Which Translation: The Odyssey

William Sotheby

1834 · Heroic couplets

Features

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48
Holdings
2
Reviews

Biography

William Sotheby (1757-1833) was an English poet and translator from a wealthy London family, educated at Harrow School. His literary circle included Walter Scott, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey.

Sotheby started translating the Odyssey when he was over seventy years old, and his work was only published posthumously in 1834. The first edition was illustrated with seventy-five engravings by Henry Moses from John Flaxman’s celebrated designs.

Byron, in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809), wrote that Sotheby ‘has imitated everybody, and occasionally surpassed his models.’ His Virgil translations had earlier been praised in the Edinburgh Review, but his Homer was less successful. Matthew Arnold described it as ‘a work of supererogation, though eminently readable’.

William Sotheby on Wikipedia ↗

Publication History

  • 1834 — G. and W. Nicol / John Murray, The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer; translated; illustrated by the designs of Flaxman ★

Reviews

The proem

1.1–11
Muse! sing the Man by long experience tried,
Who, fertile in resources, wander’d wide,
And when Troy’s sacred walls in dust were laid,
Men’s varying moods and many a realm survey’d.
He much endured on ocean’s stormy wave,
Intent his followers, and himself to save,
In vain:—they perish’d by their guilt undone;
Fools! who devour’d the bullocks of the Sun—
The God, in vengeance for his cattle slain,
In their return destroy’d them on the main.
Daughter of Jove! deign thou to us disclose,
Celestial Muse, a portion of their woes.

Penelope's weaving trick

2.96–111
‘Youths! ye who hither led
‘Court the divine Ulysses’ widowed bed,
‘Desist awhile, nor urge your fond request,
‘Till my due toil has wrought the funeral vest,
‘Shroud of Laertes, when impending death
‘Has closed in dreamless sleep the hero’s breath;
‘Lest that great chief unhonoured lie, and blame
‘Rest on my brow from each Achæan dame—
‘We all complied; but what each day begun
‘Each night her secret torch beheld undone.
‘Three years her guile its furtive work pursued;
‘But when revolving time the fourth renewed,
‘A maid disclosed her fraudulent design,
‘And we beheld her the false web untwine:
‘Thus by severe necessity compell’d,
‘The work was wrought, so long by fraud withheld.

Calypso's double standard

5.118–131
‘Harsh gods!’ Calypso shuddering then exclaim’d,
‘Envy alone such ruthless dictate framed.
‘Ye brook not, that a nymph of heavenly race
‘Should in connubial love, a man embrace.
‘Ye, when Aurora shared Orion’s bed,
‘Tho’ bless’d yourselves, your souls with envy fed,
‘Till in Ortygia, chaste Diana’s dart
‘In death’s soft slumber, chill’d the lover’s heart—
‘And when the fair-hair’d Ceres’ yielding mind
‘In the thrice-labour’d glebe, her charms resign’d
‘To beautiful Iäsion, conscious Jove
‘Smote with avenging flames, her earthly love.
‘Thus, gods, you envy me, whose arms enfold
‘Him, whom I saved, when raging billows roll’d,
‘As on the keel he clung, when ’midst the deep

Weeping on Calypso's shore

5.151–159
She found him lonely, on the beach reclined,
A wretch to woe, and ceaseless tears resign’d.
Regret, that long’d for home, his spirit wore,
While all that graced the Goddess, lured no more:
All night, unwilling in her willing arms
Clasp’d in her cave, the mourner scorn’d her charms,
All day, on that unpeopled beach, alone,
Tear following tear, and groan re-echoing groan,
On the void sea, his unreposing eye
Wept,

Nausicaa finds Odysseus

6.127–141
He spake: and issuing from the thicket, tore
A leafy branch, and spread his waist before.
Like a fierce lion, who in dauntless might
Rushes thro’ tempests from the mountain’s height,
With eye of flame, the grazing bulls invades;
Or antler’d stags that browse in forest glades,
Nor dreads, by famine urged, to leap the fold,
Or where close stalls the shelter’d cattle hold:
Thus, sorely urged, unclothed, before the fair
Ulysses issued from his leafy lair.
Foul with sea-foam, horrific seem’d his view
As to the o’erhanging heights the virgins flew,
All save Alcinous’ child, to whom alone
Minerva gave strange courage not her own—

War-widow simile

8.521–532
Thus sung the bard, while from Ulysses stole
Tear after tear, and bathed in grief his soul.
As hanging o’er her lord, who newly slain,
Dies for his children, on his native plain,
Welters in blood, before the city wall,
While they, for whom he bleeds, behold his fall,
His wife, ere yet the last deep death-pang o’er,
Shrieks to his groan, and bathes her lip in gore,
While hostile spears, unfelt, her shoulders wound,
As the foe drags her to a foreign ground
To pine in servitude: thus fell his tear,
As bow’d the chief, the tale of Troy to hear:

Cyclops eats the men

9.287–299
‘The Cyclops then no further answer gave,
‘But starting up, snatch’d from the inmost cave
‘Two men at once, and dash’d them on the ground
‘Like whelps, and spread their brains and blood around,
‘And piecemeal rent the quivering feast of blood,
‘And gorged it as the lion bolts his food,
‘Nor left what once a trace of life had shown,
‘Entrails, or flesh, or marrow-nurtured bone.
‘We, on that sight, with desperate horrour gazed,
‘And our clasp’d hands to heaven devoutly raised.
B’ut when the fiend his paunch with flesh had fill’d,
‘And charged with milk full many a goblet swill’d,
‘Amid his flocks, along his flinty bed
‘He his enormous limbs at large outspread:

The Nobody trick

9.364–371
‘Thou bidst me mention my illustrious name;
‘And let me too thy promised present claim.
‘My name is Noman; me, my comrades, all,
‘My father, and my mother, Noman call.
‘The monster thus replied: Thee, Noman, last,
‘When all thy friends have furnish’d my repast,
‘Thee will I last devour—that present—thine—

Circe recognizes Odysseus

10.325–336
‘Who art thou? what thy parents? city? whence?
‘How drink these drugs with unenchanted sense?
‘None whoe’er drank them tasted unsubdued
‘When once their magic had the lip embued.
‘Thou in thy mortal body bear’st enshrined
‘An iron and indomitable mind—
‘Thou art the wise Ulysses, oft foretold
‘By Hermes, bearer of the rod of gold,
‘Who here should sail from Troy: but, sheathe thy blade,
‘And let us on the couch of pleasure laid,
‘The fore-past scene in sweet oblivion close,
‘And on each other’s faith in love repose.

Anticlea's shade

11.204–215
‘Touch’d by her plaint, I fervently essay’d
‘To clasp my mother in that lifeless shade;
‘Thrice, fondly tried, my arms thrice round her threw,
‘Thrice from my arms the impassive image flew,
‘Swift as a nightly dream, while more and more
‘Thrill’d my rack’d heart with woe unfelt before.
‘Why wilt thou not, I cried, my mother! rest,
‘That we may meet caressing and caress’d?
‘That, tho’ in Hades, interchange of grief
‘Breathed in each other’s arms, may seem relief:
‘Dire Proserpine has here a semblance sent
‘A shade to rouse and deepen my lament.

Achilles in the underworld

11.488–501
‘Talk not of consolation—not in death!
‘Far gladlier would I serve, recall’d to breath,
‘Serve like a hind, for hire, some needy slave,
‘Than rule o’er all the swarms that crowd the grave.
‘But of my noble son the truth declare,
‘Strives he to gain the prize where heroes dare?
‘And say of Peleus all that thou hast heard,
‘Reigns he yet throned, by all obey’d his word,
‘Or scorn’d of Hellas and the Phthian land,
‘Trembles the sceptre in his aged hand?
‘I cannot aid him, in the light of day
‘No more Achilles can his strength display.
‘O might I such, as when on Ilion’s coast,
‘Bulwark of Greece, I slew Troy’s bravest host,

The Sirens' song

12.184–192
‘Ulysses, highly praised famed chiefs among,
‘Here moor thy ship, and list the Syren’s song,
‘None ere yet glided by this silent main
‘Unheard the breath of our melodious strain,
‘But charm’d, sail’d on with fresh instruction fraught,
‘And wisdom by the voice of Syrens taught.
‘For we, whate’er ennobled Phrygia’s shore,
‘All that the Argives wrought, and Trojans bore,
‘All that the God ordain’d should there befall,
‘And all now done on earth, we know them all.

