Which Translation: The Odyssey

Charles Du Cane

1880 · Fourteeners

Features

IntroNotesGlossaryIndexBibliographyMapsIllustrationsGreek textGreek line numbersLine-by-lineBy Iliad translatorComplete
4
Holdings
0
Reviews

Biography

Sir Charles Du Cane KCMG (1825-1889) was a British Conservative politician, colonial administrator, and Governor of Tasmania. His first election to the House of Commons in 1852 was declared void after it was discovered that his agents had been involved in bribery.

Du Cane translated Books I-XII of the Odyssey into rhyming fourteeners (fourteen-syllable lines), consciously following the verse form of George Chapman’s Iliad. His edition includes extensive footnotes with quotations from other poets alluding to Homer.

Du Cane’s partial translation (only the first twelve books) received modest attention and is now notable primarily for his choice of meter, and for being the work of a colonial governor rather than a professional scholar.

Publication History

  • 1880 — William Blackwood and Sons, The Odyssey of Homer Books I-XII; translated into English Verse; with notes and parallel passages ★

The proem

1.1–11
Muse! of that hero versatile incline to me the song,
Doomed, when he sacred Troy had sacked, to wander far and long,
Who saw the towns of many men, much knowledge did obtain
About their ways, and with much woe was heart-wrung on the main,
Seeking his own life to preserve, his friends’ return to gain,
E’en so he rescued not his friends, though eagerly he strove,
For them their own infatuate deeds to direful ending drove,
Fools, who the sun-god’s sacred herds had ventured to devour,
Doomed by his anger ne’er to see of glad return the hour.
Sing, goddess, child of mighty Jove, of these events, I pray,
And from what starting-point thou wilt begin with me the lay.

Penelope's weaving trick

2.96–111
‘Chiefs, that my suitors are, since he, my godlike spouse, is dead,
Though eagerly ye sue and all desire with me to wed,
Until this robe I shall complete, before your suit to press,
Lest all the labour of my loom be brought to nothingness.
’Tis but a funeral-shroud that I for old Laertes make,
Against the hour when death shall bring the sleep whence none awake,—
That none of all our matrons here reproach may at me cast,
As well might be, were he, the lord erstwhile of riches vast,
Shroudless within his grave to lie like pauper at the last.’
She spake, and by her tale beguiled, our gen’rous hearts gave way.
So at the ample web she wove throughout the livelong day;
But in the night, when by her side the kindled torch did stand,
The woven labour of each day unravelled with nimble hand.
Three years she prospered in her wiles, and on the Greeks misled,
But when the fourth year came in on, as round the seasons sped,
Then one amidst her maids that knew, the secret brought to light,—
We found the queen unweaving fast the shining web by night.
Thus was thy mother brought at length her task-work to fulfil,
By stern necessity compelled, and sore against her will.

Calypso's double standard

5.118–131
“Spiteful and envious are ye gods, harsh above all,” she cried,
“Who aye a mortal partner grudge to an immortal’s bed,
If husband born of mortal race a goddess chance to wed.
So when Orion erst with love did beauteous Morn inspire,
Ye gods who live at ease thereat were filled with jealous ire,
Until her mighty hero-spouse was in Ortygia slain,
By Artemis the golden-throned, with her soft arrowy rain.
When great Demeter, fair-haired queen, did to her passion yield,
Wedding Iasius of yore, in thrice-ploughed fallow-field,
The news thereof was not for long from mighty Jove concealed.
Then, stricken by the wrathful sire with gleaming bolt, he fell—
So now ye gods grudge that with me a mortal spouse should dwell,
Whom, on a keel, lone castaway, I saved with mine own hand,

Weeping on Calypso's shore

5.151–159
Sitting with ever-tearful eyes she found him on the strand,
Wasting the sunshine of his life in tears for fatherland,—
For now no more the goddess nymph was pleasing in his sight,
Albeit compelled her couch to share throughout the weary night;
Unwilling, in her willing arms he lay, nor found delight.
By day upon the rocky shore his hours in grief he spent,
And ever on the barren sea his weeping eyes were bent.

Nausicaa finds Odysseus

6.127–141
From underneath the thickets crept the hero as he spoke,
And with his hand a leafy branch from the dense foliage broke,—
For fain would he his nakedness conceal from mortal sight.
As lion mountain-bred he went, which, trusting in his might,
Prowls forth, unheeding wind or rain, with fiercely burning eyes,
In hope to make some sheep, or goat, or sylvan stag, his prize.
E’en to the fold his belly’s need doth bid him force his way,
And on the crowded flock within a daring raid essay.
So in among the fair-tressed maids Ulysses boldly came
E’en naked as he was, for need was stronger then than shame.
Squalid with brine, a gruesome sight to them he did appear,
And, cow’ring, to the jutting spits they fled from him in fear.
Alone of all, Alcinous’ child stood firm upon the spot,—
For Pallas gave to her good heart, and limbs that trembled not.

