"Went not thy spirit gladly with us then,
Most genial Shakespeare!—wast thou not with us
Who throng'd to honour thee and love thee thus,
A few among thy subject fellow-men?
Yea,—let me truly think it; for thy heart
(Though now long since the free-made citizen
Of brighter cities where we trust thou art)
Was one, in its great whole and every part,
With human sympathies: we seem to die,
But verily live; we grow, improve, expand,
When Death transplants us to that Happier Land;
Therefore, sweet Shakespeare, came thy spirit nigh,
Cordial with Man, and grateful to High Heaven
For all our love to thy dear memory given."
CHAPTER XIX.
TRANSLATIONS AND PAMPHLETS.
The best of my unpublished MSS. of any size or consequence is perhaps my translation of Book Alpha of the Iliad, quite literal and in its original metre of hexameters: hitherto I have failed to find a publisher kind enough to lose by it; for there are already at least twelve English versions of Homer unread, perhaps unreadable. Still, some day I don't despair to gain an enterprising Sosius; for my literal and hexametrical translation is almost what Carthusians used to call "a crib," and perhaps some day the School Board or their organ, Mr. Joseph Hughes's Practical Teacher, may adopt my version. Its origin and history is this: finding winter evenings in the country wearisome to my homeflock, I used to read to them profusely and discursively. Amongst other books, a literary daughter suggested Pope's Homer; which, as I read, after a little while, I found to be so very free and incorrect a translation (if my memory served me rightly) that I resolved to see what I could do by reading from the original Greek in its own (English) metre. I soon found it quite easy to be both terse and literal; and having rhythm only to care for without the tag of rhyme, I soon pleased my hearers and in some sort myself, reading "off the reel" directly from the Greek into the English.
This version is still unblotted by printer's ink: if any compositor pleases he is welcome to work on the copy; which I can supply gratis: only I do not promise to do more than I have done, Book Alpha. Life is too short for such literary playwork.
Here followeth a sample: quite literal: line for line, almost word for word: my translation renders Homer exactly. I choose the short bit where Thetis pleads with Jove for her irate son, because I am sure Tennyson must have had this passage in his mind when he drew his word-picture of Vivien with Merlin.
"But now at length the twelfth morn from the first had arrived; and returning
Came to Olympus together the glorious band of immortals,
Zeus the great king at their head. And Thetis, remembering the cravings
Of her own son, and his claims, uprose to the surface of ocean,
And through the air flew swift to high heaven, ascending Olympus.
There she found sitting alone on the loftiest peak of the mountain
All-seeing Zeus, son of Kronos, apart from the other celestials.
So she sat closely beside him, embracing his knees with her left hand,
While with her right she handled his beard, and tenderly stroked it,
Whispering thus her prayer to Zeus, the great king, son of Kronos," &c. &c.
Let that suffice with a cætera desunt.