Page [268].
SELLA.
Sella is the name given by the Vulgate to one of the wives of Lamech, mentioned in the fourth chapter of the Book of Genesis, and called Zillah in the corn-won English version of the Bible.
Page [282].
HOMER'S ODYSSEY, BOOK V., TRANSLATED.
It may be esteemed presumptuous in the author of this volume to attempt a translation of any part of Homer in blank verse after that of Cowper. It has always seemed to him, however, that Cowper's version had very great defects. The style of Homer is simple, and he has been praised for fire and rapidity of narrative. Does anybody find these qualities in Cowper's Homer? If Cowper had rendered him into such English as he employed in his "Task," there would be no reason to complain; but in translating Homer he seems to have thought it necessary to use a different style from that of his original work. Almost every sentence is stiffened by some clumsy inversion; stately phrases are used when simpler ones were at hand, and would have rendered the meaning of the original better. The entire version has the appearance of being hammered out with great labor, and as a whole it is cold and constrained; scarce any thing seems spontaneous; it is only now and then that the translator has caught the fervor of his author. Homer, of course, wrote in idiomatic Greek, and, in order to produce either a true copy of the original, or an agreeable poem, should have been translated into idiomatic English.
I am almost ashamed, after this censure of an author whom, in the main, I admire as much as I do Cowper, to refer to my own translation of the Fifth Book of the Odyssey. I desire barely to say that I have endeavored to give the verses of the old Greek poet at least a simpler presentation in English, and one more conformable to the genius of our language.
Page [315].
The mock-grape's blood-red banner, etc.
Ampelopis, mock-grape. I have here literally translated the botanical name of the Virginia creeper—an appellation too cumbrous for verse.