The Iliad
essay of Homer’s genius; others have attributed it to the same Pigrees,
mentioned above, and whose reputation for humour seems to have invited
the appropriation of any piece of ancient wit, the author of which was
uncertain; so little did the Greeks, before the age of the Ptolemies,
know or care about that department of criticism employed in determining
the genuineness of ancient writings. As to this little poem being a
youthful profusion of Homer, it seems sufficient to say that from the
beginning to the end it is a plain and palpable parody, not only of the
general spirit, but of the numerous passages of the Iliad itself; and
even, if no such intention to parody were discernible in it, the
objection would still remain, that to suppose a work of mere burlesque
to be the primary effort of poetry in a simple age, seems to reverse
that order in the development of national taste, which the history of
every other people in Europe, and of many in Asia, has almost
ascertained to be a law of the human mind; it is in a state of society
much more refined and permanent than that described in the Iliad, that
any popularity would attend such a ridicule of war and the gods as is
contained in this poem; and the fact of there having existed three
other poems of the same kind attributed, for aught we can see, with as
much reason to Homer, is a strong inducement to believe that none of
them were of the Homeric age. Knight infers from the usage of the word
deltos, “writing tablet,” instead of διφθέρα, “skin,” which, according
to Herod. 5, 58, was the material employed by the Asiatic Greeks for
that purpose, that this poem was another offspring of Attic ingenuity;
and generally that the familiar mention of the cock (v. 191) is a
strong argument against so ancient a date for its composition.”
Having thus given a brief account of the poems comprised in Pope’s
design, I will now proceed to make a few remarks on his translation,
and on my own purpose in the present edition.
Pope was not a Grecian. His whole education had been irregular, and his
earliest acquaintance with the poet was through the version of Ogilby.
It is not too much to say that his whole work bears the impress of a
disposition to be satisfied with the general sense, rather than to dive
deeply into the minute and delicate features of language. Hence his
whole work is to be looked upon rather as an elegant paraphrase than a
translation. There are, to be sure, certain conventional anecdotes,
which prove that Pope consulted various friends, whose classical
attainments were sounder than his own, during the undertaking; but it
is probable that these examinations were the result rather of the
contradictory versions already existing, than of a desire to make a
perfect transcript of the original. And in those days, what is called
literal translation was less cultivated than at present. If something
like the general sense could be decorated with the easy gracefulness of
a practised poet; if the charms of metrical cadence and a pleasing
fluency could be made consistent with a fair interpretation of the
poet’s meaning, his _words_ were less jealously sought for, and those
who could read so good a poem as Pope’s Iliad had fair reason to be
satisfied.
It would be absurd, therefore, to test Pope’s translation by our own
advancing knowledge of the original text. We must be content to look at
it as a most delightful work in itself,—a work which is as much a part
of English literature as Homer himself is of Greek. We must not be torn
from our kindly associations with the old Iliad, that once was our most
cherished companion, or our most looked-for prize, merely because
Buttmann, Loewe, and Liddell have made us so much more accurate as to
ἀμφικύπελλον being an adjective, and not a substantive. Far be it from
us to defend the faults of Pope, especially when we think of Chapman’s
fine, bold, rough old English;—far be it from us to hold up his
translation as what a translation of Homer _might_ be. But we can still
dismiss Pope’s Iliad to the hands of our readers, with the
consciousness that they must have read a very great number of books
before they have read its fellow.
As to the Notes accompanying the present volume, they are drawn up
without pretension, and mainly with the view of helping the general
reader. Having some little time since translated all the works of Homer
for another publisher, I might have brought a large amount of
accumulated matter, sometimes of a critical character, to bear upon the
text. But Pope’s version was no field for such a display; and my
purpose was to touch briefly on antiquarian or mythological allusions,
to notice occasionally _some_ departures from the original, and to give
a few parallel passages from our English Homer, Milton. In the latter
task I cannot pretend to novelty, but I trust that my other
annotations, while utterly disclaiming high scholastic views, will be
found to convey as much as is wanted; at least, as far as the necessary
limits of these volumes could be expected to admit. To write a
commentary on Homer is not my present aim; but if I have made Pope’s
translation a little more entertaining and instructive to a mass of
miscellaneous readers, I shall consider my wishes satisfactorily
accomplished.
THEODORE ALOIS BUCKLEY.
_Christ Church_.
