Chapter XXXI: Part III: On the Boulevards (5)

It would be easy to misinterpret the views which have governed Mr. Bryant’s work by his application of Latin names to the Homeric deities, and the reason which he assigns in the preface for this practice. It is true that he is countenanced by Lord Derby, but we think we had a right to expect more from his scholarship. We cannot but deem them both in the wrong, and to our mind the error is serious and far-reaching. The denizens of Homer’s Olympus are in the strictest sense personal gods. Such superhuman attributes as they severally possess are sharply defined, the degree and scope of their authority, except, perhaps, in two instances, clearly marked. They live the life of men, eat, drink, love, quarrel. They exhibit the most passionate interest in the war which rages before Ilium. They are bitter and unscrupulous partisans, wheedle, lie, bargain, rebel, in the cause of their _protégées_. They forsake their dwellings to take part in the debates of mortals, mix in the fight, are pierced with spears, and the celestial ichor flows precisely like human blood. In short, they resemble rather the demigods of a later mythology, and are rarely invested with that awful sublimity and mystery which enshroud most of the elder Roman divinities. Even in the _Theogony_ of Hesiod, the attributes of certain gods have undergone a degree of alteration which it is tax enough to bear in mind. To insist upon confounding Ares, Aphroditê, and Athenê with Mars, Venus, and Minerva, deities which, as enshrined in the literature purely and distinctively Latin, are as native and peculiar to Rome as her language, is to mystify the reader who knows anything of either. It appears to us as unreasonable to rename the gods as to miscall the heroes of the _Iliad_. Surely it is no apology for the confusion of things essentially distinct that the practice has been in some sort naturalized in our literature. So are the legendary chronicles of the kings of Rome, so are the distorted portraits of Shakespeare’s histories. A manifest error cannot plead undisturbed possession. Moreover, it is now many years since English scholars have labored to educate their countrymen up to something like discrimination between the Greek and Latin mythologies. Their task is well-nigh done. Lemprière’s Dictionary is at length obsolete, and the volumes of Grote are in the hands of every schoolboy. If the prevailing excellence of Mr. Bryant’s work had not disarmed us, we should be disposed to protest against the repetition of an error, as well as against the presumption of national ignorance, by which it is excused. It is certainly matter of regret that such an objection should lie on the threshold of a work in most respects so sound and scholarlike.

The new version begins well:

“O Goddess! sing the wrath of Peleus’ son
Achilles; sing the deadly wrath that brought
Woes numberless upon the Greeks and swept
To Hades many a valiant soul, and gave
Their limbs a prey to dogs and birds of air.
For so had Jove appointed, from the time
When the two chiefs--Atrides, King of men,
And great Achilles--parted first as foes.”

Seven hexameters in eight lines of blank-verse--certainly a remarkable instance of compression. Except ἡρωων, πασι (almost an expletive), and προ in προιαψεν (which, perhaps, is faintly suggested by “swept”), not a word of Homer is omitted, not a word is added. “Birds of air” is an accurate translation of οἰωνοισι. “Parted first as foes” is exceedingly close. There is but one error, διος is rendered “great.” To this word no moral attribute whatever is attached in the Homeric poems. It is equivalent to “high-born” or “noble” (as Cowper gives it) in the primitive sense of that word. Lord Derby makes it “godlike,” which is quite incorrect. If there be a fault in the lines just quoted, it is a certain coldness. They hardly lift us to the height of the great argument. But for conscientious fidelity to the original, these lines have not been approached in English, and are in this respect fully equal to Voss. Hear, for instance, Cowper, who requires an extra line:

“Achilles sing, O Goddess, Peleus’ son,
His wrath pernicious, who ten thousand woes
Caused to Achaia’s _host_, sent many a soul
Illustrious into Ades premature,
And heroes gave (so stood the will of Jove)
To dogs and to all ravening birds a prey.
When fierce dispute had separated once
The noble chief Achilles from the son
Of Atreus, Agamemnon, King of men.”

This is pitched in the right key, although the finest line, the fourth, is perhaps too suggestively Miltonic. In his scholarship Cowper is loose. “Who” is grammatically wrong and æsthetically a blunder. It is not Achilles, but Achilles’ wrath that Homer means to sing. “Host,” “ravening,” “fierce,” “chief,” “Agamemnon,” are merely supernumeraries. “Illustrious” was inserted, we presume, for rhythmical reasons; it does not translate ἰφθιμους. “Stood” for ἐτελειετο is fine; Mr. Bryant fails to convey the notion of fulfilment, of inevitable accomplishment, which the word seems to carry. The antithesis between ψυχὰς and αὐτους, significant as regards the Homeric theory of a future life, is quite lost in Cowper, while it is cleverly projected in Mr. Bryant’s lines. “Premature” preserves the force of the preposition in προ-ιαψεν, which ought not to be overlooked.

It may be well now to quote Lord Derby. He needs _ten_ lines:

“Of Peleus’ son, Achilles, sing, O Muse.
The vengeance deep and deadly whence to Greece
Unnumbered ills arose, which many a soul
Of mighty warriors to the viewless Shades
Untimely sent, they on the battle plain
Unburied lay, a prey to ravening dogs
And carrion birds, but so had Jove decreed.
From that sad day when first in wordy war
The mighty Agamemnon, King of men,
Confronted stood by Peleus’ godlike son.”

