author - "Homer"
ks for thee seek out Some other spoil? no common fund have we Of hoarded treasures; what our arms have won From captur'd towns, has been already shar'd, Nor can we now resume th' apportion'd spoil. Restore the maid, obedient to the God! And if Heav'n will that we the strong-built walls Of Troy should raze, our warriors will to thee A threefold, fourfold recompense assign."To whom the monarch Agamemnon thus: "Think not, Achilles, valiant though thou art In fight, and godlike, to
To save their fleet their last efforts they try, And stones and darts in mingled tempests fly. As when sharp Boreas blows abroad, and brings The dreary winter on his frozen wings; Beneath the low-hung clouds the sheets of snow Descend, and whiten all the fields below: So fast the darts on either army pour, So down the rampires rolls the rocky shower: Heavy, and thick, resound the batter'd shields, And the deaf echo rattles round the fields. With shame repulsed, with grief and fury driven, The
nglish. In this process Homer must lose at least half his charm, his bright and equable speed, the musical current of that narrative, which, like the river of Egypt, flows from an indiscoverable source, and mirrors the temples and the palaces of unforgotten gods and kings. Without this music of verse, only a half truth about Homer can be told, but then it is that half of the truth which, at this moment, it seems most necessary to tell. This is the half of the truth that the translators who use
ginal,convinced that every departure from him would be punished with theforfeiture of some grace or beauty for which I could substitute noequivalent. The epithets that would consent to an English form I havepreserved as epithets; others that would not, I have melted into thecontext. There are none, I believe, which I have not translated in oneway or other, though the reader will not find them repeated so oftenas most of them are in HOMER, for a reason that need not be mentioned.Few persons of
o fight bravely with men? For I did not come hither to fight on account of the warlike Trojans, seeing that they are blameless as respects me. Since they have never driven away my oxen, nor my horses either nor ever injured my crops in fertile and populous Phthia: for very many shadowy mountains, and the resounding sea, are between us. But thee, O most shameless man, we follow, that thou mayest rejoice; seeking satisfaction from the Trojans for Menelaus, and for thy pleasure, shameless one! for
ks for thee seek out Some other spoil? no common fund have we Of hoarded treasures; what our arms have won From captur'd towns, has been already shar'd, Nor can we now resume th' apportion'd spoil. Restore the maid, obedient to the God! And if Heav'n will that we the strong-built walls Of Troy should raze, our warriors will to thee A threefold, fourfold recompense assign."To whom the monarch Agamemnon thus: "Think not, Achilles, valiant though thou art In fight, and godlike, to
To save their fleet their last efforts they try, And stones and darts in mingled tempests fly. As when sharp Boreas blows abroad, and brings The dreary winter on his frozen wings; Beneath the low-hung clouds the sheets of snow Descend, and whiten all the fields below: So fast the darts on either army pour, So down the rampires rolls the rocky shower: Heavy, and thick, resound the batter'd shields, And the deaf echo rattles round the fields. With shame repulsed, with grief and fury driven, The
nglish. In this process Homer must lose at least half his charm, his bright and equable speed, the musical current of that narrative, which, like the river of Egypt, flows from an indiscoverable source, and mirrors the temples and the palaces of unforgotten gods and kings. Without this music of verse, only a half truth about Homer can be told, but then it is that half of the truth which, at this moment, it seems most necessary to tell. This is the half of the truth that the translators who use
ginal,convinced that every departure from him would be punished with theforfeiture of some grace or beauty for which I could substitute noequivalent. The epithets that would consent to an English form I havepreserved as epithets; others that would not, I have melted into thecontext. There are none, I believe, which I have not translated in oneway or other, though the reader will not find them repeated so oftenas most of them are in HOMER, for a reason that need not be mentioned.Few persons of
o fight bravely with men? For I did not come hither to fight on account of the warlike Trojans, seeing that they are blameless as respects me. Since they have never driven away my oxen, nor my horses either nor ever injured my crops in fertile and populous Phthia: for very many shadowy mountains, and the resounding sea, are between us. But thee, O most shameless man, we follow, that thou mayest rejoice; seeking satisfaction from the Trojans for Menelaus, and for thy pleasure, shameless one! for