Arnold calls ignoble. Well: be it so; but I am not to blame for them. They exist whether Mr Arnold likes them or not.
I will here observe that he bids me paraphrase τανύπεπλος (trailing-robed) into something like, 'Let gorgeous Tragedy With sceptred pall come sweeping by'. I deliberately judge, that to paraphrase an otiose epithet is the very worst thing that can be done: to omit it entirely would be better. I object even to Mr Gladstone's
. . . whom Leto bare,
Leto with the flowing hair.
For the repetition overdoes the prominence of the epithet. Still more extravagant is Mr Arnold in wishing me to turn 'single-hoofed horses' in to 'something which as little surprises us as "Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds"': p. 96. To reproduce Shakspeare would be in any case a 'surprising' mode of translating Homer: but the principle which changes 'single-hoofed' into a different epithet which the translator thinks better, is precisely that which for more than two centuries has made nearly all English translation worthless. To throw the poet into your crucible, and bring out old Pelias young, is not a hopeful process. I had thought, the manly taste of this day had outgrown the idea that a translator's business is to melt up the old coin and stamp it with a modern image. I am
