Page:On translating Homer (1905).djvu/128

 There sate fifty men, in the ruddy light of the fire. By their chariots stood the steeds, and champ'd the white barley, While their masters sate by the fire, and waited for Morning.

I sincerely thought, this was meant for prose; at length the two last lines opened my eyes. He does mean them for Hexameters! 'Fire' ( = feuer) with him is a spondee or trochee. The first line, I now see, begins with three (quantitative) spondees, and is meant to be spondaic in the fifth foot. 'Bed of, Between, In the',—are meant for spondees! So are 'There sate', 'By their'; though 'Troy by the' was a dactyl. 'Champ'd the white' is a dactyl. My 'metrical exploits' amaze Mr Arnold (p. 23); but my courage is timidity itself compared to his.

His second specimen stands thus:

And with pity the son of Saturn saw them bewailing, And he shook his head, and thus address'd his own bosom: Ah, unhappy pair! to Peleus why did we give you, To a mortal? but ye are without old age and immortal. Was it that ye with man, might have your thousands of sorrows? For than man indeed there breathes no wretcheder creature, Of all living things, that on earth are breathing and moving.