Pope's Preface to the Iliad of Homer
Homer is universally allowed to have had the greatest invention of any
writer whatever. The praise of judgment Virgil has justly contested
with him, and others may have their pretensions as to particular
excellences; but his invention remains yet unrivalled. Nor is it a
wonder if he has ever been acknowledged the greatest of poets, who most
excelled in that which is the very foundation of poetry. It is the
invention that, in different degrees, distinguishes all great geniuses:
the utmost stretch of human study, learning, and industry, which
masters everything besides, can never attain to this. It furnishes art
with all her materials, and without it judgment itself can at best but
"steal wisely:" for art is only like a prudent steward that lives on
managing the riches of nature. Whatever praises may be given to works
of judgment, there is not even a single beauty in them to which the
invention must not contribute: as in the most regular gardens, art can
only reduce beauties of nature to more regularity, and such a figure,
which the common eye may better take in, and is, therefore, more
entertained with. And, perhaps, the reason why common critics are
inclined to prefer a judicious and methodical genius to a great and
fruitful one, is, because they find it easier for themselves to pursue
their observations through a uniform and bounded walk of art, than to
comprehend the vast and various extent of nature.
Our author's work is a wild paradise, where, if we cannot see all the
beauties so distinctly as in an ordered garden, it is only because the
number of them is infinitely greater. It is like a copious nursery,
which contains the seeds and first productions of every kind, out of
which those who followed him have but selected some particular plants,
each according to his fancy, to cultivate and beautify. If some things
are too luxuriant it is owing to the richness of the soil; and if
others are not arrived to perfection or maturity, it is only because
they are overrun and oppressed by those of a stronger nature.
It is to the strength of this amazing invention we are to attribute
that unequalled fire and rapture which is so forcible in Homer, that no
man of a true poetical spirit is master of himself while he reads him.
What he writes is of the most animated nature imaginable; every thing
moves, every thing lives, and is put in action. If a council be called,
or a battle fought, you are not coldly informed of what was said or
done as from a third person; the reader is hurried out of himself by
the force of the poet's imagination, and turns in one place to a
hearer, in another to a spectator. The course of his verses resembles
that of the army he describes,
Hoid' ar' isan hosei te puri chthon pasa nemoito.
"They pour along like a fire that sweeps the whole earth before it." It
is, however, remarkable, that his fancy, which is everywhere vigorous,
is not discovered immediately at the beginning of his poem in its
fullest splendour: it grows in the progress both upon himself and
others, and becomes on fire, like a chariot-wheel, by its own rapidity.
Exact disposition, just thought, correct elocution, polished numbers,
may have been found in a thousand; but this poetic fire, this "vivida
vis animi," in a very few. Even in works where all those are imperfect
or neglected, this can overpower criticism, and make us admire even
while we disapprove. Nay, where this appears, though attended with
absurdities, it brightens all the rubbish about it, till we see nothing
but its own splendour. This fire is discerned in Virgil, but discerned
as through a glass, reflected from Homer, more shining than fierce, but
everywhere equal and constant: in Lucan and Statius it bursts out in
sudden, short, and interrupted flashes: In Milton it glows like a
furnace kept up to an uncommon ardour by the force of art: in
Shakspeare it strikes before we are aware, like an accidental fire from
heaven: but in Homer, and in him only, it burns everywhere clearly and
everywhere irresistibly.
I shall here endeavour to show how this vast invention exerts itself in
a manner superior to that of any poet through all the main constituent
parts of his work: as it is the great and peculiar characteristic which
distinguishes him from all other authors.
This strong and ruling faculty was like a powerful star, which, in the
violence of its course, drew all things within its vortex. It seemed
not enough to have taken in the whole circle of arts, and the whole
compass of nature, to supply his maxims and reflections; all the inward
passions and affections of mankind, to furnish his characters: and all
the outward forms and images of things for his descriptions: but
wanting yet an ampler sphere to expatiate in, he opened a new and
boundless walk for his imagination, and created a world for himself in
the invention of fable. That which Aristotle calls "the soul of
poetry," was first breathed into it by Homer, I shall begin with
considering him in his part, as it is naturally the first; and I speak
of it both as it means the design of a poem, and as it is taken for
fiction.
