BOOKS.

MR. MERIVALE'S TRANSLATION OF THE ILIAD.* WE must frankly say that this book is a great disappointment. Mr. Merivale, not to speak of his general reputation as a historian and scholar, has shown peculiar skill in a work which is at least similar to that which he has now attempted. Many of his translations into Latin verse are singularly felicitous, though some may think them to have overmuch of a " Silver-Age " tinge. One would think that all the qualities which make a translator excel, —taste, versatility, and readiness in finding equivalents, imagination, the imagination not of genius, but of cleverness, and, above all, indefatigable patience,—would be displayed almost equally in any work of the kind. This belief raised very high our expectations of Mr. Merivale's promised translation, and it is with a most unfeigned regret that we own our disappointment.

One or two points of minor importance may be first disposed of. Mr. Merivale follows what we cannot but think the mistaken practice of Lord Derby in representing the Homeric deities by their Latin names. He has, doubtless, his own reasons for doing so, but we cannot even guess at what they are. To scholars generally the substitution is unquestionably distasteful, and nonclassical readers, whatever they would have done twenty years ago, would now, we imagine, for the most part aide with the scholars. To all who read a translation of Homer, the names of Zeus, Here, Aphrodite, and Ares, are as familiar as those of Jupiter, Juno, Venus, and Mars, and the Greek names have, on the whole, the advantage of superior euphony. Mr. Merivale, again, does not exert himself to preserve Homer's characteristic epithets. Their constant recurrence, often apparently so unmeaning, makes, doubtless, a great tax on a translator's ingenuity ; but they constitute so marked a feature of the poem, are so distinctive of the tone of thought that prevails in it, that for the sake both of those who know, and of those who do not know, the original, every sacrifice ought to be made to preserve them.

In the matter of metre, Mr. Merivale has chosen one of the two rhythms which, in our judgment, are most suitable for the work. Pope, indeed, using the heroic couplet with a mastery which no other man has attained, made a great poem which, utterly unlike as it is to the original, is still the best representative of it that we have. Mr. Tennyson might make a poem at least equally great if he would complete the Iliad in blank verse, as perfectly finished as is that of the specimen published with Enoch Arden. But such blank verse presents difficulties at least as great as any which beset rhyme ; and taking Lord Derby's work as the best which we are likely to get in this way, we come to the conclusion that if we are to have the ideal translation we must look to the hexameter, or what, for want of a more expressive term, we may call the fourteen-syllabled verse. The master who is to teach us how to write the hexameter is not yet come, but we are probably feeling our way to the revelation which he is to make. One thing is certain, that we must adopt rules of prosody as rigid, however different in other respects, as those by which the matchless melody of the Greek and Roman hexameter was wrought out. Such an odious licence, to give a single instance, as making up the final foot out of two monosyllables,

must be strictly forbidden. The fourteen-syllabled verse is what Mr. /derive.le has employed, though he uses many freedoms, frequently shortening the first half of the verse thus,—

" Himself the goat had stricken beneath the breast one day," and often introducing lines of eight syllables. In one respect he has, we think, been successful; he has attained, that is, something of the marvellous variety which distinguishes the Homeric hexameter. The space which we can afford for extracts does not permit us to do justice to this quality, and we therefore take the opportunity of saying that in this respect he excels his rivals. We are sorry to say that we can find little else to praise. So able a man could not but be occasionally felicitous ; and there are fine phrases, though we can hardly say fine passages, to be found, but their effect is more than neutralized by frequent and, to those who know what Mr. Merivale can do, unaccountable weaknesses. We quote a paaasise from "The Shield of Achilles," which is as good as anything that we can find

There too a field he fashioned, fresh broken from the share ; Wide tilth, thrice-laboured, soft and warm ; and o'er it here and there Strode many a lusty plongher, and drove his sturdy team ; And straightway when with share reversed back to his balk he came, His comrade met, and gave him sweet wino-draught from a flask; Again they strained from verge to verge, and bent them to their task. Blackened the glebe behind them, and show'd, though chased in gold, Most like to soil of new-turn'd land—a wonder to behold."

But here " team " and " came " are very poor rhymes ; " blackened " is scarcely allowable for "grew black," aud the line which we have italicized is a very inadequate rendering of the graphic simplicity of We take another passage from a scene of action, the death of Sarpedon :—

" A second time Sarpedon flung his bright lance and missed ;

O'er the right shoulder of the foe it glanced and aimless hissed.

Returned again Patroclus ; nor vainly flew his dart, But pierced the Lycian, where the nerves wrap close tho pulpy hoart. He dropt as drops an oak-tree, or slender poplar drops, Or lofty pine which shipwrights stout hew on the mountain-tops ; To square for naval timber ; so he along the land Lay stretched before his steeds, and clench'd his teeth, and cluteli'd the sand, As mid the splay-foot milkers a lion slays a ball, A tawny bull of courage stout ; With groans he sobs his spirit out, the claws so tear and pull ; So 'neath Patroclus' javelin tho Lycian leader foil; And moan'd he dying."

"Returned again " for 1;erspg Win:Jr° xcaxci.1 is scarcely English. Something better might surely be found for abtaly ;GO than "pulpy heart." The epithet atAcceroio'rrns attached to ;am; is lost. "The claws so tear and pull" is anything but elegant, and the force of Mfviccm XrEiY6lkEV4, expressing as it does the fierce struggle of the hero's frame against death, is but very feebly given.