This is hardly worth criticising in detail. First, why “Muse”? “Vengeance” is bad for μηνις. “Deadly” translates οὐλομένην well enough, but “deep and deadly” suggests the harrowing phraseology of the _Ledger_ romance. “Viewless Shades” is possibly poetical, but Homer chooses to be geographical--he says Ἀις. “They on the battle plain unburied”; we cannot find this in the Greek, but it accounts for one extra line. “Ravening” and “carrion” raise Cowper’s expletive to the second power. “Sad day”! And so it was, but to call it so is almost maudlin. Ἐριζω does indeed mean to wrangle, but “wordy war” is petty and poetastic. “The mighty Agamemnon”! Homer is satisfied with _Atrides_. And now we will see if it be possible to give this magnificent prologue measure for measure, line for line, almost word for word. Hear Voss:

“Singe den Zorn, O Göttin, des Peleiaden Achilleus,
Ihn der entbrannt den Achaiern unendbaren Jammer erregte,
Und viel tapfere Seelen der Heldensöhne zum Ais
Sendete, aber sie selber zum Raub’ ausstreckte den Hunden
Und den Gevögel umher--so ward Zeus’ Wille vollendet,
Seit dem Tage als einst durch bitteren Zank sich entzweiten
Atreus’ Sohn der Herrscher des Volks und der edle Achilleus!”

The figurative _entbrannt_ for οὐλομένην is not to our taste. _Bitteren_ is superfluous, and _sendete_ imperfectly translates προιαψεν. Otherwise these lines are flawless.

We pass to the sixth book, to a passage which Pope and Chapman have done well, Sotheby on the whole better, where even Hobbes grows tender, where every translator has sought to do his best. The parting of Hector and Andromache is a scene (if we except the _Alcestis_) unique in classic literature. When we consider the state of society depicted in the Homeric poems, the figure of Andromache seems anomalous and inexplicable; or rather she almost constrains us to recast our notions of the social framework in which we find her set. In her the sexual passion is refined and sublimated to that noblest form of conjugal love which is thought to be peculiar to the civilized and christianized descendants from the chaste German stock. Through the historical ages of Greece, in the Roman Republic and Empire, we seek in vain a pendant to this portrait. The ideal would seem to have been lost. The painter who drew Alexander’s favorite could not have limned Andromache; he who sang _Ariadne in Naxos_ would have failed to understand her. To recover the type, we must descend to a much later age--to Raphael and to Wordsworth. The sweetest words in our language--sweetheart, helpmate, wife--describe Andromache. She is not the wanton idol of a despot’s caprice, nor the dull victim of a convenient Athenian marriage, nor the selfish _protégée_ of the cynical Roman law. She might have been bred in a Christian world and blessed an English home. We quote twenty lines from Mr. Bryant:

“She came attended by a maid who bore
A tender child--a babe too young to speak--
Upon her bosom, Hector’s only son,
Beautiful as a star....

* * * * *

The father on his child
Looked with a silent smile. Andromache
Pressed to his side meanwhile, and all in tears
Clung to his hand, and thus beginning said:
‘Too brave! thy valor yet will cause thy death!
Thou hast no pity on thy tender child,
Nor me, unhappy one, who soon must be
Thy widow. All the Greeks will rush on thee
To take thy life. A happier lot were mine,
If I must lose thee, to go down to earth,
For I shall have no hope when thou art gone,
Nothing but sorrow. Father have I none,
And no dear mother....
Seven brothers had I in my father’s house,
And all went down to Hades in one day.

* * * * *

Hector, thou
Art father and dear mother now to me,
And brother and my youthful spouse besides.’”

No man, we imagine, who examines the above lines will question the general accuracy of Mr. Bryant’s scholarship. They are at once the most succinct, literal, and beautiful reproduction of Homer’s words which has been achieved in English. As Americans, we are proud of them. Cowper, indeed, had finely rendered this passage, and it is possible that some persons unfamiliar with the Greek and habituated to the movement of the _Paradise Lost_ may prefer his inverted construction and sonorous phrase. We will not quote him, however, but rather choose to pay Mr. Bryant the highest homage in our power by placing beside his lines the version of Voss:

“Die Dienerin aber ihr folgend
Trug an der Brust das zarte, noch ganz unmündige Knäblein.

* * * * *

Hektor’s einzigen Sohn, dem schimmernden Sterne vergleichbar.
Siehe, mit Lächeln blickte der Vater still auf das Knäblein,
Aber neben ihn trat Andromache Thränen vergiessend,
Drückt ihm freundlich die Hand, und redete also, beginnend,
Seltsamer Mann, dich tödtet dein Muth noch und du erbarmst dich
Nicht des stammelnden Kindes, noch mein des elenden Weibes,
Ach, bald Witwe von dir, denn dich tödten gewiss die Achaier
Alle mit Macht austürmend; allein mir ware das Beste
Deiner beraubt in die Erde hinabzusinken; denn weiter
Bleibt kein Trost mir übrig, wenn du dein Schicksal erreicht hast,
Grau nur und nicht mehr hab’ ich ja Vater und liebende Mutter.

* * * * *

Sieben auch waren die Brüder mir dort in unserer Wohnung,
Und die wandelten all ‘am selbigen Tage zum Ais.’”

We doubt if these lines can be surpassed except by the Greek itself. They echo the melody of Homer. Mr. Bryant, of course, relinquished the hope of competing with him in this respect when he adopted iambic verse. In point of compression, however, and literal accuracy, we shall find him not inferior. There are in both versions some imperfections. “Tender” (_zarte_) may perhaps stand for ἀταλαφρων although it represents but partially that exquisite epithet. Cowper omits this word altogether, and Lord Derby substitutes something of his own, “all unconscious.” To our mind Mr. Bryant’s “too young to speak” is most felicitous for νηπιον αὐτως. The word, however, in many passages of the _Iliad_ shows no trace of relation to επος, and means simply “under age,” as Voss gives it. The force of the adverb is nicely preserved in the German. Both versions make ἁγαπητον “only” (_einzigen_). The line of the _Odyssey_ (b. ii. 365) seems to us conclusive against the propriety of this translation. We prefer Cowper’s “darling.” And now we come to the famous simile, ἀλιγκιον ἀστερι καλῷ. Mr. Bryant, following Cowper, writes “beautiful as a star.” But Homer is far more picturesque than this. He shows us the bright cheeks and glancing eyes of Hector’s boy gleaming from his nurse’s bosom, as a star gleams. “A fair star”--Lord Derby would make it a planet, “morning star” he calls it. But stars that twinkle and glimmer are most alluring to the eye, are the fairest, and therefore Voss is right--_schimmernden Sterne vergleichbar_. Mr. Bryant is not successful in the next line. We cannot like “silent smile.” Can a smile be other than silent? Neither can Voss match Cowper’s

“The father silent eyed his babe, and smiled.”

