The Iliad of Homer
T. S. Brandreth
London 1846

[Sample from the Opening of the Poem]

ILIAD

BOOK I.

ACHILLES’ wrath accurst, O Goddess, sing,
Which cause ten thousand sorrows to the Greeks,
And many valiant souls of heroes sent
To Pluto, and their bodies made a prey
To dogs and birds; but Jove’s will was perform’d;
From that day, when at first contending strove
Atrides king of men and Peleus’ son.
   Who then of Gods in contest made them strive?
Latona’s son; he, angry with the king,
Sent evil sickness, and the people died;   
Because Atrides Chryses, sacred priest,
Despised; for he unto the Greeks’ swift ships
To free his child with boundless ransom came,
And holding in his hands Apollo’s wreath
On golden sceptre, all the Greeks he pray’d,
But chief the host’s two leaders, Atreus’ sons;
   O Atreus’ sons, and other warlike Greeks,
To you the Gods, who on Olympus dwell,
Give Priam’s town to waste, and home return;
But free my daughter, and the ransom take,   
Revering Phœbus, Jove’s far-darting son.
   Then all the other Greeks approved the priest
To honour, and the splendid ransom take;
But so it pleased not Agamemnon’s mind;
But him with scorn and harsh words he dismiss’d;
   Let me not find thee, old man, by the ships
Or now delaying, or again return’d,
Lest nought thy sceptre and God’s wreath avail.
I will not loose her, ere old age comes on,
When in our house, in Argos, far from home, 
She tends the loom, and of my bed partakes.
Go, vex, me not, that safer thou return.
   He said; and Chryses trembled and obey’d,
And went in silence by the surging sea.
Much then, apart retired, the old man pray’d
To king Apollo, whom Latona bore;
   Hear, Silver-Bow, who Chrysa dost defend,
And Tenedus and holy Cilla rule,
Smintheus; if e’er thy lovely fane I crown’d,
Or if I e’er to thee the fat thighs burnt   
Of bulls and goats, this prayer to me confirm;
May by thy darts the Greeks my tears repay.
   So said he praying; and Apollo heard,
And went down angry from Olympus’ tops
With bow and quiver o’er his shoulders slung;
And on his shoulders, as he angry moved,
The arrows rattled; and like Night he went.
He sat apart, and sent a shaft amidst;
And dread the clang was of the silver bow.
At first the mules and white dogs he attack’d;    
Then ’gainst themseslves a bitter dart he sent;
And of the dead aye burnt the frequent fires.

REVIEW COMMENT

Brandreth writes in his Preface that the only praise he seeks for his translation is that of fidelity and that he has at times sacrificed poetic quality to attain that end: “I have sometimes been betrayed into writing, what seemed to me fine lines, but they have invariably been sacrificed, if they did not accord with the original. . . .”  The desire to be faithful to Homer, he explains, has led him to produce a translation “line for line, and, as far as possible, word for word. There may be no great merit in having merely the same number of lines . . . but my endeavour has been to give the whole, and nothing but the whole. By following my author line by line, I have put it out of my power to add anything.” 

As far as I can tell, Brandreth is the first to impose this scrupulous linear fidelity onto a full English translation of the Iliad. The logic in the argument may be dubious, but Brandreth at least attempts to justify the odd habit (still very much alive) of trying to follow Homer’s syntax and lineation as closely as possible, in the belief that this procedure, while having “no great merit,” adds something important to the whole (or at least prevents poetic contamination). That said (and putting aside one’s strong reservations about Brandreth’s diction and syntax), he does a remarkable job writing pentameters which more or less keep pace, line for line, with Homer’s longer hexameters.

For a link to the complete text of Volume I of Brandreth’s translation please use the following link: Brandreth Iliad.

[List of Published English Translations of Homer]