Besides, except in the hands of a great master of song, blank verse is
apt to be tedious, and Lord Carnarvon's use of the weak ending, his habit
of closing the line with an unimportant word, is hardly consistent with
the stateliness of an epic, however valuable it might be in dramatic
verse. Now and then, also, Lord Carnarvon exaggerates the value of the
Homeric adjective, and for one word in the Greek gives us a whole line in
the English. The simple [Greek text], for instance, is converted into
'And when the shades of evening fall around,' in the second book, and
elsewhere purely decorative epithets are expanded into elaborate
descriptions. However, there are many pleasing qualities in Lord
Carnarvon's verse, and though it may not contain much subtlety of melody,
still it has often a charm and sweetness of its own.

The description of Calypso's garden, for example, is excellent:

Around the grotto grew a goodly grove,
Alder, and poplar, and the cypress sweet;
And the deep-winged sea-birds found their haunt,
And owls and hawks, and long-tongued cormorants,
Who joy to live upon the briny flood.
And o'er the face of the deep cave a vine
Wove its wild tangles and clustering grapes.
Four fountains too, each from the other turned,
Poured their white waters, whilst the grassy meads
Bloomed with the parsley and the violet's flower.

The story of the Cyclops is not very well told. The grotesque humour of
the Giant's promise hardly appears in

Thee then, Noman, last of all
Will I devour, and this thy gift shall be,

and the bitter play on words Odysseus makes, the pun on [Greek text], in
fact, is not noticed. The idyll of Nausicaa, however, is very gracefully
translated, and there is a great deal that is delightful in the Circe
episode. For simplicity of diction this is also very good:

So to Olympus through the woody isle
Hermes departed, and I went my way
To Circe's halls, sore troubled in my mind.
But by the fair-tressed Goddess' gate I stood,
And called upon her, and she heard my voice,
And forth she came and oped the shining doors
And bade me in; and sad at heart I went.
Then did she set me on a stately chair,
Studded with silver nails of cunning work,
With footstool for my feet, and mixed a draught
Of her foul witcheries in golden cup,
For evil was her purpose. From her hand
I took the cup and drained it to the dregs,
Nor felt the magic charm; but with her rod
She smote me, and she said, 'Go, get thee hence
And herd thee with thy fellows in the stye.'
So spake she, and straightway I drew my sword
Upon the witch, and threatened her with death.

Lord Carnarvon, on the whole, has given us a very pleasing version of the
first half of the Odyssey. His translation is done in a scholarly and
careful manner and deserves much praise. It is not quite Homer, of
course, but no translation can hope to be that, for no work of art can
afford to lose its style or to give up the manner that is essential to
it. Still, those who cannot read Greek will find much beauty in it, and
those who can will often gain a charming reminiscence.

The Odyssey of Homer. Books I.-XII. Translated into English Verse by
the Earl of Carnarvon. (Macmillan and Co.)

MR.