Page:The Iliad of Homer Faithfully Translated Into Unrhymed English Metre.djvu/10

iv The weakest point of the Greeks, their absurd religion, has its interest and instruction in its eminently childlike simplicity. We see in this people (what may be called) the childish mind magnified, both as to intensity and duration; and through them we can trace step by step the wonderful changes of religious thought, from Homer to Pindar and to Plato or Aristotle: but to be familiar first with Homer, is the basis of this contemplation.

It is to be added, that this poet wrote in a stage of the national mind in which divisions of literature were not recognized. Even the distinction of prose and poetry had not yet arisen. He is alternately Poet, Orator, Historian, Theologian, Geographer, Traveller, jocose as well as serious, dramatic as well as descriptive. In this half-developed condition, each separate function is less perfectly performed than afterward; yet the work, as a whole, has charms not easily attained by anything less comprehensive. Here, however, it suffices to warn the reader not to expect, or to wish, Homer to be always at the same high pitch of poetry. He rises and sinks with his subject, is prosaic when it is tame, is low when it is mean. To express this suitably, we need a diction sufficiently antiquated to obtain pardon of the reader for its frequent homeliness.

The style of Homer [himself is direct, popular, forcible, quaint, flowing, garrulous, abounding with formulas, redundant in particles and affirmatory interjections, as also in grammatical connectives of time, place, and argument. In all these respects it is similar to the old English ballad, and is in sharp contrast to the polished style of Pope, Sotheby, and Cowper, the best known English translators of Homer. By general consent. Chapman's version is far more Homeric than these. In regard to diction, Dryden in part agrees with Homer, namely, in his love of strong and racy words. A