Page:On translating Homer (1905).djvu/176

 this, I have suggested that the text is corrupt, and that for ὄρεϊ νιφόεντι we should read ὀρνέῳ θύοντι, 'darted forth screaming like a raging bird'. Yet, as far as I know, I am the first man that has here impugned the text. Mr Brandreth is faithful in his rendering, except that he says shouting for screaming:

'He said; and like a snowy mountain, rush'd Shouting; and flew through Trojans and allies.'

Chapman, Cowper, and Pope strain and twist the words to an impossible sense, putting in something about white plume, which they fancy suggested a snowy mountain; but they evidently accept the Greek as it stands, unhesitatingly. I claim this phenomenon in proof that to all commentators and interpreters hitherto Homer's quaintness has been such an axiom, that they have even acquiesced unsuspiciously in an extravagance which goes far beyond oddity. Moreover the reader may augur by my opposite treatment of the passage, with what discernment Mr Arnold condemns me of obtruding upon Homer gratuitous oddities which equal the conceits of Chapman.

But, while thus vindicating Quaintness as an essential quality of Homer, do I regard it as a weakness to be apologized for? Certainly not; for it is a condition of his cardinal excellences. He could not otherwise be Picturesque as he is. So volatile is his