“Pressed to his side” is vivid, where Cowper and Voss are tame; “clung to his hand”--the Greek is yet stronger, “grew on his hand.” Voss was certainly drowsy when he could render this “pressed kindly his hand.” Andromache’s touching first word is quite lost in the “Dear lord” of Lord Derby. Cowper’s “My noble Hector” is even worse. The truth is that Δαιμονιε is uttered by the young wife in tender reproach, and this is conveyed in good measure by “too brave,” but _seltsamer Mann_ is perfect. “Tender child”--Cowper and Lord Derby write “helpless.” Voss’ _stammelnden_ is based, we presume, on _Il._ 2, 238, where some command of speech more or less articulate seems to be conceded to νηπιαχοις. The next four lines of the new version are close and felicitous, but θαλπωρη is not so much “hope” as “comfort”; and “when thou art gone” hardly expresses the thought in ἐπει ἄν συ γε ποτμον ἐπισπῃς, whereas the German delivers it faithfully. We have reached finally a wonderful couplet which fairly throbs with passionate devotion. Here is the Greek:

“‘Ἑκτωρ, ἀταρ συ μοι ἐσσι πατηρ και ποτνια μητηρ,
Ἠδε κασιγνητος, συ δε μοι θαλερος παρακοιτης.’”

Which we may venture to render thus:

“‘Hector, united in thee still, find I my worshipful mother,
Father and brother in thee, O blooming Hector, my husband!’”

Voss is exceedingly sweet:

“‘Hector, O du bist jetzo mir Vater und liebende Mutter,
Auch mein Bruder allein, O du mein blühender Gatte!’”

Derby:

“‘But, Hector, thou to me art all in one,
Sire, mother, brother, thou my wedded love.’”

Cowper:

“‘Yet, Hector, O my husband, I in thee
Find parents, brothers, all that I have lost.’”

Bryant:

“‘Hector, thou
Art father and dear mother now to me
And brother and my youthful spouse besides.’”

Lord Derby’s version is curiously bad. Strange that one striving to utter to modern ears words which in the _Iliad_ seem to break from the heart should go out of his way for “sire” and “brethren”! And for “wedded love,” it is not only incorrect, but mawkish, and therefore in this place detestable. Cowper likewise is weak and false. “Parents” is intolerable; ποτνια and θαλερος are overlooked. And in exchange for those adjectives we have “all that I have lost” (pure Cowper). Mr. Bryant does very much better, but he is again somewhat cold; and coldness here is hardly pardonable. He was determined to give the last line literally; but to put παρακοιτης in the vocative, as Voss has done, makes the verse literal enough and more glowing. Both Voss and Mr. Bryant are wrong in ποτνια. The active participle (_liebende_) is out of the question, and even “dear” conveys an erroneous impression of the relations subsisting between mother and daughter in the Homeric age. Ποτνια predicates a sentiment of respect and reverence, and is often associated with the names of deities. For an exact analogue we must go back to English domestic life in the last century. We shall find it in what was then a household word--“honored mother.” We must do Lord Derby the justice to say that he had hit upon the translation in line 413. It is a pity that he did not repeat it here. Θαλερος has proved a stumbling-block to most translators. It is a beautiful word: and placed with exquisite propriety in the mouth of a young wife who gazes on the bravest face and noblest form in Ilium. Mr. Bryant’s “youthful” is not absolutely wrong, but it is rather the impression which youth and health make upon the eye, their visible glory, their “purple light,” which Homer makes in θαλερος. _Blühende_ gives it exactly. We wish that with these perfect words Andromache might have vanished from literature. The later myths dishonor her. It seems a crime against nature to recount of this woman that

“Victoris heri tetigit captiva cubile,”

and that Hector’s widow bore children to the son of Achilles. Surely instinct would have taught her the tenet of a later philosophy: “We are in the power of no calamity while death is in our own.” Not in Euripides and Virgil, but rather in Racine, would we follow the fortunes of that Andromache whom we knew by the Scæan gate.

Let us glance next at the concluding lines of the eighth book. They have been translated by Tennyson, and it may be interesting to contrast his version. Mr. Bryant writes:

“So high in hope they sat the whole night through
In warlike lines, and many watch-fires blazed
As when in heaven the stars look brightly forth
Round the clear-shining moon while not a breeze
Stirs in the depths of air, and all the stars
Are seen and gladness fills the shepherd’s heart,
So many fires in sight of Ilium blazed
Lit by the sons of Troy between the ships
And eddying Xanthus: on the plain there shone
A thousand; fifty warriors by each fire
Sat in its light. Their steeds beside the cars--
Champing their oats and their white barley--stood,
And waited for the golden morn to rise.”

Tennyson renders the same passage thus:

“And these all night upon the ridge of war
Sat glorying; many a fire before them blazed;
As when in heaven the stars about the moon
Look beautiful when all the winds are laid

* * * * *

... and all the stars
Shine, and the shepherd gladdens in his heart.
So many a fire between the ships and stream
Of Xanthus blazed before the towers of Troy,
A thousand on the plain, and close by each
Sat fifty in the blaze of burning fire.
And eating hoary grain and pulse the steeds
Stood by the cars waiting the thronèd morn.”

