Page:On translating Homer (1905).djvu/222

 *lation of 'wellgreav'd', every common Englishman on hearing the sound receives it as 'wellgrieved', and to me it is very unpleasing. A part of the mischief, a large part of it, is in the word greave; for dapper-*girdled is on the whole well-received. But what else can we say for greave? leggings? gambados?

Much perhaps remains to be learnt concerning Homer's perpetual epithets. My very learned colleague Goldstücke, Professor of Sanscrit, is convinced that the epithet cow-eyed of the Homeric Juno is an echo of the notion of Hindoo poets, that (if I remember his statement) 'the sun-*beams are the cows of heaven'. The sacred qualities of the Hindoo cow are perhaps not to be forgotten. I have myself been struck by the phrase διϊπετέος ποτάμοιο as akin to the idea that the Ganges falls from Mount Meru, the Hindoo Olympus. Also the meaning of two other epithets has been revealed to me from the pictures of Hindoo ladies. First, curl-eyed, to which I have referred above; secondly, ''rosy-fingered Aurora''. For Aurora is an 'Eastern lady'; and, as such, has the tips of her fingers dyed rosy-red, whether by henna or by some more brilliant drug. Who shall say that the kings and warriors of Homer do not derive from the East their epithet 'Jove-*nurtured'? or that this or that goddess is not called 'golden-throned' or 'fair