“Full of proud hopes, upon the pass of war
All night they camped, and frequent blazed their fires.”
If one care to see what sad work may sometimes proceed from a true poet, here is Cowper’s version of these lines—ten words are required to misconstrue three:
“Big with great purposes and proud they sat,
Not disarrayed but in fair form displayed
Of even ranks, and watched their numerous fires.”
The familiar simile of the moon and stars in the above passage is sharply and faithfully reproduced by Mr. Bryant, whereas Tennyson’s “look beautiful” for φαινετ' ἀριπρεπεα is both loose and weak. “All the winds are laid”; Cowper says “hushed.” Either is closer than Mr. Bryant’s phrase. Lord Derby’s translation of παντα δε τ' ειδεται ἀστρα is ambitious and clumsy—“Shines each particular star distinct.” The last six hexameters are given in seven lines of our version. Tennyson has compressed them into six, but with the sacrifice of Τρωων καιοντων, which the other neatly expressed by “Lit by the sons of Troy.” We could have dispensed with the Laureate’s “towers,” but are delighted to find ἐυθρονον preserved in “throned.”
To some readers our criticism may have seemed to dwell too nicely on details; but, if they will reflect a moment, they will perceive that this is itself a guarantee of sincerity. We propose to give grounds for our opinions, that others may accept them knowingly, or refute them, if they can. To flood with general praise or spatter with vague abuse belongs to the Cheapjacks of literature. Moreover, no American needs to be told that Mr. Bryant is a poet. Men do not ask whether his Iliad is a delightful poem, but whether it truthfully photographs Homer. That question, if we may judge from his performances, the average magazine critic has preferred to evade.
From the extracts already presented, it is manifest that our American translator has followed the text of his author with a scrupulous exactitude which required unusual self-command from a poet of original powers; yet he is often so truly and nobly poetical that many will overlook the superiority of his scholarship. Most countries of Western Europe have produced several translators of the Iliad. But in each language one has eventually obscured the rest, and thenceforward kept unchallenged a niche in the national literature. Some such pre-eminence among English versions belongs, in our judgment, to Mr. Bryant’s work. For conscientious adherence to the text, his version has no rival in our tongue, and ought, in justice, to be compared with Voss. In point of scholarship, Cowper had shown himself much stronger than Pope, but his translation beside Mr. Bryant’s Iliad seems to us a paraphrase. Both are masters of blank-verse, but Cowper is a pupil of Milton, while Mr. Bryant’s diction and rhythm are his own. The iambic pentameter is, in his hands, surprisingly plastic. We should not have supposed it capable of such happy adjustment to the shifting mood and varying pitch of the original; yet we cannot help a regret that this version was not executed in hexameters. We are quite sure that the achievement was possible to the author of this translation.
In such extracts as we have yet to make from Mr. Bryant’s work, we propose to compare him, not with his English rivals whom we hold him to have excelled, but with some of those translators who are most highly esteemed in other countries.
Few lines of the Iliad have been more frequently imitated than those which paint with the tints of Albano the girdle of Aphroditê. The incident which calls forth the description is well known. Determined to lull the vigilance of Zeus and rescue her darling Greeks, Herê flies to her toilet. The most truthful of poets puts no faith in beauty unadorned, and himself performs the part of tire-woman. It occurs, however, to Herê that her lord is already familiar with the resources of her wardrobe, and the fear of a cold or careless eye leads her to borrow of Aphroditê. She receives a talisman, but precisely what this was is—to men, at least—a riddle. It was an embroidered strap, so much is certain; but how used, and where? Belt or waist-girdle it was not, for that Herê had on. It was plainly a slender and dainty thing, or how could she hide it in her bosom? For our part, we believe it to have been a breast-band (Brustgürtel) worn just under the breast, although a French commentator with much heat pronounces this view an insult to the figure of the goddess. The one translator competent to decide so nice a question was Mme. Dacier. Unhappily she throws no light on it. Mr. Bryant turns the passage thus:
“She spake, and from her bosom drew the zone
Embroidered, many-colored, and instinct
With every winning charm—with love, desire,
Dalliance, and gentle speech that stealthily
O’ercomes the purpose of the wisest mind.”
We must object to “zone.” Mr. Bryant has just given (Il. 14, 181) the same name to a broad, heavily-fringed belt which Herê is now wearing. But Homer makes a difference, calling that ζωνη and this ἱμας. Voss likewise is here somewhat careless, rendering both words by Gürtel. “Dalliance” translates a stubborn word, and projects the idea which lay at the root of ὀαριστυς. Let us turn to Voss: