Which Translation: The Odyssey

William Cowper

1792 · Blank verse

Features

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198
Holdings
5
Reviews

Biography

William Cowper (1731-1800) was an English poet and Anglican hymnwriter. He was one of the most popular poets of his time, and is considered a forerunner of Romantic poetry, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge called him ‘the best modern poet.’

Cowper translated the Odyssey (1791) into Miltonic blank verse, aiming for a conscientiously literal rendering that preserved the plain, direct tone of the Greek original. He was motivated in part by what has been described as ‘an unshakable antagonism toward Pope’, and deliberately rejected Pope’s ornamental heroic couplets in favor of a style closer to Homer’s simplicity.

Matthew Arnold, in his Oxford lectures On Translating Homer (1861), singled out Cowper as exemplifying the dangers of applying Miltonic blank verse to Homer: ‘Between Cowper and Homer there is interposed the mist of Cowper’s elaborate Miltonic manner, entirely alien to the flowing rapidity of Homer.’ It was pronounced ‘dead’ as early as 1905 and has not received much attention since.

William Cowper on Wikipedia ↗

Publication History

  • 1791 — J. Johnson, The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, to which is added, The Battle of the Frogs and Mice; translated into English blank verse
  • 1802 — J. Johnson, The Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer; translated into English blank verse; second edition with copious alterations and notes prepared for the press by the translator and now published with a preface by his kinsman J. Johnson
  • 1816 — C. Whittingham / J. Sharpe, The Odyssey of Homer; translated into English blank verse (4th ed., rev. J. Johnson)
  • 1817 — Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, The Odyssey of Homer (4th ed., rev. J. Johnson)
  • 1820 — Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, The Odyssey of Homer; translated into English blank verse (Fifth edition)
  • 1837 — Baldwin and Cradock, The Odyssey of Homer; translated into English blank verse
  • 1843 — Harvey, The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer; with Commentary
  • 1855 — Bohn, Odyssey; translated; edited by Robert Southey (ed. Robert Southey)
  • 1910 — J.M. Dent / E.P. Dutton, The Odyssey of Homer; translated (Everyman's Library) ★
  • 1992 — Tuttle, The Odyssey [of] Homer; translated; introduced by Peter Levi; consultant for this volume Richard Stoneman (intro. Peter Levi)

Reviews

The proem

1.1–11
Muse make the man thy theme, for shrewdness famed
And genius versatile, who far and wide
A Wand’rer, after Ilium overthrown,
Discover’d various cities, and the mind
And manners learn’d of men, in lands remote.
He num’rous woes on Ocean toss’d, endured,
Anxious to save himself, and to conduct
His followers to their home; yet all his care
Preserved them not; they perish’d self-destroy’d
By their own fault; infatuate! who devoured
The oxen of the all-o’erseeing Sun,
And, punish’d for that crime, return’d no more.
Daughter divine of Jove, these things record,

Penelope's weaving trick

2.96–111
Princes, my suitors! since the noble Chief
Ulysses is no more, press not as yet
My nuptials, wait till I shall finish, first,
A fun’ral robe (lest all my threads decay)
Which for the antient Hero I prepare,
Laertes, looking for the mournful hour
When fate shall snatch him to eternal rest;
Else I the censure dread of all my sex,
Should he, so wealthy, want at last a shroud.
So spake the Queen, and unsuspicious, we
With her request complied. Thenceforth, all day
She wove the ample web, and by the aid
Of torches ravell’d it again at night.
Three years by such contrivance she deceived
The Greecians; but when (three whole years elaps’d)
The fourth arriv’d, then, conscious of the fraud,
A damsel of her train told all the truth,
And her we found rav’ling the beauteous work.
Thus, through necessity she hath, at length,
Perform’d the task, and in her own despight.

Calypso's double standard

5.118–131
Ye are unjust, ye Gods, and envious past
All others, grudging if a Goddess take
A mortal man openly to her arms!
So, when the rosy-finger’d Morning chose
Orion, though ye live yourselves at ease,
Yet ye all envied her, until the chaste
Diana from her golden throne dispatch’d
A silent shaft, which slew him in Ortygia.
So, when the golden-tressed Ceres, urged
By passion, took Iäsion to her arms
In a thrice-labour’d fallow, not untaught
Was Jove that secret long, and, hearing it,
Indignant, slew him with his candent bolt.
So also, O ye Gods, ye envy me
The mortal man, my comfort. Him I saved
Myself, while solitary on his keel

Weeping on Calypso's shore

5.151–159
She found him seated; tears succeeding tears
Delug’d his eyes, while, hopeless of return,
Life’s precious hours to eating cares he gave
Continual, with the nymph now charm’d no more.
Yet, cold as she was am’rous, still he pass’d
His nights beside her in the hollow grot,
Constrain’d, and day by day the rocks among
Which lined the shore heart-broken sat, and oft
While wistfully he eyed the barren Deep,
Wept, groaned, desponded, sigh’d, and wept again.