Fable may be divided into the probable, the allegorical, and the
marvellous. The probable fable is the recital of such actions as,
though they did not happen, yet might, in the common course of nature;
or of such as, though they did, became fables by the additional
episodes and manner of telling them. Of this sort is the main story of
an epic poem, "The return of Ulysses, the settlement of the Trojans in
Italy," or the like. That of the Iliad is the "anger of Achilles," the
most short and single subject that ever was chosen by any poet. Yet
this he has supplied with a vaster variety of incidents and events, and
crowded with a greater number of councils, speeches, battles, and
episodes of all kinds, than are to be found even in those poems whose
schemes are of the utmost latitude and irregularity. The action is
hurried on with the most vehement spirit, and its whole duration
employs not so much as fifty days. Virgil, for want of so warm a
genius, aided himself by taking in a more extensive subject, as well as
a greater length of time, and contracting the design of both Homer's
poems into one, which is yet but a fourth part as large as his. The
other epic poets have used the same practice, but generally carried it
so far as to superinduce a multiplicity of fables, destroy the unity of
action, and lose their readers in an unreasonable length of time. Nor
is it only in the main design that they have been unable to add to his
invention, but they have followed him in every episode and part of
story. If he has given a regular catalogue of an army, they all draw up
their forces in the same order. If he has funeral games for Patroclus,
Virgil has the same for Anchises, and Statius (rather than omit them)
destroys the unity of his actions for those of Archemorus. If Ulysses
visit the shades, the AEneas of Virgil and Scipio of Silius are sent
after him. If he be detained from his return by the allurements of
Calypso, so is AEneas by Dido, and Rinaldo by Armida. If Achilles be
absent from the army on the score of a quarrel through half the poem,
Rinaldo must absent himself just as long on the like account. If he
gives his hero a suit of celestial armour, Virgil and Tasso make the
same present to theirs. Virgil has not only observed this close
imitation of Homer, but, where he had not led the way, supplied the
want from other Greek authors. Thus the story of Sinon, and the taking
of Troy, was copied (says Macrobius) almost word for word from
Pisander, as the loves of Dido and AEneas are taken from those of Medea
and Jason in Apollonius, and several others in the same manner.
To proceed to the allegorical fable—If we reflect upon those
innumerable knowledges, those secrets of nature and physical philosophy
which Homer is generally supposed to have wrapped up in his allegories,
what a new and ample scene of wonder may this consideration afford us!
How fertile will that imagination appear, which as able to clothe all
the properties of elements, the qualifications of the mind, the virtues
and vices, in forms and persons, and to introduce them into actions
agreeable to the nature of the things they shadowed! This is a field in
which no succeeding poets could dispute with Homer, and whatever
commendations have been allowed them on this head, are by no means for
their invention in having enlarged his circle, but for their judgment
in having contracted it. For when the mode of learning changed in the
following ages, and science was delivered in a plainer manner, it then
became as reasonable in the more modern poets to lay it aside, as it
was in Homer to make use of it. And perhaps it was no unhappy
circumstance for Virgil, that there was not in his time that demand
upon him of so great an invention as might be capable of furnishing all
those allegorical parts of a poem.
The marvellous fable includes whatever is supernatural, and especially
the machines of the gods. If Homer was not the first who introduced the
deities (as Herodotus imagines) into the religion of Greece, he seems
the first who brought them into a system of machinery for poetry, and
such a one as makes its greatest importance and dignity: for we find
those authors who have been offended at the literal notion of the gods,
constantly laying their accusation against Homer as the chief support
of it. But whatever cause there might be to blame his machines in a
philosophical or religious view, they are so perfect in the poetic,
that mankind have been ever since contented to follow them: none have
been able to enlarge the sphere of poetry beyond the limits he has set:
every attempt of this nature has proved unsuccessful; and after all the
various changes of times and religions, his gods continue to this day
the gods of poetry.
We come now to the characters of his persons; and here we shall find no
author has ever drawn so many, with so visible and surprising a
variety, or given us such lively and affecting impressions of them.
Every one has something so singularly his own, that no painter could
have distinguished them more by their features, than the poet has by
their manners. Nothing can be more exact than the distinctions he has
observed in the different degrees of virtues and vices. The single
quality of courage is wonderfully diversified in the several characters
of the Iliad. That of Achilles is furious and intractable; that of
Diomede forward, yet listening to advice, and subject to command; that
of Ajax is heavy and self-confiding; of Hector, active and vigilant:
the courage of Agamemnon is inspirited by love of empire and ambition;
that of Menelaus mixed with softness and tenderness for his people: we
find in Idomeneus a plain direct soldier; in Sarpedon a gallant and
generous one. Nor is this judicious and astonishing diversity to be
found only in the principal quality which constitutes the main of each
character, but even in the under parts of it, to which he takes care to
give a tincture of that principal one. For example: the main characters
of Ulysses and Nestor consist in wisdom; and they are distinct in this,
that the wisdom of one is artificial and various, of the other natural,
open, and regular. But they have, besides, characters of courage; and
this quality also takes a different turn in each from the difference of
his prudence; for one in the war depends still upon caution, the other
upon experience. It would be endless to produce instances of these
kinds. The characters of Virgil are far from striking us in this open
manner; they lie, in a great degree, hidden and undistinguished; and,
where they are marked most evidently affect us not in proportion to
those of Homer. His characters of valour are much alike; even that of
Turnus seems no way peculiar, but, as it is, in a superior degree; and
we see nothing that differences the courage of Mnestheus from that of
Sergestus, Cloanthus, or the rest, In like manner it may be remarked of
Statius's heroes, that an air of impetuosity runs through them all; the
same horrid and savage courage appears in his Capaneus, Tydeus,
Hippomedon, &c. They have a parity of character, which makes them seem
brothers of one family. I believe when the reader is led into this
tract of reflection, if he will pursue it through the epic and tragic
writers, he will be convinced how infinitely superior, in this point,
the invention of Homer was to that of all others.
