an expression shall be plain and natural, and then it asks no more. Homer's manner requires that an expression shall be plain and natural, but it also requires that it shall be noble. Ἆ δειλώ is as plain, as simple as 'Poor wretched beasts'; but it is also noble, which 'Poor wretched beasts' is not. 'Poor wretched beasts' is, in truth, a little over-familiar, but this is no objection to it for the ballad-manner; it is good enough for the old English ballad, good enough for the Nibelungen Lay, good enough for Chapman's Iliad, good enough for Mr Newman's Iliad, good enough for Dr Maginn's Homeric Ballads; but it is not good enough for Homer.
To feel that Chapman's measure, though natural, is not Homeric; that, though tolerably rapid, it has not Homer's rapidity; that it has a jogging rapidity rather than a flowing rapidity; and a movement familiar rather than nobly easy, one has only, I think, to read half a dozen lines in any part of his version. I prefer to keep as much as possible to passages which I have already noticed, so I will quote the conclusion of the nineteenth book, where Achilles answers his horse Xanthus, who has prophesied his death to him[1].
Achilles, far in rage,
Thus answered him:—It fits not thee thus proudly to presage
- ↑ Iliad, xix. 419.
