conjecture that not only the fiege of Troy, but the fufferings of Ulyffes, &c. were the fubjects of difcourfe, and the theme of bards before the days of Homer. From the popu arity of the fubject he might be led to give a prediction to Helen, which he himself hath principally caused to be accomplished, and made her story the theme of bards in future ages: thus fhe teils Paris:

οπίσσω

Ανθρώποισι πελωμεθ' αοιδίμοι εσσομενοισι. Il. vi. 357.

[ocr errors]

Homer fometimes alludes to other poems,' recording different adventures of the heroes here celebrated. See particularly the ftory of Demodocus. (Hom. Odyff. viii. 75)

Was it not univerfally allowed that the Odyffey was fubfequent to the Iliad, we might have been almoft tempted to fuppofe that his name Olurs, or the Traveller,' was an acquired name (from of oder iter facio) and given him likewife by anticipation; but we must not difpute the word of his good grandfather Autolochus, who has affigned another de ivation. (Hom. Odys. xix. 395.) Homer is an interefting fubject, and in turning over Mr. Cowper's tranflation we fhall not refrain from making fuch occafional remarks as the original may fuggeft to us: we wish he had favoured us more frequently with his own. The Odyffey, in Pope's notes, is faid to be one leffon of morality:' but we apprehend that Homer, notwithstanding the many noble fentiments he has fcattered through it, entertained but a very imperfect idea of moral virtue. It does not feem to have acquired even a name to mark its exiftence, and agery is never used by him but to denote valour or perfonal refolution. He makes no distinetion between craft and wisdom: the fevere Minerva conftantly approves the conduct of Ulyffes, and in the 13th book of the Odyssey (1. 291.) speaks in rapture of his diffimulation. The good Autolochus, mentioned above, is celebrated for his being fuperior to all men in theft and perjury,

Μητρος της πατερ' εσθλον ος ανθρωποις εκέκαςο
Κλεπτοςύνη Θ' ορκω τε Odyfl. xix. 395.

It muk not be concealed that a different interpretation has been given to this paffage by writers of the greatest eminence. But if we reflect that Autolochus was the grandfather of Ulyffes, endowed with thofe eminent qualifications by Mercury himfeif, and that his name has become proverbial from the earlieй times to the prefent for a thief of addrefs, we cannot easily give up the literal interpretation,

not how, and he kills a dozen warriors with his Sharp spear, αξει δωρε.

Menelaus informs Telemachus, that the pleasures he had proposed to participate with Ulyffes,

- could only envy move

E'en in the Gods, who have of all the Greeks.

Amerced him only of his wifh'd return.' Odyff. iv. 225. The two onlys have a very bad effect: for the first there is no authority in the original; and the fecond was not, ftrictly fpeaking, the cafe: but for this the tranflator is not refponfible *. Many who furvived the fiege of Troy, either returned not to their native country, or were expelled foon after their return. We know not why es antes is rendered, the Gods.' Pope tranflates it fome envious power.' The word amerced, which here fignifies to prevent or hinder, appears to be forced into the fervice: it is certainly not according to its common acceptation, but we believe it is fomewhere used in this sense by Milton.

Ulyffes, in order to deceive Eumæus, (Hom. Odyff. xiv. 237.) tells him that he was a native of Crete, his name Caftor; and that he commanded, in conjunction with Idomeneus, the Cretans at the fiege of Troy. This appears rather inartificial. So improbable a circumftance was inconfiftent with the character of Ulyfles to mention, or Eumæus to credit. During fo long a fiege, the chiefs of the refpective nations must have been well known through all Greece, and whoever had heard of Idomeneus as king of Crete, could not well be supposed ignorant that the faithful Meriones was his fecond in command.

'

[ocr errors]

Ulyffes is ftyled naños te μɛyaste (Hom. Ody ff. vi. 275.). Now fo far as tallness is implied by greatnefs,' which is here alluded to, (and according to ferjeant Kite he that is born to be fix foot high is born to be a great man), Ulyffes is not entitled to that epithet. In the liad (book iii. 228.) he is represented as fhorter by the head' than Agamemnon; and in the fame book, 1.250, fhorter by the thoulders' than Menelaus: whilft Ajax furpaffes all the other Grecians both by head and fhoulders §.' (Il. iii. 273.) This reduces Ulyffes to a very moderate ftature, after admitting that of Ajax to have been extremely gigantic!-The compliments paid to Helen's beauty in the Odyffey, thirty years after he had eloped with Paris, are certainly too exalted; for even at that time, however beautiful, fhe had not, if we may truft chronology, much of the bloom of youth to recommend her, Penelope, another Ninon

Ajax O leys, Teucer, Diomede, &c.

+ Hom. I. iii. 163.

Η Σταντίνου. Με φλαος υπείροχον ευρέας ώμες. 1. 11. 1934
Eixos Appear us paλny no' sugeas 445. 11. iii. 227.

of

of ancient Greece, appears not to have been greatly her junior; and like her, is ftyled at the time of Ulyffes' return, dia yuvaixwv, a female divinity.

We will allow thefe inftances of neglect, or forgetfulness, to be, if Mr. Cowper pleases, specks in the fun but we introduce them merely to fhow that, contrary to his affirmation, this poetical fun has fpecks. Critical telescopes have difcovered others of different kinds; and, as we apprehend, of greater magnitude.

Mr. Cowper remarks that,

-the free and the close translation have, each, their advocates. But inconveniencies belong to both. The former can hardly be true to the original author's ftyle and manner, and the latter is apt to be fervile. The one lofes his peculiarities, and the other his fpirit. Were it poffible, therefore, to find an exact medium, a manner fo close that it should let flip nothing of the text, nor mingle any thing extraneous with it, and at the fame time fo free as to have an air of originality, this feems precifely the mode in which an author might be beft rendered.'

Here, indeed, rests the difficulty--hic labor, hoc opus est! Again:

the tranflation which partakes equally of fidelity and liberality, that is clofe, but not fo clofe as to be fervile, free, but not fo free as to be licentious, promifes fairet; and my ambition will be fufficiently gratified, if fuch of my readers as are able, and will take the pains to compare me in this refpect with Homer, fhall judge that I have in any measure attained a point fo difficult.'

We must allow that Mr. Cowper feldom violates the fimplicity of the original, or degenerates into licentioufnefs; but we cannot acquit him of being frequently too tame and fervile. In turning over thefe volumes, we are fometimes apt to forget that Homer was a poet. Had his intention been merely to preserve the fenfe of the Grecian bard, we are inclined to think that a liberal profe tranflation would have preferved it in periods no lefs musical than the prefent, and that thofe numeri iege foluti' would have been lefs ftiff, cumbrous, and tirefome: we allude more particularly to the Odyffey. In the Telemachus of Fenelon, the beauties of Homer are clustered thick together, and his peculiarities, fuch as are ungenial to a modern language, avoided; yet we believe few readers would perufe it in blank verfe with fo much pleasure as in a decent profe tranflation. It need not be infifted upon, that the argument must hold much stronger against a clofe copy of Homer in blank verfe. An elegant profe tranflation we ftill confider as extremely de

S4

firable:

« AnteriorContinua »