ART. II.—HOMER AND LONGFELLOW. LONGFELLOW is reported to have said that he longed to make a translation of Homer in the English hexameter. Had he done so, there is good reason for believing that we would have had a version of the "Iliad" closer to the charming rhythm, the simplicity, and the nobleness of the original than in any other version in the English language. In the poetic temperament of Longfellow we recognize an imaginative grace, a nobleness, a simplicity, a rapidity, an easy rhythmic diction that reminds us of these same peculiar excellences of Homer. He is less rapid than Homer and not as majestic; but if, after reading "Evangeline" and "Miles Standish," one should read the "Iliad" in the Greek text with a scholarly knowledge of that language, the reader would be justified in affirming that these were the writings of kindred epic poets. We do not claim that the modern American is the poetic equal of the ancient famous Grecian, but only that in the "Evangeline" and "Miles Standish," which are the poems that admit of a comparison with the "Iliad," he stands closer to Homer than any other writer of English epic. Matthew Arnold, in his essay "On Translating Homer," gives the following as his characteristic qualities: "He is eminently rapid; he is eminently plain and direct both in the evolution of his thought and in the expression of it; he is eminently noble." Then, as illustrating these qualities, he quotes a version of some lines of the "Iliad" rendered into English hexameter by Dr. Hawtry, Provost of Eton. It is a part of the speech of Helen, that "long-robed and divine of women," who is naming and describing the Greek leaders to Priam and his companions. Mr. Arnold cites the translation as producing in himself something of the feeling of the grace, the clearness, and the nobleness of Homer such as we may suppose to have been produced in a reader of the age of Pericles. We use it also as a specimen of the capacity of English hexameter for rendering the Homeric mode of thought and expression : 46 'Clearly the rest I behold of the dark-eyed sons of Achaia; Known to me well are the faces of all; their names I remember; Two, two only, remain whom I see not among the commanders— Castor, fleet in the car;-Polydeuces, brave with the cestus, Own dear brethren of mine,-one parent loved us as infants. Are they not here in the host from the shores of the loved Lacedæmon, Or, though they came with the rest in ships that bound through the waters, All for fear of the shame and the taunts my crime has awakened? The dactylic hexameter, in which the above is given, is the only metric form that will give a fair rendering of the easy, fluent, Homeric movement of expression. And in illustrating the epic kinship of these poets we cannot use Pope's translation, for that is not much more like the Homeric text than the tripping trochees of "Hiawatha" are like the metric measure of “Old Hundred." Pope's "Homer" is Pope's "Iliad," not Homer's. The Greek text is there with something left out and much put in, and expressed in a poetic style that conceals the directness and the simple grace of the original. To show the unfitness of Pope's style and his iambic measure to be a fitting transcript of the Homeric verse, we cite a passage from the interview between Achilles and Priam; the latter having come to the tent of the former to ransom the body of his dead son. The translation is given in hexameters, and we have sought in it for a fair fidelity to the Greek text, but not being a poet-either by the happy accident of birth or the laborious method of culturethe translation will lack something of the easy grace, the completeness, the imaginative richness that would come from the rendering of one "born with the golden stars above." We cite from Book XXIV, 564–567: "One of the gods has led thee to the swift-sailing ships of the Grecians, In the prime of his youth, for unnoticed the guards he could not pass, Pope's translation is in his tripping iambics: "Nor comest thou but by heaven; nor comest alone, This is poetic, but it is not Homeric; it has too much of the ballad mannerism, and that is decidedly un-Homeric. Bryant's 12-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. VI. translation has a much greater fidelity to the text, and its style is much more Homeric; but in using the iambic pentameter something of the peculiar rhythmic fluency of the dactylic measure is lost. The marked difference between Greek and English meter, in which quantity is replaced by accent, renders impossible the transfer of the Greek musical rhythm, based on quantity, to the English, based on accent. But, after all, the Homeric verse is best rendered, as to its movement, by the corresponding English measure, even though the use of trochees in place of dactyls, and other "metric misdemeanors," make occasional metric failures inevitable in the use of it. In regard to these poets we state the following points of likeness: (1) the simplicity and directness of thought and its expression, (2) the