“And all in golden weeds
He clothed himself; the golden scourge most elegantly done
He took and mounted to his seat; and then the god begun
To drive his chariot through the waves. From whirl-pits every way
The whales exulted under him, and knew their king; the sea
For joy did open, and his horse so swift and lightly flew
The under axle-tree of brass no drop of water drew.”
Here the first half is sluggish and inadequate, but what surging vigor,
what tumult of the sea, what swiftness, in the last! Here is Lord
Derby’s attempt:--
“All clad in gold, the golden lash he grasped
Of curious work, and, mounting on his car,
Skimmed o’er the waves; from all the depths below
Gambolled around the monsters of the deep,
Acknowledging their king: the joyous sea
Parted her waves; swift flew the bounding steeds,
Nor was the brazen axle wet with spray.”
Chapman here is truer to his master, and the motion is in the verse
itself. Lord Derby’s is description, and not picture. “Monsters of the
deep” is an example of the hackneyed periphrases in which he abounds,
like all men to whom language is a literary tradition, and not a living
gift of the Muses. “_Lash_” is precisely the wrong word. Chapman is
always great at sea. Here is another example from the Fourteenth Book:--
“And as, when with unwieldy waves _the great sea forefeels winds_
That both ways murmur, and no way her certain current finds,
But pants and swells confusedly, here goes, and there will stay,
Till on it air casts one firm wind, and then it rolls away.”
Observe how the somewhat ponderous movement of the first verse assists
the meaning of the words.