Some may prefer the general effect of the Laureate’s lines, but our American version adheres quite as closely to the text. We are surprised, however, to find “warlike lines.” Mr. Tennyson’s alternative translation, “ridge of war” is an exact reproduction of the Greek, ἀνα πτολεμοιο γεφυρας. “Bridge,” which he first wrote, is post-Homeric. Lord Derby’s phrase is close enough, but wanting in pictorial power:

“Full of proud hopes, upon the pass of war
All night they camped, and frequent blazed their fires.”

If one care to see what sad work may sometimes proceed from a true poet, here is Cowper’s version of these lines--ten words are required to misconstrue three:

“Big with great purposes and proud they sat,
Not disarrayed but in fair form displayed
Of even ranks, and watched their numerous fires.”

The familiar simile of the moon and stars in the above passage is sharply and faithfully reproduced by Mr. Bryant, whereas Tennyson’s “look beautiful” for φαινετ' ἀριπρεπεα is both loose and weak. “All the winds are laid”; Cowper says “hushed.” Either is closer than Mr. Bryant’s phrase. Lord Derby’s translation of παντα δε τ' ειδεται ἀστρα is ambitious and clumsy--“Shines each particular star distinct.” The last six hexameters are given in seven lines of our version. Tennyson has compressed them into six, but with the sacrifice of Τρωων καιοντων, which the other neatly expressed by “Lit by the sons of Troy.” We could have dispensed with the Laureate’s “towers,” but are delighted to find ἐυθρονον preserved in “throned.”

To some readers our criticism may have seemed to dwell too nicely on details; but, if they will reflect a moment, they will perceive that this is itself a guarantee of sincerity. We propose to give grounds for our opinions, that others may accept them knowingly, or refute them, if they can. To flood with general praise or spatter with vague abuse belongs to the Cheapjacks of literature. Moreover, no American needs to be told that Mr. Bryant is a poet. Men do not ask whether his _Iliad_ is a delightful poem, but whether it truthfully photographs Homer. That question, if we may judge from his performances, the average magazine critic has preferred to evade.

From the extracts already presented, it is manifest that our American translator has followed the text of his author with a scrupulous exactitude which required unusual self-command from a poet of original powers; yet he is often so truly and nobly poetical that many will overlook the superiority of his scholarship. Most countries of Western Europe have produced several translators of the _Iliad_. But in each language one has eventually obscured the rest, and thenceforward kept unchallenged a niche in the national literature. Some such pre-eminence among English versions belongs, in our judgment, to Mr. Bryant’s work. For conscientious adherence to the text, his version has no rival in our tongue, and ought, in justice, to be compared with Voss. In point of scholarship, Cowper had shown himself much stronger than Pope, but his translation beside Mr. Bryant’s _Iliad_ seems to us a paraphrase. Both are masters of blank-verse, but Cowper is a pupil of Milton, while Mr. Bryant’s diction and rhythm are his own. The iambic pentameter is, in his hands, surprisingly plastic. We should not have supposed it capable of such happy adjustment to the shifting mood and varying pitch of the original; yet we cannot help a regret that this version was not executed in hexameters. We are quite sure that the achievement was possible to the author of this translation.

In such extracts as we have yet to make from Mr. Bryant’s work, we propose to compare him, not with his English rivals whom we hold him to have excelled, but with some of those translators who are most highly esteemed in other countries.

Few lines of the _Iliad_ have been more frequently imitated than those which paint with the tints of Albano the girdle of Aphroditê. The incident which calls forth the description is well known. Determined to lull the vigilance of Zeus and rescue her darling Greeks, Herê flies to her toilet. The most truthful of poets puts no faith in beauty unadorned, and himself performs the part of tire-woman. It occurs, however, to Herê that her lord is already familiar with the resources of her wardrobe, and the fear of a cold or careless eye leads her to borrow of Aphroditê. She receives a talisman, but precisely what this was is--to men, at least--a riddle. It was an embroidered strap, so much is certain; but how used, and where? Belt or waist-girdle it was not, for that Herê had on. It was plainly a slender and dainty thing, or how could she hide it in her bosom? For our part, we believe it to have been a breast-band (_Brustgürtel_) worn just under the breast, although a French commentator with much heat pronounces this view an insult to the figure of the goddess. The one translator competent to decide so nice a question was Mme. Dacier. Unhappily she throws no light on it. Mr. Bryant turns the passage thus:

“She spake, and from her bosom drew the zone
Embroidered, many-colored, and instinct
With every winning charm--with love, desire,
Dalliance, and gentle speech that stealthily
O’ercomes the purpose of the wisest mind.”

We must object to “zone.” Mr. Bryant has just given (_Il._ 14, 181) the same name to a broad, heavily-fringed belt which Herê is now wearing. But Homer makes a difference, calling that ζωνη and this ἱμας. Voss likewise is here somewhat careless, rendering both words by _Gürtel_. “Dalliance” translates a stubborn word, and projects the idea which lay at the root of ὀαριστυς. Let us turn to Voss:

“Sprach und löste vom Busen den wunderköstlichen Gürtel
Buntgestickt; dort waren die Zauberreize versammelt.
Dort war schmachtende Lieb’ und Sehnsucht, dort das Getändel,
Dort die schmeichelnde Bitte die oft auch den Weisen bethöret.”

How neatly ποικιλον and κεστον are compressed in _buntgestickt_! _Wunderköstlichen_ is, of course, mere padding. _Schmachtende_ likewise is superfluous. Neither can we altogether like “befool” for ἐκλεψε νοον. Mr. Bryant’s phrase is certainly more felicitous. On the whole, it must be conceded that Voss flickers in these lines.

When Mme. Dacier brought out her _Iliad_, it was affirmed on all hands that Homer could never, in the nature of things, be presented in French verse. From that verdict an appeal has from time to time been taken, but the decision has never been reversed. Mme. Dacier’s stiffness and the flippancy of La Motte are indeed equally intolerable. We decidedly prefer to any metrical version in French the prose translations of Bitaube and Dugas Montbel. Both are in the strictest sense belles-lettres works, and are generally accurate and spirited. Bitaube portrays the girdle thus: “En même temps elle détache sa ceinture riche d’une superbe broderie. Là se trouvent réunis les charmes les plus séduisants; là sont l’amour, les tendres désirs, les doux entretiens et ces accents persuasifs, qui dérobent en secret le cœur du plus sage.” There are some adjectives here for which Homer is not responsible.

