The Odyssey of Homer
in English Hendecasyllable Verse
Henry Alford
London 1861

[Sample from the Opening of the Poem]

HOMER’S ODYSSEY.

I.

TELL of the man, thou Muse, much versed, who widely
Wandered, when he had sacked Troy’s sacred fortress;
Many men’s town he saw, and knew their manners;
Many the woes he suffered on the ocean,
To win his life, and safety for his comrades.
But them he might not rescue, though he loved them;
For they were slain amidst their impious daring,
Fools, who the cattle of the mighty Sun-god
Devoured,—and He cut short their homeward journey.
Of all this, Goddess, what thou wilt, inform us.                        10
   Now all the rest, who ’scaped from dire destruction,
Were safe at home, from wars and waves delivered;
But him alone, for home and consort yearning,
The goddess-nymph detained, divine Calypso,
In her smooth caves, and wooed him for her husband.
But when the period came, in years revolving,
Destined of heaven his finished course to witness
In Ithaca (nor then to end his labours,
Though with friends round him), him the gods compassioned,
All, save Poseidon: He still raged relentless                               20
Against Odysseus, till he reached his country.
But He was visiting the far-off Æthiops
(Æthiops, the last of men, who dwell divided,
Part by the setting sun, part near the rising),
Great hecatombs of bulls and lambs partaking.
There He made merry, feasting; while the others
In the Olympian hall of Zeus assembled.
Then first the sire of men and gods addressed them;
For he bethought him of unblamed Ægisthus
Slain by the far-famed son of Agamemnon;
Whom he, remembering, thus bespoke th’ immortals:
   Surely in vain against the gods men murmur,
Charging on us their ills, while they in folly
Bring on themselves more mischief than is fated.
Even thus Ægisthus, against fate, Atrides
Slew, from the war returned, and took his consort,
With death before his eyes: for we forwarned him,
Sending the Argicide, quick-sighted Hermes,
Neither the chief to slay, nor woo the matron;
For from Orestes should arise swift vengeance,
Grown up, and thirsting for his native country.
Thus Hermes spoke, but did not move Ægisthus,
Though for his good; who now of all hath suffered.

Review Comment

Alford offers a line by line translation in an unusual style.  His Preface contains a review of various metres available to the translator of Homer.  He rejects the Heroic Couplet (“[which] will certainly never allow of adaptation to the flow of the Homeric hexameters”), English blank verse (“It . . . would assuredly be altogether violating [its own laws], were it to insulate its lines after the manner of the Homeric hexameters.  It also labours under this disadvantage, that, ending as it must do with a complete iambic foot, it can never place at the termination of a line a proper name with which an Homeric line terminates. . . .,” the Ballad metre of Chapman (“If each line be to represent one of the original, it is more than enough, and stop-gap epithets must be inserted; if two, it is not enough, and omissions must be made, to the prejudice of a faithful translation”), the Alexandrine, or twelve-syllable line (“intolerable to the English reader, from its extreme heaviness and want of relief”), and the Hexameter (“It is not an English metre, and it never will be”).  He settles for the Hendecasyllable, or eleven–syllable line, citing Shakespeare as a precedent (e.g., “It is the curse of kings to be attended/ By slaves that take their humours for a warrant . . .”).  He concedes that this metre runs the risk of monotony and that it is sometimes too short to give the full sense of the Greek hexameter).  Alford also indicates that he is abandoning the traditional habit of using the Latin names for the gods and provides a table listing the Greek names and their Latin equivalents. 

Even if some of Alford’s criteria seem somewhat arbitrary, it’s nice to see a translator air his views on metrical options, especially when he’s prepared to discuss the importance of what an English ear will accept in a long traditional poem.  The result, however, is not particularly noteworthy and the succession of feminine endings to the lines does become, as he fears, monotonous.

For a link to Volume One, which includes the Preface and Books I to XII, please use the following link: Alford Odyssey.

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List of Published English Translatons of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey