Part 22

FINIS DUODECIMI LIBRI HOM. ODYSS.

_Opus novem dierum._

_Σὺν Θεᾳ._

[1] _Πέλειαι τρήρωνες. Columbæ timidæ._ What these doves were, and the whole mind of this place, the great Macedon asking Chiron Amphipolites, he answered: They were the Pleiades or seven Stars. One of which (besides his proper imperfection of being _ἀμυδρὸς,_ i.e. _adeo exilis, vel subobscurus, ut vix appareat_) is utterly obscured or let by these rocks. Why then, or how, Jove still supplied the lost one, that the number might be full, Athenæus falls to it, and helps the other out, interpreting it to be affirmed of their perpetual septenary number, though there appeared but six. But how lame and loathsome these prosers show in their affected expositions of the poetical mind, this and an hundred others, spent in mere presumptuous guess at this inaccessible Poet, I hope will make plain enough to the most envious of any thing done, besides their own set censures and most arrogant over-weenings. In the 23 of the lliads (being _ψ_) at the games celebrated at Patroclus’ funerals, they tied to the top of a mast _πέλειαν τρήρωνα, timidam columbam,_ to shoot at for a game, so that (by these great men’s abovesaid expositions) they shot at the Pleiades.

[2] _Νηυ̑ς πα̑σι μέλουσα,_ etc. _Navis omnibus curæ: the ship that held the care of all men, or of all things:_ which our critics will needs restrain, _omnibus heroibus, Poetis omnibus, vel Historicis,_ when the care of all men’s preservation is affirmed to be the freight of it; as if poets and historians comprehended all things, when I scarce know any that makes them any part of their care. But this likewise is garbage good enough for the monster. Nor will I tempt our spiced consciences with expressing the divine mind it includes. Being afraid to affirm any good of poor poesy, since no man gets any goods by it. And notwithstanding many of our bird-eyed starters at profanation are for nothing so afraid of it; as that lest their galled consciences (scarce believing the most real truth, in approbation of their lives) should be rubbed with the confirmation of it, even in these contemned vanities (as their impieties please to call them) which by much more learned and pious than themselves have ever been called the raptures of divine inspiration, by which, _Homo supra humanam naturam erigitur, et in Deum transit._—Plat.

[3] _Δεινὸν λελακυι̑α,_ etc. _Graviter vociferans;_ as all most untruly translate it. As they do in the next verse these words _σκύλακος νεογιλη̑ς catuli leonis,_ no lion being here dreamed of, nor any vociferation. _Δεινὸν λελακυι̑α_ signifying _indignam, dissimilem,_ or _horribilem vocem edens:_ but in what kind _horribilem?_ Not for the gravity or greatness of her voice, but for the unworthy or disproportionable small whuling of it; she being in the vast frame of her body, as the very words _πέλωρ κακὸν_ signify, _monstrum ingens;_ whose disproportion and deformity is too poetically (and therein elegantly) ordered for fat and flat prosers to comprehend. Nor could they make the Poet’s words serve their comprehension; and therefore they add of their own, _λάσκω,_ from whence _λελακυι̑α_ is derived, signifying _crepo,_ or _stridulê clamo._ And _σκύλακος νεογιλη̑ς_ is to be expounded, _catuli nuper_ or _recens nati,_ not _leonis._ But thus they botch and abuse the incomparable expressor, because they knew not how otherwise to be monstrous enough themselves to help out the monster. Imagining so huge a great body must needs have a voice as huge; and then would not our Homer have likened it to a lion’s whelp’s voice, but to the lion’s own; and all had been much too little to make a voice answerable to her hugeness. And therefore found our inimitable master a new way to express her monstrous disproportion; performing it so, as there can be _nihil suprâ._ And I would fain learn of my learned detractor, that will needs have me only translate out of the Latin, what Latin translation tells me this? Or what Grecian hath ever found this and a hundred other such? Which may be some poor instance, or proof, of my Grecian faculty, as far as old Homer goes in his two simple Poems, but not a syllable further will my silly spirit presume.

THE THIRTEENTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS

THE ARGUMENT

Ulysses (shipp’d, but in the even, With all the presents he was given, And sleeping then) is set next morn In full scope of his wish’d return, And treads unknown his country-shore, Whose search so many winters wore. The ship (returning, and arriv’d Against the city) is depriv’d Of form, and, all her motion gone, Transform’d by Neptune to a stone. Ulysses (let to know the strand Where the Phæacians made him land) Consults with Pallas, for the life Of ev’ry wooer of his wife. His gifts she hides within a cave, And him into a man more grave, All hid in wrinkles, crookéd, gray, Transform’d; who so goes on his way.

ANOTHER ARGUMENT

_Νυ̑._ Phæacia Ulysses leaves; Whom Ithaca, Unwares, receives.