The speeches are to be considered as they flow from the characters;
being perfect or defective as they agree or disagree with the manners,
of those who utter them. As there is more variety of characters in the
Iliad, so there is of speeches, than in any other poem. "Everything in
it has manner" (as Aristotle expresses it), that is, everything is
acted or spoken. It is hardly credible, in a work of such length, how
small a number of lines are employed in narration. In Virgil the
dramatic part is less in proportion to the narrative, and the speeches
often consist of general reflections or thoughts, which might be
equally just in any person's mouth upon the same occasion. As many of
his persons have no apparent characters, so many of his speeches escape
being applied and judged by the rule of propriety. We oftener think of
the author himself when we read Virgil, than when we are engaged in
Homer, all which are the effects of a colder invention, that interests
us less in the action described. Homer makes us hearers, and Virgil
leaves us readers.
If, in the next place, we take a view of the sentiments, the same
presiding faculty is eminent in the sublimity and spirit of his
thoughts. Longinus has given his opinion, that it was in this part
Homer principally excelled. What were alone sufficient to prove the
grandeur and excellence of his sentiments in general, is, that they
have so remarkable a parity with those of the Scripture. Duport, in his
Gnomologia Homerica, has collected innumerable instances of this sort.
And it is with justice an excellent modern writer allows, that if
Virgil has not so many thoughts that are low and vulgar, he has not so
many that are sublime and noble; and that the Roman author seldom rises
into very astonishing sentiments where he is not fired by the Iliad.
If we observe his descriptions, images, and similes, we shall find the
invention still predominant. To what else can we ascribe that vast
comprehension of images of every sort, where we see each circumstance
of art, and individual of nature, summoned together by the extent and
fecundity of his imagination to which all things, in their various
views presented themselves in an instant, and had their impressions
taken off to perfection at a heat? Nay, he not only gives us the full
prospects of things, but several unexpected peculiarities and side
views, unobserved by any painter but Homer. Nothing is so surprising as
the descriptions of his battles, which take up no less than half the
Iliad, and are supplied with so vast a variety of incidents, that no
one bears a likeness to another; such different kinds of deaths, that
no two heroes are wounded in the same manner, and such a profusion of
noble ideas, that every battle rises above the last in greatness,
horror, and confusion. It is certain there is not near that number of
images and descriptions in any epic poet, though every one has assisted
himself with a great quantity out of him; and it is evident of Virgil
especially, that he has scarce any comparisons which are not drawn from
his master.
If we descend from hence to the expression, we see the bright
imagination of Homer shining out in the most enlivened forms of it. We
acknowledge him the father of poetical diction; the first who taught
that "language of the gods" to men. His expression is like the
colouring of some great masters, which discovers itself to be laid on
boldly, and executed with rapidity. It is, indeed, the strongest and
most glowing imaginable, and touched with the greatest spirit.
Aristotle had reason to say, he was the only poet who had found out
"living words;" there are in him more daring figures and metaphors than
in any good author whatever. An arrow is "impatient" to be on the wing,
a weapon "thirsts" to drink the blood of an enemy, and the like, yet
his expression is never too big for the sense, but justly great in
proportion to it. It is the sentiment that swells and fills out the
diction, which rises with it, and forms itself about it, for in the
same degree that a thought is warmer, an expression will be brighter,
as that is more strong, this will become more perspicuous; like glass
in the furnace, which grows to a greater magnitude, and refines to a
greater clearness, only as the breath within is more powerful, and the
heat more intense.
To throw his language more out of prose, Homer seems to have affected
the compound epithets. This was a sort of composition peculiarly proper
to poetry, not only as it heightened the diction, but as it assisted
and filled the numbers with greater sound and pomp, and likewise
conduced in some measure to thicken the images. On this last
consideration I cannot but attribute these also to the fruitfulness of
his invention, since (as he has managed them) they are a sort of
supernumerary pictures of the persons or things to which they were
joined. We see the motion of Hector's plumes in the epithet
Korythaiolos, the landscape of Mount Neritus in that of Einosiphyllos,
and so of others, which particular images could not have been insisted
upon so long as to express them in a description (though but of a
single line) without diverting the reader too much from the principal
action or figure. As a metaphor is a short simile, one of these
epithets is a short description.
Lastly, if we consider his versification, we shall be sensible what a
share of praise is due to his invention in that also. He was not
satisfied with his language as he found it settled in any one part of
Greece, but searched through its different dialects with this
particular view, to beautify and perfect his numbers he considered
these as they had a greater mixture of vowels or consonants, and
accordingly employed them as the verse required either a greater
smoothness or strength. What he most affected was the Ionic, which has
a peculiar sweetness, from its never using contractions, and from its
custom of resolving the diphthongs into two syllables, so as to make
the words open themselves with a more spreading and sonorous fluency.
With this he mingled the Attic contractions, the broader Doric, and the
feebler AEolic, which often rejects its aspirate, or takes off its
accent, and completed this variety by altering some letters with the
licence of poetry. Thus his measures, instead of being fetters to his
sense, were always in readiness to run along with the warmth of his
rapture, and even to give a further representation of his notions, in
the correspondence of their sounds to what they signified. Out of all
these he has derived that harmony which makes us confess he had not
only the richest head, but the finest ear in the world. This is so
great a truth, that whoever will but consult the tune of his verses,
even without understanding them (with the same sort of diligence as we
daily see practised in the case of Italian operas), will find more
sweetness, variety, and majesty of sound, than in any other language of
poetry. The beauty of his numbers is allowed by the critics to be
copied but faintly by Virgil himself, though they are so just as to
ascribe it to the nature of the Latin tongue: indeed the Greek has some
advantages both from the natural sound of its words, and the turn and
cadence of its verse, which agree with the genius of no other language.
