TO THE LORD THURLOW.
My Lord,—I haunt you with letters, but will trouble you now with a short line, only to tell your lordship how happy I am that any part of my work has pleased you. I have a comfortable consciousness that the whole has been executed with equal industry and attention; and am, my lord, with many thanks to you for snatching such a hasty moment to write to me, your lordship's obliged and affectionate humble servant,
W. Cowper.
These letters cannot fail to be read with great interest.
Having in a former part of this work contrasted the two versions of Cowper and Pope, we shall now close the subject, by quoting Cowper's translation of some well-known and admired passages in the original poem. The classical reader will thus be enabled to determine how far the poet has succeeded in the application of his own principle, and retained the bold and lofty spirit of Homer, while he aims at transfusing his noble simplicity, and adhering strictly to his genuine meaning. We have selected the following specimens.
Hector extending his arms to caress his son Astyanax, in his interview with Andromache:
The hero ended, and his hands put forth
To reach his boy; but with a scream the child
Still closer to his nurse's bosom clung,
Shunning his touch; for dreadful in his eyes
The brazen armour shone, and dreadful more
The shaggy crest, that swept his father's brow.
Both parents smil'd, delighted; and the chief
Set down the crested terror on the ground,
Then kiss'd him, play'd away his infant fears,
And thus to Jove, and all the Pow'rs above:
Grant, O ye gods! such eminent renown
And might in arms, as ye have giv'n to me,
To this my son, with strength to govern Troy.
From fight return'd, be this his welcome home—
"He far excels his sire"—and may he rear
The crimson trophy, to his mother's joy![645]
He spake, and to his lovely spouse consign'd
The darling boy; with mingled smiles and tears
She wrapp'd him in her bosom's fragrant folds,
And Hector, pang'd with pity that she wept,
Her dewy cheek strok'd softly, and began.
Weep not for me, my love! no mortal arm
Shall send me prematurely to the shades,
Since, whether brave or dastard, at his birth
The fates ordain to each his hour to die.
Hence, then, to our abode; there weave or spin,
And task thy maidens. War to men belongs;
To all of Troy; and most of all to me.
Book vi. line 524.
The fatal conflict between Hector and Achilles:
So saying, his keen falchion from his side
He drew, well temper'd, ponderous, and rush'd
At once to combat. As the eagle darts
Right downward through a sullen cloud to seize
Weak lamb or tim'rous hare, so he to fight
Impetuous sprang, and shook his glitt'ring blade.
Achilles opposite, with fellest ire
Full-fraught came on; his shield with various art
Divine portray'd, o'erspread his ample chest;
And on his radiant casque terrific wav'd,
By Vulcan spun, his crest of bushy gold,
Bright as, among the stars, the star of all
Most splendid, Hesperus, at midnight moves;
So in the right hand of Achilles beam'd
His brandish'd spear, while, meditating woe
To Hector, he explored his noble form,
Seeking where he was vulnerable most.
But ev'ry part, his dazzling armour, torn
From brave Patroclus' body, well secur'd,
Save where the circling key-bone from the neck
Disjoins the shoulder; there his throat appear'd,
Whence injur'd life with swiftest flight escapes.
Achilles, plunging in that part his spear,
Impell'd it through the yielding flesh beyond.
The ashen beam his pow'r of utt'rance left
Still unimpair'd, but in the dust he fell.
Hector's prayer to Achilles:
By thy own life, by theirs who gave thee birth,
And by thy knees, oh let not Grecian dogs
Rend and devour me, but in gold accept
And brass a ransom at my father's hands,
And at my mother's, an illustrious price;
Send home my body, grant me burial rites
Among the daughters and the sons of Troy.
Book xxii. line 354.
The indignant answer of Achilles to the prayer of Hector:
Dog! neither knees nor parents name to me.
I would my fierceness of revenge were such,
That I could carve and eat thee, to whose arms
Such griefs I owe; so true it is and sure,
That none shall save thy carcass from the dogs.
No. Would they bring ten ransoms by the scale,
Or twice ten ransoms, and still promise more;
Would Priam buy thee with thy weight in gold,
Not even then should she who bare thee weep
Upon thy bier; for dogs and rav'ning fowls
Shall rend thy flesh, till ev'ry bone be bare.
Hector's last dying words:
I knew thee; knew that I should sue in vain,
For in thy breast of steel no pity dwells.
But oh, be cautious now, lest Heav'n perchance
Requite thee on that day, when, pierc'd thyself
By Paris and Apollo, thou shalt fall,
Brave as thou art, within the Scæan gate.
He ceas'd, and death involv'd him dark around.
His spirit, from his limbs dismiss'd, the house
Of Hades sought, deploring as she went
Youth's prime and vigour lost, disastrous doom!
But him, though dead, Achilles thus bespake:
Die thou. My death shall find me at what hour
Jove gives commandment, and the gods above.
Ibid. line 396.
The interview between Achilles and Priam, who comes to ransom the body of Hector:
... One I had,
One, more than all my sons the strength of Troy,
Whom standing for his country thou hast slain—
Hector—His body to redeem I come,
In Achaia's fleet, and bring, myself,
Ransom inestimable to thy tent.
