SOTHEBY'S HOMER.* PATRIOTS as we are, as well as Cosmopolites, how relieving, how refreshing, how invigorating, and how elevating to our senses and our souls, to fly from politics to poetry-from the Honourable House to the Immortal Homer-from the vapid feuds of placemen and reformers, to the deadly wrath of nature's heroic sonsfrom the helpless limp of any middle-aged Smith, to the elastic lameness of old Vulcan-from O'Connell and Hunt, with their matchless blacking, to "Atrides, king of men, and Thetis' godlike son!" We are no great Greek scholars; but we can force our way, vi et armis, through the Iliad. What we do not clearly, we dimly, understand, and are happy in the glorious glimpses; in the full unbroken light, we bask like an eagle in the sunshine that emblazons his eyrie; in the gloom that sometimes falls suddenly down on his inspired rhapsodies, as if from a tower of clouds, we are for a time eyeless as "blind Mæonides," while with him we enjoy " the darkness that may be felt," as the lightnings of his genius flash, lo! before our wide imagination ascends "stately-structured Troy," expand tented shore and masted sea; and in that thunder we dream of the nod that shuddered Olympus. Some people believe in twenty Homers-we in one. Nature is not so prodigal of her great poets. Heaven only knows the number of her own stars-no astronomer may ever count them-but the soul-stars of earth are but few; and with this Perryan pen could we name them all. Who ever heard of two Miltons -of two Shakspeares? That there should even have been one of each, is a mystery, when we look at what are called men. Who, then, after considering that argument, will believe that Greece of old was glorified by a numerous brotherhood of coeval genii of mortal birth, all "building up the lofty rhyme," till beneath their har monious hands, arose, in its perfect proportions, immortal in its beauty and magnificence," The Tale of Troy Divine?" Was Homer savage or civilized? Both. So was Achilles. Conceived by a goddess, and begotten by a hero, that half-celestial child sat at the knees of a formidable GamalielChiron the Centaur. Grown up to perfect stature, his was the Beauty of the Passions-Apollo's self, in his loveliness, not a more majestic minister of death. Paint him in two words-STORMY SUNSHINE. Was the breath of life ever in that shining savage-or was he but a lustrous shadow in blind Homer's ima gination? What matters it? All is that we think; no other existence; Homer thought Achilles; clouds are transient, but Troy's towers are eternal. Oh! call not Greek a dead language, if you have a soul to be saved! The bard who created, and the heroes who fought in the Iliad, are therein not entombed, but enshrined; and their spirits will continue to breathe and burn there, till the stars are cast from the firmament, and there is an end to what we here call Life. Homer, you know, wrote in Greek, and in many dialects. He has been translated into English, which, in heroic measures, you know, admits but of one. All translation of the highest poetry, we hold, must be, such is the mysterious incarnation of thought and feeling in language, at best but a majestic mockery-something ghostlike; when supposed most substantial, suddenly seeming most a shadow-or change that image, why, then, like a broken rainbow, or say, rather, like a rainbow refracted, as well as reflected, from the sky-gazing sea. Glorious pieces of colour are lying here and there, reminding us of what, a moment before, we beheld in a perfect arch on heaven. But while the nations of the earth all speak in different tongues-they all feel with one heart, and they all London: Murray, 1831, think with one brain. Therefore, he who hath the gift of tongues, may, from an alien language, transfuse much of the meaning that inspirits it into his own; although still we must always be inclined to say, listening to the "repeated strain," "Alike, but oh! how different." All truly great or good poets desire that all mankind should, as far as it is possible, enjoy all that in the human is most divine; and therefore while each has "Like Prometheus stolen the fire from heaven," they have all exultingly availed themselves of the common privilege of stealing whenever inspired so to do -and plagiarism is thus often the sign of a noble idolatry-of stealing from one another, that after hoarding them up in the sunny and windy air-lofts of their own imaginations, they may in times of dearth -or to make plenty more plenteous -diffuse and scatter those life-ennobling thefts-in furtherance of the desires of the dead "O'er lands and seas, Whatever clime the sun's bright circle warms!" And thus, too, have the truly great and good poets sometimes-oftenfelt that it was dignified to become translators. What else ay, ay, much else was the divine Virgil ? Fools disparage him, for that he translated-stole from Homer. As well despise Shakspeare because he stole, not only from unwritten nature and her oral traditions, but from all the old Homeric war chro nicles people had got printed, that he could lay hands on; "For the thief of all thieves was the Warwickshire thief!" Indeed, Shakspeare, who had "little Latin, and no Greek," contrived-heaven only knows howto translate into English thousands of fine things from those languages. Marlow was an avowed and regular translator-so was Ben Jonsonand many others of that wonderworking age. But come down, without fear of breaking your neck by the fall-to Dryden and Pope at once; and then, sliding along a gentle level, to Cowper-and, last of all, to Sotheby-all translators-and who is good, who better, and who best, you sure will find it hard to say-of the "myriad-minded" Ho mer. Let it at once suffice for Mr Sotheby's satisfaction, that we say he is entitled-and we do not know another person of whom we could safely say as much-to deal with that well-booted Grecian, even at this time of day, after all that has been done to, in, with, and by "Him of the Iliad and the Odyssey," by