The
Iliad of Homer
translated by James Macpherson
London 1773
[Sample
from the Opening of the Poem]
BOOK
I.
The wrath of the son of Peleus,—O goddess of song, unfold! The deadly wrath of Achilles: To Greece the source of many woes! Which peopled the regions of death,—with shades of heroes untimely slain: While pale they lay along the shore: Torn by beasts and birds of prey: But such was the will of Jove! Begin the verse, from the source of rage,—between Achilles and the sovereign of men.
WHO
of the gods was HE? Who
kindled rage between the chiefs? Who,
but the son of Latona and high-thundering Jove? HE—rouzed
to wrath against the king,—threw death and disease, among the host. The
people perished before him. The
son of Atreus had dishonoured his priest. White-haired,
the aged Chryses came—to the swift ships of the Argive powers. He
came to redeem his daughter. The
high-prized ransom is borne before. In
his hands is the wreath of the god,—the golden scepter of far-shooting Phœbus. The
aged suppliant, Greece addressed,—but most addressed the sons of Atreus: The
two leaders of the nations in war!
“SONS
of Atreus!” he said: “Other warriors of Achaia hear! May
the gods crown all your desires! May
the deathless dwellers of heaven give ear,—and grant to YOU, the city of
Priam: With a safe return to your native land. But
release my much-loved daughter. Receive
her ransom from these hands. Revere
the son of thundering Jove: Apollo, who shoots from afar!”
APPLAUDING
Greece arose around. The
holy man they all revered. They
wished to take the splendid prize. But
the soul of Agamemnon refused. HIM
he dismissed with contempt,—and thus added threats to his rage:—“Take
heed, I say, old man! Lest
that scepter, that wreath of thy god,—should not in ought avail. HER
I will never release,—till age her lovely form invades,—within our lofty
halls in Argos,—far from her native land: While she runs o’er the web—and
ascends the bed of her lord. Hence! Provoke
me not—that safe thou may’st still retire.”
HE,
frowning, spoke: The
old man feared,—and shrunk from his high commands. Sad,
silent, slow, he took his way,—along the wide-resounding main. Apart
and distant from the host,—he poured his mournful soul in prayer: He
poured it forth to bowyer Phœbus,—whom the long-haired Latona bore.
“HEAR,
bearer of the splendid bow! Guardian
of Chrysa, of Cilla, the divine! Thou
that o’er Tenedos reign’st with fame! O
Smintheus, hear my prayer! If
ever with wreaths I adorned,—O Phœbus! Thy beauteous fane: If
ever thine altars smoked with offerings—from the flocks and herds of Chryses: If
ME thou regardest in ought—O Phœbus, hear
my prayer! Punish
Greece for these tears of mine. Send
thy deadly arrow abroad.”
HE
praying spoke. Apollo
heard. He
descended, from heaven, enraged in soul. On
his shoulders his bow is hung: His quiver filled with deadly shafts: Which
harshly rattled, as he strode in his wrath. Like
Night he is borne along: Then
darkly-sitting, apart from the host,—he sends an arrow abroad. The
bright bow emits a dreadful sound,—as the shaft flies, unseen, from the
string. Mules,
first, the angry god invades: Then
fleetly-bounding dogs are slain: Soon,
on the heroes themselves,—the death-devoting arrow falls. The
frequent piles are flaming to heaven.
Review Comment
Macpherson
is particularly impressed with the “simplicity” of Homer and, in his
introduction, observes that contemporary taste in poetry does not allow poetical
translators to deliver that aspect of the original: “The best translators have
not . . . occupied the whole ground. The
simplicity, the gravity, the characteristical diction, and perhaps, a great part
of the dignity of Homer, are left untouched. They have
rendered the father of poetry, in a great measure, their own: And,
in stripping him of his ancient weeds, they have made him too much of a modern
beau.” By
choosing prose, Macpherson hopes he has been faithful to the simplicity of
expression and smoothness of language of the original and assures us that he has
“translated the Greek VERBATIM.” The
result is an English style which must be among the simplest and most
straightforward ever attempted, with no attempt to involve traditional
“poetical” effects from the past or the present. Typically,
Macpherson keeps the clauses so short (with sentences often broken up by
punctuation into even shorter units) that the effect is one of continuously
stopping and starting, a technique which, for all its extreme clarity and
directness, prevents the Homeric lines from accumulating much momentum as a long
sentence unwinds (a common feature of the Homeric simile and some of the battle
descriptions) and creates a certain monotony in the sentence structure. But
the prose is for the most part accurate, energetic, and free from artifice.
To
access the Volume I of the Macpherson translation, click on the following link: MacphersonIliad.
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