Virgil was very sensible of this, and used the utmost diligence in
working up a more intractable language to whatsoever graces it was
capable of, and, in particular, never failed to bring the sound of his
line to a beautiful agreement with its sense. If the Grecian poet has
not been so frequently celebrated on this account as the Roman, the
only reason is, that fewer critics have understood one language than
the other. Dionysius of Halicarnassus has pointed out many of our
author's beauties in this kind, in his treatise of the Composition of
Words. It suffices at present to observe of his numbers, that they flow
with so much ease, as to make one imagine Homer had no other care than
to transcribe as fast as the Muses dictated, and, at the same time,
with so much force and inspiriting vigour, that they awaken and raise
us like the sound of a trumpet. They roll along as a plentiful river,
always in motion, and always full; while we are borne away by a tide of
verse, the most rapid, and yet the most smooth imaginable.
Thus on whatever side we contemplate Homer, what principally strikes us
is his invention. It is that which forms the character of each part of
his work; and accordingly we find it to have made his fable more
extensive and copious than any other, his manners more lively and
strongly marked, his speeches more affecting and transported, his
sentiments more warm and sublime, his images and descriptions more full
and animated, his expression more raised and daring, and his numbers
more rapid and various. I hope, in what has been said of Virgil, with
regard to any of these heads, I have no way derogated from his
character. Nothing is more absurd or endless, than the common method of
comparing eminent writers by an opposition of particular passages in
them, and forming a judgment from thence of their merit upon the whole.
We ought to have a certain knowledge of the principal character and
distinguishing excellence of each: it is in that we are to consider
him, and in proportion to his degree in that we are to admire him. No
author or man ever excelled all the world in more than one faculty; and
as Homer has done this in invention, Virgil has in judgment. Not that
we are to think that Homer wanted judgment, because Virgil had it in a
more eminent degree; or that Virgil wanted invention, because Homer
possessed a larger share of it; each of these great authors had more of
both than perhaps any man besides, and are only said to have less in
comparison with one another. Homer was the greater genius, Virgil the
better artist. In one we most admire the man, in the other the work.
Homer hurries and transports us with a commanding impetuosity; Virgil
leads us with an attractive majesty; Homer scatters with a generous
profusion; Virgil bestows with a careful magnificence; Homer, like the
Nile, pours out his riches with a boundless overflow; Virgil, like a
river in its banks, with a gentle and constant stream. When we behold
their battles, methinks the two poets resemble the heroes they
celebrate. Homer, boundless and resistless as Achilles, bears all
before him, and shines more and more as the tumult increases; Virgil,
calmly daring, like AEneas, appears undisturbed in the midst of the
action; disposes all about him, and conquers with tranquillity. And
when we look upon their machines, Homer seems like his own Jupiter in
his terrors, shaking Olympus, scattering the lightnings, and firing the
heavens: Virgil, like the same power in his benevolence, counselling
with the gods, laying plans for empires, and regularly ordering his
whole creation.
But after all, it is with great parts, as with great virtues, they
naturally border on some imperfection; and it is often hard to
distinguish exactly where the virtue ends, or the fault begins. As
prudence may sometimes sink to suspicion, so may a great judgment
decline to coldness; and as magnanimity may run up to profusion or
extravagance, so may a great invention to redundancy or wildness. If we
look upon Homer in this view, we shall perceive the chief objections
against him to proceed from so noble a cause as the excess of this
faculty.
Among these we may reckon some of his marvellous fictions, upon which
so much criticism has been spent, as surpassing all the bounds of
probability. Perhaps it may be with great and superior souls, as with
gigantic bodies, which, exerting themselves with unusual strength,
exceed what is commonly thought the due proportion of parts, to become
miracles in the whole; and, like the old heroes of that make, commit
something near extravagance, amidst a series of glorious and inimitable
performances. Thus Homer has his "speaking horses;" and Virgil his
"myrtles distilling blood;" where the latter has not so much as
contrived the easy intervention of a deity to save the probability.
It is owing to the same vast invention, that his similes have been
thought too exuberant and full of circumstances. The force of this
faculty is seen in nothing more, than in its inability to confine
itself to that single circumstance upon which the comparison is
grounded: it runs out into embellishments of additional images, which,
however, are so managed as not to overpower the main one. His similes
are like pictures, where the principal figure has not only its
proportion given agreeable to the original, but is also set off with
occasional ornaments and prospects. The same will account for his
manner of heaping a number of comparisons together in one breath, when
his fancy suggested to him at once so many various and correspondent
images. The reader will easily extend this observation to more
objections of the same kind.
If there are others which seem rather to charge him with a defect or
narrowness of genius, than an excess of it, those seeming defects will
be found upon examination to proceed wholly from the nature of the
times he lived in. Such are his grosser representations of the gods;
and the vicious and imperfect manners of his heroes; but I must here
speak a word of the latter, as it is a point generally carried into
extremes, both by the censurers and defenders of Homer. It must be a
strange partiality to antiquity, to think with Madame Dacier,
[1] "that those times and manners are so
much the more excellent, as they are more contrary to ours." Who can be
so prejudiced in their favour as to magnify the felicity of those ages,
when a spirit of revenge and cruelty, joined with the practice of
rapine and robbery, reigned through the world: when no mercy was shown
but for the sake of lucre; when the greatest princes were put to the
sword, and their wives and daughters made slaves and concubines? On the
other side, I would not be so delicate as those modern critics, who are
shocked at the servile offices and mean employments in which we
sometimes see the heroes of Homer engaged. There is a pleasure in
taking a view of that simplicity, in opposition to the luxury of
succeeding ages: in beholding monarchs without their guards; princes
tending their flocks, and princesses drawing water from the springs.
