enjoyments, its picturesque environment, and its sunny skies. All this the modern student must study himself into, by a long and laborious process; but however vividly these recovered influences may act upon the translator's mind, he cannot adequately transfer them to the untrained mind of the common reader. The Homeric poetry, however, is so essentially popular, it is so deeply grounded in the universal nature of man, it speaks so strongly to the common passions of the human heart, that whatever is local, temporary, and accidental may be set aside in the general estimate of its power to engage the interest of hearers or readers; and so it has come to pass, that, in the long procession of the ages, the Homeric poetry, amidst the altered relations of the world, is now the most popular poetry for reading in the closet, as it was in its own day the most popular poetry for the rhythmical chanting of the minstrels in the festive halls, or under the open sky at the panegyreis, or at the great Panathenaic gatherings in the violet-crowned city. Every cultivated language of modern Europe possesses translations of Homer. But the artificially formed languages of modern European poetry are not precisely the vehicles for the peculiar and unrivalled simplicity of Homer. The ballad styles of the minstrels and Minnesingers approach, in their objective character and pictorial effect, the Ionian of the Grecian epic; but they lack the artistic completeness and rhythmical perfection which Grecian genius knew how to stamp upon its earliest productions. The accentual principles of the modern versification - principles adopted even by the Greeks since the thirteenth century are wholly inadequate to produce the effect of the ancient musical quantity. This subject we have discussed at some length, in a former number of the Review, and we can make only a passing allusion to it here. In English, we possess a number of versions of Homer, made on different principles, and with different ends in view. The two most popular are Pope's and Cowper's. Several specimens of translation in the ballad style, very happily executed, were published a few years ago in Fraser's Magazine. This style is excellent for short passages, but would not probably sustain itself through a series of cantos. A late number of one of the English monthly journals contains speci mens of translations into English hexameters. This style is not entirely new in English; but no very successful feat has yet been accomplished in it. * To the Germans this measure - has long been familiar. The best poets of that nation have written freely and skilfully in hexameters; but as the modern hexameter is founded almost, if not quite, exclusively on accent, as quantity is not a fixed element of modern pronunciation, it is probable that both German and English hexameters possess only a remote resemblance to the chanted rhythms of Homer. Voss, however, notwithstanding Menzel's pungent criticism, enjoys a great reputation as a faithful translator of the Iliad and Odyssey; and it must be confessed, that a reader familiar with the original finds more in such a version to remind him of the sounding march of Homer's lines, than in the flowing couplets of Pope, or the creeping blank verse of Cowper. A late number of Blackwood's Magazine contains a translation of the twenty-fourth book of the Iliad, in hexameters, the most successful attempt of this sort we have yet met with in English. It may not be without interest to our readers to compare the translations by different writers of the same passage, it must necessarily be a short one. They will thus be able to judge of the different principles which have guided the translators in the execution of their tasks. For the purpose of including in this survey the hexameters of Blackwood, we select the opening of the last book of the Iliad. Literally rendered, the lines are as follows: The assembly broke up, and the people each to their swift ships. * In 1583, Richard Stanyhurst published "The first foure Bookes of Virgil's Æneis, translated into English heroicall verse; with other poeticall devises thereunto annexed." He selected Virgil as "a Latinist fit to give the onset on," because he, "for his perelesse stile and matchlesse stuffe, doth beare the pricke and price among all the Romane poets." Some of this "matchlesse stuffe' is the following description of an eruption of Mount Etna. "Neere joynctlye brayeth with rufflerye rumboled Etna: 14 Wept, remembering his dear companion; nor him did sleep Now lying on his side, and now again Supine, and now prone; and then, starting upright, He roamed distraught the shore of the sea; nor by him was Aurora Unobserved, appearing above the sea and the shores; But when he had yoked the swift steeds to the chariot, Thrice having dragged him around the tomb of dead Menoitiades, Chapman and Hobbes are among the oldest translators. Chapman belongs to the Elizabethan age, having been born in 1557. His translation is vigorous, and often very felicitous ; though, taken as a whole, it is heavy reading. He thus renders the passage in question : "The games performed, the soldiers wholly dispersed to fleet, Supper and sleep their only care. Constant Achilles yet Wept for his friend; nor sleep itself, that all things doth subdue, Could touch at him. This way and that he turned, and did renew His friend's dear memory; his grace in managing his strength, And his strength's greatness. How life rack'd into their utmost length Griefs, battles, and the wraths of seas, in their joint sufferance, Each thought of which turned to a tear. Sometimes he would advance (In tumbling on the shore) his side, sometimes his face, then turn Flat on his bosom, start upright. Although he saw the morn Show sea and shore his ecstasy, he left not till at last Rage varied his distraction. Horse, chariot, in haste He called for; and (those joined) the corse was to his chariot tied, And thrice about the sepulchre he made his fury ride, Dragging the person. Thomas Hobbes, the philosopher of Malmesbury, and author of the Leviathan, was born in 1588. He translated Homer into alternately rhyming verses of ten syllables. His style is hard and bald, and utterly wanting in the char acteristics of poetic expression. For example, the passage in which Achilles speaks of the "two urns, one of good, and another of ills, which stand in the hall of Zeus," Hobbes drolly renders, "Two barrels in his cellar Jove has still Of gifts to be bestowed on mortal wights." The lines of which Chapman's version is cited above are thus rendered by the philosopher : "Thus end the games. The Greeks dispersed are, And every man returned to his tent, And busie was his supper to prepare; And after they had supped, to bed they went. And on their common sufferings, still did think, And weeping, sometimes laid himself on this, Sometimes on that side, sometimes on his face, And dragg'd him thrice about Patroclus' tomb, This sort of version did not satisfy the fastidious ears of good Queen Anne's generation. Let us see how Pope deals with the passage "Now from the finished games the Grecian band Seek their black ships, and clear the crowded strand; All stretched at ease the genial banquet share, And pleasing slumbers quiet all their care. Not so Achilles; he, to grief resigned, That youthful vigor, and that manly mind, What toils they shared, what martial works they wrought, Thought follows thought, and tear succeeds to tear; "The games all closed, the people went dispersed Like these drew down his cheeks continual tears; Now prone; then starting from his couch he roamed Him thrice he dragged; then rested in his tent." Mr. Sotheby, previously known as the translator of Wieland's Oberon, attempted to combine in his version of the Iliad the fidelity of Cowper and the poetry of Pope. This translation, though careful and elaborate, is frequently stiff. The parallel passage in his Iliad runs as follows: "The games now closed, the Grecians sought their tent, But not the power of all-subduing sleep |
