62.Lines such as the first of theOdysseyἌνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὅς μάλα πολλὰ....
62.Lines such as the first of theOdyssey
Ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὅς μάλα πολλὰ....
Ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὅς μάλα πολλὰ....
Ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὅς μάλα πολλὰ....
Ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὅς μάλα πολλὰ....
63.Substantially, however, in the question at issue between Mr Munro and Mr Spedding, I agree with Mr Munro. By the italicized words in the following sentence, ‘The rhythm of the Virgilian hexameter depends entirely oncæsura,pause, and a due arrangement of words’, he has touched, it seems to me, in the constitution of this hexameter, the central point which Mr Spedding misses. The accent, orheightened tone, of Virgil in reading his own hexameters, was probably far from being the same thing as the accent orstresswith which we read them. The general effect of each line, in Virgil’s mouth, was probably therefore something widely different from what Mr Spedding assumes it to have been: an ancient’s accentual reading was something which allowed the metrical beat of the Latin line to be far more perceptible than our accentual reading allows it to be.On the question as to therealrhythm of the ancient hexameter, Mr Newman has in hisReplya page quite admirable for force and precision. Here he is in his element, and his ability and acuteness have their proper scope. But it is true that themodernreading of the ancient hexameter is what the modern hexameter has to imitate, and that the English reading of the Virgilian hexameter is as Mr Spedding describes it. Why this reading has not been imitated by the English hexameter, I have tried to point out in the text.
63.Substantially, however, in the question at issue between Mr Munro and Mr Spedding, I agree with Mr Munro. By the italicized words in the following sentence, ‘The rhythm of the Virgilian hexameter depends entirely oncæsura,pause, and a due arrangement of words’, he has touched, it seems to me, in the constitution of this hexameter, the central point which Mr Spedding misses. The accent, orheightened tone, of Virgil in reading his own hexameters, was probably far from being the same thing as the accent orstresswith which we read them. The general effect of each line, in Virgil’s mouth, was probably therefore something widely different from what Mr Spedding assumes it to have been: an ancient’s accentual reading was something which allowed the metrical beat of the Latin line to be far more perceptible than our accentual reading allows it to be.
On the question as to therealrhythm of the ancient hexameter, Mr Newman has in hisReplya page quite admirable for force and precision. Here he is in his element, and his ability and acuteness have their proper scope. But it is true that themodernreading of the ancient hexameter is what the modern hexameter has to imitate, and that the English reading of the Virgilian hexameter is as Mr Spedding describes it. Why this reading has not been imitated by the English hexameter, I have tried to point out in the text.
64.Such a minor change I have attempted by occasionally shifting, in the first foot of the hexameter, the accent from the first syllable to the second. In the current English hexameter, it is on the first. Mr Spedding, who proposes radically to subvert the constitution of this hexameter, seems not to understand that anyone can propose to modify it partially; he can comprehend revolution in this metre, but not reform. Accordingly he asks me how I can bring myself to say, ‘Bétween that and the ships’, or ‘Théresat fifty men’; or how I can reconcile such forcing of the accent with my own rule, that ‘hexameters mustread themselves’. Presently he says that he cannot believe I do pronounce these words so, but that he thinks I leave out the accent in the first foot altogether, and thus get a hexameter with only five accents. He will pardon me: I pronounce, as I suppose he himself does, if he reads the words naturally, ‘Betweenthat and the ships’, and ‘Theresátfifty men’. Mr Spedding is familiar enough with this accent on the second syllable in Virgil’s hexameters; in ‘ettémontosæ’, or ‘Velóces jaculo’. Such a change is an attempt to relieve the monotony of the current English hexameter by occasionally altering the position of one of its accents; it is not an attempt to make a wholly new English hexameter by habitually altering the position of four of them. Very likely it is an unsuccessful attempt; but at any-rate it does not violate what I think is the fundamental rule for English hexameters, that may be such as toread themselveswithout necessitating, on the reader’s part, any non-natural putting-on or taking-off accent. Hexameters like these of Mr Longfellow,‘In that delightful land which is washed by the Delaware’s waters’,and,‘As if they fain would appease the Dryads, whose haunts they molested’,violate this rule; and they are very common. I think the blemish of Mr Dart’s recent meritorious version of theIliadis that it contains too many of them.
64.Such a minor change I have attempted by occasionally shifting, in the first foot of the hexameter, the accent from the first syllable to the second. In the current English hexameter, it is on the first. Mr Spedding, who proposes radically to subvert the constitution of this hexameter, seems not to understand that anyone can propose to modify it partially; he can comprehend revolution in this metre, but not reform. Accordingly he asks me how I can bring myself to say, ‘Bétween that and the ships’, or ‘Théresat fifty men’; or how I can reconcile such forcing of the accent with my own rule, that ‘hexameters mustread themselves’. Presently he says that he cannot believe I do pronounce these words so, but that he thinks I leave out the accent in the first foot altogether, and thus get a hexameter with only five accents. He will pardon me: I pronounce, as I suppose he himself does, if he reads the words naturally, ‘Betweenthat and the ships’, and ‘Theresátfifty men’. Mr Spedding is familiar enough with this accent on the second syllable in Virgil’s hexameters; in ‘ettémontosæ’, or ‘Velóces jaculo’. Such a change is an attempt to relieve the monotony of the current English hexameter by occasionally altering the position of one of its accents; it is not an attempt to make a wholly new English hexameter by habitually altering the position of four of them. Very likely it is an unsuccessful attempt; but at any-rate it does not violate what I think is the fundamental rule for English hexameters, that may be such as toread themselveswithout necessitating, on the reader’s part, any non-natural putting-on or taking-off accent. Hexameters like these of Mr Longfellow,
‘In that delightful land which is washed by the Delaware’s waters’,
‘In that delightful land which is washed by the Delaware’s waters’,
‘In that delightful land which is washed by the Delaware’s waters’,
‘In that delightful land which is washed by the Delaware’s waters’,
and,
‘As if they fain would appease the Dryads, whose haunts they molested’,
‘As if they fain would appease the Dryads, whose haunts they molested’,
‘As if they fain would appease the Dryads, whose haunts they molested’,
‘As if they fain would appease the Dryads, whose haunts they molested’,
violate this rule; and they are very common. I think the blemish of Mr Dart’s recent meritorious version of theIliadis that it contains too many of them.