Monti’s version is well known. It has been called the golden ring which links the Greek and Italian literatures, and is ranked with Caro’s _Æneid_. Beside _La Morte d’Ettore_ it appears a meritorious work. No doubt the climax of false taste was reached when Cesarrotti, who had executed a good translation in prose, proceeded to metamorphose the _Iliad_ into a strange monster which he called The _Death of Hector_. We will not quote Monti now, for in this place he is tame and redundant. Yet he has skilfully hit with _favellio_ a secondary meaning of ὀαριστυς. The French have a word from the same root, _babil_; but we have nothing in English which so happily expresses the _cooing_ of young lovers. Tasso’s reproduction of these lines is exquisite. He is depicting Armida’s girdle. It was fraught, he says, with--

“Teneri sdegni, e placide, e tranquille,
Repulse, cari vezzi e liete paci,
Sorrisi, parolette, e dolci stille
Di pianto, e sospir tronchi, e molli baci.”

After the short, swift strokes of Homer, this picture seems almost florid with _concetti_. But each poet meant to epitomize the charms he had beheld in life. The countrywomen of Tasso were skilled in lovers’ sleights, whereas the simple virgins of Homeric times had never heard of the _gai scavoir_. If we may trust Brantôme, who knew something of Italian manners in that age, the dames of Sienna were quite competent to instruct Aphroditê in the arts of fascination.

The range of Homeric similes is not limited to the phenomena of sky, river, and ocean, to the familiar experiences of the forge, the vineyard, and the chase. The lightning play of fancy and memory and the emotions of the heart are submitted to the same scrutiny, and portrayed with like felicity. “Rapid as thought” has become the tritest commonplace in every European language, but the guise which the simile originally wore in Homer is still novel and effective. Incensed at the trick which has just been cleverly executed, Zeus orders Herê back to Olympus. Then Mr. Bryant:

“He spake, the white-armed goddess willingly
Obeyed him, and from Ida’s summit flew
To high Olympus. As the thought of man
Flies rapidly, when having travelled far,
He thinks, Here would I be; I would be there--
And flits from place to place.”

“Willingly” is supported by Voss’ _willig_, but has no correlative in the Greek. The context, moreover, shows that Herê departed in a pet, and her peevishness finds full vent when she reaches Olympus. Mr. Bryant omits to translate φρεσι πευκαλιμῃσι. For this phrase Voss gives _spähenden Geiste_, deriving the adjective from πευκη, by which, with Buttmann, he understands the _pointed_ (not _bitter_) fir-tree. But if Schneider be right, these words are equivalent to πυκα φρονεοντων in the description of the girdle just quoted. The root would then be looked for in πυκνος, and the latter phrase might find an analogue, though not an exact one, in our “close schemers.” These details are worthy of notice, for Chapman, mistaking the primitive sense of this adjective, has utterly missed the point of the simile. The perversity of Hobbes is ludicrous. He condenses Homer after this fashion:

“This said, went Juno to Olympus high,
As when a man looks on an ample plain
To any distance quickly goes his eye.”

Voss and Mr. Bryant are in this place so much alike that we will not collate the German, but give instead Monti’s blank-verse:

“Disse e la Diva dalle bianche bracchia
Obbediente dall’ Idea montagna
Al Olympo sali. Colla prestezza
Con que vola il pensier del viatore
Che scorse molte terre le rianda
In suo segreto e dici, Io quella riva
Io quell’ altra toccai.”

_Scorse_ and _rianda_ are pictorial, and perhaps sufficiently literal. We like also _suo segreto_ for “close mind.” Altogether the version is neat and animated, but less compact than Mr. Bryant’s. Both are quite as faithful as the prose of Bitaube and Montbel. The former writes: “Il dit, et Junon soumise à son époux s’élève des sommets d’Ida sur Olympe. Tel que le rapide essor de la pensée de l’homme lorsqu’ayant parcouru des pays d’une vaste étendue, et se rappelant en un moment tous les objets qui l’ont frappé, il dit en lui-même, j’étais ici, j’étais là.” It will be observed that Mr. Bryant’s “Here would I be, I would be there!” reproduces the optative εἰην. So does the _Dorthin möcht ich, und dort_ of Voss. An alternative reading is ἠηv which Bitaube and Monti have preferred. The verb, however, should then be in the third person, not the first as they give it. The imperfect would impart to the thought a slightly different tinge, and make the traveller rather retrace in memory than revisit it in desire. If this reading be accepted, we might, perhaps, venture to present the passage in this form:

Thus he pronounced; and Herê, the white-armed goddess, obeyed him,
Down from the summits of Ida speeding to lofty Olympus,
Darting as darteth the mind of a man who whilom has travelled
Up and down on the earth, in close thought ponders his travels,
Here was he now--now there!--still aiming in many directions.

In the battle which opens in the twentieth book culminates the action of the poem. Achilles now enters the field, and Mr. Gladstone has justly remarked that we seem never to have heard of wars or warriors before. To frame his central figure, Homer summons from Olympus the whole hierarchy of heaven. Amid thunder and earthquake, the gods are seen rallying to either side. No part of the _Iliad_ is pitched in a loftier key. Nowhere is a translator more strongly impelled to put forth all his powers. We quote Mr. Bryant:

“From above with terrible crash
Thundered the father of the blessed gods
And mortal men, while Neptune from below
Shook the great earth and lofty mountain-peaks.
Then watery Ida’s heights and very roots,
The city of Troy, and the Greek galleys, quaked.
Then Pluto, ruler of the nether world,
Leaped from his throne in terror, lest the god
Who makes the earth to tremble, cleaving it
Above him, should lay bare to gods and men
His horrible abodes, the dismal haunts
Which even the gods abhor.”

