Page:On translating Homer (1905).djvu/149

 They were a many-voicèd throng: Discordant accents there, That sound from many a differing tongue, Their differing race declare. These, Mars had kindled for the fight; Those, starry-ey'd Athenè's might, And savage Terror and Affright, And Strife, insatiate of wars, The sister and the mate of Mars: Strife, that, a pigmy at her birth, By gathering rumour fed, Soon plants her feet upon the earth, And in the heav'n her head.

I add my own rendering of the same; somewhat corrected, but only in the direction of my own principles and against Arnold's.

As when the surges of the deep,   by Western blore uphoven, Against the ever-booming strand   dash up in roll successive; A head of waters swelleth first   aloof; then under harried By the rough bottom, roars aloud;   till, hollow at the summit, Sputtering the briny foam abroad,   the huge crest tumbleth over: So then the lines of Danaï,   successive and unceasing, In battle's close array mov'd on. To his own troops each leader Gave order: dumbly went the rest   (nor mightèst thou discover, So vast a train of people held    a voice within their bosom), In silence their commanders fearing:   all the ranks wellmarshall'd Were clad in crafty panoply,    which glitter'd on their bodies.