Numerous as have been the translators of the Iliad, or parts of it, the metres which have been selected are almost as various: the ordinary couplet in rhyme, the Spenserian stanza, the trochaic or ballad metre, all have had their partisans, even to that "pestilent heresy" of the so-called English hexameter; a metre wholly repugnant to the genius of our language; which can only be pressed into the service by a violation of every rule of prosody. . . . But in the progress of the work I have been more and more confirmed in the opinion that (whatever may be the extent of my own individual failure), if justice is ever to be done to the easy flow and majestic simplicity of the grand old poet, it can only be in the heroic blank verse.
I have adopted, not without hesitation, the Latin rather than the Greek nomenclature for the heathen deities. I have been induced to do so from the manifest incongruity of confounding the two; and from the fact that though English readers may be familiar with the names of Zeus, or Aphrodite, or even Poseidon, those of Hera, or Ares, or Hephæstus, or Leto would hardly convey to them a definite signification. It has been my aim throughout to produce a translation, and not a paraphrase: not indeed such a translation as would satisfy, with regard to each word the rigid requirements of accurate scholarship; but such as would. fairly and honestly give the sense and meaning of every passage, and of every line; omitting nothing, and expanding nothing; and adhering, as closely as our language will allow, even to every epithet which is capable of being translated, and which has, in the particular passage, anything of a special and distinctive character. -Preface to the Translation of the Iliad.
VULCAN FORGES THE ARMOR OF ACHILLES.
He left her thus, and to his forge returned; The bellows then directing to the fire,
He bade them work; through twenty pipes at once
Forthwith they poured their diverse-tempered blasts;
Now briskly seconding his eager haste,
Now at his will and as the work required.
The stubborn brass, and tin, and precious gold,
And silver, first he melted in the fire;
Then on its stand his weighty anvil placed;
And with one hand the hammer's ponderous weight
He wielded, while the other grasped the tongs.
And first a shield he fashioned, vast and strong,
With rich adornment; circled with a rim,
Threefold, bright-gleaming, whence a silver belt
Depended; of five folds the shield was formed;
And on its surface many a fair design
Of curious art his practised skill had wrought.
Thereon were figured earth, and sky, and sea,
The ever-circling sun, and full-orbed moon,
And all the Signs that crown the vault of heaven;
Pleiads, and Hyads, and Orion's might,
And Arctos, called the Wain, who wheels on high
His circling course, and on Orion waits;
Sole star that never bathes in the ocean wave.
And two fair populous towns were sculptured there;
In one were marriage, pomp, and revelry,
And brides, in gay procession, through the streets
With blazing torches from their chambers borne,
While frequent rose the hymeneal song.
Youths whirled around in joyous dance, with sound
Of flute and harp; and, standing at their doors,
Admiring women on the pageant gazed.
Meanwhile a busy throng the forum filled :
There between two a fierce contention rose,
About a death-fine; to the public one
Appealed, asserting to have paid the whole;
While one denied that he had aught received.
Both were desirous that before the judge
The issue should be tried; with noisy shouts
Their several partisans encouraged each.
The heralds stilled the tumult of the crowd.
On polished chairs, in solemn circle, sat
The reverend Elders; in their hands they held
The loud-voiced herald's sceptres; waving these,
They heard the alternate pleadings; in the midst
Two talents lay of gold, which he should take
Who should before them prove his righteous cause.
Before the second town two armies lay,
In arms refulgent; to destroy the town
The assailants threatened, or among themselves
Of all the wealth within the city stored
An equal half as ransom to divide.
The terms rejecting, the defenders manned
A secret ambush; on the walls they placed
Women and children mustered for defence,
And men by age enfeebled; forth they went,
By Mars and Pallas led; these wrought in gold,
In golden arms arrayed, above the crowd
For beauty and stature, as befitting gods,
Conspicuous shone; of lesser height the rest.
But when the destined ambuscade was reached,
Beside the river, where the shepherds drove
Their flocks and herds to water, down they lay,
In glittering arms accoutred; and apart
They placed two spies, to notify betimes
The approach of flocks of sheep and lowing herds.
These, in two shepherds' charge, ere long appeared,
Who, unsuspecting as they moved along,
Enjoyed the music of their pastoral pipes.
