The Iliad of Homer
Rendered in English Hexameters
Alexander Falconer Murison
London 1933
[Sample from the Opening of the Poem]
THE ILIAD OF HOMER
BOOK I
THE WRATH OF ACHILLEUS
Sing, O goddess, the Wrath of
Achilleus, son of king Peleus—
Wrath accursèd, the source of unnumbered woes to the
Achaioi,
Hurling to Hades the spirits of warriors many and
stalwart,
Casting their bodies a prey to the carrion dogs and
the vultures—
So was the counsel of Zeus working out to its destined
fulfilment—
Down from the time when they quarrelled and held them
apart from each other,
Atreus’ son, king of men, and the god-born warrior
Achilleus.
Which of the gods was it, then, set the twain upon
quarrel and conflict?
Zeus’s and Leto’s son. For he at the king had been
angered,
And he had smitten the host with a cruel plague, and
the people
Perished and perished, by reason that Atreus’ son had
dishonoured
Chryses his priest. For Chryses had come to the ships
of the Achaioi
Seeking release of his daughter and bringing a
limitless ransom,
And in his hands he was bearing the wreath of
far-darting Apollon
Set on a staff of the gold, and he prayed all the men
of Achaiis
And, above all else, the twain sons of Atreus, chiefs
of the army:
“O ye twain sons of Atreus, and all ye well-greaved
Achaioi,
May ye obtain from the gods that inhabit the halls
of Olympos
Priamos’ city to raze to the ground and to fare
home in safety,
But O release me my child and
accept these gifts as her ransom,
Yielding respect to the son of high Zeus,
far-darting Apollon.”
Thereon acclaimed their assent all the rest of the men
of Achaiis,
Fain to respect the old priest and accept the
magnificent ransom;
But this was highly displeasing to Atreus’ son
Agamemnon.
Harshly he order the priest to be gone and severely
enjoined him:
“Let me know find thee, old man, by these hollow
ships, I advise thee,
Whether now loitering on or some time in the future
returning,
Lest that the staff and the wreath of the god not
avail to protect thee.
Her I will not release; nay, first shall old age
overtake her
Dwelling in our house in Argos afar from the land of
her fathers,
Plying the work of the loom and attending my couch
as my partner.
Hence, then! Provoke not mine anger, so may’s thou
depart all the safer.”
Thus spake he, and the old man was frightened and
followed his bidding.
Silent he fared by the sands of the shore of the
deep-voiced ocean.
Then when a far way apart he had gone, he addressed to
Apollon,
Glorious son of the lovely-tressed Leto, an earnest
petition:
“Hear me, god of the bow of the silver, protector of
Chryse,
Guardian of Killa the sacred, of Tendos mighty
preserver,
Mouse-god. If e’er to thy pleasure I roofed o’er my
temple with garlands,
Or if that e’er in thine honour, I
offered in fire on thine altar
Rich thigh-pieces of bulls and of goats, fulfil my
petition:
Launch thy shafts and avenge thou my tears on the
Danaan army.”
Thus spake the priest in his prayer, and him heard
Phoibos Apollon.
Down from the peaks of Olympos he sped, in his heart a
hot anger,
Bearing his bow on his shoulders and with it his
close-covered quiver,
And on his shoulders, in wrath as he sped him, his
arrows kept clanking
E’en as his body kept moving; and like unto night he
descended.
Then sate he down well apart from the ships and let
fly a swift arrow.
Dreadful and fireful resounded the twang of the bow of
the silver.
First ’twas the mules and the fleet-foot dogs that he
smote with his arrows,
But thereafter the sharp-pointed shaft he let fly at
the people,
Smiting and smiting; and thick were the pyres of dead
ever burning.
REVIEW COMMENT
Murison’s text provides some of
the longest and slowest “hexameters” of any translation I have encountered. And
his vocabulary is in places decidedly odd (e.g., “staff of the gold,” “the bow
of the silver,” “Achaiis”). Reading these lines, one can understand a little
better the desire some people felt that it might be better to return to more
modern prose renditions of the Iliad, for the verse here seems to be
drawing on an exhausted tradition of “poetical” translations in an “antique”
style which has long ceased to be meaningfully connected to imaginatively alive
poetry.
[Dr. Simon Corcoran, of University College, London,
informs me that only one volume (Books I-XII) of Murison’s Iliad was
ever published, for before he had finished Murison became too ill to continue
(he died in 1934)]