THE TWENTY-FOURTH BOOK OF HOMER'S ILIAD,
Attempted in English Hexameters.
[It may be thought idle or presumptuous to make a new attempt towards the naturalization among us of any measure based on the ancient hexameter. Even Mr Southey has not been in general successful in such efforts; yet no one can deny that here and there—as, for instance, at the opening of his Vision of Judgment, and in his Fragment on Mahomet—he has produced English hexameters of very happy construction, uniting vigour with harmony. His occasional success marks a step of decided progress. Dr Whewell also, in some passages of his Hermann and Dorothea, reached a musical effect sufficient to show, that, if he had bestowed more leisure, he might have rendered the whole of Goethe's masterpiece in its original measure, at least as agreeably as the Faust has been presented to us hitherto. Mr Coleridge's felicity, both in the Elegiac metre and a slight variation of the Hendecasyllabic, is universally acknowledged.
The present experiment was made before the writer had seen the German Homer of Voss; but in revising his MS. he has had that skillful performance by him, and he has now and then, as he hopes, derived advantage from its study. Part of the first book of the Iliad is said to have been accomplished by Wolff in a still superior manner; but the writer has never had the advantage of comparing it with Voss. Nor was he acquainted, until he had finished his task, with a small specimen of the first book in English hexameters, which occurs in the History of English Rhythms, lately published by Mr E. Guest, of Caius College, Cambridge.
Like Voss and Mr Guest, he has chosen to adhere to the Homeric names of the deities, in place of adopting the Latin forms; and in this matter he has little doubt that every scholar will approve his choice. Mr Archdeacon Williams has commonly followed the same plan in those very spirited prose translations that adorn his learned Essay, Homerus.
It is hardly necessary to interpret these names: as, perhaps, no one will give much attention to the following pages, who does not already know that Zeus answers to Jupiter—and that Kronion is a usual Homeric designation of Zeus, signifying the son of Kronos = Saturn: that Hera is Juno; Poseidon, Neptune: Ares, Mars; Artemis, Diana; Aphrodité, Venus; Hermes, Mercury; and so forth.
Should this experiment be received with any favour, the writer has in his portfolio a good deal of Homer, long since translated in the same manner; and he would not be reluctant to attempt the completion of an Iliad in English Hexameters, such as he can make them.
N.N.T.