The versions of Homer's _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ are numerous
but most readers who do not know Greek prefer the prose
rendering of the _Iliad_ by Lang, Leaf and Myers and the
prose version of the _Odyssey_ by Butcher and Lang. In
language that is almost Biblical in its force and simplicity
these scholars give far more of the spirit of the original
Greek than any of the translators in verse. Chapman's Homer
is known today only through the noble sonnet by Keats. It has
fine passages but it is unreadable. Cowper's Homer in blank
verse is also intolerably dull. The best blank verse
translations are by Lord Derby, William Cullen Bryant and
Christopher P. Cranch.
For supplementary reading on Homer these works will be found
valuable: Jebb, _Introduction to Homer_ (Glasgow, 1887);
Matthew Arnold, _Lectures on Translating Homer_; Andrew Lang,
_Homer and the Epic_ (London, 1893); Seymour, _Introduction
to the Language and Verse of Homer_ (Boston, 1889); Professor
J. P. Mahaffy's books on ancient Greece and Greek life will
be found helpful.
Virgil's _AEneid_ has been translated by many hands. Dryden
produced a fair version and William Morris, Cranch, Conington
and others have written excellent translations. Conington
furnished a good translation in prose.
Jowett's translation is the standard English version of
Plato, while good sidelights on the author of the _Republic_
and _Phaedo_ may be gained from Emerson's essay on Plato in
_Representative Men_ and from Walter Pater's _Plato and
Platonism_.
Professor A. J. Church's _The Story of the Iliad_ and _The
Story of the AEneid_ while intended for the young will appeal
to many mature readers.
No translation of Horace has ever been perfectly
satisfactory. The quality of the poet seems to elude
translation. Some of the most successful versions are
Conington, _Odes and Epodes_ (London, 1865); Lord Lytton,
_Odes and Epodes_ (London, 1869), and Sargent, _Odes_
(Boston, 1893); supplementary matter may be found in Sellar's
_Horace and the Elegiac Poets_ (Oxford, 1892).
Short sketches and critical estimates of all the great Greek
and Latin writers may be found in _The New International
Encyclopedia_ (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1904.). These
are written mainly by Harry Thurston Peck, for many years
Professor of Latin in Columbia University and conceded to be
one of the best Latin scholars in this country. They give all
the facts that the general reader cares to know with an
excellent bibliography of each writer.