The Iliad (tr Edward, Earl of Derby) | Page 2

numerous similes, in which every touch is nature, and nothing is overcoloured or exaggerated, down to the simple, almost homely, style of some portions of the narrative. Least of all can any other metre do full justice to the spirit and freedom of the various speeches, in which the old warriors give utterance, without disguise or restraint, to all their strong and genuine emotions. To subject these to the trammels of couplet and rhyme would be as destructive of their chief characteristics, as the application of a similar process to the Paradise Lost of Milton, or the tragedies of Shakespeare; the effect indeed may be seen by comparing, with some of the noblest speeches of the latter, the few couplets which he seems to have considered himself bound by custom to tack on to their close, at the end of a scene or an act.
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 Hephaestus, 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 spirit of every passage, and of every line; omitting nothing, and expanding nothing; and adhering, as closely as our language will allow, ever to every epithet which is capable of being translated, and which has, in the particular passage, anything of a special and distinctive character. Of the many deficiencies in my execution of this intention, I am but too conscious; whether I have been in any degree successful, must be left to the impartial decision of such of the Public as may honour this work with their perusal.
D.
KNOWSLEY, OCT., 1864
NOTE TO THE FIFTH EDITION.
The favourable reception which has been given to the first Editions of this work, far exceeding my most sanguine hopes, affords a gratifying proof how far, in my preface, I had overrated the extent to which the taste for, and appreciation of, Classical Literature had declined. It will not, I hope, be thought extraordinary that some errors and inaccuracies should have found their way into a translation executed, I must admit, somewhat hastily, and with less of the "limae labor" than I should have bestowed upon it, had I ventured to anticipate for it so extensive a circulation. My thanks, therefore, are due to those critics, who, either publicly or privately, have called my attention to passages in which the sense of the Author has been either incorrectly or imperfectly rendered. All of these I have examined, and have availed myself of several of the suggestions offered for their correction; and a careful revision of the whole work, and renewed comparison with the original, have enabled me to discover other defects, the removal of which will, I hope, render the present Edition, especially in the eyes of Classical Scholars, somewhat more worthy of the favour which has been accorded to its predecessors.
D.
ST. JAMES'S SQUARE, May, 1885.
ARGUMENT.
THE CONTENTION OF ACHILLES AND AGAMEMNON.
In the war of Troy, the Greeks having sacked some of the neighbouring towns, and taken from thence two beautiful captives, Chryseis and Briseis, allotted the first to Agamemnon, and the last to Achilles. Chryses, the father of Chryseis, and priest of Apollo, comes to the Grecian camp to ransom her; with which the action of the poem opens, in the tenth year of the siege. The priest being refused, and insolently dismissed by Agamemnon, entreats for vengeance from his god, who inflicts a pestilence on the Greeks. Achilles calls a council, and encourages Calchas to declare the cause of it, who attributes it to the refusal of Chryseis. The King being obliged to send back his captive, enters into a furious contest with Achilles, which Nestor pacifies; however, as he had the absolute command of the army, he seizes on Briseis in revenge. Achilles in discontent withdraws himself and his forces from the test of the Greeks; and complaining to Thetis, she supplicates Jupiter to render them sensible of the wrong done to her son, by giving victory to the Trojans. Jupiter granting her suit, incenses Juno, between whom the debate runs high, till they are reconciled by the address of Vulcan.
The time of two-and-twenty days is taken up in this book; nine during the plague, one in the council and quarrel of the Princes, and twelve for Jupiter's stay among the Ethiopians, at whose return Thetis prefers