ease and grace of diction that keep out of sight the stiffness that often attends scholarly elaborateness, (3) the dignity that is in contrast with the fanciful and the grotesque, (4) the completeness of poetic pictures, (5) their use of similes; or, briefly, both are eminently clear, simple, direct, fluent, dignified, imaginative. Pope speaks of the "impetuosity" of the Homeric verse, and Arnold describes it as pre-eminently rapid; but, while we admit the rapidity, the "impetuosity" and "pre eminent rapidity" are terms entirely too strong for the rhythmic elegance of the "Iliad." The evolution of thought is rapid, but only as "Miles Standish" and "Evangeline" are rapid. Both poets are realistic; neither indulging in speculations as to the origin of the world, the nature of things, or the essence of mind. Homer is spoken of as one of the "ancient theologians," but he did not philosophize on the nature of the gods, but was rather the poetic reciter of the traditions concerning them. In the "Hymn to Apollo" the traditions as to his birth, deeds, person, and character are spoken of in the same realistic way with the events of the Trojan war. Longfellow also was too realistic-knew too well the limits of human knowledge-to affirm, after the style of mystics, even in his mood of strongest poetical inspiration, that the poet was one who "Saw thro' his own soul. The marvel of the everlasting will An open scroll Before him lay." Neither was given to comic humor. We accept Thersites in the "Iliad," that croaking reviler who was the 66 ugliest man that Came to Ilium, lame in one foot and bandy-legged was he; Round in the shoulders, that toward the breast were twisted, his head was Peaked at the top, whereon lay thin the woolly hair," but the humorous serio-comic poem, the "Battle of the Frogs and Mice," sometimes classed as Homeric, we no more attribute to him than we would assign "Hans Breitmann's Party" to Whittier. While we place the ancient Greek and the modern American as epic brothers in the same poetic guild, we recognize in the elder a pre-eminence in a peculiar air of majesty and a tone of masculine vigor, but not any notable pre-eminence of beauty, directness, simplicity, poetic grace, and nobleness. The terms Greek and American, as applied to these poets, indicate a fact of birthplace rather than any thing distinctively national. Both are cosmopolitan; not clannish or provincial. And although many centuries apart, although trained in diverse educational methods and taking as story-topics subjects differing as widely as the wrath of Achilles, a barbarian warrior, and the love of Priscilla and the wanderings of Evangeline, Christian maidens, and although taught under religious systems differing as radically as a credulous paganism differs from a rational Christianity, yet both have the same easy mastery of language, that is about equally enriched by the use of similes and other rhetorical forms of speech, and both are eminently clear, simple, direct, graceful, and dignified. In making a more direct comparison of their epic writings the Greek text should be translated into the English form that will best express the form and spirit, the rhythmic grace, and the poetic realism of the original. This can be best secured by the so-called English dactylic hexameter. We cite from the "Iliad" the assembling of the Greeks to take counsel as to the proposal to return to Greece and leave Troy untaken, and from Evange-. line the gathering of the people of Grand Pré to hear the commands of their English conquerors. Agamemnon, the leader of the Greeks, having been warned by Jove in a dream, summoned the people to an assembly, to which they came in excited and disorderly crowds. "As the bees by the multitude come and keep ever coming Out of the hollow rock, and in swarms darting hither and thither Them onward. Thus they were gathered, but gathered with wildest of tumult. He, on this leaning, thus spake to the Argives: 'O friends, servants of Ares, Hard to be borne, and cruel is he who did promise with an oath That I, having destroyed the strong-walled Troy, homeward should go." Continuing his speech, he roused so much excitement among them that "The assembly was moved like the waves of the sea of Ægeum Raised by the winds from the south and the east, that impetuous break out Swaying with billowy motions under the sweep of the strong wind: Thus the assembly was moved, and some with loud outcries Rushed to the ships, and from under their feet rose the dust-clouds, and others Channels were dug, and the clamor of those who were hastening homeward We cite a passage from "Evangeline" relating to the gathering of the people in the church to hear the decree of their expatriation. "Sounded the bell from the tower, and over the meadows a drum-beat. Thronged ere long was the church with men . . . Then came the guard from the ships, and marching proudly among them Entered the sacred portal. With loud and dissonant clangor Echoed the sound of their brazen drums from ceiling to casement- |