not a few of our prevailing Poets. Let us draw the best of them up in rank and file, and as they march before us, try their height by a mental military standard, declaring who are fit for admission into the grenadiers, who into the light company, and who must go into the battalion. We shall confine ourselves to the First Book-itself a poem-and let us try the volunteers by the test of the Opening thereof-almost all educated persons being familiar with that glorious Announcement in the original Greek. CHAPMAN. "Achilles' baneful wrath resound, O Goddess, that impos'd Infinite sorrows on the Greeks, and many brave souls loos'd From breasts heroic, sent them far to that invisible cave That no light comforts, and their limbs to dogs and vultures gave; To all which Jove's will gave effect, from whom first strife begun Betwixt Atrides, king of men, and Thetis' godlike son." DRYDEN. "The wrath of Peleus' son, O muse, resound, TICKEL. "Achilles' fatal wrath, whence discord rose, POPE. "Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of Jove." COWPER "Sing, Muse, the deadly wrath of Peleus' son, Achilles, source of many thousand woes To the Achaian host, which num'rous souls Of heroes sent to Ades premature, And left their bodies to devouring dogs And birds of heaven, (so Jove his will perform'd,) SOTHEBY. "Sing, Muse, Pelides' wrath, whence woes on woes What are the qualities that characterise the original? Simplicity and stateliness. Each word in the first line is great. ΜΗΝΙΝ άειδε, Θεά, Πηληϊάδεω 'Αχιλήος. Now, not one of all the translations makes an approach to the grandeur of that magnificent line. It is then, we may conclude, unapproachable in the English-and consequently in any other language. Dryden and Cowper, we think, (please always, if you have time and opportunity, to verify or falsify our criticisms by reference to translation and original,) succeed best; Pope and Sotheby are about on an equality, though Pope is the more musical; and Tickel is poor, though Johnson, throughout that passage, waywardly prefers him to Pope. Perhaps some will think old Chapman the best, after all, and certainly his lines have the "longresounding march," if not the "energy divine." Pope says of Chapman sneeringly, that he has " taken an advantage of an immeasurable length of verse." The longer the better, say we, had he known how to use it which, though the above quotation be very good, we say he generally did not, in spite of the Cockneys. Observe with what a sonorous and significant, nay sublime, word, Homer begins the second line, Ouλy. The translators give "baneful," ,"" dire effects," "fatal," " direful," "deadly," all right and good, but not one of them placed where Homer placed his word in its power. Sotheby omits it. The last line of the Announcement is full brother to the first-only look at it. ̓Ατρείδης τε, ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, καὶ δῖος ̓Αχιλλεύς. All the translators were bound by every tie, human and divine, to have preserved-if that were possibleits sound, and its sense, and its soul. Old Chapman has done so, and praise be to him; Dryden had the gumption to steal old Chapman's line, but even in an Alexandrine he could not get a common title to Agamemnon's just title of "King of Men," and had to cut it down to " great," thereby impairing its majesty; Tickel also keeps to old Chapman, and wisely drops out "betwixt;" Pope translates it poorly, and kills it by transposition; Cowper keeps it in its right place, but has dropped the noble and essential epithets; Sotheby almost repeats Pope. Let us go straight to the famous Ὣς ἔφατ ̓ εὐχόμενος· τοῦ δ ̓ ἔκλυε Φοίβος Απόλλων This all men feel to be sublime. Yet, strange to say, we doubt if to two imaginations it presents any thing like the same picture. The Sun-god, Phoebus Apollo, being incensed, slew mules, dogs, and Greeks. He is the Plague. Yet he is a Divinity too-and, at one and the same time, he plays to admiration the part of both, and we defy you to tell which is, in your mind, the predominant idea of his Godship or his Plagueship. Down to the end of the line closing with Bo, he is himself s Awa-Etty might paint himMacdonald shew him in sculpture. But henceforth he is entirely, or nearly, the Plague. True, he continues to shoot his arrows-but the Impersonation grows faint; and, finally, from before our eyes at least, fades utterly away. For how can the imagination, that was startled by the suddenness of the descent of the glorious Apparition from the summits of Olympus, figure to itself the same Sight sitting apart from the ships for nine nights and days of slaughter, and of blazing funeral piles! The bright Vision of Poetry gives place gradually to the dim vagueness of national Superstition. If this be true-and if it be possible to do it, then the translator should vary his version, in the same spirit as Homer saw and sung, and make us feel the strange transition from Divinity_to Disease. How may he do so? By intensifying, as Homer did, the Personality of the Godhead, up to the highest pitch at Bo; and then letting it generalize itself away into the mere presence of the unweariable activity of death. Competitors! right shoulders forward-wheel! CHAPMAN. "Thus he pray'd, and Phoebus heard him pray And, vex'd at heart, down from the tops of steep heaven stoop'd, his bow, Rattled about him. Like the night he ranged the host, and roved His silver bow twang'd, and his shafts did first the mules command, DRYDEN. "He pray'd, and Phoebus hearing, urged his flight, His quiver o'er his ample shoulders threw; His bow twang'd, and his arrows rattled as they flew. The tents, and compass'd the devoted ground. And feather'd fates among the mules and sumpters sent, TICKEL. "Apollo heard his injured suppliant's cry; POPE. "Thus Chryses pray'd, the favouring power attends, Bent was his bow, the Grecian hearts to wound, COWPER. "Such pray'r he made, and it was heard. The God, SOTHEBY. "Thus Chryses pray'd: his pray'r Apollo heard, |