The Sun.
London, England, 1862-06-24 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Homer and English Meter. By W. G. T. Barter,
Esq. Bell and Daldy.
Upon the importance of rendering the greatest
poet of ancient times accessible to the English
reader we need not dilate ; it is manifest, and has
of late largely engaged tie attention of the literary
world, as the numerous essays, translations, and
reviews which have appeared, testify. But if opi-
nions have been unanimcus as to the necessity for a
faithful translation of the Iliad and Odyssey they
have differed widely as to the form it should take,
although some, of note, hive strongly advocated the
hexameter. As Mr. Barter had published a version
of the Iliad, in the Spenserian stanza., 1854 ; toge-
ther with a preface in which he discussed the nature
of epic poetry, the principles which should govern
translation, and the differences between Greek and
English metre, he has now taken the opportu-
nity of republishing it, together with another essay
in which his opinions on these points are amplified,
and he gives at the end of the volume specimens of
his version of the Iliad ani the first book of the
Odyssey both in Spenserian stanza. As the views
propounded by him are original and accurate, we
will lay before the reader some of their features.
Thus speaking of " the proper metre for English
translation of the Iliad anc Odyssey," he says—
On this my opinion frankly is that in English metrical
translation, from whatever language, the metre should be
English, and the translator do as the original author had
done, consult the requirements of the tongue in which ho
is writing ; so that Spenserian stanza should not be exacted
in Greek version of the Faery Queen, for example, nor
hexameter in English Iliad or Odyssey. I am aware, how-
ever, of a growing opinion to tie contrary, and of a certain
general expectation among scholars that, when the proper
man to do it comes, the Iliad and Odyssey shall appear in
the full lustre of their originalm.etre. When the thing is
done it will prove itself, solvitur ambulando, it is said. And
when it comes to that I shalt hail it with pleasure, and
none the less for its being an unexpected one. It is difficult
to think at all without a certain tenacity of what comes of
it ; but I flatter myself with no, holding by my opinion so
firmly as not gladly to let go of it for a better. In the
meantime the following are among the groundg-of my not
being sanguine as to the advent of the coming pedestrian,
who is to walk into popular English acceptance at hexa-
meter pace.
The philosophy of Shakespeare's lines--" A jest's pros-
perity lies in the ear of him that hears it," yields a prin-
ciple which, if applied to poetry, would have saved much
spasm in versifying by prescribing the limits within which
new experiments are possible. For the prosperity of all'
attempts in verse must ultimately rest with the ear to
which it is addressed ; and the requirements of this are
according to the language.
A verse or line consists of words arranged in a certain
rhythm, usually different from prose, but in which the
words separately are pronounced exactly as in prose. Poetic
licence, indeed, sparingly deviates by marking words out of
their accent, when driven by stress of metre, but the licence
is grudgingly yielded in long works, and is absolutely inad-
missible in short ones, and, with the progress of poetry,
almost disappears from the works of the best poets. From
the above description it follows that words are fragments of
the poetic melodies of a language, and that, whatever the
language, no verse is possible in it but that of which the
words be fragments.
With this we see clearly how, in Greek and Latin, they
should early have taken to hexameter, as the words, for the
most part, are fragments of hexameter ; being either whole
feet, or parts of feet, that easily range and cluster into that
verse without requiring the words to be separately pro-
nounced otherwise than in prose, yielding spondees as well
as dactyls in abundance. In English, on the other hand,
even if you discharge quantity and content you with ac-
cent, we are helplessly deficient in spondees, without which
the Ilcacanetcr -is a,.• tasteless a metro as can ',veil be ima-
ginal, and perfectly impotent to express the flexible and
varied melodies that the ancients have drawn from it, with
a free command of both kinds of feet of which it is com-
pose i.
