Читать книгу On Translating Homer онлайн

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I advise him, again, not to trouble himself with constructing a special vocabulary for his use in translation; with excluding a certain class of English words, and with confining himself to another class, in obedience to any theory about the peculiar qualities of Homer’s style. Mr Newman says that ‘the entire dialect of Homer being essentially archaic, that of a translator ought to be as much Saxo-Norman as possible, and owe as little as possible to the elements thrown into our language by classical learning’. Mr Newman is unfortunate in the observance of his own theory; for I continually find in his translation words of Latin origin, which seem to me quite alien to the simplicity of Homer,—‘responsive’, for instance, which is a favourite word of Mr Newman, to represent the Homeric ἀμειβόμενος:

Great Hector of the motley helm thus spake to her responsive.

But thus responsively to him spake godlike Alexander.

And the word ‘celestial’ again, in the grand address of Zeus to the horses of Achilles,