But Odysseus the mighty-hearted within he met not there,
Who on the beach sat weeping, as oft he was wont to wear
His soul with grief and groaning, and weeping; yea, and he
As the tears he was pouring downward yet gazed o'er the untilled sea."
This is close enough to the Greek, but
"_And flowing on in order four ways they thence did get_"
is not precisely musical. Why is Hermes "The Flitter"? But I have often
ventured to remonstrate against these archaistic peculiarities, which to
some extent mar our pleasure in Mr. Morris's translations. In his
version of the rich Virgilian measure they are especially out of place.
The "AEneid" is rendered with a roughness which might better befit a
translation of Ennius. Thus the reader of Mr. Morris's poetical
translations has in his hands versions of almost literal closeness, and
(what is extremely rare) versions of poetry by a poet. But his
acquaintance with Early English and Icelandic has added to the poet a
strain of the philologist, and his English in the "Odyssey," still more
in the "AEneid," is occasionally more _archaic_ than the Greek of 900
B.C. So at least it seems to a reader not unversed in attempts to fit
the classical poets with an English rendering. But the true test is in
the appreciation of the lovers of poetry in general.
To them, as to all who desire the restoration of beauty in modern life,
Mr.
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