Page:On translating Homer (1905).djvu/241

 for instance: when Shakspeare, reproaching man with the dependence in which his youth is passed, says:

all thy blessed youth Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms Of palsied eld,

it seems to me that eld comes in excellently there, in a passage of curious meditation; but when Mr Newman renders ἀγήρω τ' ἀθανάτω τε by 'from Eld and Death exempted', it seems to me he infuses a tinge of quaintness into the transparent simplicity of Homer's expression, and so I call eld a bad word in that place.

Once more. Mr Newman lays it down as a general rule that 'many of Homer's energetic descriptions are expressed in coarse physical words'. He goes on: 'I give one illustration,—Τρῶες προὔτυψαν ἀολλέες. Cowper, misled by the ignis fatuus of "stateliness" renders it absurdly:

The powers of Ilium gave the first assault Embattled close;

but it is, strictly, "The Trojans knocked forward (or, thumped, butted forward) in close pack". The verb is too coarse for later polished prose, and even the adjective is very strong (packed together). I believe that "forward in pack the Trojans pitched", would not be really unfaithful to the Homeric colour; and I maintain that "forward in mass the Trojans pitched", would be an