STORIES FROM HOMER.*

IN spite of its too modest title, this is very much more indeed than an equivalent, in relation to Homer, for such a book as " Lamb's Tales " in relation to Shakespeare. It seems, to the present writer at least, a book which ought to become an English classic, though we do not deny that Mr. Church has carried the process of compression and selection to an extreme, excluding much which, if translated in the same pure and beautiful English, would have added greatly to the charm of his book. Familiar as we are with many versions, from the vigorous and epigrammatic rhymes of Pope to the beautifully rounded stanzas of Mr. Worsley's Odyssey, wo should not hesitate to recommend any one who desired to get the best impression of the charm of Homer which an English • version could give him, to go first to this little book of Mr. Church's, and to return to it again even after reading as many fuller translations as he could enjoy, in order to recover that sense of complete freshness and simplicity which so few of the metrical versions fully retain. Mr. Arnold has truly observed, in his fine lectures on translating Homer, that the four principal charac- teristics of Homer are rapidity of movement, plainness of words and style, simplicity of thought, and nobleness of manner. In all these four respects Mr. Church's Stories approach perfection, and though to suit them to the form of prose they omit innumerable touches of great beauty, and even fail to remind us of that characteristic of Homer which Mr. Newman miscalled his " garrulousness,"—really meaning something very different, namely, that complete freedom from anything like hurry of the imagination which enabled Homer to enjoy the full rehearsing of the very words of a message with the new effect they won when addressed for him to whom it was in- tended,—they will, nevertheless, we think, give even greater plea- sure to those who know Homer as he is, than to those who learn to love him for the first time through Mr. Church's Stories. For, one fault of almost all existing translations they absolutely avoid. They interpose no new film of modern suggestion between us and the poet whom they render. Much that is lovely in Homer we lose. But we get nothing either beautiful or ugly which is wholly foreign to Homer, as we almost always do in formal translation. In fact,—barring one or two " I weens," which remind us more of the old-ballad style than of Homer, and which divert us from the grand and rapid objective style of the great Greek poet,—we doubt if there is a single expression throughout the book that jars on us as distinctly un-Homeric. Indeed, our only substantial criticism on Mr. Church is that his book is too short, and leaves out too much. We do not see why he should have given us so few of the most characteristic of all the Homeric, passages, the disputes among the gods. We find neither the great passage at the beginning of the eighth book, where Zeus boasts of his infinite superiority in power to all the rest of the gods com- bined ; nor the satirical passage in the fifth book in which Athene scoffs at Aphrodite for the wound Diomede gives her, and suggests that she has scratched herself on some Argive brooch in trying to intrigue for Troy ; nor the equally satirical passage in the twenty-first book where Hera lays Latona's quiver about her ears for interfering on the Trojan side. Yet these are full of the most characteristic Homeric touches, nor would they in any way have interfered with Mr. Church's design to make these Stories from Homer as fit for the use of children as of men. Again, we can understand well why in a prose version of the Homeric poems he has omitted some of the most exquisite of the descriptions of scenery, and has left, in those of them which he • Stories from Homer. By the Rev. Alfred T. Church, M.A., Head Master of King Edward's School, Rotford. With Twenty-four Illustrations, from Fiaxmau's Designs. Lendou: Seeley, Jackson, and Halliday.

has retained, but half their loveliness. He has supposed evidently that only in a poetical version could the beauty of some of these pas- sages be adequately rendered, that indeed it was the poetical form which justified them, and that in dropping the poetical form he was bound to drop also the thoughts that needed it for anything like adequate expression. Still, we think he has carried this principle to excess. For instance, in dealing with the famous close of the eighth book, Mr. Church stints us to this :—" Then Hector gathered his people together on the river bank, where there was a space clear of dead bodies, and bade them be of good cheer and make merry, for that on the morrow they would utterly destroy the Greeks. So all that night they lay encamped on the plain,

a thousand watchfires, and round each watchfire fifty men, and the horses by the chariots, waiting for the dawn." Now, even if Mr. Church were right in thinking it impossible to give in prose

the most exquisite of all Homeric passages,—the comparison be- tween the Trojan watelifiree and the groups of stars which on a summer night delight the shepherd's heart—yet be might at least have lightened up his own beautiful little description with the touches of the last three lines. Why not have added to " by each fire fifty men " " in the light of the glowing flame," and why not have added to the description of the " horses by

the chariots," the graphic touch, " munching white barley "? Neither of these touches is in the least inconsistent with Mr. Church's principle of rendering, as illustrated in other such

passages, and assuredly they add to the vividness as well as to the homeliness of the bright Homeric picture. No doubt

such Homeric tales as these, when rendered in prose, ought to be even simpler and briefer than the poetical original from

which they are taken, but we must say we think Mr. Church has, in the more beautiful passages, retrenched too severely the graphic touches of his author.

