Page:On translating Homer (1905).djvu/106

 *ally to us as Milton's words when he says, 'Let gorgeous Tragedy With sceptred pall come sweeping by'. Instead of rendering μώνυχας ἵππους by Chapman's 'one-hoofed steeds', or Mr Newman's 'single-hoofed horses', he must speak of horses in a way which surprises us as little as Shakspeare surprises when he says, 'Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds'. Instead of rendering μελιηδέα θυμόν by 'life as honey pleasant', he must characterise life with the simple pathos of Gray's 'warm precincts of the cheerful day'. Instead of converting ποῖόν σε ἔπoς φύγεν ἔρκος ὀδόντων; into the portentous remonstrance, 'Betwixt the outwork of thy teeth what word hath split'? he must remonstrate in English as straightforward as this of St Peter, 'Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee'; or as this of the disciples, 'What is this that he saith, a little while? we cannot tell what he saith'. Homer's Greek, in each of the places quoted, reads as naturally as any of those English passages: the expression no more calls away the attention from the sense in the Greek than in the English. But when, in order to render literally in English one of Homer's double epithets, a strange unfamiliar adjective is invented,—such as 'voice-dividing' for μέρψς,—an improper share of the reader's attention is necessarily diverted to this ancillary word, to this word which Homer never intended