We ought not, perhaps, to dislike the expansion of πατερ ἀνθρωπων τε θεων τε in the second line, for the epithets added are themselves hardly more than formulas. The next four lines exhibit Mr. Bryant’s best work. Their vigor and elegance are not extraneous, but wrought with patient fingers out of the text itself. “Leaped from his throne in terror” is a melancholy falling off. This indifferent line must stand for three Greek verbs which render with startling accuracy the staccato movement of fear. We give from Voss the three hexameters which depict the panic of Aïdoneus:

“Bang auch erschrack dort unten des Nachtreichs Fürst Aldoneus,
Bebend entsprang er dem Thron, und schrie laut dass ihm von oben
Nicht die Erd’ aufrisse der Landerschüttrer Poseidōn.”

_Nachtreich_ is not quite equal to “nether world,” but really these lines are incomparable. Beside them even the prose of Montbel seems a little wide of the text: “Dans ses retraites souterraines le roi des ombres Pluton frémit; épouvanté il s’élance de son trône, pousse un cri, de peur que le terrible Neptune entr’ouvrant la terre ne montre aux dieux et aux hommes ces demeures terribles en horreur même aux immortels.”

We are unable to speak without contempt of the _Morte d’Ettore_, but it is right to state that Cesarrotti’s prose translation of this passage is perhaps the closest extant. Monti’s verse will be found less literal:

“Tremonne
Pluto il re de sepolti et spaventato
Die un alto grido, e si gitto del trono
Tremendo non gli squarci la terrena
Volta sul capo il crollator Nettuno
Ed intromessa collaggiù la luce
Agli Dei non discopra ed ai mortali
Le sue squallide bolge, al guardo orrende
Anco del ciel.”

Homer says nothing of _intromessa luce_. The words are no doubt transferred from Virgil’s paraphrase--

“Trepidentque immisso lumine Manes.”

Longinus, in his treatise _On the Sublime_, had quoted this passage of the _Iliad_, and Boileau in a translation of that work has reproduced it with considerable care. Boileau had positively condescended to defend Homer, but it is plain that his own theory of translation was that accepted by his age. La Motte has stated it in his ode. He tells Homer that he proposes

“Sous un nouveau langage
Rajeunir ton antique ouvrage,”

and deeming the unconscious energy of his author _un peu sauvage_ engages to _régler son ivresse_. From Boileau no engagement was required. His Muse was too thoroughly the _grande dame_ ever to forget herself, and even in Pythian convulsions retained a measure of decorum. We shall find his version at once droll and impressive. It is, so to speak, a Greek myth treated by Paul Veronese:

“L’enfer s’émeut au brait de Neptune en furie
Pluton sort de son trône, il pâlit, il s’écrie
Il a peur que ce dieu dans cet affreux séjour
D’un coup de son trident ne fasse entrer le jour
Et par le centre ouvert de la terre ébranlée
Ne fasse voir du Styx la rive désolée
Ne découvre aux vivants cet empire odieux
Abhorré des mortels, et craint même des dieux.”

To us no book of the _Iliad_ is more delightful than the twenty-fourth. There are many scenes in which we would willingly linger not alone for the tender pathos with which the poet has informed them, but also for the light they throw on the social ethics of the later as well as primitive Greek world. The figure of Achilles weeping through the long night the loss of the beloved Patroclus is the immortal type of that devoted friendship which illumines with a peculiar radiance the stream of Hellenic biography. In the incessant warfare of sympathy with selfishness, friendship between man and man seems to have played something of the master _rôle_ which in modern times has been engrossed by the passion of love. Again, Helen in her lament over Hector’s corpse lets fall some bitter words that deserve to be weighed in connection with the peculiar attitude which Menelaus maintains throughout the poem. They would assist us to understand her strangely equivocal position, as well as the conception of the marriage relation which obtained in the Homeric age. We have space, however, but for a single extract. We will choose Priam’s prayer to Achilles. How often and with what careful hand these lines have been reproduced in English is well-known. In French there are no less than ten metrical versions, to say nothing of prose. To poets of every nation this passage has remained a bow of Ulysses which many have been eager to grasp, but none save Voss has hitherto had sinew enough to bend. The circumstances under which the prayer is made are inexpressively affecting. The fate of Troy has at length compelled the combat of Hector and Achilles. From the walls of the city Priam has beheld the fatal issue. The pride and prop of his old age, the bulwark of his kingdom, lies dead and dishonored in the hostile camp. Conducted by Hermes, Priam passes the sentinels, and gains the quarters of his foe. He enters, springs toward Pelides, clasps his knees, and kisses those “slaughter-dealing hands” which had slain so many of his sons. Then Mr. Bryant:

“Think of thy father, an old man like me,
God-like Achilles! on the dreary verge
Of closing life he stands, and even now
Haply is fiercely pressed by those who dwell
Around him, and has none to shield his age
From war and its disasters. Yet his heart
Rejoices when he hears thou yet dost live,
And every day he hopes that his dear son
Will come again from Troy. My lot is hard,
For I was father of the bravest sons
In all wide Troy, and none are left me now!

* * * * *

Oh! revere
The gods, Achilles, and be merciful,
Calling to mind thy father, happier he
Than I; for I have borne what no man else
That dwells on earth could bear--have laid my lips
Upon the hand of him who slew my son.”

Had these lines been pointed at by the legend, we could well understand why Solon should have burned his epic. Let us not stay for criticism, but, with eyes fixed on the Greek, give our ears to Voss!

