Page:On translating Homer (1905).djvu/188

 Garrulity often vents itself in expletives. Mr Arnold selects for animadversion this line of mine (p. 41),

'A thousand fires along the plain, I say, that night were gleaming'.

He says: 'This may be the genuine style of ballad poetry, but it is not the style of Homer'. I reply; my use of expletives is moderate indeed compared to Homer's. Mr Arnold writes, as if quite unaware that such words as the intensely prosaic ἄρα, and its abbreviations ἂρ, ῥα, with τοι, τε, δὴ, μάλα, ἦ, ἦ ῥα νυ, περ, overflow in epic style; and that a pupil who has mastered the very copious stock of Attic particles, is taken quite aback by the extravagant number in Homer. Our expletives are generally more offensive, because longer. My principle is, to admit only such expletives as add energy, and savour of antiquity. To the feeble expletives of mean ditties I am not prone. I once heard from an eminent counsellor the first lesson of young lawyers, in the following doggerel:

He who holds his lands in fee, Need neither quake nor quiver: For I humbly conceive, look ye, do ye see? He holds his lands for ever.

The 'humbly conceiving' certainly outdoes Homer. Yet if the poet had chosen (as he might have chosen) to make Polydamas or Glaucus say: