On Translating Homer: Last Words. A Lecture Given at Oxford |
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Common terms and phrases
accent admirable ancient answer antiquated applied attempt ballad-form become believe better blank verse certainly characteristics clear clearly close comes criticism dealing distinguished doubt effect employed English hexameter epic essential establish example expression false familiar feel follow force forward genius gift give grand style Greek hands ideas imagine instance kind language learning less lines literary lived manner matter mean metre metrical mind movement narrative nature never Newman noble offer parallel passages perfect perfectly philological plain poet poetical poetry possession powerful present production proposes quaint quantity question reading rendering reply respect rhythm rule scholar seems sense severity simple simplicity sink Sophocles sound speak Spedding Spedding's stanza success suggest sure syllable things thought translator of Homer treat true truth Virgil Virgilian wishing words
Popular passages
Page 59 - The wretched parents all that night Went shouting far and wide; But there was neither sound nor sight To serve them for a guide. At day-break on a hill they stood That overlooked the moor; And thence they saw the bridge of wood, A furlong from their door. They wept @ and, turning homeward, cried, "In heaven we all ) shall meet;" @ When in the snow the mother spied The print of Lucy's feet.
Page 30 - The antechapel where the statue stood Of Newton with his prism and silent face, The marble index of a mind for ever Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.
Page 56 - Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Vext the dim sea. I am become a name; For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and known, - cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least, but...
Page 31 - Standing on earth, not rapt above the pole, More safe I sing with mortal voice unchanged To hoarse or mute, though fall'n on evil days, On evil days though fall'n, and evil tongues...
Page 61 - The same whom in my school-boy days I listened to; that Cry Which made me look a thousand ways In bush, and tree, and sky. To seek thee did I often rove Through woods and on the green; And thou wert still a hope, a love; Still longed for, never seen. And I can listen to thee yet; Can lie upon the plain And listen, till I do beget That golden time again.
Page 58 - May God forgive me! — I have been to blame. Kiss me, my children." Then they clung about The old man's neck, and kiss'd him many times. And all the man was broken with remorse; And all his love came back a hundredfold; And for three hours he sobb'd o'er William's child Thinking of William. So those four abode Within one house together; and as years Went forward, Mary took another mate; But Dora lived unmarried till her death. AUDLEY COURT THE Bull, the Fleece are cramm'd, and not a room For love...
Page 14 - Friend hast thou none ; For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire, The mere effusion of thy proper loins, Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum, For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor age, But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep, Dreaming on both : for all thy blessed youth Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms Of palsied eld...
Page 57 - There dwelt a shepherd, Michael was his name ; An old man, stout of heart, and strong of limb. His bodily frame had been from youth to age Of an unusual strength : his mind was keen, Intense, and frugal, apt for all affairs, And in his shepherd's calling he was prompt And watchful more than ordinary men.
Page 58 - Three years, or little more, did Isabel Survive her Husband : at her death the estate Was sold, and went into a stranger's hand. The Cottage which was named The Evening Star Is gone — the ploughshare has been through the ground On which it stood; great changes have been wrought In all the neighbourhood : — yet the oak is left That grew beside their door; and the remains Of the unfinished Sheep-fold may be seen Beside the boisterous brook of Greenhead Ghyll.
Page 55 - And bared the knotted column of his throat, The massive square of his heroic breast, And arms on which the standing muscle sloped, As slopes a wild brook o'er a little stone, Running too vehemently to break upon it.