“Deiners Vaters gedenk! O gottergleicher Achilleus,
Sein des Bejahrten wie ich, an der traurigen Schwelle des Alters,
Und vielleicht dass jenen die umbewohnende Völker
Drängen, und niemand ist ihm Jammer und Weh zu entfernen.
Jener indess so oft er von dir dem lebenden höret
Freut er sich innig im Geist, und hofft von Tage zu Tage
Dass er den trautesten Sohn noch seh’ heimkehren von Troja.
Ich unseliger Mann die tapfersten Söhn’ erzeugt’ ich
Weil im Troegebiet, und nun ist keiner mir übrig!
Scheue die Götter demnach, O Peleid! und erbarme dich meiner
Denkend des eigenen Vaters! Ich bin noch werther des Mitleids:
Duld’ ich doch was sonst kein sterblicher Erdebewohner
Ach die die Kinder getödtet die Hand an die Lippen zu drücken.”

We hold that it lies not in the power of translation to surpass these lines of Voss. They are truly marvels in photography. To every Homeric line corresponds a German hexameter. In every verse the emphatic word stands where Homer placed it. The very pauses are for the most part preserved. The translator has not retrenched a word. He has scarcely added one. He has certainly not added an idea. On the nice propriety of his diction, and his perfect sympathy with the _feeling_ of the Greek, we need not dwell. In these respects Mr. Bryant must be ranked next to him--with an interval, perhaps, but next. His “dreary verge of closing life” skilfully interprets an ambiguous phrase which Voss has chosen to retain. Again, _unseliger Mann_ is somewhat cold, whereas “my lot is hard” has caught, so to speak, the genuine accents of heartbreak. “And every day he hopes that his dear son,” etc. Readers of the _Holy Dying_ will recall the touching picture of a drowned sailor rolled upon his floating bed of waves, while at home _his_ father “weeps with joy to think how happy he shall be when his beloved boy returns into the circle of his father’s arms.”

Voltaire has somewhere asserted that Homer never drew a tear. Yet even he could not behold this scene unmoved, and himself entered the lists as a translator. His version of this passage embodies the principles which he maintained ought to govern translators of Homer. It forms a curious chapter in the history of taste. Achilles turning discovers Priam, “ce vieillard vénérable,”

“Exhalant à ses pieds ses sanglots et ses cris
Et lui baisant la main qui fit périr son fils;
Il n’osait sur Achille encor jeter la vue,
Il voulait lui parler, et sa voix s’est perdue,
Enfin il le regarde et parmi ses sanglots
Tremblant, pâle, et sans force, il prononce ces mots.
‘Songez, seigneur! songez que vous avez un père--’
Il ne put achever. Le héros sanguinaire
Sentit que la pitié pénétrait dans son cœur,
Priam lui prend les mains, ah prince! ah mon vainqueur?
J’étais père d’Hector, et ses généreux frères
Flattaient mes derniers jours, et les rendait prospères.
Ils ne sont plus.”

These lines are not altogether without merit, but no man, we suppose, who possesses what has been termed a historical _conscience_ will allow them to be poetic. The elements of the scene are there, but they are worked up in accordance with the tricks and traditions of the _Comédie Française_. To the eye of Voltaire, Priam was simply an antitype of the _père noble_, and must assume the attitude and demeanor appropriate to that _rôle_. In short, the verses are conceived in the spirit of his age, and exhibit his best manner. But read them after the Greek, and what fresh point they impart to the familiar words, “In old times men wrote like orators, but now like rhetoricians.”

From Voltaire to Monti is a long stride toward Homer’s Olympus. The Italian has infused much sweetness into this passage. And it is a native, not a grafted, sweetness. Writing in blank-verse, he neither needs nor claims the license of French translators; yet we sometimes miss Mr. Bryant’s terseness and simplicity; as in the initial lines:

“Divino Achille ti rammenta il padre
Il padre tuo da sia vecchiezza oppresso,
Qua io mi sono! In questo punto ei forse
Da potenti vicini assediato
Non ha chi lo socorra e all’ imminente
Periglio il tolga.”

To appreciate this version one needs only to glance at Cesarrotti’s. Priam’s first three words--Μνησαι πατρος σοιο!--comprise the most effective exordium in literature. They are true projectiles shot from soul to soul. Let us see if they are easily recognized in the _Morte d’Ettore_:

“Ah pieta, grida,
Divino Achille! Il padre tuo t’implora
Per tuo padre, pieta!”

Is it possible to place artist and word-monger in sharper antithesis? The success of his mission--perhaps his life--depends upon the first impression. Conceive royal Priam whining forth “Pity, pity!” like some professional beggar mumbling his worn-out lies. Homer said simply, “Think of thy father, Achilles!” The words, like the stroke of Moses’ rod, split the stubborn heart, and pity gushed forth in tears.

It must be admitted that Mr. Bryant’s lines are not always invested with the impassioned fervor and glowing life which have rescued the works of his English predecessors from oblivion. But it will often be found that where they were most spirited they were least Homeric. It is inevitable that a conscientious workman who resolves to copy his model in the minutest details will produce at times a _mosaic_ rather than a _casting_--his materials will seem pieced and not fused. But we are sure that the sweetness of Mr. Bryant’s verse will delight the general reader, while scholars will appreciate his self-control. Animation is desirable, but fidelity is indispensable; and they who truly love the _Iliad_ will prefer Homer in marble to Pope and Chapman in the flesh.

Over all translators of the _Iliad_, we confess that Voss is paramount; but no other version with which we are acquainted will bear a sustained comparison with Mr. Bryant’s. The latter’s obligations to Voss are undoubtedly great; but he has well-nigh cancelled the debt, for the next worker in the field will owe much to him. It may be that translation is not the highest function of genius; yet where it is nobly fulfilled it deserves and commands our gratitude. Nor is this all. It is something more than a figure of speech--the fine figure of Politian’s--by which Homer, assisting in the person of Ganymede at the banquet of the gods, is made to distribute to his best lovers some portion of his own ambrosia.

