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And put to fire; which, roasted well, they drew. The labour done,

They served the feast in, that fed all to satisfaction.

Desire of meat and wine thus quench'd, the youths crown'd cups of wine Drunk off, and fill'd again to all. That day was held divine,

And spent in pæans to the Sun, who heard with pleased ear;

When whose bright chariot stoop'd to sea, and twilight hid the clear,

All soundly on their cables slept, even til the night was worn.

And when the lady of the light, the rosyfinger'd Morn,

Rose from the hills, all fresh arose, and to the camp retired.

Apollo with a fore-right wind their swelling bark inspired.

The top-mast hoisted, milk-white sails on his round breast they put,

The mizens strooted with the gale, the ship her course did cut

So swiftly that the parted waves against her

ribs did rore; [aloft the sandy shore, Which, coming to the camp, they drew Where, laid on stocks, each soldier kept his quarter as before.

But Peleus' son, swift-foot Achilles, at his swift ships sate, Burning in wrath, nor ever came to councils of estate

That make men honour'd; never trod the fierce embattail'd field,

But kept close, and his loved heart pined: what fight and cries could yield Thirsting at all parts to the host. And now, since first he told

His wrongs to Thetis, twelve fair morns their ensigns did unfold,

And then the ever-living gods mounted Olympus, Jove

First in ascension. Thetis then, remember'd well to move

Achilles' motion, rose from sea, and, by the morn's first light,

The great heaven and Olympus climb'd; where, in supremest height Of all that many-headed hill, she saw the far-seen son [seat alone. Of Saturn, set from all the rest, in his free Before whom, on her own knees fall'n, the knees of Jupiter

Her left hand held, her right his chin, and thus she did prefer

Her son's petition: "Father Jove! If ever
I have stood
[implored good
Aidful to thee in word or work, with this

Requite my aid, renown my son, since in so short a race

(Past others) thou confinest his life. An insolent disgrace

Is done him by the king of men; he forced from him a prize

Won with his sword. But thou, O Jove, that art most strong, most wise, Honour my son for my sake; add strength to the Trojans' side

By his side's weakness in his want; and see Troy amplified

In conquest, so much, and so long, till Greece may give again

The glory reft him, and the more illustrate the free reign

Of his wrong'd honour." Jove at this sate silent; not a word

In

Thetis still

long space pass'd him. hung on his knee, implored The second time his help, and said: "Grant, or deny my suit,

Be free in what thou doest; I know, thou canst not sit thus mute

For fear of any; speak, deny, that so I may be sure,

Of all heaven's Goddesses 'tis I, that only must endure

Dishonour by thee." Jupiter, the great cloud-gatherer, grieved

With thought of what a world of griefs this suit ask'd, being achieved; Swell'd, sigh'd, and answer'd: "Works of death thou urgest. O, at this Juno will storm, and all my powers inflame with contumelies.

Ever she wrangles, charging me in ear of all the Gods

That I am partial still, that I add the displeasing odds

Begone then, lest

Of my aid to the Ilians. she see; Leave thy request to my care; yet, that trust may hearten thee

With thy desire's grant, and my power to give it act approve

How vain her strife is, to thy prayer my eminent head shall move; Which is the great sign of my will with all th' immortal states; [rates Irrevocable; never fails; never without the Of all powers else; when my head bows, all heads bow with it still

As their first mover; and gives power to any work I will."

He said; and his black eyebrows bent; above his deathless head

Th' ambrosian curls flow'd; great heaven shook; and both were severed,

Their counsels broken. To the depth of

Neptune's kingdom dived

Thetis from heaven's height; Jove arose;

and all the Gods received

(All rising from their thrones) their Sire,

attending to his court.

None sate when he rose, none delay'd the furnishing his port

Till he came near; all met with him, and brought him to his throne.

Nor sate great Juno ignorant, when she beheld alone

Old Nereus' silver-footed seed with Jove, that she had brought

Counsels to heaven; and straight her tongue had teeth in it, that wrought This sharp invective: "Who was that (thou craftiest counsellor

Of all the Gods) that so apart some secret did implore?

Ever, apart from me, thou lovest to counsel and decree

Things of more close trust than thou

think'st are fit t' impart to me. Whatever thou determinest, I must ever be denied [speech thus replied The knowledge of it by thy will." To her The Father both of men and Gods: "Have never hope to know

My whole intentions, though my wife; it fits not, nor would show Well to thine own thoughts; but what fits thy woman's ear to hear, Woman, nor man, nor God, shall know before it grace thine ear.

Yet what, apart from men and Gods, I please to know, forbear

T' examine, or inquire of that." She with the cow's fair eyes,

Respected Juno, this return'd: "Austere king of the skies, What hast thou utter'd?

before this time inquire,

Or sift thy counsels?

