Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846

Various

Various

Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846

THE TWENTY-FOURTH BOOK OF HOMER'S ILIAD,

Attempted in English Hexameters

[It may be thought idle or presumptuous to make a new attempt towards the naturalization among us of any measure based on the ancient hexameter. Even Mr Southey has not been in general successful in such efforts; yet no one can deny that here and there – as, for instance, at the opening of his Vision of Judgment, and in his Fragment on Mahomet– he has produced English hexameters of very happy construction, uniting vigour with harmony. His occasional success marks a step of decided progress. Dr Whewell also, in some passages of his Hermann and Dorothea, reached a musical effect sufficient to show, that, if he had bestowed more leisure, he might have rendered the whole of Goethe's masterpiece in its original measure, at least as agreeably as the Faust has been presented to us hitherto. Mr Coleridge's felicity, both in the Elegiac metre and a slight variation of the Hendecasyllabic, is universally acknowledged.

The present experiment was made before the writer had seen the German Homer of Voss; but in revising his MS. he has had that skillful performance by him, and he has now and then, as he hopes, derived advantage from its study. Part of the first book of the Iliad is said to have been accomplished by Wolff in a still superior manner; but the writer has never had the advantage of comparing it with Voss. Nor was he acquainted, until he had finished his task, with a small specimen of the first book in English hexameters, which occurs in the History of English Rhythms, lately published by Mr E. Guest, of Caius College, Cambridge.

Like Voss and Mr Guest, he has chosen to adhere to the Homeric names of the deities, in place of adopting the Latin forms; and in this matter he has little doubt that every scholar will approve his choice. Mr Archdeacon Williams has commonly followed the same plan in those very spirited prose translations that adorn his learned Essay, Homerus.

It is hardly necessary to interpret these names: as, perhaps, no one will give much attention to the following pages, who does not already know that Zeus answers to Jupiter – and that Kronion is a usual Homeric designation of Zeus, signifying the son of Kronos = Saturn: that Hera is Juno; Poseidon, Neptune: Ares, Mars; Artemis, Diana; Aphrodité, Venus; Hermes, Mercury; and so forth.

Should this experiment be received with any favour, the writer has in his portfolio a good deal of Homer, long since translated in the same manner; and he would not be reluctant to attempt the completion of an Iliad in English Hexameters, such as he can make them.

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London, Jan. 31, 1846.]

Now the assembly dissolv'd; and the multitude rose and disperst them,

Each making speed to the ships, for the needful refreshment of nature,

Food and the sweetness of sleep; but alone in his tent was Achilles,

Weeping the friend that he lov'd; nor could Sleep, the subduer of all things,

Master his grief; but he turn'd him continually hither and thither,

Thinking of all that was gracious and brave in departed Patroclus,

And of the manifold days they two had been toilfully comrades,

Both in the battles of men and the perilous tempests of ocean.

Now on his side, and anon on his back, or with countenance downward,

Prone in his anguish he sank: then suddenly starting, he wander'd,

Desolate, forth by the shore; till he noted the burst of the morning

As on the waters it gleam'd, and the surf-beaten length of the sand-beach.

Instantly then did he harness his swift-footed horses, and corded

Hector in rear of the car, to be dragg'd at the wheels in dishonour.

Thrice at the speed he encircled the tomb of the son of MenЕ“tius,

Ere he repos'd him again in his tent, and abandon'd the body,

Flung on its face in the dust; but not unobserv'd of Apollo.

He, though the hero was dead, with compassionate tenderness eyed