The Iliad of Homer | Page 6

also every where used an unabbreviated fullness of phrase as most
suited to the nature of the work, and, above all, have studied perspicuity, not only
because verse is good for little that wants it, but because HOMER is the most perspicuous
of all poets.
In all difficult places I have consulted the best commentators, and where they have
differed, or have given, as is often the case, a variety of solutions, I have ever exercised
my best judgment, and selected that which appears, at least to myself, the most probable
interpretation. On this ground, and on account of the fidelity which I have already
boasted, I may venture, I believe, to recommend my work as promising some usefulness
to young students of the original.
The passages which will be least noticed, and possibly not at all, except by those who
shall wish to find me at a fault, are those which have cost me abundantly the most labor.
It is difficult to kill a sheep with dignity in a modern language, to flay and to prepare it
for the table, detailing every circumstance of the process. Difficult also, without sinking
below the level of poetry, to harness mules to a wagon, particularizing every article of
their furniture, straps, rings, staples, and even the tying of the knots that kept all together.
HOMER, who writes always to the eye, with all his sublimity and grandeur, has the
minuteness of a Flemish painter.
But in what degree I have succeeded in my version either of these passages, and such as
these, or of others more buoyant and
above-ground, and especially of the most sublime,
is now submitted to the decision of the reader, to whom I am ready enough to confess that
I have not at all consulted their approbation, who account nothing grand that is not turgid,
or elegant that is not bedizened with metaphor.
I purposely decline all declamation on the merits of HOMER, because a translator's
praises of his author are liable to a suspicion of dotage, and because it were impossible to
improve on those which this author has received already. He has been the wonder of all
countries that his works have ever reached, even deified by the greatest names of
antiquity, and in some places actually worshipped. And to say truth, were it possible that
mere man could entitle himself by pre-eminence of any kind to divine honors, Homer's
astonishing powers seem to have given him the best pretensions.
I cannot conclude without due acknowledgments to the best critic in HOMER I have ever
met with, the learned and ingenious Mr. FUSELI. Unknown as he was to me when I
entered on this arduous undertaking (indeed to this moment I have never seen him) he yet
voluntarily and generously offered himself as my revisor. To his classical taste and just
discernment I have been indebted for the discovery of many blemishes in my own work,
and of beauties, which would otherwise have escaped me, in the original. But his

necessary avocations would not suffer him to accompany me farther than to the latter
books of the Iliad, a circumstance which I fear my readers, as well as myself, will regret
with too much reason.[1]
I have obligations likewise to many friends, whose names, were it proper to mention
them here, would do me great honor. They have encouraged me by their approbation,
have assisted me with valuable books, and have eased me of almost the whole labor of
transcribing.
And now I have only to regret that my pleasant work is ended. To the illustrious Greek I
owe the smooth and easy flight of many thousand hours. He has been my companion at
home and abroad, in the study, in the garden, and in the field; and no measure of success,
let my labors succeed as they may, will ever compensate to me the loss of the innocent
luxury that I have enjoyed, as a translator of HOMER.
Footnote:
1. Some of the few notes subjoined to my translation of the Odyssey
are by Mr. FUSELI, who had a short opportunity to peruse the MSS. while the Iliad was
printing. They are marked with his initial.
PREFACE
PREPARED BY MR. COWPER,
FOR A