Nausicaa finds Odysseus

6.127–141
So saying, divine Ulysses from beneath
His thicket crept, and from the leafy wood
A spreading branch pluck’d forcibly, design’d
A decent skreen effectual, held before.
So forth he went, as goes the lion forth,
The mountain-lion, conscious of his strength,
Whom winds have vex’d and rains; fire fills his eyes,
And whether herds or flocks, or woodland deer
He find, he rends them, and, adust for blood,
Abstains not even from the guarded fold,
Such sure to seem in virgin eyes, the Chief,
All naked as he was, left his retreat,
Reluctant, by necessity constrain’d.
Him foul with sea foam horror-struck they view’d,
And o’er the jutting shores fled all dispersed.
Nausicaa alone fled not; for her
Pallas courageous made, and from her limbs,
By pow’r divine, all tremour took away.

War-widow simile

8.521–532
Ulysses melted, and tear after tear
Fell on his cheeks. As when a woman weeps,
Her husband, who hath fallen in defence
Of his own city and his babes before
The gates; she, sinking, folds him in her arms
And, gazing on him as he pants and dies,
Shrieks at the sight; meantime, the enemy
Smiting her shoulders with the spear to toil
Command her and to bondage far away,
And her cheek fades with horror at the sound;
Ulysses, so, from his moist lids let fall,

Cyclops eats the men

9.287–299
So I, to whom, relentless, answer none
He deign’d, but, with his arms extended, sprang
Toward my people, of whom seizing two
At once, like whelps against his cavern-floor
He dash’d them, and their brains spread on the ground.
These, piece-meal hewn, for supper he prepared,
And, like a mountain-lion, neither flesh
Nor entrails left, nor yet their marrowy bones.
We, viewing that tremendous sight, upraised
Our hands to Jove, all hope and courage lost.
When thus the Cyclops had with human flesh
Fill’d his capacious belly, and had quaff’d
Much undiluted milk, among his flocks
Out-stretch’d immense, he press’d his cavern-floor.

The Nobody trick

9.364–371
Cyclops! thou hast my noble name enquired,
Which I will tell thee. Give me, in return,
The promised boon, some hospitable pledge.
My name is Outis, Outis I am call’d
At home, abroad; wherever I am known.
So I; to whom he, savage, thus replied.
Outis, when I have eaten all his friends,
Shall be my last regale. Be that thy boon.

Circe recognizes Odysseus

10.325–336
Who? whence? thy city and thy birth declare.
Amazed I see thee with that potion drench’d,
Yet uninchanted; never man before
Once pass’d it through his lips, and liv’d the same;
But in thy breast a mind inhabits, proof
Against all charms. Come then—I know thee well.
Thou art Ulysses artifice-renown’d,
Of whose arrival here in his return
From Ilium, Hermes of the golden wand
Was ever wont to tell me. Sheath again
Thy sword, and let us, on my bed reclined,
Mutual embrace, that we may trust thenceforth
Each other, without jealousy or fear.

Anticlea's shade

11.204–215
She said; I, ardent wish’d to clasp the shade
Of my departed mother; thrice I sprang
Toward her, by desire impetuous urged,
And thrice she flitted from between my arms,
Light as a passing shadow or a dream.
Then, pierced by keener grief, in accents wing’d
With filial earnestness I thus replied.
My mother, why elud’st thou my attempt
To clasp thee, that ev’n here, in Pluto’s realm,
We might to full satiety indulge
Our grief, enfolded in each other’s arms?
Hath Proserpine, alas! only dispatch’d
A shadow to me, to augment my woe?

