On Translating Homer

by Matthew Arnold; Francis William Newman

Homeric Translation in Theory and Practice
A Reply to Matthew Arnold
By Francis W. Newman

It is so difficult, amid the press of literature, for a mere versifier and translator to gain notice at all, that an assailant may even do one a service, if he so conduct his assault as to enable the reader to sit in intelligent judgment on the merits of the book assailed. But when the critic deals out to the readers only so much knowledge as may propagate his own contempt of the book, he has undoubtedly immense power to dissuade them from wishing to open it. Mr Arnold writes as openly aiming at this end. He begins by complimenting me, as ‘a man of great ability and genuine learning’; but on questions of learning, as well as of taste, he puts me down as bluntly, as if he had meant, ‘a man totally void both of learning and of sagacity’. He again and again takes for granted that he has ‘the scholar’ on his side, ‘the living scholar’, the man who has learning and taste without pedantry. He bids me please ‘the scholars’, and go to ‘the scholars’ tribunal’; and does not know that I did this, to the extent of my opportunity, before committing myself to a laborious, expensive and perhaps thankless task. Of course he cannot guess, what is the fact, that scholars of fastidious refinement, but of a judgment which I think far more masculine than Mr Arnold’s, have passed a most encouraging sentence on large specimens of my translations. I at this moment count eight such names, though of course I must not here adduce them: nor will I further allude to it, than to say, that I have no such sense either of pride or of despondency, as those are liable to, who are consciously isolated in their taste.

Scholars are the tribunal of Erudition, but of Taste the educated but unlearned public is the only rightful judge; and to it I wish to appeal. Even scholars collectively have no right, and much less have single scholars, to pronounce a final sentence on questions of taste in their court. Where I differ in Taste from Mr Arnold, it is very difficult to find ‘the scholars’ tribunal even if I acknowledged its absolute jurisdiction: but as regards Erudition, this difficulty does not occur, and I shall fully reply to the numerous dogmatisms by which he settles the case against me.

But I must first avow to the reader my own moderate pretensions. Mr Arnold begins by instilling two errors which he does not commit himself to assert. He says that my work will not take rank as the standard translation of Homer, but other translations will be made: as if I thought otherwise! If I have set the example of the right direction in which translators ought to aim, of course those who follow me will improve upon me and supersede me. A man would be rash indeed to withhold his version of a poem of fifteen thousand lines, until he had, to his best ability, imparted to them all their final perfection. He might spend the leisure of his life upon it. He would possibly be in his grave before it could see the light. If it then were published, and it was founded on any new principle, there would be no one to defend it from the attacks of ignorance and prejudice. In the nature of the case, his wisdom is to elaborate in the first instance all the high and noble parts carefully, and get through the inferior parts somehow; leaving of necessity very much to be done in successive editions, if possibly it please general taste sufficiently to reach them. A generous and intelligent critic will test such a work mainly or solely by the most noble parts, and as to the rest, will consider whether the metre and style adapts itself naturally to them also.

Next, Mr Arnold asks, ‘Who is to assure Mr Newman, that when he has tried to retain every peculiarity of his original, he has done that for which Mr Newman enjoins this to be done—adhered closely to Homer’s manner and habit of thought? Evidently the translator needs more practical directions than these’. The tendency of this is, to suggest to the reader that I am not aware of the difficulty of rightly applying good principles; whereas I have in this very connection said expressly, that even when a translator has got right principles, he is liable to go wrong in the detail of their application. This is as true of all the principles which Mr Arnold can possibly give, as of those which I have given; nor do I for a moment assume, that in writing fifteen thousand lines of verse I have not made hundreds of blots.

At the same time Mr Arnold has overlooked the point of my remark. Nearly every translator before me has knowingly, purposely, habitually shrunk from Homer’s thoughts and Homer’s manner. The reader will afterwards see whether Mr Arnold does not justify them in their course. It is not for those who are purposely unfaithful to taunt me with the difficulty of being truly faithful.

I have alleged, and, against Mr Arnold’s flat denial, I deliberately repeat, that Homer rises and sinks with his subject, and is often homely or prosaic. I have professed as my principle, to follow my original in this matter. It is unfair to expect of me grandeur in trivial passages. If in any place where Homer is confessedly grand and noble, I have marred and ruined his greatness, let me be reproved. But I shall have occasion to protest, that Stateliness is not Grandeur, Picturesqueness is not Stately, Wild Beauty is not to be confounded with Elegance: a Forest has its swamps and brushwood, as well as its tall trees.

The duty of one who publishes his censures on me is, to select noble, greatly admired passages, and confront me both with a prose translation of the original (for the public cannot go to the Greek) and also with that which he judges to be a more successful version than mine. Translation being matter of compromise, and being certain to fall below the original, when this is of the highest type of grandeur; the question is not, What translator is perfect? but, Who is least imperfect? Hence the only fair test is by comparison, when comparison is possible. But Mr Arnold has not put me to this test. He has quoted two very short passages, and various single lines, half lines and single words, from me; and chooses to tell his readers that I ruin Homer’s nobleness, when (if his censure is just) he might make them feel it by quoting me upon the most admired pieces. Now with the warmest sincerity I say: If any English reader, after perusing my version of four or five eminently noble passages of sufficient length, side by side with those of other translators, and (better still) with a prose version also, finds in them high qualities which I have destroyed; I am foremost to advise him to shut my book, or to consult it only (as Mr Arnold suggests) as a schoolboy’s ‘help to construe’, if such it can be. My sole object is, to bring Homer before the unlearned public: I seek no self-glorification: the sooner I am superseded by a really better translation, the greater will be my pleasure.

It was not until I more closely read Mr Arnold’s own versions, that I understood how necessary is his repugnance to mine. I am unwilling to speak of his metrical efforts. I shall not say more than my argument strictly demands. It here suffices to state the simple fact, that for awhile I seriously doubted whether he meant his first specimen for metre at all. He seems distinctly to say, he is going to give us English Hexameters; but it was long before I could believe that he had written the following for that metre:

So shone forth, in front of Troy, by the bed of Xanthus,