Classical Mythology, 7th Edition - obinfonet: dia logou

CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY IN LITERATURE AND ART 687
The dignity and energy of Dryden's heroic couplets were also attributes of
the classical figures who appeared in them. As an example of Dryden's style,
we quote his translation of Ovid's description of Triton blowing his horn (Metamorphoses
1. 447-461):
f
The billows fall, while Neptune lays his mace
On the rough sea, and smooths its furrow'd face.
Already Triton at his call appears
Above the waves; a Tyrian robe he wears,
And in his hand a crooked trumpet bears.
The sovereign bids him peaceful sounds inspire,
And give the waves the signal to retire.
His writhen shell he takes, whose narrow vent
Grows by degrees into a large extent;
Then gives it breath; the blast, with doubling sound,
Runs the wide circuit of the world around . . .
The waters, list'ning to the trumpet's roar,
Obey the summons and forsake the shore.
A greater poet was Alexander Pope (1688-1744), whose translation of the Iliad,
published in 1720, was for many decades the way by which readers in Britain
and America became familiar with Homer and the world of Greek mythology.
Pope succeeded in his "first grand duty" as a translator, which was "to give his
author entire . . . [and] above all things to keep alive the spirit and fire which
make his chief character" (from the preface to the Iliad). The translation, however,
is as much a creation of Pope's time and taste as it is Homeric, and many
would agree with Thomas Jefferson, who said: "I enjoyed Homer in his own language
infinitely beyond Pope's translation of him." Like Dryden's translations,
however, Pope's Iliad created a certain view of the Greek gods and their myths,
which not only spread knowledge of them but also established the criteria by
which they were valued. Here are a few lines from Pope's translation, in which
Achilles swears his great oath at the height of his quarrel with Agamemnon (Iliad
1. 233-247):
"Now by this sacred sceptre hear me swear,
f Which never more shall leaves or blossoms bear,
Which sever'd from the trunk (as I from thee)
On the bare mountains left its parent tree:
This sceptre, form'd by temper'd steel to prove
An ensign of the delegates of Jove,
From whom the power of laws and justice springs
(Tremendous oath! inviolate to kings);
By this I swear—when bleeding Greece again
Shall call Achilles, she shall call in vain.
When, flush'd with slaughter, Hector comes to spread
The purpl'd shore with mountains of the dead,
Then shalt thou mourn the affront thy madness gave,