"Wise through time, and narrative with age,"
Mr. Pope's own invention, and excellent. What we definitely can not hear is the voice of the old men speaking. The simile of the grasshoppers is well rendered, but the old voices do not ring in the ear.
Homer (iii. 156-160) reports their conversation:
Οὐ νέμεσις, Τρὧας καὶ ἐϋκνήμιδας Αχαιοὺς
Τοιῇδ ἀμΦὶ γυναικὶ πολὺν χρόνον ἄλγεα πἀσχειν·
Αἰῶς ἀθανάτῃσι θεῇς εἰς ὦπα ἔοικεν.
Ἀλλὰ καὶ ὣς, τοὶη περ εοῦς', ἐν νηυσὶ νεέσθω·
Μηδ' ἡμἰν τεκέεσσι τ' 'οπίσσω πῆμα λιποιτο.
Which is given in Sam. Clark's ad verbum translation:
"Non est indigne ferendum, Trojanos et bene-ocreatos Archivos
Tali de muliere longum tempus dolores pati:
Omnino immortalibus deabus ad vultum similis est.
Sed et sic, talis quamvis sit, in navibus redeat,
Neque nobis liberisque in posterum detrimentum relinquatur."
Mr. Pope has given six short lines for five long ones, but he has added "fatal" to face (or perhaps only lifted it from νέμεσις), he has added "winning graces," "majestic," "looks a queen." As for owning beauty's resistless power secretly or in the open, the Greek is:
Τοῖοι ἄρα Τρώων ἡγήτορες ἧντ' ἐπὶ πύργῳ.
Οἵ δ' ὡς οὦν εἶδον Ἑλένην ἐπὶ πύργον ἰοῦσαν,
Ἠκα πρὸς ἀλλήλους ἔηεα πτερόεντ' ἀγόρευον·
and Sam. Clark as follows:
"Tales utique Trojanorum proceres sedebant in turri.
Hi autem ut videruut Helenam ad turrim venientem,
Submisse inter se verbis alatis dixerunt;"