Page:On translating Homer (1905).djvu/40

 busy on behalf of my father's great glory, and my own '. In Chapman's hands this becomes:

The spirit I first did breathe Did never teach me that; much less, since the contempt of death Was settled in me, ''and my mind knew what a worthy was, Whose office is to lead in fight, and give no danger pass Without improvement. In this fire must Hector's trial shine: Here must his country, father, friends, be in him made divine.''

You see how ingeniously Homer's plain thought is tormented, as the French would say, here. Homer goes on: 'For well I know this in my mind and in my heart, the day will be, when sacred Troy shall perish'—

ἔσσεται ἦμαρ, ὅτ' ἄν ποτ' ὀλώλῃ Ἴλιος ἱρή.

Chapman makes this:

And such a stormy day shall come, in mind and soul I know, When sacred Troy shall shed her towers, for tears of overthrow.

I might go on for ever, but I could not give you a better illustration than this last, of what I mean by saying that the Elizabethan poet fails to render Homer because he cannot forbear to interpose a play of thought between his object and its expression. Chapman translates his object into Eliza-*