Those who advocate the use of the hexameter
in an English translation of Homer appears
to forget, as Mr. Barter oiserves, " that of the
ancient poets who wrote in it the hexameter of each
was characteristic of him ; that the hexameter, for
instance, of Hesiod in the -Works and Days,' was
quite another thing from the hexameter of Homer
in either the 'lliad' or Odyssey ;' and that though
Virgil, Horace, and Juvenal all wrote hexameters,
the hexameters of the Ars loetica,' or 'Epistle to
the Pisos,' are very different from those of the
./Eneid' or Georgics.' " It is clear, then, "that
if you give one kind of hexameter where Homer
gives quite another kind (aid an allegro for an
andante movement, or vice versa, is clearly so), you
will gain nothing in proximity of metre by using
that which is called indeed by the same name but
is alien in tone." In fact English hexameters, in-
stead of expressing all the variety and beauty of
which the language is susce?tible, reduces it to
monotony, destroys its force sod spirit, and is in
spirit the most antagonistic to Homer that could be
chosen ; whilst the Spenserian stanza, which the
author has selected for his version, is one of the
most harmonious forms of verse our language pos-
sesses. Another important point with regard to
translation is the degree of literalness to be em-
ployed.
Literal metrical version, both from its difficulty, and its
little scope for original power, will /ever be very popular
with translators. Neither is it desiralie or practicable with
all poems. It is a sort of engraving which will give. in-
valuable results from high originals, although it be com- ,
pelled to renounce colour. Such loetry, then, whose
characteristic is colour, with little clse, in other words,
whose beauty is untranslatable, as lyricpoetry, for the most
Fart, will lose incalculably in the rociss. It is accord-
ingly fittest for poetry that hath body and bone in it ; best
adapted, therefore, for rendering the very early poets, whose
objectivity in picturing people and manners gives the trans-
lation its value, and, at the same time, takes from its diffi-
culty. For literal version of such, as compared with what
lacks that objectivity, is like drawing film the original or
from a copy of it. Such is the postur of a translator of
Homer or Virgil. Homer is nature, Viriil but a copy of
him ; and literal translation of the latter, from his vague-
ness, gives no field of choice whatever beyond the expres-
sion before you. In Homer the thing is brought out
definitely, and with sharp precision, and you can picture it
bodily with little or no fear of misapprehension, however
you may doubt your own ability of limning from the life.
The difference between Homer and Virgil in this parti-
cular is partly in the poet, but more in the age in which he
lived. Objectivity may he, and is, the quality, to some
degree, of every great poet in a moder 4 and artificial state
of society, as of Dante, for example, and Shakespeare ; but
in the early and primitive states it is an indispensable qua-
lity of all poets who get any hearing at all of their country-
men. We find it more or less in all early ballads. Virgil,
be it observed, for those who are not conversant in these
matters, was a modern poet, not merely in point of chrono-
logy, but as regards the state of society in which he lived.
For all practical purposes he was as far removed, in man-
ners, thought, faith in their mythology, artificial civilisa-
tion, and so forth, from the times of Homer as we are our-
selves. For it is not chronology but the state of society
that determines this. Literal version, in my point of view,
would be as inappropriate to the rendering of a Latin poet
of Virgil's day as to a German or Frenrth of our own.
It is of productions of the early states of society that lite-
ral translation is so telling. How it tells in such case no
reader of our noble literal version of the Scripture need be
reminded. Its value consists, among other advantages,
especially in this, that it makes the translator stronger than
himself, I mean that it enables him to give a faithful
rendering, which shall be thdroughly understood in its full
significance by another, though it appear dark to himself.
I will give an instance from our own version, and from
the fine old German of Luther, in which our translators are
literal, and beat the great Reformer by rigorously sticking
to what they felt to be the letter, while he produces' what
he thought the spirit of the passage. It occurs twice in
Exodus, and once in Deuteronomy, xiv. 21, where, in
our Bible, it is rendered, " Thou shalt not seethe a kid in
his mother's mllk." But Luther, expressing what he
thought to be the significancy of these words, translates it
as referring to the cooking a kid, not in its mother's milk,
but while the mother is suckling it. "Du sollst das Bock-
lein nicht kochen, weil es 'loch seine Mutter sauget." In a
sensible note on the passage in the Nuremberg folio Bible.
ed. 1731, the literal rendering of the Ilebrew is preferred,
the annotator considering that it pointed at the heathen
superstition of boiling a kid in its mother's milk, and
sprinkling their fields with it to make them fertile. Be
that as it may, the English version lets in the gloss, which
the German excludes, and the value of it is the same
whether the English translators knew of the custom or
not.
"Translation," the author observes,' may be of three
sorts. The first is very free, in which you go upon
the compensation principle, giving what you sup-
pose as good as the original,"
whilst the second
" gives the thoughts of the original, but takes a
latitude iu the expression," and the third "aims at
giving both the thought and the manner of its ex-
pression." The author illustrates the difference

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