Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/29

Rh 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 being used 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 farther 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 Græcisms 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, or the like (into which some of his translators have fallen), cannot be allowable; those only accepted, without which it is impossible to treat the subjects in any living language.

There are two peculiarities in Homer's diction which 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 they can be as fully and significantly expressed in a single word as in a compound one, the course to be taken is obvious.

Some that cannot be so turned as to preserve their full