A long time under water: nor could get
In haste his head out, wave with wave so met
In his depression; and his garments too
(Giv'n by Calypso) gave him much to do,
Hind'ring his swimming: yet he left not so
His drenched vessel, for the overthrow
Of her, not him; but gat at length again
(Wrestling with Neptune) hold of her; and then
Sate in her bulk, insulting over death;
Which (with the salt stream, press'd to stop his breath)
He 'scap'd, and gave the sea again; to give
To other men. His ship so striv'd to live,
Floating at random, cuff'd from wave to wave;
As you have seen the North Wind when he drave,
In autumn, heaps of thorne-fed grashoppers,
Hither and thither; one heap this way bears,
Another that; and makes them often meet
In his confus'd gales; so Ulysses' fleet
The winds hurl'd up and down: now Boreas
Tost it to Notus; Notus gave it pass
To Eurus; Eurus Zephir made it pursue
The horrid Tennis.
We will next select the description of the passage of Neptune to his palace at Ogæ, from Chapman, and place by the side of it the version of Cowper, which may perhaps confirm some of our observations on that delightful poet's work.
"He tooke much ruth, to see the Greeks, by Troy, sustain such ill,
And, mightily incens'd with Jove, stoopt strait from that steep hill,
That shook as he flew off; so hard, his parting prest the height.
The woods and all the great hils near trembled beneath the weight
Of his immortal moving feet; three steps he onely took,
Before he far-off Ægas reach'd, but with the fourth it shook
With his dread entrie. In the depth of those seas he did hold
His bright and glorious palace, built of never-rusting gold;
And there arriv'd, he put in coach his brazen-footed steeds,
All golden man'd and pac'd with wings, and all in golden weeds
He cloth'd himself. The golden scourge, most elegantly done,
He tooke, and mounted to his seate; and then the god begun
To drive his chariot through the waves. From whirlpits every way
The whales exulted under him, and knew their king; the sea
For joy did open; and his horse, so swift, and lightly flew,
The under axletree of brasse, no drop of water drew.
And thus, these deathless coursers brought their king to th' Achive
Chapman.
"At once arising, down the rugged steep
With rapid strides he came; the mountains huge
And forests under the immortal feet
Of Ocean's Sov'reign trembled as he strode.
Three strides he made; the fourth convey'd him home
To Egea. At the bottom of th' abyss,
There stands magnificent his golden fane,
A dazzling incorruptible abode.
Arriv'd, he to his chariot join'd his steeds
Swift, brazen-hoof'd, and man'd with wavy gold;
Himself attiring next in gold, he seiz'd
His golden scourge, and to his seat sublime
Ascending, o'er the billows drove; the whales
Leaving their caverns, gambol'd on all sides
Around him, not unconscious of their king;
The sea clave wide for joy; he lightly flew,
And with unmoisten'd axle clave the flood.
Rapt by his bounding coursers soon he reach'd
The Grecian fleet."
Compare the force and beauty of this simile and description with the over-laboured and almost disgusting lines of Pope, which terminate in an exclamation as frigid as it is unnatural.
"And as an angler, med'cine for surprise
Of little fish, sits pouring from the rocks,
From out the crook'd horne of a fold-bred oxe;
And then with his long angle hoists them high
Up to the air; then slightly hurls them by,
When, helpless, sprawling on the land they lie:
So eas❜ly Scylla to her rock had rap'd
My woefull friends; and, so unhelp'd, entrap'd,
Struggling they lay beneath her violent rape;
Who in their tortures, desperate of escape,
Shriek'd as she tore; and up their hands to me
Still threw for sweet life. I did never see
In all my sufferance, ransacking the seas,
A spectacle so full of miseries."
"As, from some rock that overhangs the flood,
The silent fisher casts th' insidious food,
With fraudful care he waits the finny prize,
And sudden lifts it quivering to the skies:
So the foul monster lifts her prey on high,
So pant the wretches, struggling in the sky;
In the wide dungeon she devours her food,
And the flesh trembles while she churns the blood.
Worn as I am with griefs, with care decay'd;
Never, I never, scene so dire survey'd ;
My shivering blood, congeal'd, forgot to flow;
Aghast I stood, a monument of woe!"
We need only place the two following descriptions of the rising of the storm with Ulysses' fear, side by side, and leave the fair conclusion to our readers.
"This said, he (begging) gather'd clouds from land;
Frighted the seas up; snatch'd into his hand
His horrid trident; and aloft did toss
(Of all the winds) all storms he could engross.
All earth took into sea with clouds; grim Night
Fell tumbling headlong from the cope of light.
The east and north winds justled in the air;
The violent Zephir, and north making-fair,
Roll'd up the waves before them: and then bent
Ulysses' knees; then all his spirit was spent.
In which despair he thus spake: "Woe is me!
What was I born to? Man of misery!'
"He spoke, and high the forky trident hurl'd
Rolls clouds on clouds, and stirs the watery world,
At once the face of earth and sea deforms,
Swells all the winds, and rouzes all the storms:
Down rush'd the night; east, west, together roar;
And south, and north, roll mountains to the shore;
Then shook the hero, to despair resign'd,
And question'd thus his yet unconquer'd mind."
The trying of the bow by Ulysses is done in Pope's best manner; but we do not fear to state our conviction of the great superiority of Chapman.
"But when the wise Ulysses once had laid
His fingers on it; and to proofe survey'd
The still sound plight it held: As one of skill
In song and of the harp doth at his will,
In tuning of his instrument, extend
A string out with his pin, touch all, and lend
To every well-wreath'd string his perfect sound,
Struck altogether: with such ease drew round
The King the bow: then twang'd he up the string,
That, as a swallow in the air doth sing
With no continued voice, but, pausing still,
Twinkes out her scatter'd voice in accents shrill;
So sharp the string sung when he gave it touch,
Once having bent and drawn it. Which so much
Amaz'd the wooers, that their colours went
And came most grievously."
"Then, as some heavenly minstrel, taught to sing
High notes responsive to the trembling string,
To some new strain when he adapts the lyre,
Or the dumb lute refits with vocal wire,
Relaxes, strains, and draws them to and fro;
So the great master drew the mighty bow:
And drew with ease. One hand aloft display'd
The bending horns, and one the string essay'd.
From his essaying hand the string let fly
Twang'd short and sharp, like the shrill swallow's cry.
A general horror ran through all the race,
Sunk was each heart, and pale was every face."
The agreeable task of selection and comparison has betrayed us into so great a length, that we have no space left for a farther discussion of the various merits of Chapman, or the other translators of the Iliad and Odyssey. So much room has been taken up by extracts from Pope and Cowper, that we feel we have not done justice to Chapman, and may possibly recur again to his translations, in order to enter into a fuller and more detailed criticism upon his peculiar merits. We have made no quotations from the original Greek, because we write to the English reader, and not to the scholar, to whom, if he is inclined to consult it, a Homer is instantly accessible.
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