Page:On translating Homer (1905).djvu/197

 I find the pity which the word alas! expresses, to be very clever, and very effective against me. But, I think, he was not discreet, but very unwise, in making dogmatic statements on the ground of erudition, many of which I have exposed; and about which much more remains to be said than space will allow me.

In his denial that Homer is 'garrulous', he complains that so many think him to be 'diffuse'. Mr Arnold, it seems, is unaware of that very prominent peculiarity; which suits ill even to Mr Gladstone's style. Thus, where Homer said (and I said) in a passage quoted above, 'people that have a voice in their bosom, Mr Gladstone has only speaking men'. I have noticed the epithet shaggy as quaint, in 'His heart in his shaggy bosom was divided', where, in a moral thought, a physical epithet is obtruded. But even if 'shaggy' be dropped, it remains diffuse (and characteristically so) to say 'my heart in my bosom is divided', for 'I doubt'. So—'I will speak what my heart in my bosom bids me'. So, Homer makes men think κατὰ φρένα καὶ κατὰ θυμὸν, 'in their heart and mind'; and deprives them of 'mind and soul'. Also: 'this appeared to him in his mind to be the best counsel'. Mr Arnold assumes tones of great superiority; but every school-*boy knows that diffuseness is a distinguishing characteristic of Homer. Again, the