FOOTNOTES:

[86] _The Iliad of Homer._ Translated by Wm. Cullen Bryant. Boston: Fields, Osgood & Co.

[87] “A poem people admire without reading.”

[88] “Ah, monsieur! since reading that book men seem to be fifteen feet high.”

SPAIN: WHAT IT WAS AND WHAT IT IS.

A nation vegetating on old memories; a people for two centuries priest-ridden, just beginning to awaken and show some signs of the enlightenment of the age; a government liable to change every twenty-four hours; an empty treasury shifting from one to another incapable ministry; and, above all, a ridiculous pretension and holding to such an Old World phrase as national honor--such is the ordinary run of opinion on Spain. What is it coming to? What is its destiny? Has it a destiny in these busy, practical days? Or is its life played out long ago, and the nation simply drifting downwards into the yawning gulf of insignificance where many another has been swallowed up?

Have Catholics an interest in the question?

Yesterday, when mention was made of Spain, the enlightened world lifted up its eyes and hands in pious protestation against such an outrage on our nineteenth century of civilization. A superstitious race given to the worshipping of graven images, hoodwinked by the priests, those inveterate enemies of progress; no free-will among them; no understanding; nothing but memory. To-day all is changed. The dawn long delayed of enlightenment has come at last to the unhappy land--has come accompanied by the usual signs. Churches have been rifled, the sanctuary has been desecrated, the Jesuits have been scattered, nuns and monks have been robbed of their homes and driven naked into the world, blood has flowed freely, murder has been done. So, to-day the world smiles, and rubs its hands, and hopes better things for Spain.

That it was a great nation we all acknowledge, and the title is a true one. It was not alone a mighty nation; those buried under the Eastern sands were mighty nations, yet their workings in this world were as barren of fruit as the shifting covering that has hidden them away, without an oasis to redeem their barrenness. China might be called a mighty nation, but it has walled itself in from the world by the most narrow-minded and selfish policy, and we have had to fight our way through good and evil up to our present standard without a helping hand from it. Russia is a mighty nation, and we look anxiously to the development of its vast power, but up to the present its only effect on the world has been that of brute strength. But Spain has been pre-eminently a _great_ nation; that is, a nation that has done much for its own and others’ development, in all that can make peoples sound, intelligent, prosperous, and happy.

Looking back at its history as far as we can look back, we find the same characteristics in the race as we find to-day; above all, that intense, all-absorbing nationality which has kept it unmixed and unconquered. Hannibal courted its alliance; the Roman failed ever to subdue it thoroughly. Great stubborn resistances to the Empress of the World stand out now and then in clear relief from that dim background--awful sieges wonderfully sustained, where the women play an equal part with the men. We shall always find these Spanish women leading the van in the hour of their country’s danger. The victories gained over them resembled the victory of Pyrrhus. The Romans went and the Moors came, and fastened on the heart of the kingdom, populating and flourishing there, sucking out its life. They built their cities and their palaces in the fairest spots in the land. Powerful, warlike, rich, with immense resources, they laughed at the handful of men, kingless, skulking among rocks, and starving for liberty. But that handful will not surrender what is their own while one arm can be raised to defend it. They are true to one another as Spaniards and as Catholics now; for a new element is in them binding them more firmly than the very blood that is common to their veins--religion, the religion of Christ, which they have seized upon with all their passionate nature, never to relinquish. Inch by inch the Moors are driven back over the sea. They were invaded again by a more terrible foe than all--more terrible even than France in her deep distress has lately seen. Bonaparte had drained the country of its armies, had emptied its coffers, and taken away its king, all under the shadow of friendship and alliance. When he held it thus powerless in his hands, he sent in his armies, and impudently set his brother on the throne. Kingless, moneyless, defenceless as they were, the people rose up, the women again leading the van, and the priests inflaming all. Bonaparte was driven out. The priests, for all their hoodwinking, can be good patriots, it seems. The London _Times_, the mouthpiece of the enlightenment of the age, certainly no great friend to Spaniards and Catholics, contrasted the conduct of France during the late invasion with that of Spain. France, in her sorest straits, was never so hard pushed as Spain when the first Napoleon entered; yet a nation of over 30,000,000 could not rid themselves of half a million. There was no Carthagena, no Saguntum, no Saragossa--no approach to such. And the _Times_ confessed that France failed because she possessed neither the patriotism nor the religious enthusiasm of the Spaniards. Such examples has Spain given to the world of the purest patriotism, the first element of greatness in a nation; of a self-reliance that, when all seems lost, will not look without for aid, but to itself.

She has not ceased her working here. In no department has she been backward. Science owes her much. Literature is enriched by her authors. The inspirations of Murillo are the embodiment of all that our religion can feel in its deepest moments; before his canvas, the Christian prays, the infidel cannot scoff. She has given soldiers of the noblest type; statesmen the most benevolent and enlightened. The Spanish constitution in itself is from days remote admirable for equipoise and justice. In England they are just approaching the Spanish marriage laws. A Spanish merchant will tell you that for the generality of commercial questions he is his own lawyer, so clear and well-defined is the law.

What do we Catholics owe to Spain?

First of all, that high example of unswerving faith and devotion to the Holy See through ages of evil report and good report. The great heart of the nation is not moved by events that will come under our notice after. She has not only given a host of theological writers, but, what is still better, a host of theological actors--notably the Order of St. Dominic and the Society of Jesus, the names of which are enough to recall our debt.

To the Old World she opened up a New. Here Spain had a mission that is rarely given to nations. She failed, though the monarch sent priests to accompany the soldiers, to temper the conquest of the sword by that of the cross. How well the warriors of Christ demeaned themselves, our Bancroft and Prescott tell us.

She failed; but who shall cast the first stone at her? That nation only which has subdued another by Christian love and the weapon of the cross--a phenomenon that has not yet appeared even in these blessed days.

We hear much of the cruelty of these Spanish settlers, of their selfishness, of their greed of gold.