CHAPTER VIII. THE TRANSLATION OF THE ILIAD. Origin of the Translation-Difficulties of the Work-Quarrel with Addison -Comparison of Pope's Translation with Chapman's and Worsley'sStanton Harcourt-Gay's 'Welcome from Greece.' 1713-1720. MEANTIME Pope had been labouring steadily and manfully at the great work which was to establish his reputation, and to make his fortune. The Translation of the Iliad had been suggested to him by Sir W. Trumbull. In 1708 the poet sent to his friend his translation of the Episode of Sarpedon, which was published in the following year in Tonson's Miscellany.' In reply Trumbull wrote on April 9th, 1708 :— "I must say, and I do it with an old-fashioned sincerity, that I entirely approve of your translation of those pieces of Homer, both as to the versification and the true sense that shines through the whole; nay, I am confirmed in my former application to you, and give me leave to renew it upon this occasion, that you would proceed in translating that incomparable poet, to make him speak good English, to dress his admirable characters in your proper significant and expressive conceptions, and to make his works as useful and instructive to this degenerate age, as he was to our friend Horace, when he read him at Præneste: Qui quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non, &c.' I break off with that quid non, with which I confess I am charmed." The proposals for the "Translation' were issued in October, 1713, and were at once warmly received. On the 21st of that month Lord Lansdown writes to him: "I am pleased beyond measure with your design of translating Homer. The trials you have already made and published on some parts of that author have shown that you are equal to so great a task; and you may therefore depend upon the utmost services I can do in promoting this work, or anything that may be for your service." In the following month Bishop Kennet, writing of Swift in his Diary, says: "Then he instructed a young nobleman that the best poet in England was Mr. Pope (a Papist), who had begun a translation of Homer into English verse, 'for which he must have them all subscribe; for,' says he, 'the author shall not begin to print till I have a thousand guineas for him.'" Swift's knowledge of Pope seems to have begun after the publication of Windsor Forest,' which he commends to Stella in his Journal of March 9, 1713, and the fine conclusion of which doubtless made him hope that he had secured a valuable pen for the service of the Tory party. Politics, however, in no way entered into the competition to subscribe towards the new work. Whig and Tory were equally zealous in their assistance, much to the poet's satisfaction: "May I venture, too," he writes to Caryll on June 29th of the following year, "without being thought guilty of affectation, to say that it was not the least of my designs in proposing this subscription to make some trial of my friends on all sides? I vow to you I am very happy in the search, contrary to most people who make trials; for I find I have at least six tory triends, three whig friends, and two Roman Catholic friends, with many others of each who will at least do me no harm." It was fortunate for Pope, and speaks well for his character, that he had many ardent and influential friends like Swift, for the translation was designed on a magnificent scale, comprising six volumes, each to be published at a guinea. Caryll alone procured him thirty-eight subscribers, chiefly obtained, no doubt, among his Catholic acquaintances. There were not wanting, however, many tongues to decry the enterprise: "While I am engaged in the fight," says Pope to Caryll on May 1, 1714, “I find you are concerned how I shall be paid, and are soliciting 1 Ruffhead's 'Life of Pope,' p. 180, with all your might that I may not have the ill-fate of many discarded generals, to be first envied and maligned, then perhaps praised, and lastly neglected. The former, the constant attendant upon all great and laudable enterprises, I have already experienced. Some have said I am not a master in the Greek, who either are so themselves or are not. If they are not, they cannot tell; and if they are, they cannot without having catechised me. But if they can read (for I know some critics can and others cannot) there are fairly lying before them and all the world some specimens of my translation from this author in the Miscellanies, which they are heartily welcome to. I have also encountered much malignity on the score of religion, some calling me a papist and a tory, the latter because the heads of the party have been distinguishingly favourable to me; but why the former I cannot imagine, but that Mr. Caryll and Mr. E. Blount have laboured to serve me. Others have styled me a whig, because I have been honoured with Mr. Jervas's good deeds, and of late with my Lord Halifax's patronage." 