Then on the booty, from afar discerned,
Sprang from their ambuscade; and cutting off
The herds and fleecy flocks, their guardians slew.
Their comrades heard the tumult, where they sat
Before their sacred altars, and forthwith
Sprang on their cars, and with fast-stepping steeds
Pursued the plunderers, and o'ertook them soon.
There on the river's bank they met in arms,
And at each other hurled their brazen spears.
And there were figured Strife and Tumult wild,
And deadly Fate, who in her iron grasp
One newly wounded, one unwounded bore,
While by the feet from out the press she dragged
Another slain: about her shoulders hung
A garment crimsoned with the blood of men.
Like living men they seemed to move, to fight,
To drag away the bodies of the slain.
And there was graven a wide-extended plain
Of fallow land, rich, fertile meadow-soil,
Thrice ploughed; where many ploughmen up and down
Their teams were driving; and as each attained
The limit of the field, would one advance,
And tender him a cup of generous wine:
Then would he turn, and to the end again
Along the furrow cheerly drive his plough.
And still behind them darker showed the soil,
The true presentment of a new-ploughed field,
Though wrought in gold; a miracle of art.
There too was graven a cornfield, rich in grain,
Where with sharp sickles reapers plied their task,
And thick, in even swathe, the trusses fell;
The binders, following close, the bundles tied:
Three were the binders; and behind them boys
In close attendance waiting, in their arms
Gathered the bundles, and in order piled.
Amid them, staff in hand, in silence stood
The king, rejoicing in the plenteous swathe.
A little way removed, the heralds slew
A sturdy ox, and now beneath an oak
Prepared the feast; while women mixed, hard by,
White barley porridge for the laborers' meal.
And with rich clusters laden, there was graven
A vineyard fair, all gold; of glossy black
The bunches were, on silver poles sustained:
Around, a darksome trench; beyond, a fence
Was wrought, of shining tin; and through it led
One only path, by which the bearers passed,
Who gathered in the vineyard's bounteous store.
There maids and youths, in joyous spirits bright,
In woven baskets bore the luscious fruit.
A boy, amid them, from a clear-toned harp
Drew lovely music; well his liquid voice
The strings accompanied: they all with dance
And song harmonious joined, and joyous shouts,
As the gay bevy lightly tripped along.
Of straight-horned cattle too a herd was graven:
Of gold and tin the heifers all were wrought:
They to the pasture, from the cattle-yard,
With gentle lowings, by a babbling stream,
Where quivering reed-beds rustled, slowly moved.
Four golden shepherds walked beside the herd,
By nine swift dogs attended; then amid
The foremost heifers sprang two lions fierce,
Upon the lordly bull: he, bellowing loud,
Was dragged along, by dogs and youths pursued.
The tough bull's-hide they tore, and gorging lapped
The intestines and dark blood; with vain attempt
The herdsmen, following closely, to the attack
Cheered their swift dogs; these shunned the lions' jaws,
And close around them baying, held aloof.
And there the skilful artist's hand had traced
A pasture broad with fleecy flocks o'erspread,
In a fair glade, with folds, and tents, and pens.
There, too, the skilful artist's hand had wrought
With curious workmanship, a mazy dance,
Like that which Dædalus in Cnossus erst
At fair-haired Ariadne's bidding framed.
There, laying each on other's wrists their hand,
Bright youths and many-suitored maidens danced;
In fair white linen these, in tunics those,
Well woven, shining soft with fragrant oils;
These with fair coronets were crowned, while those
With golden swords from silver belts were girt.
Now whirled they round with nimbled practised feet,
Easy, as when a potter, seated, turns
A wheel, new fashioned by his skilful hand,
And spins it round, to prove if true it run;
About the margin of the massive shield
Was wrought the mighty strength of the ocean
The shield completed, vast and strong, he forged
A breast-plate, dazzling bright as flame of fire;
And next, a weighty helmet for his head,
Fair, richly wrought, with crest of gold above;
Then last, well-fitting greaves of pliant tin.
The skilled artificer his works complete
Before Achilles's goddess-mother laid;
She like a falcon, from the snow-clad heights
Of huge Olympus, darted swiftly down,
Charged with the glittering arms by Vulcan wrought.
-Iliad, XX., 528-700.
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