REVIEW OF LITERATURE.

FLECTERÈ NON ODIUM COGÍT, NON GRATIA SUADET.

The Iliad, Odyssey, and Batrachomyomachia of Homer. Translated into English Blank Verse by the late William Corper, Esq. Second Edition, with copious Alterations and Notes. 4 Vols. 8vo.` 1802. Concluded from Page 324.

THE Odyssey of the illustrious bard now claims our attention. The action of this poem, which, like the Iliad, is composed of twenty-four books, is comprised in fifty-five days, in which are related the adventures of Ulysses, on his return to Ithaca, from the Siege of Troy.

Bossu has said, "that the design of the Iliad is to instruct the states of Greece, considered as united in one body, or as parts of the whole; and that of the Odyssey to instruct those same states, considered in their private capacities." A brief sketch of the fable is also given, as follows:

"A prince had been obliged to quit his country, and lead an army of his subjects upon a foreign expedition; after having gloriously executed this, he was upon his return home; but, in spite of all his endeavours, was detained for several years by tempests, which threw him on several countries very different from one another, as to manners, customs, polity, &c. In the dangers he had to struggle withal, his companions, neglecting his advice, all perish through their own default. In the mean time, the great men of his country, abusing his ab❤ sence, commit strange disorders in his palace, squander his treasure, lay snares for his son, and will needs force his wife to chuse a husband among them: all this from an opinion that he was entirely lost. But at length he returns §`and, having discovered himself to his son, and some others of his friends, who had persisted in their allegiance, he becomes an eye-witness of the insolence of his courtiers; punishes them as they deserved; and restores that peace and tranquillity to his island, which had been banished during his absence."

Very different from Bossu's opinion of the design of the Odyssey, is that of Gerard Croes, the Dutchman alluded to in our review of the Iliad, who would have made it appear that Homer's principal end, in his Odyssey, was to give a recital of all that is recorded in scripture, from the time of Lot's departure out of Sodom, to the death of Moses. Another penetrating writer, whose critical observations are of a similar nature, has been able even to apply the several characters in Homer to particular persons among the moderns, and has discovered that Evenis and Antinous are the typical repre sentatives of Calvin and Luther...

*The first part of this work was published at Dort in 1704, under the title Oungos Esparos. See Merrick's Dissertation, p. xlv.

3 C- VOL. XIV.

These, the absurd presumptions of a distempered imagination, are neither worthy of refutation, nor necessary to be refuted in any other way than a simple statement of them will tend to effect. To suppport his hypothesis, Croes, with every evidence of the fact against his supposition, is of opinion that the Odyssey was prior to the Iliad. Let Longinus, however, be heard on this head, as well as on the production, in various respects, of the poem itself which is now the object of our enquiry.

He observes, Sect. ix. megi vonσews: that the Odyssey was composed after the Iliad is apparent from many reasons, and, amongst others, from this, that the heroes in the former dwell on the calamities previously suffered in the Trojan war. He therefore considers the Odyssey in the light of an epilogue to the Iliad. In proof of the first assertion, he quotes these verses, from a speech of Nestor's, Od, 3, v. 109.

There warlike Ajax lies, there Peleus' son,
There, too, Patroclus, like the Gods themselves
In council, and my son beloved there!

COWPER.

The Iliad, says he, is written in the acme of spirit, if we may so literally translate «v æxpy svatos, and is a body entirely dramatic, and full of action; but the Odyssey, on the contrary, is for the most part narrative, which is a style peculiar to old age: so that you may compare the latter to the setting sun, whose intense ardour is no more, but whose magnitude still remains.

After speaking of his decline in this work, and of the incredible fables it contains, he adds, "But when I notice these, I am not forgetful of the tempests there described, and of other things.—And if I talk of old age, it is, however, the old age of Homer!! yngas δ' όμως Όμηξε.

Having prefaced thus much with regard to the nature of the Odyssey, and of its merits, we shall, before we proceed to give any specimens of the translation, take the liberty of recounting the pleas santries of some learned men, with respect to the works of Homer, and in particular with relation to that before us.

"Timolaus interpolated the Iliad, by adding to each verse of Homer one of his own; but Tryphiodorus is said to have pursued a quite contrary method, and to have composed a lipogrammatic Odys sey, from which he entirely excluded the letter sigma, or s. If this be true, says Fabricius, the author must have omitted the very name of Ulysses (Odurotus) from a poem of which he was the subject. One might be apt to think that this were impossible, and that

Eustathius, therefore, must be mistaken, were not the lipogrammatic work of Fulgentius still extant, the first book of which wants an A, and the second a B, though this gives us the history of Adam, and that of Abel.

Suidas affords a different account of this extraordinary performance. Esi yag ev Tw A, &c. "For in the first book," says he, “there is not an Alpha, or A, to be found, and in each rhapsody, the letter which marks the number of it is wanting.

Addison has, in the Spectator, touched on this jeu d'esprit with great felicity of wit and good humour. The passages are too long to transcribe, we must, consequently, on the present occasion, be content to refer the reader to Nos. 59 and 63 of that incomparable work.

