Page:On translating Homer (1905).djvu/171

 but spit is feeble and mean. In passing, I observe that the universal praise given to Chapman as 'Homeric' (a praise which I have too absolutely repeated, perhaps through false shame of depreciating my only rival) is a testimony to me that I rightly appreciate Homeric style; for my style is Chapman's softened, purged of conceits and made far more melodious. Mr Arnold leaves me to wonder, how, with his disgust at me, he can avoid feeling tenfold disgust at Chapman; and to wonder also what he means, by so blankly contradicting my statement that Homer is quaint; and why he so vehemently resents it. He does not vouchsafe to me or to his readers one particle of disproof or of explanation.

I regard it as quaint in Homer to call Juno white-arm'd goddess and large-ey'd. (I have not rendered βοῶπις ox-ey'd, because in a case of doubt I shrank to obtrude anything so grotesque to us.) It is quaint to say, 'the lord of bright-haired Juno lightens' for 'it lightens'; or 'my heart in my shaggy bosom is divided', for 'I doubt': quaint to call waves wet, milk white, blood dusky, horses singlehoofed, a hero's hand broad, words winged, Vulcan Lobfoot (Κυλλοποδίων), a maiden fair-ankled, the Greeks

Homer's ἀποπτύει to be 'elegant', but sputter—not! 'No one would guess from Mr Newman's coarse phrases how elegant is Homer'!!]
 * [Footnote: pretend that 'sputter' is indelicate. They find