1 Others there were who, while duly appreciating Pope's genius, were unwilling that such original powers should be fettered by so mechanical a labour. Among these was Lord Oxford, who, according to Spence, "was always dissuading him from engaging in that work. He used to compliment Pope by saying that so good a writer ought not to be a translator.'" 2 Pope himself was perhaps of the same opinion. His inventive powers were at this period fully developed, and his extraordinary artistic success in 'The Rape of the Lock' might well have tempted him to proceed on the path of original composition. But a motive stronger than vanity or inclination determined him on his new enterprise-necessity. His father was now of an advanced age. His fortune, never apparently very ample, was impaired by the insecurity of his investments. Owing to the difficulty Catholics experienced in placing their money, a considerable portion of the old man's savings had been invested in French securities, in the shape of annuities granted by the Government of that country. These seem to have been paid with great irregularity, and in October, 1713, 1 The Episode of Sarpedon,' published in Tonson's Miscellany, 1709, and the descriptions of the arrival of Ulysses in Ithaca, and the garden of Alcinous, published in Lintot's Miscellany of 1714. 2 Spence's 'Anecdotes,' p. 304. an edict was issued reducing to four per cent. the interest upon the debts contracted by the French Government since the year 1702, while the annuities granted between 1702 and 1710 were reduced by a fourth. On June 23, 1713, Pope asked Caryll to find out, from the books of the Hôtel de Ville, “if our names be there inserted for 3030 livres at ten per cent. life rent on Sir Richard Cantillion's life, to begin Midsummer, 1705; and again in my father's name for my life, for 5,220 livres at ten per cent. also, to begin July, 1707." When the edict was published a report arose that all annuities granted after 1706 were to be reduced by one-half, but this provision applied only to annuities granted since 1710. Pope, believing the report, writes to Caryll: "I wish you could inform me by the most convenient opportunity how the matter stands as to the foreign affair. I suppose you had no concern in the rentes viagères. This misfortune will go near to ruin me, it being more especially my concern than my father's." He was, therefore, most anxious to turn his poetical genius to account in making money for his family. Had he confined himself to original composition his profits would have been very inconsiderable, as may be seen from the amounts paid him by Lintot for his early poems: 19th February, 1711-12 Statius, First Book, Vertum 1 A very different prospect of remuneration now opened to the poet. The number of subscribers to the translation (among whom were the King and the Prince of Wales) was five hundred and seventy-five, and as many of these entered their names for more than one copy, he must have found himself in anticipation the possessor of nearly, if not quite, £4,000. Yet the task before him was undoubtedly immense. He was no Greek scholar, and could only hope to master the sense of his author by patient consultation of the metrical translations of his predecessors, Chapman, Hobbes, and Ogilby, the French versions of La Vallérie and Dacier, and the Latin one of Eobanus Hessius.' The number of lines in the original which he had to render was over fifteen thousand. Added to this an explanation of the manners and customs of the Homeric age was required for the enlightenment of the unlearned English reader. It is no wonder that at the outset he felt overwhelmed with his responsibilities. "What terrible moments," said he afterwards to Spence, "does one feel after one has engaged for a large work! In the beginning of my translating the Iliad, I wished anybody would hang me a hundred times. It sat so heavily on my mind at first that I often used to dream of it, and do sometimes still." 2 From his friends he received all the encouragement that he needed. Addison himself had cordially supported the original suggestion of Trumbull, and Pope says that it was in consequence of his advice that he resolved to face the labour." His mind once made up he began to gain confidence: "I must confess," he writes to Caryll on May 1, 1714, "the Greek fortification does not appear so formidable as it did, upon a nearer approach; and I am almost apt to flatter myself that Homer secretly seems inclined to correspond with me, in letting me into a good part of his designs. There are indeed a sort of underling auxiliaries to the difficulty of the work, called commentators and critics, who would 1 Johnson's Life of Pope. Preface to the Iliad. |