65.As I welcome another more recent attempt in stanza,—Mr Worsley’s version of theOdysseyin Spenser’s measure. Mr Worsley does me the honour to notice some remarks of mine on this measure: I had said that its greater intricacy made it a worse measure than even the ten-syllable couplet to employ for rendering Homer. He points out, in answer, that ‘the more complicated the correspondences in a poetical measure, the less obtrusive and absolute are the rhymes’. This is true, and subtly remarked; but I never denied that the single shocks of rhyme in the couplet were morestrongly feltthan those in the stanza; I said that the more frequent recurrence of the same rhyme, in the stanza, necessarily made this measure moreintricate. The stanza repacks Homer’s matter yet more arbitrarily, and therefore changes his movement yet more radically, than the couplet. Accordingly, I imagine a nearer approach to a perfect translation of Homer is possible in the couplet, well managed, than in the stanza, however well managed. But meanwhile Mr Worsley, applying the Spenserian stanza, that beautiful romantic measure, to the most romantic poem of the ancient world; making this stanza yield him, too (what it never yielded to Byron), its treasures of fluidity and sweet ease; above all, bringing to his task a truly poetical sense and skill, has produced a version of theOdysseymuch the most pleasing of those hitherto produced, and which is delightful to read.For the public this may well be enough, nay, more than enough; but for the critic even this is not yet quite enough.
65.As I welcome another more recent attempt in stanza,—Mr Worsley’s version of theOdysseyin Spenser’s measure. Mr Worsley does me the honour to notice some remarks of mine on this measure: I had said that its greater intricacy made it a worse measure than even the ten-syllable couplet to employ for rendering Homer. He points out, in answer, that ‘the more complicated the correspondences in a poetical measure, the less obtrusive and absolute are the rhymes’. This is true, and subtly remarked; but I never denied that the single shocks of rhyme in the couplet were morestrongly feltthan those in the stanza; I said that the more frequent recurrence of the same rhyme, in the stanza, necessarily made this measure moreintricate. The stanza repacks Homer’s matter yet more arbitrarily, and therefore changes his movement yet more radically, than the couplet. Accordingly, I imagine a nearer approach to a perfect translation of Homer is possible in the couplet, well managed, than in the stanza, however well managed. But meanwhile Mr Worsley, applying the Spenserian stanza, that beautiful romantic measure, to the most romantic poem of the ancient world; making this stanza yield him, too (what it never yielded to Byron), its treasures of fluidity and sweet ease; above all, bringing to his task a truly poetical sense and skill, has produced a version of theOdysseymuch the most pleasing of those hitherto produced, and which is delightful to read.
For the public this may well be enough, nay, more than enough; but for the critic even this is not yet quite enough.
66.I speak of poetic genius as employing itself upon narrative or dramatic poetry,—poetry in which the poet has to go out of himself and to create. In lyrical poetry, in the direct expression of personal feeling, the most subtle genius may, under the momentary pressure of passion, express itself simply. Even here, however, the native tendency will generally be discernible.
66.I speak of poetic genius as employing itself upon narrative or dramatic poetry,—poetry in which the poet has to go out of himself and to create. In lyrical poetry, in the direct expression of personal feeling, the most subtle genius may, under the momentary pressure of passion, express itself simply. Even here, however, the native tendency will generally be discernible.
67.‘And I have endured—the like whereof no soul upon the earth hath yet endured—to carry to my lips the hand of him who slew my child’.—Iliad,xxiv.505.
67.‘And I have endured—the like whereof no soul upon the earth hath yet endured—to carry to my lips the hand of him who slew my child’.—Iliad,xxiv.505.
68.‘Nay and thou too, old man, in times past wert, as we hear, happy’.—Iliad,xxiv.543. In the original this line, for mingled pathos and dignity, is perhaps without a rival even in Homer.
68.‘Nay and thou too, old man, in times past wert, as we hear, happy’.—Iliad,xxiv.543. In the original this line, for mingled pathos and dignity, is perhaps without a rival even in Homer.
69.’For so have the gods spun our destiny to us wretched mortals,—that we should live in sorrow; but they themselves are without trouble’.—Iliad,xxiv. 525.
69.’For so have the gods spun our destiny to us wretched mortals,—that we should live in sorrow; but they themselves are without trouble’.—Iliad,xxiv. 525.
70.‘Iwept not: so of stone grew I within:—theywept’.—Hell,xxxiii. 49 (Carlyle’s Translation, slightly altered).
70.‘Iwept not: so of stone grew I within:—theywept’.—Hell,xxxiii. 49 (Carlyle’s Translation, slightly altered).
Transcriber’s Note:Footnotes have been collected at the end of the text, and are linked for ease of reference.