O, fear the gods! and for remembrance' sake
Of thy own sire, Achilles! pity me,
More hapless still; who bear what, save myself,
None ever bore, thus lifting to my lips
Hands dyed so deep with slaughter of my sons.
So saying, he waken'd in his soul regret
Of his own sire; softly he plac'd his hand
On Priam's hand, and push'd him gently away.
Remembrance melted both. Stretch'd prone before
Achilles' feet, the king his son bewail'd,
Wide-slaughtering Hector; and Achilles wept
By turns his father, and by turns his friend,
Patroclus; sounds of sorrow fill'd the tent.
Book xxiv. line 622.
Without entering upon any minute analysis of the above passages, we consider them as exhibiting a happy specimen of poetic talent; and that Cowper has been successful in exemplifying the rules and principles which, in his preface, he declares to be indispensable in a version of Homer.
It may be interesting to literary curiosity to be presented with a summary of facts respecting Cowper's two versions of Homer.
This important undertaking commenced Nov. 21st, 1784, and was completed August 25th, 1790. During eight months of this intervening time, he was hindered by indisposition, so that he was occupied in the work, on the whole, five years and one month. On the 8th of September, 1790, his kinsman, the Rev. John Johnson, conveyed the translation to Johnson, the bookseller in St. Paul's Churchyard, with a view to its consignment to the press. During this period Cowper gave the work a second revisal, which he concluded March 4th, 1791. On July 1st of the same year the publication issued from the press. In 1793 there was a further revision, with the addition of explanatory notes, a second edition having been called for. In 1796 he engaged in a revisal of the whole work, which, owing to his state of mind and declining health, was not finished till March 8th, 1799. In January, 1800, he new-modelled a passage in his translation of the Iliad, where mention is made of the very ancient sculpture, in which Dædalus had represented the Cretan dance for Ariadne. This proved to be the last effort of his pen.[646]
We have thought it due to Cowper's version to enter thus largely into an examination of its merits, from a persuasion that an undertaking of this magnitude, executed by the author of "The Task," claims to be considered as a part of our national literature. It remains only to be observed that the foreigner whom he mentions with so much estimation, as having aided him with his critical taste and erudition, was Fuseli the painter. He gratefully acknowledges his obligations in the following letters to Johnson the bookseller.
Weston, Feb. 11, 1790.
Dear Sir,—I am very sensibly obliged by the remarks of Mr. Fuseli, and beg that you will tell him so; they afford me opportunities of improvement which I shall not neglect. When he shall see the press-copy, he will be convinced of this, and will be convinced likewise, that, smart as he sometimes is, he spares me often, when I have no mercy on myself. He will see almost a new translation.... I assure you faithfully, that whatever my faults may be, to be easily or hastily satisfied with what I have written is not one of them.
Sept. 7, 1790.
It grieves me that, after all, I am obliged to go into public without the whole advantage of Mr. Fuseli's judicious strictures. The only consolation is, that I have not forfeited them by my own impatience. Five years are no small portion of a man's life, especially at the latter end of it, and in those five years, being a man of almost no engagements, I have done more in the way of hard work, than most could have done in twice the number. I beg you to present my compliments to Mr. Fuseli, with many and sincere thanks for the services that his own more important occupations would allow him to render me.
We add one more letter in this place, addressed to his bookseller, to show with what becoming resolution he could defend his poetical opinions when he considered them to be just.
Some accidental reviser of the manuscript had taken the liberty to alter a line in a poem of Cowper's:—this liberty drew from the offended poet the following very just and animated remonstrance, which we are anxious to preserve, because it elucidates with great felicity of expression his deliberate ideas on English versification.
"I did not write the line that has been tampered with, hastily, or without due attention to the construction of it; and what appeared to me its only merit is, in its present state, entirely annihilated.
"I know that ears of modern verse-writers are delicate to an excess, and their readers are troubled with the same squeamishness as themselves. So that if a line do not run as smooth as quicksilver, they are offended. A critic of the present day serves a poem as a cook serves a dead turkey, when she fastens the legs of it to a post, and draws out all the sinews. For this we may thank Pope; but unless we could imitate him in the closeness and compactness of his expression, as well as in the smoothness of his numbers, we had better drop the imitation, which serves no other purpose than to emasculate and weaken all we write. Give me a manly rough line, with a deal of meaning in it, rather than a whole poem full of musical periods, that have nothing but their oily smoothness to recommend them!
"I have said thus much, as I hinted in the beginning, because I have just finished a much longer poem than the last, which our common friend will receive by the same messenger that has the charge of this letter. In that poem there are many lines which an ear so nice as the gentleman's who made the above-mentioned alteration would undoubtedly condemn, and yet (if I may be permitted to say it) they cannot be made smoother without being the worse for it. There is a roughness on a plum, which nobody that understands fruit would rub off, though the plum would be much more polished without it. But, lest I tire you, I will only add, that I wish you to guard me from all such meddling, assuring you, that I always write as smoothly as I can, but that I never did, never will, sacrifice the spirit or sense of a passage to the sound of it."
Cowper was much affected at this time by a severe indisposition, to which he alludes in the following letter.