Achilles in the underworld

11.488–501
Renown’d Ulysses! think not death a theme
Of consolation; I had rather live
The servile hind for hire, and eat the bread
Of some man scantily himself sustain’d,
Than sov’reign empire hold o’er all the shades.
But come—speak to me of my noble boy;
Proceeds he, as he promis’d, brave in arms,
Or shuns he war? Say also, hast thou heard
Of royal Peleus? shares he still respect
Among his num’rous Myrmidons, or scorn
In Hellas and in Phthia, for that age
Predominates in his enfeebled limbs?
For help is none in me; the glorious sun
No longer sees me such, as when in aid
Of the Achaians I o’erspread the field
Of spacious Troy with all their bravest slain.

The Sirens' song

12.184–192
Ulysses, Chief by ev’ry tongue extoll’d,
Achaia’s boast, oh hither steer thy bark!
Here stay thy course, and listen to our lay!
These shores none passes in his sable ship
Till, first, the warblings of our voice he hear,
Then, happier hence and wiser he departs.
All that the Greeks endured, and all the ills
Inflicted by the Gods on Troy, we know,
Know all that passes on the boundless earth.

Hyperion's cattle

12.341–352
Death, however caused,
Abhorrence moves in miserable man,
But death by famine is a fate of all
Most to be fear’d. Come—let us hither drive
And sacrifice to the Immortal Pow’rs
The best of all the oxen of the Sun,
Resolving thus—that soon as we shall reach
Our native Ithaca, we will erect
To bright Hyperion an illustrious fane,
Which with magnificent and num’rous gifts
We will enrich. But should he chuse to sink
Our vessel, for his stately beeves incensed,
And should, with him, all heav’n conspire our death,
I rather had with open mouth, at once,
Meeting the billows, perish, than by slow
And pining waste here in this desert isle.

Argos recognizes Odysseus

17.324–328
He said, and, ent’ring at the portal, join’d
The suitors. Then his destiny released
Old Argus, soon as he had lived to see
Ulysses in the twentieth year restored.

Sleepless Odysseus

20.25–34
As when some hungry swain turns oft a maw
Unctuous and sav’ry on the burning coals,
Quick expediting his desired repast,
So he from side to side roll’d, pond’ring deep
How likeliest with success he might assail
Those shameless suitors; one to many opposed.
Then, sudden from the skies descending, came
Minerva in a female form; her stand
Above his head she took, and thus she spake.
Why sleep’st thou not, unhappiest of mankind?

Stringing the bow

21.404–412
So they; but when the wary Hero wise
Had made his hand familiar with the bow
Poising it and examining—at once—
As when in harp and song adept, a bard
Unlab’ring strains the chord to a new lyre,
The twisted entrails of a sheep below
With fingers nice inserting, and above,
With such facility Ulysses bent
His own huge bow, and with his right hand play’d
The nerve, which in its quick vibration sang
Clear as the swallow’s voice.

Odysseus reveals himself

22.1–8
Then, girding up his rags, Ulysses sprang
With bow and full-charged quiver to the door;
Loose on the broad stone at his feet he pour’d
His arrows, and the suitors, thus, bespake.
This prize, though difficult, hath been atchieved.
Now for another mark which never man
Struck yet, but I will strike it if I may,
And if Apollo make that glory mine.

The disloyal maids

22.465–474
He said, and noosing a strong galley-rope
To an huge column, led the cord around
The spacious dome, suspended so aloft
That none with quiv’ring feet might reach the floor.
As when a flight of doves ent’ring the copse,
Or broad-wing’d thrushes, strike against the net
Within, ill rest, entangled, there they find,
So they, suspended by the neck, expired
All in one line together. Death abhorr’d!
With restless feet awhile they beat the air,
Then ceas’d.

The olive-tree bed

23.181–190
So spake she, proving him, and not untouch’d
With anger at that word, thus he replied.
Penelope, that order grates my ear.
Who hath displaced my bed? The task were hard
E’en to an artist; other than a God
None might with ease remove it; as for man,
It might defy the stoutest in his prime
Of youth, to heave it to a different spot.
For in that bed elaborate, a sign,
A special sign consists; I was myself
The artificer; I fashion’d it alone.

Shipwrecked sailor simile

23.233–241
Welcome as land appears to those who swim,
Whose gallant bark Neptune with rolling waves
And stormy winds hath sunk in the wide sea,
A mariner or two, perchance, escape
The foamy flood, and, swimming, reach the land,
Weary indeed, and with incrusted brine
All rough, but oh, how glad to climb the coast!
So welcome in her eyes Ulysses seem’d,
Around whose neck winding her snowy arms,
She clung as she would loose him never more.