19 FEBRUARY 1870, Page 14

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]

Sin,—You were kind enough some six months ago to print an attempt of mine at translation from Homer. "The Death of Lycaon" (Spectator, July 31, 1869,) was rendered, as you may remember, in verse of fifteen syllables, in the metre of " Locksley Hall," to use a description with which your readers are sure to be familiar. You remarked in a private criticism on my translation with which you favoured me at the time "that I had chosen a rhetorical metre, and that Homer was anything rather than rhetorical." I could not but feel that the objection was just. The metre indeed has its attractions and advantages. It has some- thing of that grand rush of the Homeric hexameter which a trans- lator can do little but hopelessly admire ; and it admits of a variety of pauses. Managed by a skilful hand, it becomes, as every reader of " Locksley Hall" will acknowledge, wonderfully effective. And to the particular passage which I had selected it was not unsuited.

Nearly two-thirds of the ninety odd lines were occupied with speeches ; and the hurry and passion of a speech are not ill repre- sented by the rapid rhythm. But it is certain that there is a great part of the "Iliad" to which it would be wholly inappropriate ; and, all question of appropriateness apart, it would become, when continued through some fifteen thousand lines, intolerably wearisome. Of other metres the heroic couplet has been already written too well,—who would dare to challenge Pope, though he scarcely even pretended to translate ?—the hexameter has never been written well enough ; and blank verse, such blank verse at least as Milton wrote, as Mr. Tennyson writes, even if it were not utterly beyond one's power, is most unsuited, with its highly complex and artificial rhythm, to Homeric simplicity. There remains the four- teen-syllabled verse, the ballad metre with a slight difference of dignity, holding about as much, so to speak, as the Greek hexa- meter, capable of adaptation to various moods of the poet, not ill- suited to description, not ill-suited to oratory—witness Lord Macau- lay's "Virginia"—which approved itself to the poet's earliest trans- lator, and to his latest, if indeed Mr. Merivale, when translations almost pour from the press, may be still so described. It is indeed a formidable thing to court comparison with so accomplished a scholar, yet this is the metre which I have chosen in the specimen which I now beg to submit to your judgment, and, with your favour, to that of your readers.

I may be permitted to say that I did not consult Mr. 3Ierivale's version till my own had been finished. Then I took courage from his example to translate civdpopivoto in 1. 2 by manslayer," a rendering on which, as we do not use the word in a complimentary sense, I had not ventured before. I should also have been glad to borrow, had I felt myself justified in so doing, the phrase" Lemnos mist-bedight," which stands for A i!,'14 0 Y Cip.IXI9 a X6E am 1,, or possibly for some other reading with which I am not acquainted. Xitpb;

in 1. 13, must, I suppose. refer to the hand of the child, not, as Mr. Merivale puts it, to the hand of the slayer, though the latter seems the more natural phrase. A man would scarcely grasp the hand of a child whom he was about to hurl off a wall.

It would be absurd to put all this preface to such a trifle as a bit of translation from Homer, if I had not a proposal to make, or rather an idea to suggest. I have often thought, and I believe that you, Sir, agree with me, that translators mostly fail from doing their work far too hastily. Mr. Merivale, for whose genius I entertain the highest respect, will excuse me if I say that he is no exception to the rule. If I may quote against him a phrase from the exquisite lines of dedication which he has prefixed to his version, I would remark that the "ceaseless rustling of the quill" is not an annoyance from which the companion of a translator of Homer should suffer. Were I to appeal to such an experience, I should hear complaint of the weari- some iteration of a single line in every possible combina- tion of words. My pen—you and your readers will, I trust, excuse this egotism—moves quickly only when it writes down in half-an-hour the result of weeks of labour. It is only right to make allowance for the greater ingenuity and facility of others, and, therefore,I considerably understate my own experience, when I say that an hour for a line is the smallest average of time that I should be disposed to allow. It is clear that at this rate, in these days of many occupations, no one man could translate Homer. But why should one man attempt it ? The most famous translations in existence, the Septuagint and the Authorized Version, were the work of many hands ; why should not Homer be so dealt with ? Let a competent editor—and who so competent as Mr. Merivale?—call in the aid of a body of coadjutors, who might undertake a book or half a book each, and accomplish their task without stinting time. If the work were so divided, we might have in the space of two or three years a translation really Worthy of the poet. Other questions—such, for instance, as whether different metres might not be employed, whether even prose, such prose as that of Sir Thomas Mallory, might not be advantageously used—may be settled hereafter. At present, I will only say that I should esteem it a singular honour and delight to give what help I could in such a work.—I am, Sir, &c., 5 The Crescent, Clapham Common. ALFRED CHURCH.