Page:On translating Homer (1905).djvu/295

 or as

ὥς γὰρ ἐπεκλώσαντο θεοὶ δειλοῖσι βροτοῖσιν, ζώειν ἀχνυμένους· αὐτοὶ δὲ τ' ἀκηδέες εἰσίν ,

and of these the tone is given, far better than by anything of the balladists, by such things as the

Io no piangeva: sì dentro impietrai: Piangevan elli

of Dante; or the

Fall'n Cherub! to be weak is miserable

of Milton.

I suppose I must, before I conclude, say a word or two about my own hexameters; and yet really, on such a topic, I am almost ashamed to trouble you. From those perishable objects I feel, I can truly say, a most Oriental detachment. You yourselves are witnesses how little importance, when I offered them to you, I claimed for them, how humble a function I designed them to fill. I offered them, not as specimens of a competing translation of Homer, but as illustrations of certain canons which I had been trying to establish for Homer's poetry. I said that these canons they might very well