The Odyssey of Homer
Translated into English Verse
With Notes and Parallel Passages
By Sir Charles Du Cane
Edinburgh and London 1880

MUSE! of that hero versatile indite to me the song,
Doomed, when he sacred Troy had sacked, to wander far and long.
Who saw the towns of many men, much knowledge did obtain
Anent their ways, and with much woe was heart-wrung on the main,
Seeking his own life to preserve, his friends' return to gain.
E'en so he rescued not his friends, though eagerly he strove,
For them their own infatuate deeds to direful ending drove.
Fools, who the sun=god's sacred beeves dared madly to devour,
Doomed by his anger ne'er to see of glad return the hour.
Sing, goddess, child of mighty Jove, of these events, I pray,
And from what starting-pomt thou wilt begin with me the lay.
Now all the rest, whose lot it was destruction sheer to flee,
Had reached their homes, unscathed by war, or peril of the sea.
But him alone, for wife and home consumed with longing sore,
The nymph divine, Calypso, kept upon her island shore,
And fain would keep in hollow cave her lord for evermore.
But when, as seasons went their round, at length the year had come
Wherein the gods willed his return to Ithaca and home,
Not even then might he escape from trouble and from toil,
Not though he stood amidst his friends, upon his native soil.
Yet, save Poseidon, all the gods felt pity for his woe,
He only to the godlike chief relentless hate did how,
E'en till he reached his fatherland, nor would his wrath forego.
But great Poseidon for the nonce on other route had gone,
For he had sought the AEthiops' land, who far from others wonne:
Who, sundered into regions twain, inhabit earth's extreme--
Some toward the setting of the sun, some toward his rising gleam.
There of a hecatomb of bulls and lambs to take his part
The god had gone, and at the board sat joying in his heart.
In solemn conclave, him except, meanwhile th' Immortals all
Of the great Sire, Olympian Jove, were gathered in the hall.
To them the Lord of heaven and earth straightway his speech addressed,
For thought of dead Aegisthus then was stirring in his breast,
Whose life Atrides' far-famed son, Orestes, late did take,--
Of whom bethinking him, the Sire thus to th' Immortals spake:
"Oh strange! upon immortal gods what blame do mortals throw,
Who say that we are unto them the source of every woe,
When by their own infatuate deeds they on their own heads bring,
E'en beyond that which Fate decrees, a load of suffering!
For so Aegisthus, by no Fate's resistless impulse led,
Chose with Atrides' lawful wife unlawfully to wed,
And slew Atrides, fresh returned to his own palace hall,
Though well he knew that on himself would retribution fall.
For timely warning to his ear of all that would betide,
Ourselves did Hermes charge to bear, the watchful Argicide.
We bade him nor the monarch kill nor dare his wife to wed,
Since vengeance for Atrides slain would fall upon his head,
Soon as Orestes, his dear son, to prime of manhood come,
Should yearn in heart for sweet return to fatherland and home.
This Hermes told, yet did not all his warning wise persuade
Aegisthus, who for all hath now by one atonement paid"

REVIEW COMMENT

Du Cane in his Preface briefly discusses the difficulties of selecting one single metre for Homer's entire poem and explains his choice of a ballad metre and the fourteen-syllable line, the verse form of Chapman's Iliad. None of what he has to say on these matters is very convincing. His translation is accompanied by many footnotes offering quotations from other poets who are alluding to a particular part of Homer's Odyssey.

Link to Volume One of the Du Cane translation: Du Cane, Volume I

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