Our author’s work is a wild paradise where, if we cannot see all the beauties so distinctly as in an ordered garden, it is only because the number of them is infinitely greater. ’Tis like a copious nursery which contains the seeds and first productions of every kind, out of which those who followed him have but selected some particular plants, each according to his fancy, to cultivate and beautify. If some things are too luxuriant, it is owing to the richness of the soil; and if others are not arrived to perfection or maturity, it is only because they are overrun and oppressed by those of a stronger nature.
It is to the strength of this amazing invention we are to attribute that unequalled fire and rapture which is so forcible in Homer, that no man of a true poetical spirit is master of himself while he reads him. What he writes is of the most animated nature imaginable: everything moves, everything lives and is put in action. If a council be called or a battle fought, you are not coldly informed of what was said or done as from a third person; the reader is hurried out of himself by the force of the poet’s imagination, and turns in one place to a hearer, in another to a spectator. The course of his verses resembles that of the army he describes: ‘They pour along like a fire that sweeps the whole earth before it.’2 ’Tis however remarkable that his fancy, which is everywhere vigorous, is not discovered immediately at the beginning of his poem in its fullest splendour; it grows in the progress both upon himself and others, and becomes on fire like a chariot wheel, by its own rapidity. Exact disposition, just thought, correct elocution, polished numbers3 may have been found in a thousand; but this poetical fire, this vivida vis animi,4 in a very few. Even in works where all those are imperfect or neglected, this can overpower criticism and make us admire even while we disapprove. Nay, where this appears, though attended with absurdities, it brightens all the rubbish about it, till we see nothing but its own splendour. This fire is discerned in Virgil, but discerned as through a glass, reflected, and more shining than warm, but everywhere equal and constant. In Lucan and Statius5 it bursts out in sudden, short, and interrupted flashes; in Milton it glows like a furnace kept up to an uncommon fierceness by the force of art; in Shakespeare it strikes before we are aware, like an accidental fire from Heaven; but in Homer, and in him only, it burns everywhere clearly, and everywhere irresistibly.
I shall here endeavour to show how this vast invention exerts itself in a manner superior to that of any poet, through all the main constituent parts of his work, as it is the great and peculiar characteristic which distinguishes him from all other authors.
This strong and ruling faculty was like a powerful planet, which in the violence of its own course drew all things within its vortex. It seemed not enough to have taken in the whole circle of arts and the whole compass of Nature; all the inward passions and affections of mankind to supply his characters, and all the outward forms and images of things for his descriptions; but wanting yet an ampler sphere to expatiate in, he opened a new and boundless walk for his imagination and created a world for himself in the invention of fable.6 That which Aristotle calls the ‘soul of poetry’7 was first breathed into it by Homer …
The speeches are to be considered as they flow from the characters, being perfect or defective as they agree or disagree with the manners of those who utter them. As there is more variety of characters in the Iliad, so there is of speeches, than in any other poem. ‘Everything in it has manners’ (as Aristotle expresses it);8 that is, everything is acted or spoken. It is hardly credible in a work of such length how small a number of lines are employed in narration. In Virgil the dramatic part is less in proportion to the narrative; and the speeches often consist of general reflections or thoughts which might be equally just in any person’s mouth upon the same occasion. As many of his persons have no apparent characters, so many of his speeches escape being applied and judged by the rule of propriety. We oftener think of the author himself when we read Virgil than when we are engaged in Homer. All which are the effects of a colder invention, that interests us less in the action described: Homer makes us hearers, and Virgil leaves us readers.
If in the next place we take a view of the sentiments,9 the same presiding faculty is eminent in the sublimity and spirit of his thoughts. Longinus10 has given his opinion that it was in this part Homer principally excelled. What were alone suffcient to prove the grandeur and excellence of his sentiments in general is that they have so remarkable a parity with those of the Scripture; Duport, in his Gnomologia Homerica,11 has collected innumerable instances of this sort. And it is with justice an excellent modern writer12 allows that if Virgil has not so many thoughts that are low and vulgar, he has not so many that are sublime and noble, and that the Roman author seldom rises into very astonishing sentiments where he is not fired by the Iliad.
If we observe his descriptions, images, and similes, we shall find the invention still predominant. To what else can we ascribe that vast comprehension of images of every sort, where we see each circumstance and individual of Nature summoned together by the extent and fecundity of his imagination, to which all things, in their various views, presented themselves in an instant, and had their impressions taken off to perfection at a heat? Nay, he not only gives us the full prospects of things, but several unexpected peculiarities and side views, unobserved by any painter but Homer. Nothing is so surprising as the descriptions of his battles, which take up no less than half the Iliad, and are supplied with so vast a variety of incidents that no one bears a likeness to another; such different kinds of deaths that no two heroes are wounded in the same manner; and such a profusion of noble ideas that every battle rises above the last in greatness, horror, and confusion. It is certain there is not near that number of images and descriptions in any epic poet, though everyone has assisted himself with a great quantity out of him; and it is evident of Virgil, especially, that he has scarce any comparisons which are not drawn from his master.