POPE’S PREFACE TO THE ILIAD OF HOMER
Homer is universally allowed to have had the greatest invention of any
writer whatever. The praise of judgment Virgil has justly contested
with him, and others may have their pretensions as to particular
excellences; but his invention remains yet unrivalled. Nor is it a
wonder if he has ever been acknowledged the greatest of poets, who most
excelled in that which is the very foundation of poetry. It is the
invention that, in different degrees, distinguishes all great geniuses:
the utmost stretch of human study, learning, and industry, which
masters everything besides, can never attain to this. It furnishes art
with all her materials, and without it judgment itself can at best but
“steal wisely:” for art is only like a prudent steward that lives on
managing the riches of nature. Whatever praises may be given to works
of judgment, there is not even a single beauty in them to which the
invention must not contribute: as in the most regular gardens, art can
only reduce beauties of nature to more regularity, and such a figure,
which the common eye may better take in, and is, therefore, more
entertained with. And, perhaps, the reason why common critics are
inclined to prefer a judicious and methodical genius to a great and
fruitful one, is, because they find it easier for themselves to pursue
their observations through a uniform and bounded walk of art, than to
comprehend the vast and various extent of nature.
Our author’s work is a wild paradise, where, if we cannot see all the
beauties so distinctly as in an ordered garden, it is only because the
number of them is infinitely greater. It is like a copious nursery,
which contains the seeds and first productions of every kind, out of
which those who followed him have but selected some particular plants,
each according to his fancy, to cultivate and beautify. If some things
are too luxuriant it is owing to the richness of the soil; and if
others are not arrived to perfection or maturity, it is only because
they are overrun and oppressed by those of a stronger nature.
It is to the strength of this amazing invention we are to attribute
that unequalled fire and rapture which is so forcible in Homer, that no
man of a true poetical spirit is master of himself while he reads him.
What he writes is of the most animated nature imaginable; every thing
moves, every thing lives, and is put in action. If a council be called,
or a battle fought, you are not coldly informed of what was said or
done as from a third person; the reader is hurried out of himself by
the force of the poet’s imagination, and turns in one place to a
hearer, in another to a spectator. The course of his verses resembles
that of the army he describes,
Οἵδ’ ἄῤ ἴσαν, ὡσεί τε πυρὶ χθὼν πἆσα νέμοιτο.
“They pour along like a fire that sweeps the whole earth before it.” It
is, however, remarkable, that his fancy, which is everywhere vigorous,
is not discovered immediately at the beginning of his poem in its
fullest splendour: it grows in the progress both upon himself and
others, and becomes on fire, like a chariot-wheel, by its own rapidity.
Exact disposition, just thought, correct elocution, polished numbers,
may have been found in a thousand; but this poetic fire, this “vivida
vis animi,” in a very few. Even in works where all those are imperfect
or neglected, this can overpower criticism, and make us admire even
while we disapprove. Nay, where this appears, though attended with
absurdities, it brightens all the rubbish about it, till we see nothing
but its own splendour. This fire is discerned in Virgil, but discerned
as through a glass, reflected from Homer, more shining than fierce, but
everywhere equal and constant: in Lucan and Statius it bursts out in
sudden, short, and interrupted flashes: In Milton it glows like a
furnace kept up to an uncommon ardour by the force of art: in
Shakspeare it strikes before we are aware, like an accidental fire from
heaven: but in Homer, and in him only, it burns everywhere clearly and
everywhere irresistibly.
I shall here endeavour to show how this vast invention exerts itself in
a manner superior to that of any poet through all the main constituent
parts of his work: as it is the great and peculiar characteristic which
distinguishes him from all other authors.
This strong and ruling faculty was like a powerful star, which, in the
violence of its course, drew all things within its vortex. It seemed
not enough to have taken in the whole circle of arts, and the whole
compass of nature, to supply his maxims and reflections; all the inward
passions and affections of mankind, to furnish his characters: and all
the outward forms and images of things for his descriptions: but
wanting yet an ampler sphere to expatiate in, he opened a new and
boundless walk for his imagination, and created a world for himself in
the invention of fable. That which Aristotle calls “the soul of
poetry,” was first breathed into it by Homer. I shall begin with
considering him in his part, as it is naturally the first; and I speak
of it both as it means the design of a poem, and as it is taken for
fiction.
Fable may be divided into the probable, the allegorical, and the
marvellous. The probable fable is the recital of such actions as,
though they did not happen, yet might, in the common course of nature;
or of such as, though they did, became fables by the additional
episodes and manner of telling them. Of this sort is the main story of
an epic poem, “The return of Ulysses, the settlement of the Trojans in
Italy,” or the like. That of the Iliad is the “anger of Achilles,” the
most short and single subject that ever was chosen by any poet. Yet
this he has supplied with a vaster variety of incidents and events, and
crowded with a greater number of councils, speeches, battles, and
episodes of all kinds, than are to be found even in those poems whose
schemes are of the utmost latitude and irregularity. The action is
hurried on with the most vehement spirit, and its whole duration
employs not so much as fifty days. Virgil, for want of so warm a
genius, aided himself by taking in a more extensive subject, as well as
a greater length of time, and contracting the design of both Homer’s
poems into one, which is yet but a fourth part as large as his. The
other epic poets have used the same practice, but generally carried it
so far as to superinduce a multiplicity of fables, destroy the unity of