But these are the only faults we have to find. Not only are the passages selected most skiff ully selected and rendered, but they are so selected and rendered as to make a real whole, and a whole which

gives the effect, as everything professing to render Homer ought to do, of classic proportion as well as classic beauty. If we were to venture on a criticism on this head, it would be that in the Iliad Mr. Church has perhaps given somewhat too much prepon- derance to the battles, and too little to those interruptions of battle by which the unique character of Homer's battles is SO largely determined. For instance, we wish he had re-

tained at least some trace of the long and very leisurely conversation between Glaucus and Diomede in the sixth book,

by means of which the two foes at last discover that there is an old tie of hospitality between their families, enabling Diomede to find an excuse for persuading Glaucus " to exchange gold for brass,—what was worth a hundred oxen for what was worth nine." There is a touch of humour about the poet's com- ment, and an easy drawing-room character about the whole con-

versation, held as it was between two heroes in the middle of a battle, that renders it very memorable and typical of the loose array and indiiidualistic character of Homeric war. But this is minute criticism. One man's judgment will always differ from another's as to the work of selection. The chief thing is that Mr. Church has so selected as to leave the impression of the Homeric story and life in its freshness upon us, both as regards

the Iliad and the Odyssey. Let us give a specimen or two or his work. First, we will take the celebrated passage in the twelfth book of the Iliad, in which Sarpedon gives his much finer anti- cipation of the French saying noblesse oblige, and insists on

the uselessness of mortals trying to avoid dangers which crowd so thickly round them

" But at the last Zeus stirred up the heart of his own son, Sarpedon. Holding his shield before him he wont, and ho shook in either hand a spear. As goes a lion, when hunger presses him sore, against a stall of oxen or a sheepfold, and cares not though he find men and dogs keeping watch against him, so Sarpedon went against the wall. And first he spake to stout Glituens, his comrade,—' Tell nao, Glaucus, why is it that men honour us at home with the chief rooms at feasts, and with fat portions of flesh and with sweet wino, and that wo have a great domain of orchard and plough land by the banks of Xanthus ? Surely it is that we may fight in the front rank. Then shall some one who may behold us say, " Of a truth these are honourable mon, those princes of Lyeia, and not without good right do they eat the fat and drink the sweet, for they fight ever in the front." Now, indeed, if we might live for over, nor know old ago nor death, neither would I fight among the first, nor would I bid thee arm thyself for the battle. But seeing that there are. ten thousand fates about us which no man may avoid, let us see whether we shall win glory from another, or another shall take it from us.'"

Or take, again, the account of the grief of Patroclus at the de- feat of the Greeks, and his entreaty to Achilles to be sent to the field where he was to die :—

"And Patroclus stood by Achilles, weeping bitterly. Then said Achilles, What ails thee, Patroclus, that thou woopost like a girl- child that runs along by her mother's side and would be taken up, holding her gown, and looking at her with tearful oyes till she lift her in her arms? Haat thou hoard evil news from Plithia ? Mencetius yet lives, they say, and Poking. Or art thou weeping for the Greeks, because they perish for their folly ?' Then said Patroclus, ' Be not wroth with me, groat Achilles, for indeed the Greeks are in grievous straits, and all their bravest are wounded, and still thou oherishost thy wrath. Surely Polous was nit thy father, nor Thetis thy mother ; but the rocks begat thee, and the sea brought thee forth. Or if thou beefiest some warning from the gods, yet let me go forth to the battle, and thy Myrmidons with me. And lot mo put thy armour on mo ; so shall the Greeks have breathing-space from tho war.' So he spake, entreating, nor knew that for his own doom he entreated."

Or finally, take the passage in which the dog Argus recognises Ulysses on his return to his home, while the swine-herd Eummus, who had not recognised him, proses-on on the neglect into which the household falls when the master is away and the slaves miss his overseeing eye

So they wont on to the palace. And at the door of the court there lay the dog Argus, whom iu the old days Ulysses had reared with his own hand. But ere the dog grow to his full, Ulysses had sailed to Troy. And while he was strong, men used him in the chase, hunting wild goats and roe-deer and bares. But now he lay on a dunghill, and the lice swarmed upon him. Well he know his master, and for that he could not come near to him, wagged his tail and drooped his ears. And Ulysses, when he saw him, wiped away a tear, and said, ' Surely this is strange, Eumams, that such a dog, being of so fine a breed, should lie here upon a dunghill.' And Emnrous made reply, ' Ho bolongeth to a master who died far away. For indeed, when Ulysses bad him of old, he was the strongest and swiftest of dogs ; but now my dear lord has perished fur away, and the careless women tend him not. For when the master is away, the slaves are careless Of their duty. Surely a man, when lie is made a slave, loses half the virtue of a man.' And as he spake the dog Argus died. Twenty years had he waited, and saw his master at the last."

Nor are these in any way more than fair specimens of the whole

book, which has given us sincerer pleasure—partly, no doubt, because it is of a kind to give much less pain—than the best of the many Homeric translations, from Lord Derby's up to Mr Worsley's, which have been published within the last dozen years.

The illustrations from Flaxman are as good as Flaxman's illus- trations could be made. They are always full of grace, but to our minds strangely wanting in character. When the artist gives Sleep and Death carrying Sarpedon's dead body to Lycia, we recognise at once the great beauty of the group. But to Flaxman Ulysses is as Agamemnon, and Agamemnon as Achilles, and Achilles as Paris, and Athene as Thetis,—he gives us no indication of wile, or of pride, or of sullen courage, or of timidity and effeminacy, or of wisdom or grace. He is occupied with the Greek form, not with the individual character of Greeks. And of course, while his illustrations greatly embellish this work, they are not, in any true sense, characteristic of Homer's finely-chiselled individual figures. Still the book, as a whole, is full of the pure Homeric flavour, and we think we may predict that it will not be the mere favourite of a season, but will retain its place in our literature. Mr. Church never fails to give us what Mr. Arnold has so finely termed " the pure lines of an Ionian horizon, the liquid clear- ness of an Ionian sky."