When did I

Passing close you

are still. Your desire

Is served with such care, that I fear you can scarce vouch the deed That makes it public, being seduced by this old sea-god's seed, That could so early use her knees, em

bracing thine. doubt, [working out The late act of thy bowed head was for the Of some boon she ask'd; that her son thy

partial hand would please With plaguing others." "Wretch!" said he, thy subtle jealousies Are still exploring; my designs can never 'scape thine eye, [curiosity Which yet thou never canst prevent. Thy

Makes thee less cared for at my hands, and horrible the end [suspects intend, Shall make thy humour. If it be what thy What then? "Tis my free will it should; to which let way be given

With silence. Curb your tongue in time; lest all the Gods in heaven

Too few be and too weak to help thy punish'd insolence,

When my inaccessible hands shall fall on thee." The sense

Of this high threatening made her fear, and silent she sate down,

Humbling her great heart. All the Gods in court of Jove did frown

At this offence given; amongst whom heaven's famous artisan,

Ephaistus, in his mother's care, this comely speech began :

"Believe it, these words will breed wounds, beyond our powers to bear, If thus for mortals ye fall out. Ye make a tumult here

That spoils our banquet.

matters put down best.

Evermore worst

[blocks in formation]

And I, together, set; my life almost set
too; yet there

The Sintii cheer'd and took me up." This
did to laughter cheer
White-wristed Juno, who now took the cup
of him, and smiled.

The sweet peace-making draught went
round, and lame Ephaistus fill'd
Nectar to all the other Gods. A laughter
never left

Shook all the blessed deities, to see the lame so deft

At that cup service. All that day, even till the sun went down,

They banqueted, and had such cheer as did their wishes crown.

Nor had they music less divine; Apollo there did touch

His most sweet harp, to which, with voice,
the Muses pleased as much.

But when the sun's fair light was set, each
Godhead to his house

Address'd for sleep, where every one, with
art most curious,

By heaven's great both-foot-halting God, a
several roof had built.

Even he to sleep went, by whose hand
heaven is with lightning gilt,
High Jove, where he had used to rest when
sweet sleep seized his eyes;

By him the golden-throned Queen slept,
the Queen of deities.

COMMENTARIUS.

SINCE I dissent from all other translators, conference of their pains and mine be and interpreters, that ever assayed exposi- admitted. For induction and preparative tion of this miraculous poem, especially to which patience, and persuasion, trouble where the divine rapture is most exempt yourselves but to know this. This neverfrom capacity in grammarians merely, and enough-glorified poet (to vary and quicken grammatical critics, and where the inward his eternal poem) hath inspired his chief sense or soul of the sacred muse is only persons with different spirits, most ingenious within eye-shot of a poetical spirit's inspec- and inimitable characters, which not undertion (lest I be prejudiced with opinion, to stood, how are their speeches, being one dissent, of ignorance, or singularity) I am by another as conveniently and necessarily bound, by this brief comment, to show I known as the instrument by the sound? understand how all other extants under- If a translator or interpreter of a ridiculous stand; my reasons why I reject them; and cowardly-described person (being and how I receive my author. In which deceived in his character) so violates, and labour, if, where all others find discords vitiates the original, to make his speech and dissonances, I prove him entirely grave, and him valiant; can the negligence harmonious and proportionate; if, where and numbness of such an interpreter or they often alter and fly his original, I at translator be less than the sleep and death all parts stand fast, and observe it; if, I am bold to sprinkle upon him? Or where they mix their most pitiful castiga- could I do less than affirm and enforce tions with his praises, I render him without this, being so happily discovered? This, touch, and beyond admiration (though therefore (in his due place) approved and truth in her very nakedness sits in so deep explained, let me hope my other assumpts a pit, that from Gades to Aurora, and will prove as conspicuous. Ganges, few eyes can sound her), I hope yet those few here will so discover and confirm her, that, the date being out of her darkness in this morning of our Homer, he shall now gird his temples with the sun, and be confessed (against his good friend) nunquam dormitare. But how all translators, censors, or interpreters, have slept, and been dead to his true understanding, I hope it will neither cast shadow of arrogance in me to affirm, nor of difficulty in you to believe, if you please to suspend censure, and diminution, till your impartial

This first and second book I have wholly translated again; the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth books deferring still imperfect, being all Englished so long since, and my late hand (overcome with labour) not yet rested enough to refine them. Nor are the wealthy veins of this holy ground so amply discovered in my first twelve labours as my last; not having competent time, nor my profit in his mysteries being so ample, as when driving through his thirteenth and last books, I drew the main depth, and saw the round coming of this

silver bow of our Phoebus; the clear scope
and contexture of his work; the full and
most beautiful figures of his persons. To
those last twelve, then, I must refer you,
for all the chief worth of my clear dis-
coveries; and in the mean space I entreat
your acceptance of some few new touches
in these first. Not perplexing you in first
or last with anything handled in any other
interpreter, further than I must con-
scionably make congression with such as
have diminished, mangled, and maimed,
my most worthily most tendered author.
1 'Aidi mpotayev. didns (being compounded
ex à privativa, and eidw, video) signifies
locus tenebricosus, or, according to Virgil,
sine luce domus; and therefore (different
from others) I so convert it.