When we read Homer, we ought to reflect that we are reading the most
ancient author in the heathen world; and those who consider him in this
light, will double their pleasure in the perusal of him. Let them think
they are growing acquainted with nations and people that are now no
more; that they are stepping almost three thousand years back into the
remotest antiquity, and entertaining themselves with a clear and
surprising vision of things nowhere else to be found, the only true
mirror of that ancient world. By this means alone their greatest
obstacles will vanish; and what usually creates their dislike, will
become a satisfaction.
This consideration may further serve to answer for the constant use of
the same epithets to his gods and heroes; such as the "far-darting
Phoebus," the "blue-eyed Pallas," the "swift-footed Achilles," &c.,
which some have censured as impertinent, and tediously repeated. Those
of the gods depended upon the powers and offices then believed to
belong to them; and had contracted a weight and veneration from the
rites and solemn devotions in which they were used: they were a sort of
attributes with which it was a matter of religion to salute them on all
occasions, and which it was an irreverence to omit. As for the epithets
of great men, Mons. Boileau is of opinion, that they were in the nature
of surnames, and repeated as such; for the Greeks having no names
derived from their fathers, were obliged to add some other distinction
of each person; either naming his parents expressly, or his place of
birth, profession, or the like: as Alexander the son of Philip,
Herodotus of Halicarnassus, Diogenes the Cynic, &c. Homer, therefore,
complying with the custom of his country, used such distinctive
additions as better agreed with poetry. And, indeed, we have something
parallel to these in modern times, such as the names of Harold
Harefoot, Edmund Ironside, Edward Longshanks, Edward the Black Prince,
&c. If yet this be thought to account better for the propriety than for
the repetition, I shall add a further conjecture. Hesiod, dividing the
world into its different ages, has placed a fourth age, between the
brazen and the iron one, of "heroes distinct from other men; a divine
race who fought at Thebes and Troy, are called demi-gods, and live by
the care of Jupiter in the islands of the blessed." Now among the
divine honours which were paid them, they might have this also in
common with the gods, not to be mentioned without the solemnity of an
epithet, and such as might be acceptable to them by celebrating their
families, actions or qualities.
What other cavils have been raised against Homer, are such as hardly
deserve a reply, but will yet be taken notice of as they occur in the
course of the work. Many have been occasioned by an injudicious
endeavour to exalt Virgil; which is much the same, as if one should
think to raise the superstructure by undermining the foundation: one
would imagine, by the whole course of their parallels, that these
critics never so much as heard of Homer's having written first; a
consideration which whoever compares these two poets ought to have
always in his eye. Some accuse him for the same things which they
overlook or praise in the other; as when they prefer the fable and
moral of the AEneis to those of the Iliad, for the same reasons which
might set the Odyssey above the AEneis; as that the hero is a wiser
man, and the action of the one more beneficial to his country than that
of the other; or else they blame him for not doing what he never
designed; as because Achilles is not as good and perfect a prince as
AEneas, when the very moral of his poem required a contrary character:
it is thus that Rapin judges in his comparison of Homer and Virgil.
Others select those particular passages of Homer which are not so
laboured as some that Virgil drew out of them: this is the whole
management of Scaliger in his Poetics. Others quarrel with what they
take for low and mean expressions, sometimes through a false delicacy
and refinement, oftener from an ignorance of the graces of the
original, and then triumph in the awkwardness of their own
translations: this is the conduct of Perrault in his Parallels. Lastly,
there are others, who, pretending to a fairer proceeding, distinguish
between the personal merit of Homer, and that of his work; but when
they come to assign the causes of the great reputation of the Iliad,
they found it upon the ignorance of his times, and the prejudice of
those that followed: and in pursuance of this principle, they make
those accidents (such as the contention of the cities, &c.) to be the
causes of his fame, which were in reality the consequences of his
merit. The same might as well be said of Virgil, or any great author
whose general character will infallibly raise many casual additions to
their reputation. This is the method of Mons. de la Mott; who yet
confesses upon the whole that in whatever age Homer had lived, he must
have been the greatest poet of his nation, and that he may be said in
his sense to be the master even of those who surpassed him.
[2]
In all these objections we see nothing that contradicts his title to
the honour of the chief invention: and as long as this (which is indeed
the characteristic of poetry itself) remains unequalled by his
followers, he still continues superior to them. A cooler judgment may
commit fewer faults, and be more approved in the eyes of one sort of
critics: but that warmth of fancy will carry the loudest and most
universal applauses which holds the heart of a reader under the
strongest enchantment. Homer not only appears the inventor of poetry,
but excels all the inventors of other arts, in this, that he has
swallowed up the honour of those who succeeded him. What he has done
admitted no increase, it only left room for contraction or regulation.