We now come to the translation, from which we shall, in the first place, select a portion which, though simple, is in the original considered as one of the finest in Homer, and it has, perhaps, neither been, nor will ever be, more happily turned than in the subsequent lines:

At early dawn, Ulysses and his host,

Kindling the cottage fire, their food prepar'd,
And sent the peasants with their herds abroad.
The watch-dogs, while Telamachus approach'd,
Bark'd not, but fawn'd around him. At that sight,
And at the sound of feet, now drawing nigh,
Ulysses in wing'd accents thus remark'd:

"Eumæus! some familiar friend of thine,
Or other whom
om thou kuow't, is on his way
Toward us; for thy dogs bark not, but fawn
Around him; and his steps now strike mine ear.”
Scarce had he ceas'd, when his own son himself
Stood in the vestibule. Upsprang at once
Eumaus wonder-struck, and letting fall
The cups in which he then sat mingling wine,
Flew to his youthful lord, and, weeping, kiss'd
His hands, his forehead, and his radiant eyes,
As when a father folds in his embrace,
Arrived from foreign lands in the tenth year,
His darling son, the offspring of his age,
His only one, for whom he long hath mourn'd,
So kiss'd the noble peasant o'er and o'er

Godlike Telamachus! as one escap'd

From instant death, and, plaintive, thus he spake

COWPER, B. 16.

* Merrick in dissert. p.xvi. gives the whole article, and says it "is literally

transcribed from Suidas by the Empress Eudocia, in her Ionia (a MS. in the King of France's library) from which some extracts have been sent me."

If the observations of the Greek critic be just, with respect to the graceful simplicity of this passage, much favourable expectation could not be formed from Pope's version of it, if any existed ;* but indeed, after the decided opinion we have given, with reference to the two translators, we deem it unnecessary any more to make them enter the lists together. Having, then, dismissed this "flat and unprofitable” employment, we shall, in our future remarks, indulge a little in imitation of the innocent garrulity for which the venerable poet is often, in his present work, distinguished. Od. I. v. 32. Jove addresses the immortals :

How rash are human kind! who charge on us
Their suff'rings, far more truly the result

Of their own folly, than of our decrees.*

COWPER.

Setting aside the evident hit at astrologers in Shakspeare, is there not a great similarity between this speech of Jupiter's, and Edmund's in King Lear?

EDMUND. This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune, (often the surfeits of our own behaviour) we make guilty of our disasters, the sun, the moon, and stars; as if we were villians on necessity; fools, by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treacherous, by spherical predominance: drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an inforc❜d obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. Аст. 1, Ως ὁ μεν ενθ' απολωλεν, έπει πιεν ἁλμυρον ύδως. Od. 4. V. 511.

On this verse Cowper has the following pleasant note: "Homer, literally interpreted, says, So there he died, when he had drunk salt water. A line which, according to Eustathius, had place in none of the ancient editions, being rejected as too simple and even trivial, C. It was once, however, well chosen for his motto by a physician who wrote a treatise against the internal use of sea water. Vol. 1. p. 109.

And now Demodocus his tuneful chords
Adapted to a sprightlier strain, the loves
Of Mars and Cytherea chaplet crown'd;
How first, clandestine, they embrac'd beneath
The roof of Vulcan; her, by many a gift

* This, the 16th B. is by Broome, who with Fenton, translated together 12 books of the Odyssey, published in Pope's Homer.

These three verses are so precisely the three in the original, that we thought it needless to give the latter. Indeed we may any where take a passage from Cowper, and safely quote it with an "as Homer says ;" but he who ventures as much with Pope, will often be liable to ridicule and contempt.

Seduc'd, Mars won, and with adult'rous lust
The bed dishonour'd of the king of fire.

He sings how the sun

Op. 8.

a witness of their amorous sport

Bore swift the tale to Vulcan

who formed a net, and catching them, assembled the gods, when

infinite arose

The laugh of Heav'n

until Neptune urged the release of Mars

To whom the glorious artist of the skies.
Thou must not, canst not, shalt not be refus’d.
So saying, the might of Vulcan loos'd the snare,
And they detain'd by those coercive bands
No longer, from the couch upstarting, flew,
Mars into Thrace, and to her Paphian home
The queen of smiles, where deep in myrtle groves
Her incense-breathing altar stands embower'd,

Her there, the Graces lav'd, and oils diffus'd

O'er all her form, ambrosial, such as add

Fresh beauty to the gods for ever young,

And cloth'd her in the loveliest robes of Heav'n.

We have cited these passages, as well for the sake of the beauty of the translation, as for the purpose of observing, that Dionysius, of Halicarnassus, thinks it probable this ludicrous episode furnished the first hint of comedy.

On Ulysses' advice, in the ninth book, to put out the Cyclops' eye, Spondanus asks," Is he satisfied with such slight revenge for the loss of his six companions?" Clarke answers this by merely quoting the text, v. 303, which proves that if he had killed him, they must have all perished in the cave, as they could not displace the rock at the entrance. And Cowper observes that " to blind him was a severer punishment than to slay him. By deprivation of sight, his life is made more bitter to him than a thousand deaths. And I am not afraid to affirm, that this was the very consideration which determined Ulysses to act as he did, though the poet has not mentioned it." Now we would remark, that we think the poet's own feelings should be considered in this case. Of Homer, as of Demodocus, it may be said:

Την περι Μεσ' εφίλησε, διδε δ' αγαθόν τε κακον τες
Οφθαλμών μεν αμερσε, δίδει δ' ήδειαν αοίδην.

Od. 8.