330 LIBRARY OF OLD AUTHORS. 



" And all in golden weeds 



He clothed himself; the golden scourge most elegantly done 

 He took and mounted to his seat; and then the god begun 

 To drive his chariot through the waves. From whirl-pits 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 axle-tree of brass no drop of water drew." 



Here the first half is sluggish and inadequate, but what 

 surging vigor, what tumult of the sea, what swiftness, 

 in the last ! Here is Lord Derby's attempt : 



" All clad in gold, the golden lash he grasped 

 Of curious work, and, mounting on his car, 

 Skimmed o'er the waves ; from all the depths below 

 Gambolled around the monsters of the deep, 

 Acknowledging their king; the joyous sea 

 Parted her waves; swift flew the bounding steeds, 

 Nor was the brazen axle wet with spray." 



Chapman here is truer to his master, and the motion is 

 in the verse itself. Lord Derby's is description, and not 

 picture. " Monsters of the deep " is an example of the 

 hackneyed periphrases in which he abounds, like all men 

 to whom language is a literary tradition, and not a living 

 gift of the Muses. " Lash " is precisely the wrong word. 

 Chapman is always great at sea. Here is another exam 

 ple from the Fourteenth Book : 



" And as, when with unwieldy waves the great sea forefeels winds 

 That both ways murmur, and no way her certain current finds, 

 But pants and swells confusedly, here goes, and there will stay, 

 Till on it air casts one firm wind, and then it rolls away." 



Observe how the somewhat ponderous movement of the 

 first verse assists the meaning of the words. 



He is great, too, in single phrases and lines : 



" And as, from top of some steep hill, the Lightener strips a cloud 

 And lets a great sky out of Heaven, in whose delightsome light 

 All prominent foreheads, forests, towers, and temples cheer the sight" 



(Book XVI. v. 286.) 



The lion " lets his rough brows down so low they hide 

 his eyes"; the flames "wrastle" in the woods; "rude 