War-widow simile

8.521–532
Thus sang the bard; Ulysses’ heart was melted at his strain,
And from his eyelids o’er his cheek the tears began to rain;—
As some fond weeping wife doth o’er her husband’s body fall,
In sight of his own people slain before the city wall,
Who in an effort vain his town and children dear to shield
From the remorseless day of fate, lies stretched upon the field;
And she, as she beholds him gasp in death’s last agony,
Her arms around him throws, and rends the air with piercing cry.
But striking with their lances’ shaft her shoulders, the stern foe
Force her with them to distant land a captive lorn to go,
Doomed the full bitterness of toil and sorrow there to taste,
And with her grief most pitiful her cheek doth pine and waste.
So wept the chief with bitter grief, and heaved full many a moan,

Cyclops eats the men

9.287–299
“I spake, of answer ne’er a word the ruthless savage made,
But started up, and his huge hand on my companions laid;
Seized two, and dashed them down like whelps upon the cavern floor,
That o’er the ground the brains ran out, in mingled stream of gore.
Rending them limb from limb, his meal he hasted to prepare,
And like a mountain-lion all devoured, and naught did spare.
Entrails and flesh alike he gorged, and marrowy bones beside,
Whilst we with upraised hands to Jove in tears and horror cried;
But helplessness and blank despair our senses stupefied.
But with my comrades’ flesh and blood when he at length had filled
His monstrous paunch, and after it pure milk in rivers swilled,
Along the cave his giant length he stretched amid his sheep,—

The Nobody trick

9.364–371
“Then thus in honeyed words I spake: ‘Dost ask me to declare
My name? I’ll tell thee,—nor do thou thy promised gift forbear.
Hearken then: Noman is my name; Noman thy guest they call,
My father and my mother dear, and these my comrades all.’
“But thus the ruthless-hearted one to me in answer spake:
‘Then I on Noman after all his kin my meal will make;
The others first shall serve my turn: this for thy guest-gift take.’

Circe recognizes Odysseus

10.325–336
“‘Who art thou, and whence com’st thou, say! thy race and city tell.
I marvel much that thou hast drunk, and yet withstood my spell.
For ne’er against those mighty drugs has man before been known,
When once between his lips the draught had passed, to hold his own.
But thou hast heart within thy breast proof against magic wile,—
Ulysses thou most surely be, that hero versatile,
Who Hermes of the golden wand hath aye foretold to me
Would hither in his swift ship sail from Troy across the sea.
Come, then, thy weapon in its sheath return, if this be so,
And straightway to the couch of love together let us go,
Thereon to pledge our mutual faith, and mutual bliss to know.’

Anticlea's shade

11.204–215
“She spake; and then my heart possessed with fond desire was fain
To seize, and in a close embrace her phantom to retain.
Thrice springing t’ward her, I essayed her well-loved form to grasp;
Thrice, as a shadow or a dream, did she elude my clasp.
Then sharper ever waxed the grief that surged within my breast;—
And finding voice, I thus her shade with wingèd words addressed:
“‘Ah, mother mine, wilt thou not here abide but one brief space,
For thy dear son, who longs to clasp thy form in his embrace,—
That e’en in hell we twain our arms may round each other throw,
And, mingling thus our tears, indulge and satisfy our woe?
Is this, then, but a phantom vain that Proserpine has sent,
That with exceeding grief I may more bitterly lament?’

Achilles in the underworld

11.488–501
“‘For death,’ he answered straight, ‘no words of comfort speak to me:
An hireling upon earth above much rather would I be,
And for some lackland master toil, whose substance is but small,
Than dwell a king amidst the dead, and lord it o’er them all.
But come, and of my noble son some news to me declare,—
Went he or not the war’s alarm in foremost rank to share?
And of the blameless Peleus, say, has mention reached thine ear?—
Doth he amongst the Myrmidons his royal honours bear?
Or do the tribes the old man’s rule disdain in Phthia’s land,
Now that old age upon his limbs has laid benumbing hand,
Nor I to champion him survive beneath the sunlight’s ray?
Would that I were once more as erst in Trojan battle day,
When fighting in the van of Greece Troy’s bravest ones I slew,

The Sirens' song

12.184–192
“‘Come hither, glory of the Greeks, far-famed Ulysses; stay
Thy vessel by our shore awhile, and listen to our lay.
For in dark ship no mariner has ever passed us by
Before his ravished ear has heard our song’s sweet melody,
But with his mind enriched with lore, has sailed away in joy.
Well know we all things that befell upon the plains of Troy;
All that the wrath of gods made Greek and Trojan undergo.
All that upon the fertile earth doth come to pass, we know.’

Hyperion's cattle

12.341–352
Hateful is every form of death that wretched mortals die—
Most hateful that which hunger brings, with long-drawn agony.
Come, let us now the choicest beeves of the great Sun-god take,
And with them to the gods above our sacrifices make.
And if we haply once again to our own isle shall fare,
Unto Hyperion will we rear a costly temple there,
And deck the mighty Sun-god’s fane with many an off’ring rare.
But if that for his cattle slain angered the god shall be,
And in his ire be moved to wreck our ship upon the sea,
I’d gulp the wave down once for all, rather than day by day
On this lone isle feel life and strength ooze drop by drop away.’