He showed all the stretch of fancy at once; and if he has failed in
some of his flights, it was but because he attempted everything. A work
of this kind seems like a mighty tree, which rises from the most
vigorous seed, is improved with industry, flourishes, and produces the
finest fruit: nature and art conspire to raise it; pleasure and profit
join to make it valuable: and they who find the justest faults, have
only said that a few branches which run luxuriant through a richness of
nature, might be lopped into form to give it a more regular appearance.
Having now spoken of the beauties and defects of the original, it
remains to treat of the translation, with the same view to the chief
characteristic. As far as that is seen in the main parts of the poem,
such as the fable, manners, and sentiments, no translator can prejudice
it but by wilful omissions or contractions. As it also breaks out in
every particular image, description, and simile, whoever lessens or too
much softens those, takes off from this chief character. It is the
first grand duty of an interpreter to give his author entire and
unmaimed; and for the rest, the diction and versification only are his
proper province, since these must be his own, but the others he is to
take as he finds them.
It should then be considered what methods may afford some equivalent in
our language for the graces of these in the Greek. It is certain no
literal translation can be just to an excellent original in a superior
language: but it is a great mistake to imagine (as many have done) that
a rash paraphrase can make amends for this general defect; which is no
less in danger to lose the spirit of an ancient, by deviating into the
modern manners of expression. If there be sometimes a darkness, there
is often a light in antiquity, which nothing better preserves than a
version almost literal. I know no liberties one ought to take, but
those which are necessary to transfusing the spirit of the original,
and supporting the poetical style of the translation: and I will
venture to say, there have not been more men misled in former times by
a servile, dull adherence to the letter, than have been deluded in ours
by a chimerical, insolent hope of raising and improving their author.
It is not to be doubted, that the fire of the poem is what a translator
should principally regard, as it is most likely to expire in his
managing: however, it is his safest way to be content with preserving
this to his utmost in the whole, without endeavouring to be more than
he finds his author is, in any particular place. It is a great secret
in writing, to know when to be plain, and when poetical and figurative;
and it is what Homer will teach us, if we will but follow modestly in
his footsteps. Where his diction is bold and lofty, let us raise ours
as high as we can; but where his is plain and humble, we ought not to
be deterred from imitating him by the fear of incurring the censure of
a mere English critic. Nothing that belongs to Homer seems to have been
more commonly mistaken than the just pitch of his style: some of his
translators having swelled into fustian in a proud confidence of the
sublime; others sunk into flatness, in a cold and timorous notion of
simplicity. Methinks I see these different followers of Homer, some
sweating and straining after him by violent leaps and bounds (the
certain signs of false mettle), others slowly and servilely creeping in
his train, while the poet himself is all the time proceeding with an
unaffected and equal majesty before them. However, of the two extremes
one could sooner pardon frenzy than frigidity; no author is to be
envied for such commendations, as he may gain by that character of
style, which his friends must agree together to call simplicity, and
the rest of the world will call dulness. There is a graceful and
dignified simplicity, as well as a bold and sordid one; which differ as
much from each other as the air of a plain man from that of a sloven:
it is one thing to be tricked up, and another not to be dressed at all.
Simplicity is the mean between ostentation and rusticity.
This pure and noble simplicity is nowhere in such perfection as in the
Scripture and our author. One may affirm, with all respect to the
inspired writings, that the Divine Spirit made use of no other words
but what were intelligible and common to men at that time, and in that
part of the world; and, as Homer is the author nearest to those, his
style must of course bear a greater resemblance to the sacred books
than that of any other writer. This consideration (together with what
has been observed of the parity of some of his thoughts) may, methinks,
induce a translator, on the one hand, to give in to several of those
general phrases and manners of expression, which have attained a
veneration even in our language from being used in the Old Testament;
as, on the other, to avoid those which have been appropriated to the
Divinity, and in a manner consigned to mystery and religion.
For a further preservation of this air of simplicity, a particular care
should be taken to express with all plainness those moral sentences and
proverbial speeches which are so numerous in this poet. They have
something venerable, and as I may say, oracular, in that unadorned
gravity and shortness with which they are delivered: a grace which
would be utterly lost by endeavouring to give them what we call a more
ingenious (that is, a more modern) turn in the paraphrase.
Perhaps the mixture of some Graecisms and old words after the manner of
Milton, if done without too much affectation, might not have an ill
effect in a version of this particular work, which most of any other
seems to require a venerable, antique cast. But certainly the use of
modern terms of war and government, such as "platoon, campaign, junto,"
or the like, (into which some of his translators have fallen) cannot be
allowable; those only excepted without which it is impossible to treat
the subjects in any living language.
There are two peculiarities in Homer's diction, which are a sort of
marks or moles by which every common eye distinguishes him at first
sight; those who are not his greatest admirers look upon them as
defects, and those who are, seemed pleased with them as beauties. I
speak of his compound epithets, and of his repetitions. Many of the
former cannot be done literally into English without destroying the
purity of our language. I believe such should be retained as slide
easily of themselves into an English compound, without violence to the
ear or to the received rules of composition, as well as those which
have received a sanction from the authority of our best poets, and are
become familiar through their use of them; such as "the cloud-
compelling Jove," &c. As for the rest, whenever any can be as fully and
significantly expressed in a single word as in a compounded one, the
course to be taken is obvious.
