So before the wise-heart Hogni shrank the champions of the East As his great voice shook the timbers in the hall of Atli's feast, There he smote and beheld not the smitten, and by nought were his edges stopped;He smote and the dead were thrust from him; a hand with its shield he lopped;There met him Atli's marshal, and his arm at the shoulder he shred;Three swords were upreared against him of the best of the kin of the dead;And he struck off a head to the rightward, and his sword through a throat he thrust, But the third stroke fell on his helm-crest, and he stooped to the ruddy dust, And uprose as the ancient Giant, and both his hands were wet:
Red then was the world to his eyen, as his hand to the labour he set;Swords shook and fell in his pathway, huge bodies leapt and fell;Harsh grided shield and war-helm like the tempest-smitten bell, And the war-cries ran together, and no man his brother knew, And the dead men loaded the living, as he went the war-wood through;And man 'gainst man was huddled, till no sword rose to smite, And clear stood the glorious Hogni in an island of the fight, And there ran a river of death 'twixt the Niblung and his foes, And therefrom the terror of men and the wrath of the Gods arose."I admit that this does not affect me as does the figure of Odysseus raining his darts of doom, or the courtesy of Roland when the blinded Oliver smites him by mischance, and, indeed, the Keeping of the Stair by Umslopogaas appeals to me more vigorously as a strenuous picture of war. To be just to Mr. Morris, let us give his rendering of part of the Slaying of the Wooers, from his translation of the "Odyssey":-"And e'en as the word he uttered, he drew his keen sword out Brazen, on each side shearing, and with a fearful shout Rushed on him; but Odysseus that very while let fly And smote him with the arrow in the breast, the pap hard by, And drove the swift shaft to the liver, and adown to the ground fell the sword From out of his hand, and doubled he hung above the board, And staggered; and whirling he fell, and the meat was scattered around, And the double cup moreover, and his forehead smote the ground;And his heart was wrung with torment, and with both feet spurning he smote The high-seat; and over his eyen did the cloud of darkness float.
"And then it was Amphinomus, who drew his whetted sword And fell on, making his onrush 'gainst Odysseus the glorious lord, If perchance he might get him out-doors: but Telemachus him forewent, And a cast of the brazen war-spear from behind him therewith sent Amidmost of his shoulders, that drave through his breast and out, And clattering he fell, and the earth all the breadth of his forehead smote."There is no need to say more of Mr. Morris's "Odysseus." Close to the letter of the Greek he usually keeps, but where are the surge and thunder of Homer? Apparently we must accent the penultimate in "Amphinomus" if the line is to scan. I select a passage of peaceful beauty from Book V.:-"But all about that cavern there grew a blossoming wood, Of alder and of poplar and of cypress savouring good;And fowl therein wing-spreading were wont to roost and be, For owls were there and falcons, and long-tongued crows of the sea, And deeds of the sea they deal with and thereof they have a care But round the hollow cavern there spread and flourished fair A vine of garden breeding, and in its grapes was glad;And four wells of the white water their heads together had, And flowing on in order four ways they thence did get;And soft were the meadows blooming with parsley and violet.
Yea, if thither indeed had come e'en one of the Deathless, e'en he Had wondered and gladdened his heart with all that was there to see.
And there in sooth stood wondering the Flitter, the Argus-bane.
But when o'er all these matters in his soul he had marvelled amain, Then into the wide cave went he, and Calypso, Godhead's Grace, Failed nowise there to know him as she looked upon his face;For never unknown to each other are the Deathless Gods, though they Apart from one another may be dwelling far away.
But Odysseus the mighty-hearted within he met not there, Who on the beach sat weeping, as oft he was wont to wear His soul with grief and groaning, and weeping; yea, and he As the tears he was pouring downward yet gazed o'er the untilled sea."This is close enough to the Greek, but "And flowing on in order four ways they thence did get"is not precisely musical. Why is Hermes "The Flitter"? But I have often ventured to remonstrate against these archaistic peculiarities, which to some extent mar our pleasure in Mr.
Morris's translations. In his version of the rich Virgilian measure they are especially out of place. The "AEneid" is rendered with a roughness which might better befit a translation of Ennius.
Thus the reader of Mr. Morris's poetical translations has in his hands versions of almost literal closeness, and (what is extremely rare) versions of poetry by a poet. But his acquaintance with Early English and Icelandic has added to the poet a strain of the philologist, and his English in the "Odyssey," still more in the "AEneid," is occasionally more ARCHAIC than the Greek of 900 B.C.
So at least it seems to a reader not unversed in attempts to fit the classical poets with an English rendering. But the true test is in the appreciation of the lovers of poetry in general.
To them, as to all who desire the restoration of beauty in modern life, Mr. Morris has been a benefactor almost without example.
Indeed, were adequate knowledge mine, Mr. Morris's poetry should have been criticised as only a part of the vast industry of his life in many crafts and many arts. His place in English life and literature is unique as it is honourable. He did what he desired to do--he made vast additions to simple and stainless pleasures.