Here is a specimen from the famous group of similes that precedes the Catalogue :—

" And as fierce fire consuming doth through tho forest ride,

High o'er the kindling mountain-tops, and flashes far and wide ; So as advanced the Grecians from their brazen bravery, A flaming lustre through the air shot up into the sky, And as the many nations of the winged fowls of air, Wild goose, or crane, or long-necked swan, Joyous aloft their pinions fan, far flattering here and there, O'er all the Asian meadow, by smooth Caster's flood ; And screaming light the first in flight, and clangs the meadow loud; So of many Grecian nations from every ship and tent, Poured forth on the Scamandrian plain a mighty armament ; And tho flowery plain resounded with the heavy footfall's ring Of men and horses, numberless as loaves and flowers in spring. As flit the busy legions of flies about the stalls, In spring-time, when the milk-pails foam ; so towards the Trojan walls Swarmed o'er the plain the Grecians, eager to tear them down."

The line "Joyous aloft," &c., does not give either the quick movement or the full meaning of 'Dike zoel lyou .7.-or&ivrat elyee?..).61.6gya crirop;ryecafuo ; for the word cqozceK6vrtus in the next line (the next but one in the version) we see no equivalent. The whole is much inferior to Mr. Dart's rendering :— " As a devouring flame lays hold on the depths of a forest, Crowning a mountain peak,—and the blaze shines over the lowlands ; Seas the ranks moved on, from the brazen face of their armor, Glinted the radiance back ; and illumined the zenith of heaven. And of the gathering hosts—as the thickening flights of the wild fowl, Cranes, or grey wild geese, or swans with necks far extended, E'en on the Asian mead, by the wandering stream of Cayster, Now move here, now there, and rejoice in the strength of their pinions, Now settle down with a cry, and the plain it re-echoes the tumult— So did the manifold tribes of the hosts, from the tents and the galleys, Pour on theplain of Scamander. The firm earth sounded beneath them ; Sounded beneath both the feet of the men, and the hoofs of the warsteeds ; Thick they stood in ranks on the flowery plain of &amender ; Thick, as the leaves of the trees, or the blossoms that bloom in the spring-time.

And as the teasing swarms of the flies come thronging incessant, Thronging and buzzing around, in spring, 'mid the pens and the sheepfolds ; Even in early spring, when tho first milk foams in the milk-pails, So, to the strife with Troy, did the fair-tressed sons of Admix Swarm on the battle-plain; eager all to break out to the onset."

Most readers, we imagine, will allow that there is a melody about this, especially where the lines are constructed with stricter attention to rules of prosody, which more than counterbalance any advantage which comes from Mr. Merivale's rhymes. The rhymes are indeed often evidently beyond his management. In the Catalogue, for instance, which is as good as anything in the book, we have of Agamemnon, Ed 6crero yolposot. vOyebv xuarotow, rendered by "He stood conspicuous [representing /Levi TeecrEv in the last clause], sheathed in brass, And leapt exulting on the gross." In the next paragraph, about the Lacedunnonians, Tv Or dITENpik [31+ le/an; 31s4Xeco: is thus translated :— " Their chief loud-ehearer Menelas, That Agamemnon's brother was : to him did these resort."

About the Arcadians, again :—

Aerb; yoip °poi33..,Y.EY &va c'eybps, Aycein,iikvon, brncec itionikuou; IrEpitoto lar/ lirportz ,:r6vrov, Arpeanc, ire) o5 apt acc%ricreice 'Oyez

the translation is equally faulty, both for what it adds and for what it fails to give :—

" Their ships King Agamemnon lent, For boast they no such ornament, Untrained at sea, with land content."

The passage is of little weight in itself, but it is one of the many that test the patience if not the skill of a translator ; and it is in patience, probably, that translators mostly fail. Many of Mr. Merivale's faults are clearly owing to want of care. "Billowy" is the most obvious epithet for the sea, and is, therefore, made to stand for Iraup.olopolo, though it is evident that it may be applied to the sea anywhere, whereas Homer is speaking of the sea as it breaks on the shore. So we have "shoulders scored and flayed" for .7.1ilai.; clithcceincrcra ihirappivou icgravia'rn, losing all the graphic description of the bloody swelling rising up under the blow of the massive sceptre. And again, in the answer to Achilles to the offer of the envoys of Agamemnon to restore Briseis the mood of vi1 .:raptccico rEpainOw, so expressive of a fury that overpowered all softer feelings, is changed moat unnecessarily, and with

the greatest loss to the meaning for the indicative in "sports with her and wives." It is useless to multiply these criticisms. The blemishes which we have noted are, we are sorry to say, not exceptional defects in a work otherwise well executed. Had they been so, we might have spared ourselves the pain of commenting on them. But they are in truth characteristic ; they occur so frequently, that it is necessary, after a careful survey of Mr. Merivale's translation, to say that it is wanting both in grace and fidelity. Beyond all doubt the prettiest thing in the two volumes is the graceful little poem, written in Latin and English, in which the author dedicates the work to his wife. We must do ourselves and our readers the pleasure of quoting one or two of the couplets :—

"Who, linked for over to a letter'd life, Hest drawn the dubious lot of student's wife ; Kept hush around my desk, nor grudged me still The long, dull, ceaseless rustling of my quill."

And again :— "And grown from soft to strong, from fair to sage, Flower of my youth, and jewel of my age."

All still better in the Latin :— "Palladio conjux aeternum nexa marito ;

Ah! dubium docti sore bona, nee no, tori : Jima tacero tacons, sod non habitura crepaci Invidiam calamo, jussa tacere, moo;

De toners fortis, do pulchra reddita prudonm, Tu mihi flos juveni, tu mihi gamma soni."