Hyperion's cattle

12.341–352
all deaths mankind appal,
‘But death by famine far more dire than all.
‘Come then, be here the Sun’s choice bullocks driven,
‘And hail with sacrifice the powers of heaven:
‘And vow if gain’d our Ithaca once more,
‘We to the Sun upon our native shore
‘A glorious temple will sublimely rear,
‘And with rich gifts and hecatombs revere:
‘But if, in vengeance for his cattle slain,
‘He wreck the ship, nor him the gods restrain,
‘Far better plunge at once beneath the wave,
‘Than by slow famine make this isle our grave.

Argos recognizes Odysseus

17.324–328
He spake, and passing thro’ the palace gate
Went where the suitors at the banquet sate:
Then, in his twentieth year, as Argus eyed
His much loved lord, he gazing on him, died.

Sleepless Odysseus

20.25–34
As when a man, in haste, while flames the fire,
Intent to satiate hunger’s keen desire,
Turns a swoln paunch thick-fill’d with fat and blood
Till the fierce heat has cook’d the savoury food:
Thus roll’d he, pondering how his single hand
Might wreak his vengeance on that haughty band,—
He lone ’gainst many.—Then Minerva came
And veil’d her heavenly form in woman’s frame,
Stood o’er him, and thus spake:
‘Of all mankind
‘Most wretched thou, why watch with tortured mind?

Stringing the bow

21.404–412
Thus they: the while the king on vengeance bent
Poised the great bow, presageful of the event.
As when a tuneful bard with easy skill
On the new lyre draws out the chords at will,
The sheep’s wreath’d entrails, thus the mighty bow,
Beneath Ulysses’ tension, smooth and slow
Bent without toil, and at his touch, the string
Clear twang’d, and like a swallow seem’d to sing.

Odysseus reveals himself

22.1–8
Ulysses down his ragged vesture flung,
And on the high-raised threshold boldly sprung,
And held aloft his bow, and quiver’d store,
And the fleet arrows pour’d his feet before:
Then loud exclaim’d:
‘This arduous prize is gain’d,
‘Another waits that none has yet obtain’d ;
‘Soon shall I see if this shall crown my fame,
‘And Phoebus guide his votary’s rightful aim.’

The disloyal maids

22.465–474
He spake, and from a stately column wound
A ship’s strong cord, and girt the dome around,
Drew it aloft, that none, thus high upraised,
Could with stretch’d foot the ground have lightly grazed.
As doves or broad wing’d thrushes, who, on flight
Amid the thickets, in a net alight,
Ill resting find, thus these together strung,
In wretchedest of deaths suspended hung:
And now in life’s last throb, as ceased the breath,
Quiver’d their feet, then—motionless in death.

The olive-tree bed

23.181–190
She spake—her cautious speech Ulysses tried.
When thus her lord indignantly replied:
‘O woman! thou a bitter word hast said.
‘Who in a different place that bed has laid?
‘’Twere hard for one well skill’d—A heavenly hand
‘Alone could move it from its former stand.
‘No living man, not in youth’s utmost force,
‘Could from its seat that bed with ease divorce:
‘For in that labour’d bed a mighty sign
‘Resides: I made it, and no hand but mine.

Shipwrecked sailor simile

23.233–241
As when to those, who, ‘mid the billows’ roar,
Cleave the dark waves, appears the neighbouring shore,
When the Sea-God beneath the o’ersurging deep
Has wreck’d their vessel in the tempest’s sweep,
When few, long struggling, ‘scape at length to land,
And the brine crusts them shivering on the strand;
Thus on her lord she gazed, nor ere unbound
Her white arms closely clasp’d his neck around.