“Of Peleus’ son, Achilles, sing, O Muse.
The vengeance deep and deadly whence to Greece
Unnumbered ills arose, which many a soul
Of mighty warriors to the viewless Shades
Untimely sent, they on the battle plain
Unburied lay, a prey to ravening dogs
And carrion birds, but so had Jove decreed.
From that sad day when first in wordy war
The mighty Agamemnon, King of men,
Confronted stood by Peleus’ godlike son.”
This is hardly worth criticising in detail. First, why “Muse”? “Vengeance” is bad for μηνις. “Deadly” translates οὐλομένην well enough, but “deep and deadly” suggests the harrowing phraseology of the Ledger romance. “Viewless Shades” is possibly poetical, but Homer chooses to be geographical—he says Ἀις. “They on the battle plain unburied”; we cannot find this in the Greek, but it accounts for one extra line. “Ravening” and “carrion” raise Cowper’s expletive to the second power. “Sad day”! And so it was, but to call it so is almost maudlin. Ἐριζω does indeed mean to wrangle, but “wordy war” is petty and poetastic. “The mighty Agamemnon”! Homer is satisfied with Atrides. And now we will see if it be possible to give this magnificent prologue measure for measure, line for line, almost word for word. Hear Voss:
“Singe den Zorn, O Göttin, des Peleiaden Achilleus,
Ihn der entbrannt den Achaiern unendbaren Jammer erregte,
Und viel tapfere Seelen der Heldensöhne zum Ais
Sendete, aber sie selber zum Raub’ ausstreckte den Hunden
Und den Gevögel umher—so ward Zeus’ Wille vollendet,
Seit dem Tage als einst durch bitteren Zank sich entzweiten
Atreus’ Sohn der Herrscher des Volks und der edle Achilleus!”
The figurative entbrannt for οὐλομένην is not to our taste. Bitteren is superfluous, and sendete imperfectly translates προιαψεν. Otherwise these lines are flawless.
We pass to the sixth book, to a passage which Pope and Chapman have done well, Sotheby on the whole better, where even Hobbes grows tender, where every translator has sought to do his best. The parting of Hector and Andromache is a scene (if we except the Alcestis) unique in classic literature. When we consider the state of society depicted in the Homeric poems, the figure of Andromache seems anomalous and inexplicable; or rather she almost constrains us to recast our notions of the social framework in which we find her set. In her the sexual passion is refined and sublimated to that noblest form of conjugal love which is thought to be peculiar to the civilized and christianized descendants from the chaste German stock. Through the historical ages of Greece, in the Roman Republic and Empire, we seek in vain a pendant to this portrait. The ideal would seem to have been lost. The painter who drew Alexander’s favorite could not have limned Andromache; he who sang Ariadne in Naxos would have failed to understand her. To recover the type, we must descend to a much later age—to Raphael and to Wordsworth. The sweetest words in our language—sweetheart, helpmate, wife—describe Andromache. She is not the wanton idol of a despot’s caprice, nor the dull victim of a convenient Athenian marriage, nor the selfish protégée of the cynical Roman law. She might have been bred in a Christian world and blessed an English home. We quote twenty lines from Mr. Bryant:
“She came attended by a maid who bore
A tender child—a babe too young to speak—
Upon her bosom, Hector’s only son,
Beautiful as a star....
*****
The father on his child
Looked with a silent smile. Andromache
Pressed to his side meanwhile, and all in tears
Clung to his hand, and thus beginning said:
‘Too brave! thy valor yet will cause thy death!
Thou hast no pity on thy tender child,
Nor me, unhappy one, who soon must be
Thy widow. All the Greeks will rush on thee
To take thy life. A happier lot were mine,
If I must lose thee, to go down to earth,
For I shall have no hope when thou art gone,
Nothing but sorrow. Father have I none,
And no dear mother....
Seven brothers had I in my father’s house,
And all went down to Hades in one day.
*****
Hector, thou
Art father and dear mother now to me,
And brother and my youthful spouse besides.’”