If we descend from hence to the expression, we see the bright imagination of Homer shining out in the most enlivened forms of it. We acknowledge him the father of poetical diction, the first who taught that language of the gods to men. His expression is like the colouring of some great masters, which discovers itself to be laid on boldly and executed with rapidity. It is indeed the strongest and most glowing imaginable, and touched with the greatest spirit. Aristotle had reason to say he was the only poet who had found out living words;13 there are in him more daring figures and metaphors than in any good author whatever. An arrow is ‘impatient’ to be on the wing, a weapon ‘thirsts’ to drink the blood of an enemy, and the like. Yet his expression is never too big for the sense, but justly great in proportion to it; ’tis the sentiment that swells and fills out the diction, which rises with it and forms itself about it. For in the same degree that a thought is warmer, an expression will be brighter; and as that is more strong, this will become more perspicuous, like glass in the furnace, which grows to a greater magnitude and refines to a greater clearness only as the breath within is more powerful and the heat more intense …
Thus, on whatever side we contemplate Homer, what principally strikes us is his invention. It is that which forms the character of each part of his work; and accordingly we find it to have made his fable more extensive and copious than any other, his manners more lively and strongly marked, his speeches more affecting and transported, his sentiments more warm and sublime, his images and descriptions more full and animated, his expression more raised and daring, and his numbers more rapid and various. I hope in what has been said of Virgil with regard to any of these heads, I have no way derogated from his character. Nothing is more absurd or endless than the common method of comparing eminent writers by an opposition of particular passages in them and forming a judgement from thence of their merit upon the whole. We ought to have a certain knowledge of the principal character and distinguishing excellence of each; it is in that we are to consider him, and in proportion to his degree in that we are to admire him. No author or man ever excelled all the w
orld in more than one faculty, and as Homer has done this in invention, Virgil has in judgement. Not that we are to think Homer wanted judgement because Virgil had it in a more eminent degree, or that Virgil wanted invention because Homer possessed a larger share of it: each of these great authors had more of both than perhaps any man besides, and are only said to have less in comparison with one another. Homer was the greater genius, Virgil the better artist. In one we most admire the man, in the other the work. Homer hurries and transports us with a commanding impetuosity, Virgil leads us with an attractive majesty. Homer scatters with a generous profusion, Virgil bestows with a careful magnificence. Homer, like the Nile, pours out his riches with a sudden overflow; Virgil, like a river in its banks, with a gentle and constant stream. When we behold their battles, me thinks the two poets resemble the heroes they celebrate: Homer, boundless and irresistible as Achilles, bears all before him, and shines more and more as the tumult increases; Virgil, calmly daring like Aeneas, appears undisturbed in the midst of the action, disposes all about him, and conquers with tranquillity. And when we look upon their machines,14 Homer seems like his own Jupiter in his terrors, shaking Olympus, scattering the lightnings, and firing the Heavens; Virgil, like the same power in his benevolence, counselling with the gods, laying plans for empires, and regularly ordering his whole creation …
Having now spoken of the beauties and defects of the original, it remains to treat of the translation, with the same view to the chief characteristic. As far as that is seen in the main parts of the poem, such as the fable, manners, and sentiments, no translator can prejudice it but by wilful omissions or contractions. As it also breaks out in every particular image, description, and simile, whoever lessens or too much softens those takes off from this chief character. It is the first grand duty of an interpreter to give his author entire and unmaimed; and for the rest, the diction and versification only are his proper province, since these must be his own, but the others he is to take as he finds them.
It should then be considered what methods may afford some equivalent in our language for the graces of these in the Greek. It is certain no literal translation can be just to an excellent original in a superior language, but it is a great mistake to imagine (as many have done) that a rash paraphrase can make amends for this general defect, which is no less in danger to lose the spirit of an Ancient15 by deviating into the modern manners of expression. If there be sometimes a darkness, there is often a light in antiquity, which nothing better preserves than a version almost literal. I know no liberties one ought to take but those which are necessary for transfusing the spirit of the original and supporting the poetical style of the translation; and I will venture to say there have not been more men misled in former times by a servile dull adherence to the letter, than have been deluded in ours by a chimerical insolent hope of raising and improving their author. It is not to be doubted that the fire of the poem is what a translator should principally regard, as it is most likely to expire in his managing. However, it is his safest way to be content with preserving this to his utmost in the whole, without endeavouring to be more than he finds his author is in any particular place. ’Tis a great secret in writing to know when to be plain, and when poetical and figurative; and it is what Homer will teach us if we will but follow modestly in his footsteps. Where his diction is bold and lofty, let us raise ours as high as we can; but where his is plain and humble, we ought not to be deterred from imitating him by the fear of incurring the censure of a mere English critic. Nothing that belongs to Homer seems to have been more commonly mistaken than the just pitch of his style, some of his translators having swelled into fustian16 in a proud confidence of the sublime, others sunk into flatness in a cold and timorous notion of simplicity. Methinks I see these different followers of Homer, some sweating and straining after him by violent leaps and bounds (the certain signs of false mettle); others slowly and servilely creeping in his train; while the poet himself is all the time proceeding with an unaffected and equal majesty before them. However, of the two extremes one could sooner pardon frenzy than frigidity; no author is to be envied for such commendations as he may gain by that character of style which his friends must agree together to call simplicity, and the rest of the world will call dullness. There is a graceful and dignified simplicity, as well as a bald and sordid one, which differ as much from each other as the air of a plain man from that of a sloven. ’Tis one thing to be tricked up,17 and another not to be dressed at all. Simplicity is the mean between ostentation and rusticity.
