It may be esteemed presumptuous in the author of this volume to attempt
a translation of any part of Homer in blank verse after that of Cowper.
It has always seemed to him, however, that Cowper's version had very
great defects. The style of Homer is simple, and he has been praised for
fire and rapidity of narrative. Does anybody find these qualities in
Cowper's Homer? If Cowper had rendered him into such English as he
employed in his "Task," there would be no reason to complain; but in
translating Homer he seems to have thought it necessary to use a
different style from that of his original work. Almost every sentence is
stiffened by some clumsy inversion; stately phrases are used when
simpler ones were at hand, and would have rendered the meaning of the
original better. The entire version has the appearance of being hammered
out with great labor, and as a whole it is cold and constrained; scarce
any thing seems spontaneous; it is only now and then that the translator
has caught the fervor of his author. Homer, of course, wrote in
idiomatic Greek, and, in order to produce either a true copy of the
original, or an agreeable poem, should have been translated into
idiomatic English.
I am almost ashamed, after this censure of an author whom, in the main,
I admire as much as I do Cowper, to refer to my own translation of the
Fifth Book of the Odyssey. I desire barely to say that I have endeavored
to give the verses of the old Greek poet at least a simpler presentation
in English, and one more conformable to the genius of our language.
Page 315.
_The mock-grape's blood-red banner_, etc.
_Ampelopis_, mock-grape. I have here literally translated the botanical
name of the Virginia creeper--an appellation too cumbrous for verse.
Page 320.