Some that cannot be so turned, as to preserve their full image by one
or two words, may have justice done them by circumlocution; as the
epithet einosiphyllos to a mountain, would appear little or ridiculous
translated literally "leaf-shaking," but affords a majestic idea in the
periphrasis: "the lofty mountain shakes his waving woods." Others that
admit of different significations, may receive an advantage from a
judicious variation, according to the occasions on which they are
introduced. For example, the epithet of Apollo, hekaebolos or "far-
shooting," is capable of two explications; one literal, in respect of
the darts and bow, the ensigns of that god; the other allegorical, with
regard to the rays of the sun; therefore, in such places where Apollo
is represented as a god in person, I would use the former
interpretation; and where the effects of the sun are described, I would
make choice of the latter. Upon the whole, it will be necessary to
avoid that perpetual repetition of the same epithets which we find in
Homer, and which, though it might be accommodated (as has been already
shown) to the ear of those times, is by no means so to ours: but one
may wait for opportunities of placing them, where they derive an
additional beauty from the occasions on which they are employed; and in
doing this properly, a translator may at once show his fancy and his
judgment.
As for Homer's repetitions, we may divide them into three sorts: of
whole narrations and speeches, of single sentences, and of one verse or
hemistitch. I hope it is not impossible to have such a regard to these,
as neither to lose so known a mark of the author on the one hand, nor
to offend the reader too much on the other. The repetition is not
ungraceful in those speeches, where the dignity of the speaker renders
it a sort of insolence to alter his words; as in the messages from gods
to men, or from higher powers to inferiors in concerns of state, or
where the ceremonial of religion seems to require it, in the solemn
forms of prayers, oaths, or the like. In other cases, I believe the
best rule is, to be guided by the nearness, or distance, at which the
repetitions are placed in the original: when they follow too close, one
may vary the expression; but it is a question, whether a professed
translator be authorized to omit any: if they be tedious, the author is
to answer for it.
It only remains to speak of the versification. Homer (as has been said)
is perpetually applying the sound to the sense, and varying it on every
new subject. This is indeed one of the most exquisite beauties of
poetry, and attainable by very few: I only know of Homer eminent for it
in the Greek, and Virgil in the Latin. I am sensible it is what may
sometimes happen by chance, when a writer is warm, and fully possessed
of his image: however, it may reasonably be believed they designed
this, in whose verse it so manifestly appears in a superior degree to
all others. Few readers have the ear to be judges of it: but those who
have, will see I have endeavoured at this beauty.
Upon the whole, I must confess myself utterly incapable of doing
justice to Homer. I attempt him in no other hope but that which one may
entertain without much vanity, of giving a more tolerable copy of him
than any entire translation in verse has yet done. We have only those
of Chapman, Hobbes, and Ogilby. Chapman has taken the advantage of an
immeasurable length of verse, notwithstanding which, there is scarce
any paraphrase more loose and rambling than his. He has frequent
interpolations of four or six lines; and I remember one in the
thirteenth book of the Odyssey, ver. 312, where he has spun twenty
verses out of two. He is often mistaken in so bold a manner, that one
might think he deviated on purpose, if he did not in other places of
his notes insist so much upon verbal trifles. He appears to have had a
strong affectation of extracting new meanings out of his author;
insomuch as to promise, in his rhyming preface, a poem of the mysteries
he had revealed in Homer; and perhaps he endeavoured to strain the
obvious sense to this end. His expression is involved in fustian; a
fault for which he was remarkable in his original writings, as in the
tragedy of Bussy d'Amboise, &c. In a word, the nature of the man may
account for his whole performance; for he appears, from his preface and
remarks, to have been of an arrogant turn, and an enthusiast in poetry.
His own boast, of having finished half the Iliad in less than fifteen
weeks, shows with what negligence his version was performed. But that
which is to be allowed him, and which very much contributed to cover
his defects, is a daring fiery spirit that animates his translation,
which is something like what one might imagine Homer himself would have
writ before he arrived at years of discretion.
Hobbes has given us a correct explanation of the sense in general; but
for particulars and circumstances he continually lops them, and often
omits the most beautiful. As for its being esteemed a close
translation, I doubt not many have been led into that error by the
shortness of it, which proceeds not from his following the original
line by line, but from the contractions above mentioned. He sometimes
omits whole similes and sentences; and is now and then guilty of
mistakes, into which no writer of his learning could have fallen, but
through carelessness. His poetry, as well as Ogilby's, is too mean for
criticism.
It is a great loss to the poetical world that Mr. Dryden did not live
to translate the Iliad. He has left us only the first book, and a small
part of the sixth; in which if he has in some places not truly
interpreted the sense, or preserved the antiquities, it ought to be
excused on account of the haste he was obliged to write in. He seems to
have had too much regard to Chapman, whose words he sometimes copies,
and has unhappily followed him in passages where he wanders from the
original. However, had he translated the whole work, I would no more
have attempted Homer after him than Virgil: his version of whom
(notwithstanding some human errors) is the most noble and spirited
translation I know in any language. But the fate of great geniuses is
like that of great ministers: though they are confessedly the first in
the commonwealth of letters, they must be envied and calumniated only
for being at the head of it.
