of Homer. It is well known how extravagantly free is Pope.
So let it be!
Portents and prodigies are lost on me;
that is Pope's rendering of the words,
Ξάνθε, τί μοι θάνατον μαντεύεαι; οὐδέ τί σε χρή·[1]
Xanthus, why prophesiest thou my death to me? thou needest not at all:
yet, on the whole, Pope's translation of the Iliad is more Homeric than Cowper's, for it is more rapid.
Pope's movement, however, though rapid, is not of the same kind as Homer's; and here I come to the real objection to rhyme n a translation of Homer. It is commonly said that rhyme is to be abandoned in a translation of Homer, because 'the exigencies of rhyme', to quote Mr Newman, 'positively forbid faithfulness'; because 'a just translation of any ancient poet in rhyme', to quote Cowper, 'is impossible'. This, however, is merely an accidental objection to rhyme. If this were all, it might be supposed, that if rhymes were more abundant Homer could be adequately translated in rhyme. But this is not so; there is a deeper, a substantial objection to rhyme in a translation of Homer. It is, that rhyme inevitably tends to pair lines which in the original are independent, and thus the move-*
- ↑ Iliad, xix. 420
