LIBRARY OF OLD AUTHORS. 24! 



Hopkins, but it has the merit of length, and, where he is in the 

 right mood, is free,. spirited, and sonorous. Above all, there is 

 everywhere the movement of life and passion in it. Chapman 

 was a master of verse, making it hurry, linger, or stop short, to 

 suit the meaning. Like all great versifiers he must be read with 

 study, for the slightest change of accent loses the expression of 

 an entire passage. His great fault as a translator is that he 

 takes fire too easily and runs beyond his author. Perhaps he 

 intensifies too much, though this be a fault on the right side ; 

 he certainly sometimes weakens the force of passages by crowd 

 ing in particulars which Homer had wisely omitted, for Homer s 

 simplicity is by no means mere simplicity of thought, nor, as it 

 is often foolishly called, of nature. It is the simplicity of con 

 summate art, the last achievement of poets and the invariable 

 characteristic of the greatest among them. To Chapman s 

 mind once warmed to its work, the words are only a mist, sug 

 gesting, while it hides, the divine form of the original image o 

 thought ; and his imagination strives to body forth that, as he 

 conceives it, in all its celestial proportions. Let us compare 

 with Lcrd Derby s version, as the latest, a passage where 

 Chapman merely intensifies (Book XIII., beginning at the 86th 

 verse in Lord Derby, the 73rd of Chapman, and the 76th of 

 Homer) : 



Whom answered thus the son of Telamon : 

 My hands, too, grasp with firmer hold the spear, 

 My spirit, like thine, is stirred ; I feel my feet 

 Instinct with fiery life ; nor should I fear 

 With Hector, son of Priam, in his might 

 Alone to meet, and grapple to the death. 



Thus Lord Derby. Chapman renders : 



This Telamonius thus received : So, to my thoughts, my hands 

 Burn with desire to toss my lance ; each foot beneath tne stands 

 Bare on bright fire to use his speed; my heart is raised so high, 

 That to encounter Hector s self I long insatiately. 



There is no question which version is the more energetic. Is 

 Lord Derby s nearer the original in being tamer ? He has taken 

 the * instinct with fiery life from Chapman s hint. The original 

 has simply restless/ or more familiarly * in a fidget/ There is 

 nothing about grappling to the death, and nor should I fear 

 is feeble where Chapman with his long insatiately is literal. 

 We will give an example where Chapman has amplified his 

 original (Book XVI. v. 426 ; Derby, 494 ; Chapman, 405) : 



Down jumped he from his chariot : down leapt his foe as ligh ; 

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