2 Κύνεσσιν, οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι (Διός, &c.) is the vulgar reading, which I read, Kúveσou οἰωνοῖσί τε (πᾶσι Διὸς δὲ τελείετο βουλή) because Tâσ referred to kúveσσw, &c., is redundant and idle; to the miseries of the Greeks by Jove's counsel, grave, and sententious.

3 'E§ оû în тà прŵта, &c., ex quo quidem primum: Here our common readers would have tempore understood, because Bovan (to which they think the poet must otherwise have reference) is the feminine gender. But Homer understands Jove; as in Tav, verse 273, he expounds himself in these words: àλλá rolɩ Zevs, &c., which Pindarus Thebanus, in his epitome of these Iliads, rightly observes in these

noted by any; I therefore answer, because
Juno is Goddess of state.
The allegory,
therefore, in the prosopopœia both of Juno
and Pallas, is, that Achilles, for respect to
the state there present, the rather used that
discretion and restraint of his anger. So
in divers other places, when state is
represented, Juno procures it; as in the
eighteenth book, for the state of Patroclus
his fetching off, Juno commands the sun
to go down before his time, &c.

7 Ως φάτο δακρυχέων: sic dixit lachrymans, &c. These tears are called, by our commentors, unworthy, and fitter for children or women than such an hero as Achilles; and therefore Plato is cited in iii. de Repub. where he saith, 'Optis apa, &c. Merito igitur clarorum virorum ploratus è medio tolleremus, &c. Το answer which, and justify the fitness of tears generally (as they may be occasioned) in the greatest and most renowned men (omitting examples of Virgil's Æneas, Alexander the Great, &c.), I oppose against Plato, only one precedent of great and most perfect humanity (to whom infinitely above all others we must prostrate our imitations) that shed tears; viz., our All-perfect and Almighty Saviour, who wept for Lazarus. This then, leaving the fitness of great men's tears, generally, utterly unanswerable, these particular tears of unvented anger in Achilles are in him most natural; tears being the highest effects of greatest and most fiery spirits, either when their abilities cannot perform to their wills, or that they are restrained of revenge, being injured, out of other considerations; as now the consideration of the state and gravity of the counsel and 4 Επευφήμησαν Αχαιοί, comprobarunt public good of the army-curbed Achilles. Græci all others turn it; but since Who can deny that there are tears of evonué signifies properly, fausta ac- manliness and magnanimity, as well as clamatione do significationem approba-womanish and pusillanimous? So Diomed tionis, I therefore accordingly convert it, wept for cursed heart, when Apollo strook because the other intimates a comprobation his scourge from him, and hindered of all the Greeks by word; which was not so, but only by inarticulate acclamations or shouts.

verses :

"Conficiebat enim summi sententia Regis,

Ex quo contulerant discordi pectore pugnas
Sceptriger Atrides, et bello clarus Achilles."

5 'Aμdißéßnkas audißeßáw signifies properly circumambulo, and only metaphoricè protego, or tueor, as it is always in this place translated; which suffers alteration with me, since our usual phrase of walking the round in towns of garrison, for the defence of it, fits so well the property of the original.

6 IIpò yàp ke Deà devкúdevos "Hpn. Pramiserat enim Dea alba ulnis Juno. Why Juno should send Pallas is a thing not

his horse-race, having been warned by Pallas before not to resist the deities; and so his great spirits being curbed of revenge for the wrong he received then. So when not-enough-vented anger was not to be expressed enough by that tear-starting affection in courageous and fierce men, our most accomplished expresser helps the illustration in a simile of his fervour, in most fervent-spirited fowls, resembling the wrathful fight of Sarpedon and Patroclus to two vultures fighting, and crying on a rock; which thus I have afterwards Englished, and here for example inserted :

THE FIRST BOOK OF HOMER'S ILIADS.

"Down jump'd he from his chariot; down leap'd his foe as light;

And as, on some far-seeing rock, a cast of
vultures fight,

Fly on each other, strike, and truss; part,
meet, and then stick by,
Tug both with crooked beaks and seres; cry,
fight, and fight, and cry.

So fiercely fought these angry kings," &c.

Wherein you see that crying in these eagerly-fought fowls (which is like tears in angry men) is so far from softness or faintness, that to the superlative of hardiness and courage, it expresseth both. Nor must we be so gross to imagine that Homer

27

&c., but, in the very point and sting of
made Achilles or Diomed blubber, or sob,
What ass-like
their unvented anger, shed a few violent
and seething-over tears.
impudence is it then for any merely vain-
where may read these inimitable touches
glorious and self-loving puff, that every-
of our Homer's mastery, anywhere to
oppose his arrogant and ignorant castiga-
tions, when he should rather (with his much
better understander Spondanus) submit
where he oversees him faulty, and say
thus; "Quia tu tamen hoc voluisti, sacro-
sanctæ tuæ authoritati me nihil de-
trahetur."

THE END OF THE FIRST BOOK.

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