It cannot be unwelcome to literary curiosity, that I deduce thus minutely the history of the English “Iliad.” It is certainly the noblest version of poetry which the world has ever seen, and its publication must therefore be considered as one of the great events in the annals of learning. To those who have skill to estimate the excellence and difficulty of this great work, it must be very desirable to know how it was performed, and by what gradations it advanced to correctness. Of such an intellectual process the knowledge has very rarely been attainable; but happily there remains the original copy of the “Iliad,” which, being obtained by Bolingbroke as a curiosity, descended from him to Mallet, and is now, by the solicitation of the late Dr. Maty, reposited in the Museum. Between this manuscript, which is written upon accidental fragments of paper, and the printed edition, there must have been an intermediate copy, that was perhaps destroyed as it returned from the press.
From the first copy I have procured a few transcripts, and shall exhibit first the printed lines; then, in a small print, those of the manuscripts, with all their variations. Those words in the small print, which are given in italics, are cancelled in the copy, and the words placed under them adopted in their stead:
The beginning of the first book stands thus:—
The wrath of Peleus’ son, the direful spring
Of all the Grecian woes, O Goddess, sing,
That wrath which hurled to Pluto’s gloomy reign
The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain.
The stern Pelides’ rage, O Goddess, sing,
wrath
Of all the woes of Greece too fatal spring,
Grecian
That screwed with warriors dead the Phrygian plain,
heroes
And peopled the dark with heroes slain:
filled the shady hell with chiefs untimely
Whose limbs, unburied on the naked shore,
Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore,
Since great Achilles and Atrides strove;
Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of Jove.
Whose limbs, unburied on the hostile shore,
Devouring dogs and greedy vultures tore,
Since first Atrides and Achilles strove;
Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of Jove.
Declare, O Muse, in what ill-fated hour
Sprung the fierce strife from what offended Power?
Latona’s son a dire contagion spread,
And heaped the camp with mountains of the dead;
The King of Men his reverend priest defied,
And for the King’s offence the people died.
Declare, O Goddess, what offended Power
Enflamed their rage in that ill-omened hour;
anger fatal, hapless
Phœbus himself the dire debate procured,
fierce
To avenge the wrongs his injured priest endured;
For this the god a dire infection spread,
And heaped the camp with millions of the dead:
The King of men the sacred sire defied,
And for the King’s offence the people died.
For Chryses sought with costly gifts to gain
His captive daughter from the Victor’s chain;
Suppliant the venerable father stands,
Apollo’s awful ensigns grace his hands,
By these he begs, and, lowly bending down,
Extends the sceptre and the laurel crown.