But before you nought will I wash me, for shame I have indeed,
Amidst of fair-tressed damsels to be all bare of weed.'
So he spake and aloof they gat them, and thereof they told the may,
But Odysseus with the river from his body washed away
The brine from his back and his shoulders wrought broad and mightily,
And from his head was he wiping the foam of the untilled sea;
But when he had throughly washed him, and the oil about him had shed
He did upon the raiment the gift of the maid unwed.
But Athene, Zeus-begotten, dealt with him in such wise
That bigger yet was his seeming, and mightier to all eyes,
With the hair on his head crisp curling as the bloom of the daffodil.
And as when the silver with gold is o'erlaid by a man of skill,
Yea, a craftsman whom Hephaestus and Pallas Athene have taught
To be master over masters, and lovely work he hath wrought;
So she round his head and his shoulders shed grace abundantly.

It may be objected by some that the line

With the hair on his head crisp curling as the bloom of the daffodil,

is a rather fanciful version of

[Greek text]

and it certainly seems probable that the allusion is to the dark colour
of the hero's hair; still, the point is not one of much importance,
though it may be worth noting that a similar expression occurs in
Ogilby's superbly illustrated translation of the Odyssey, published in
1665, where Charles II.'s Master of the Revels in Ireland gives the
passage thus:

Minerva renders him more tall and fair,
Curling in rings like daffodils his hair.

No anthology, however, can show the true merit of Mr. Morris's
translation, whose real merit does not depend on stray beauties, nor is
revealed by chance selections, but lies in the absolute rightness and
coherence of the whole, in its purity and justice of touch, its freedom
from affectation and commonplace, its harmony of form and matter. It is
sufficient to say that this is a poet's version of a poet, and for such
surely we should be thankful. In these latter days of coarse and vulgar
literature, it is something to have made the great sea-epic of the South
native and natural to our northern isle, something to have shown that our
English speech may be a pipe through which Greek lips can blow, something
to have taught Nausicaa to speak the same language as Perdita.

The Odyssey of Homer. Done into English Verse by William Morris, author
of The Earthly Paradise. In two volumes. Volume I. (Reeves and
Turner.)

For review of Volume II. see Mr. Morris's Completion of the Odyssey, page
215.

A BATCH OF NOVELS

(Pall Mall Gazette, May 2, 1887.)

Of the three great Russian novelists of our time Tourgenieff is by far
the finest artist. He has that spirit of exquisite selection, that
delicate choice of detail, which is the essence of style; his work is
entirely free from any personal intention; and by taking existence at its
most fiery-coloured moments he can distil into a few pages of perfect
prose the moods and passions of many lives.