Page:On translating Homer (1905).djvu/247

 in its effect upon Sophocles. He says that such words as mon, londis, libbard, withouten, muchel, give us a tolerable but incomplete notion of this parallel; and he finally exhibits the parallel in all its clearness, by this poetical specimen:

Dat mon, quhich hauldeth Kyngis af Londis yn féo, niver (I tell 'e) feereth aught; sith hee Doth hauld hys londis yver.

Now, does Mr Newman really think that Sophocles could, as he says, 'no more help feeling at every instant the foreign and antiquated character of Homer, than an Englishman can help feeling the same in hearing these lines'? Is he quite sure of it? He says he is; he will not allow of any doubt or hesitation in the matter. I had confessed we could not really know how Homer seemed to Sophocles; 'Let Mr Arnold confess for himself', cries Mr Newman, 'and not for me, who know perfectly well'. And this is what he knows!

Mr Newman says, however, that I 'play fallaciously on the words familiar and unfamiliar'; that 'Homer's words may have been familiar to the Athenians (i.e. often heard) even when they were either not understood by them or else, being understood, were yet felt and known to be utterly foreign. Let my renderings', he continues, 'be heard, as Pope or even Cowper has been heard, and no one will be "surprised"'.