That which, in my opinion, ought to be the endeavour of any one who
translates Homer, is above all things to keep alive that spirit and
fire which makes his chief character: in particular places, where the
sense can bear any doubt, to follow the strongest and most poetical, as
most agreeing with that character; to copy him in all the variations of
his style, and the different modulations of his numbers; to preserve,
in the more active or descriptive parts, a warmth and elevation; in the
more sedate or narrative, a plainness and solemnity; in the speeches, a
fulness and perspicuity; in the sentences, a shortness and gravity; not
to neglect even the little figures and turns on the words, nor
sometimes the very cast of the periods; neither to omit nor confound
any rites or customs of antiquity: perhaps too he ought to include the
whole in a shorter compass than has hitherto been done by any
translator who has tolerably preserved either the sense or poetry. What
I would further recommend to him is, to study his author rather from
his own text, than from any commentaries, how learned soever, or
whatever figure they may make in the estimation of the world; to
consider him attentively in comparison with Virgil above all the
ancients, and with Milton above all the moderns. Next these, the
Archbishop of Cambray's Telemachus may give him the truest idea of the
spirit and turn of our author; and Bossu's admirable Treatise of the
Epic Poem the justest notion of his design and conduct. But after all,
with whatever judgment and study a man may proceed, or with whatever
happiness he may perform such a work, he must hope to please but a few;
those only who have at once a taste of poetry, and competent learning.
For to satisfy such a want either, is not in the nature of this
undertaking; since a mere modern wit can like nothing that is not
modern, and a pedant nothing that is not Greek.
What I have done is submitted to the public; from whose opinions I am
prepared to learn; though I fear no judges so little as our best poets,
who are most sensible of the weight of this task. As for the worst,
whatever they shall please to say, they may give me some concern as
they are unhappy men, but none as they are malignant writers. I was
guided in this translation by judgments very different from theirs, and
by persons for whom they can have no kindness, if an old observation be
true, that the strongest antipathy in the world is that of fools to men
of wit. Mr. Addison was the first whose advice determined me to
undertake this task; who was pleased to write to me upon that occasion
in such terms as I cannot repeat without vanity. I was obliged to Sir
Richard Steele for a very early recommendation of my undertaking to the
public. Dr. Swift promoted my interest with that warmth with which he
always serves his friend. The humanity and frankness of Sir Samuel
Garth are what I never knew wanting on any occasion. I must also
acknowledge, with infinite pleasure, the many friendly offices, as well
as sincere criticisms, of Mr. Congreve, who had led me the way in
translating some parts of Homer. I must add the names of Mr. Rowe, and
Dr. Parnell, though I shall take a further opportunity of doing justice
to the last, whose good nature (to give it a great panegyric), is no
less extensive than his learning. The favour of these gentlemen is not
entirely undeserved by one who bears them so true an affection. But
what can I say of the honour so many of the great have done me; while
the first names of the age appear as my subscribers, and the most
distinguished patrons and ornaments of learning as my chief
encouragers? Among these it is a particular pleasure to me to find,
that my highest obligations are to such who have done most honour to
the name of poet: that his grace the Duke of Buckingham was not
displeased I should undertake the author to whom he has given (in his
excellent Essay), so complete a praise:
"Read Homer once, and you can read no more;
For all books else appear so mean, so poor,
Verse will seem prose: but still persist to read,
And Homer will be all the books you need."
That the Earl of Halifax was one of the first to favour me; of whom it
is hard to say whether the advancement of the polite arts is more owing
to his generosity or his example: that such a genius as my Lord
Bolingbroke, not more distinguished in the great scenes of business,
than in all the useful and entertaining parts of learning, has not
refused to be the critic of these sheets, and the patron of their
writer: and that the noble author of the tragedy of "Heroic Love" has
continued his partiality to me, from my writing pastorals to my
attempting the Iliad. I cannot deny myself the pride of confessing,
that I have had the advantage not only of their advice for the conduct
in general, but their correction of several particulars of this
translation.
I could say a great deal of the pleasure of being distinguished by the
Earl of Carnarvon; but it is almost absurd to particularize any one
generous action in a person whose whole life is a continued series of
them. Mr. Stanhope, the present secretary of state, will pardon my
desire of having it known that he was pleased to promote this affair.
The particular zeal of Mr. Harcourt (the son of the late Lord
Chancellor) gave me a proof how much I am honoured in a share of his
friendship. I must attribute to the same motive that of several others
of my friends: to whom all acknowledgments are rendered unnecessary by
the privileges of a familiar correspondence; and I am satisfied I can
no way better oblige men of their turn than by my silence.
In short, I have found more patrons than ever Homer wanted. He would
have thought himself happy to have met the same favour at Athens that
xshas been shown me by its learned rival, the University of Oxford. And I
can hardly envy him those pompous honours he received after death, when
I reflect on the enjoyment of so many agreeable obligations, and easy
friendships, which make the satisfaction of life. This distinction is
the more to be acknowledged, as it is shown to one whose pen has never
gratified the prejudices of particular parties, or the vanities of
particular men. Whatever the success may prove, I shall never repent of
an undertaking in which I have experienced the candour and friendship
of so many persons of merit; and in which I hope to pass some of those
years of youth that are generally lost in a circle of follies, after a
manner neither wholly unuseful to others, nor disagreeable to myself.
