We are unable to speak without contempt of the Morte d’Ettore, but it is right to state that Cesarrotti’s prose translation of this passage is perhaps the closest extant. Monti’s verse will be found less literal:
“Tremonne
Pluto il re de sepolti et spaventato
Die un alto grido, e si gitto del trono
Tremendo non gli squarci la terrena
Volta sul capo il crollator Nettuno
Ed intromessa collaggiù la luce
Agli Dei non discopra ed ai mortali
Le sue squallide bolge, al guardo orrende
Anco del ciel.”
Homer says nothing of intromessa luce. The words are no doubt transferred from Virgil’s paraphrase—
“Trepidentque immisso lumine Manes.”
Longinus, in his treatise On the Sublime, had quoted this passage of the Iliad, and Boileau in a translation of that work has reproduced it with considerable care. Boileau had positively condescended to defend Homer, but it is plain that his own theory of translation was that accepted by his age. La Motte has stated it in his ode. He tells Homer that he proposes
“Sous un nouveau langage
Rajeunir ton antique ouvrage,”
and deeming the unconscious energy of his author un peu sauvage engages to régler son ivresse. From Boileau no engagement was required. His Muse was too thoroughly the grande dame ever to forget herself, and even in Pythian convulsions retained a measure of decorum. We shall find his version at once droll and impressive. It is, so to speak, a Greek myth treated by Paul Veronese:
“L’enfer s’émeut au brait de Neptune en furie
Pluton sort de son trône, il pâlit, il s’écrie
Il a peur que ce dieu dans cet affreux séjour
D’un coup de son trident ne fasse entrer le jour
Et par le centre ouvert de la terre ébranlée
Ne fasse voir du Styx la rive désolée
Ne découvre aux vivants cet empire odieux
Abhorré des mortels, et craint même des dieux.”
To us no book of the Iliad is more delightful than the twenty-fourth. There are many scenes in which we would willingly linger not alone for the tender pathos with which the poet has informed them, but also for the light they throw on the social ethics of the later as well as primitive Greek world. The figure of Achilles weeping through the long night the loss of the beloved Patroclus is the immortal type of that devoted friendship which illumines with a peculiar radiance the stream of Hellenic biography. In the incessant warfare of sympathy with selfishness, friendship between man and man seems to have played something of the master rôle which in modern times has been engrossed by the passion of love. Again, Helen in her lament over Hector’s corpse lets fall some bitter words that deserve to be weighed in connection with the peculiar attitude which Menelaus maintains throughout the poem. They would assist us to understand her strangely equivocal position, as well as the conception of the marriage relation which obtained in the Homeric age. We have space, however, but for a single extract. We will choose Priam’s prayer to Achilles. How often and with what careful hand these lines have been reproduced in English is well-known. In French there are no less than ten metrical versions, to say nothing of prose. To poets of every nation this passage has remained a bow of Ulysses which many have been eager to grasp, but none save Voss has hitherto had sinew enough to bend. The circumstances under which the prayer is made are inexpressively affecting. The fate of Troy has at length compelled the combat of Hector and Achilles. From the walls of the city Priam has beheld the fatal issue. The pride and prop of his old age, the bulwark of his kingdom, lies dead and dishonored in the hostile camp. Conducted by Hermes, Priam passes the sentinels, and gains the quarters of his foe. He enters, springs toward Pelides, clasps his knees, and kisses those “slaughter-dealing hands” which had slain so many of his sons. Then Mr. Bryant: