Page:On translating Homer (1905).djvu/180

 *ology, which passed with him as matter of course, may monopolize my main attention. Our minds are not passive recipients of this or that poet's influence; but the poet is the material on which our minds actively work. If an unlearned reader thinks it very 'odd' of Homer (the first time he hears it) to call Aurora 'fair-thron'd', so does a boy learning Greek think it odd to call her εὔθρονος. Mr Arnold ought to blot every odd Homeric epithet out of his Greek Homer (or never lend the copy to a youthful learner) if he desires me to expunge 'fair-thron'd' from the translation. Nay, I think he should conceal that the Morning was esteemed as a goddess, though she had no altars or sacrifice. It is all odd. But that is just why people want to read an English Homer,—to know all his oddities, exactly as learned men do. He is the phenomenon to be studied. His peculiarities, pleasant or unpleasant, are to be made known, precisely because of his great eminence and his substantial deeply seated worth. Mr Arnold writes like a timid biographer, fearful to let too much of his friend come out. So much as to the substance. As to mere words, here also I hold the very reverse of Mr Arnold's doctrine. I do not feel free to translate οὐρανομήκης by 'heaven-kissing', precisely because Shakspeare has used the last word. It is his property, as ἐϋκνημῖδες, ἐϋμμελίης,