This pure and noble simplicity is nowhere in such perfection as in the Scripture and our author. One may affirm with all respect to the inspired writings that the Divine Spirit made use of no other words but what were intelligible and common to men at that time and in that part of the world; and as Homer is the author nearest to those, his style must of course bear a greater resemblance to the Sacred Books than that of any other writer. This consideration (together with what has been observed of the parity of some of his thoughts) may, methinks, induce a translator, on the one hand, to give in to several of those general phrases and manners of expression which have attained a veneration even in our language, from their use in the Old Testament; as, on the other, to avoid those which have been appropriated to the Divinity, and in a manner consigned to mystery and religion.
For a further preservation of this air of simplicity, a particular care should be taken to express with all plainness those moral sentences and proverbial speeches which are so numerous in this poet. They have something venerable and, as I may say, oracular, in that unadorned gravity and shortness with which they are delivered, a grace which would be utterly lost by endeavouring to give them what we call a more ingenious (that is, a more modern) turn in the paraphrase.
Perhaps the mixture of some Graecisms and old words after the manner of Milton, if done without too much affectation, might not have an ill effect in a version of this particular work, which most of any other seems to require a venerable antique cast. But certainly the use of modern terms of war and government, such as ‘platoon’, ‘campaign’, ‘junto’,18 or the like (which some of his translators have fallen into) cannot be allowable, those only excepted without which it is impossible to treat the subjects in any living language.
There are two peculiarities in Homer’s diction that are a sort of marks or moles, by which every common eye distinguishes him at first sight. Those who are not his greatest admirers look upon them as defects, and those who are, seem pleased with them as beauties. I speak of his compound epithets, and of his repetitions. Many of the former cannot be done literally into English without destroying the purity of our language. I believe such should be retained as slide easily of themselves into an English compound without violence to the ear or to the received rules of composition, as well as those which have received a sanction from the authority of our best poets, and are become familiar through their use of them, such as the cloud-compelling Jove, etc. As for the rest, whenever any can be as fully and significantly expressed in a single word as in a compounded one, the course to be taken is obvious. Some that cannot be so turned as to preserve their full image by one or two words may have justice done them by circumlocution, as the epithet to a mountain would appear little or ridiculous translated literally ‘leaf-shaking’, but affords a majestic idea in the periphrasis: ‘the lofty mountain shakes his waving woods’. Others that admit of differing significations may receive an advantage by a judicious variation according to the occasions on which they are introduced. For example, the epithet of Apollo, , or ‘far-shooting’, is capable of two explications, one literal in respect of the darts and bow, the ensigns of that god, the other allegorical with regard to the rays of the sun; therefore in such places where Apollo is represented as a god in person, I would use the former interpretation, and where the effects of the sun are described, I would make choice of the latter. Upon the whole, it will be necessary to avoid that perpetual repetition of the same epithets which we find in Homer
and which, though it might be accommodated (as has been already shown) to the ear of those times, is by no means so to ours. But one may wait for opportunities of placing them where they derive an additional beauty from the occasions on which they are employed, and in doing this properly a translator may at once show his fancy and his judgement.
As for Homer’s repetitions, we may divide them into three sorts: of whole narrations and speeches, of single sentences, and of one verse or hemistich.19 I hope it is not impossible to have such a regard to these as neither to lose so known a mark of the author on the one hand, nor to offend the reader too much on the other. The repetition is not ungraceful in those speeches where the dignity of the speaker renders it a sort of insolence to alter his words, as in the messages from gods to men, or from higher powers to inferiors in concerns of state, or where the ceremonial of religion seems to require it in the solemn forms of prayers, oaths, or the like. In other cases, I believe the best rule is to be guided by the nearness or distance at which the repetitions are placed in the original. When they follow too close one may vary the expression, but it is a question whether a professed translator be authorized to omit any. If they be tedious, the author is to answer for it.
It only remains to speak of the versification. Homer (as has been said) is perpetually applying the sound to the sense, and varying it on every new subject. This is indeed one of the most exquisite beauties of poetry, and attainable by very few;20 I know only of Homer eminent for it in the Greek, and Virgil in Latin. I am sensible it is what may sometimes happen by chance, when a writer is warm and fully possessed of his image; however, it may be reasonably believed they designed this, in whose verse it so manifestly appears in a superior degree to all others. Few readers have the ear to be judges of it, but those who have will see I have endeavoured at this beauty.
The Rape of the Lock and Other Major Writings Page 36