“Sprach und löste vom Busen den wunderköstlichen Gürtel
Buntgestickt; dort waren die Zauberreize versammelt.
Dort war schmachtende Lieb’ und Sehnsucht, dort das Getändel,
Dort die schmeichelnde Bitte die oft auch den Weisen bethöret.”
How neatly ποικιλον and κεστον are compressed in buntgestickt! Wunderköstlichen is, of course, mere padding. Schmachtende likewise is superfluous. Neither can we altogether like “befool” for ἐκλεψε νοον. Mr. Bryant’s phrase is certainly more felicitous. On the whole, it must be conceded that Voss flickers in these lines.
When Mme. Dacier brought out her Iliad, it was affirmed on all hands that Homer could never, in the nature of things, be presented in French verse. From that verdict an appeal has from time to time been taken, but the decision has never been reversed. Mme. Dacier’s stiffness and the flippancy of La Motte are indeed equally intolerable. We decidedly prefer to any metrical version in French the prose translations of Bitaube and Dugas Montbel. Both are in the strictest sense belles-lettres works, and are generally accurate and spirited. Bitaube portrays the girdle thus: “En même temps elle détache sa ceinture riche d’une superbe broderie. Là se trouvent réunis les charmes les plus séduisants; là sont l’amour, les tendres désirs, les doux entretiens et ces accents persuasifs, qui dérobent en secret le cœur du plus sage.” There are some adjectives here for which Homer is not responsible.
Monti’s version is well known. It has been called the golden ring which links the Greek and Italian literatures, and is ranked with Caro’s Æneid. Beside La Morte d’Ettore it appears a meritorious work. No doubt the climax of false taste was reached when Cesarrotti, who had executed a good translation in prose, proceeded to metamorphose the Iliad into a strange monster which he called The Death of Hector. We will not quote Monti now, for in this place he is tame and redundant. Yet he has skilfully hit with favellio a secondary meaning of ὀαριστυς. The French have a word from the same root, babil; but we have nothing in English which so happily expresses the cooing of young lovers. Tasso’s reproduction of these lines is exquisite. He is depicting Armida’s girdle. It was fraught, he says, with—
“Teneri sdegni, e placide, e tranquille,
Repulse, cari vezzi e liete paci,
Sorrisi, parolette, e dolci stille
Di pianto, e sospir tronchi, e molli baci.”
After the short, swift strokes of Homer, this picture seems almost florid with concetti. But each poet meant to epitomize the charms he had beheld in life. The countrywomen of Tasso were skilled in lovers’ sleights, whereas the simple virgins of Homeric times had never heard of the gai scavoir. If we may trust Brantôme, who knew something of Italian manners in that age, the dames of Sienna were quite competent to instruct Aphroditê in the arts of fascination.
The range of Homeric similes is not limited to the phenomena of sky, river, and ocean, to the familiar experiences of the forge, the vineyard, and the chase. The lightning play of fancy and memory and the emotions of the heart are submitted to the same scrutiny, and portrayed with like felicity. “Rapid as thought” has become the tritest commonplace in every European language, but the guise which the simile originally wore in Homer is still novel and effective. Incensed at the trick which has just been cleverly executed, Zeus orders Herê back to Olympus. Then Mr. Bryant:
“He spake, the white-armed goddess willingly
Obeyed him, and from Ida’s summit flew
To high Olympus. As the thought of man
Flies rapidly, when having travelled far,
He thinks, Here would I be; I would be there—
And flits from place to place.”
“Willingly” is supported by Voss’ willig, but has no correlative in the Greek. The context, moreover, shows that Herê departed in a pet, and her peevishness finds full vent when she reaches Olympus. Mr. Bryant omits to translate φρεσι πευκαλιμῃσι. For this phrase Voss gives spähenden Geiste, deriving the adjective from πευκη, by which, with Buttmann, he understands the pointed (not bitter) fir-tree. But if Schneider be right, these words are equivalent to πυκα φρονεοντων in the description of the girdle just quoted. The root would then be looked for in πυκνος, and the latter phrase might find an analogue, though not an exact one, in our “close schemers.” These details are worthy of notice, for Chapman, mistaking the primitive sense of this adjective, has utterly missed the point of the simile. The perversity of Hobbes is ludicrous. He condenses Homer after this fashion:
“This said, went Juno to Olympus high,
As when a man looks on an ample plain
To any distance quickly goes his eye.”