CURRENT LITERATURE.
The Iliad of Homer, Homometrically Translate& By C. B. Cayley. (Longmans.)—This work shows considerable cleverness and ingenuity, —whether well applied, is, we think, a question. It is a line-for-line and singularly literal translation of the Iliad in English hexameters. It strikes us as somewhat unequal. Here and there we have a passage which flows pretty freely, but not unfrequently we have decidedly harsh and inharmonious verses. Sometimes the translator, in aiming to be literal, resorts to such singular constructions as to be obscure ; and his equivalents for the Homeric epithets are often very questionable, and jar very much on our taste. Now and then, too, he falls back, as it seems to us, on words much too archaic, some of which, indeed, are to an ordinary reader barely intelligible. Perhaps a sprinkling of such words may be suitable for a translation of Homer, but we think Mr. Cayley has overdone the use of them. We are now so familiar with "folk-mote," that we may well accept it as a very proper rendering of slyspii, and " halidom" is by no means amiss in line 1, 39 ("Hear me, if I've garnished thy beautiful handout, hear me"). But we hardly think "superb sea" is a satisfactory rendering of /ray etas, or "host-nurturing" of ..1-JeL,slee, or "death-amenable earthlings" of Ore,r;e, icOpAle-c.., or "hands unapproached" of x"-pas laysrevi. We cannot say we quite like "all gods haunting Olympus," for ;Du the; i. *0.a.earr.f. The ship of Odusseus (xi, 5), which Homer calls payagi.rm, whatever its precise meaning may be, is oddly made into a " whale-shouldered galley." In the names of the deities Mr. Cayley is not consistent with himself. We"cannot see why he should have Hera, as be does, for Juno, and yet retain the Latin forme Jove and Neptune. This looks like carelessness. By-the-by, now and then Neptune is Posidon, which to an English reader must be embarrassing. So, too, Jove is occasionally Eronides. Here is Mr. Cayley's rendering of the passage, in Book XXII. (295-303), in which Hector anticipates his speedy doom :— „Mr, the divine rulers to the path of ruin have urged me: Daring Deiphobus, methought, was at hand to support me, But sure, he's inside o' the wall; 'twee Athena beguiled me. Now my death's nigh at hand, I wean, no more at a distance, Nor to be escaped from; they whilom chose to reprieve me. Jove and Jove's offspring far-working,—gracious helpers; But 'tie no more so, the predestined hour has attein'd me. Yet be my downfall at least not ignoble or easy, But marked by such a deed, as sounds to remote generations." "My death," in the fourth line, is in the original, Myer:vs :axes. Mr. Cayley takes no notice of the epithet, which should, we think, be ren- dered. However, this is not often his fault. Whatever may be thought of his translation as a work of art, it usually reproduces Homer with considerable exactness, as any scholar will find by putting any dozen lines to the test. It is certain that he must have expended much pains and labour on it.
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