The Iliad of Homer
Translated into English Verse in
The Spenserian Stanza
by Philip Stanhope Worsley
Edinburgh and London
1865

Selection from the Opening of the Poem

1

WRATH of Achilleus, son of Peleus, sing,
O heavenly Muse, which in its fatal sway
Thousands of griefs did on Achaeans bring,
And many a hero-spirit ere his day
To Hades hurled, and left their limbs a prey
To dogs and fowls of heaven: so the design
Of Zeus meanwhile was working for its way:
Since to fell strife did at the first incline

Atrides, lord of men, and Peleus’ son divine.

2

Who then of the gods did to their feus impel
These twain? Of Leto and of Zeus the son.
Wroth with the king he poured his death-rain fell,
And a dire mischief through the host did run.
For his priest Chryses was by Atreus’ son
Spurned, when he came the Achaian barks before,
And with large ransom would his child have won.
There in his hands Apollo’s wreath he bore

Twined on a golden staff, and prayed the people sore.

3

Thus came the priest entreating all, but most
The Atridae, the twain chiefs whom all obey:
“O sons of Atreus, and this well-greaved host,
Now may the gods that in Olympus sway
Grant that in dust the Trojan town ye lay,
And a rich spoil in safety homeward bring!
Only release me my dear child, I pray,
Take at my ands this ransom, reverencing

Child of high Zeus, Apollo, the far-darting king.”

4

Then all the rest upon the old man’s prayer
Breathed with a favouring voice their full consent,
Both to receive the splendid ransom fair,
And the priest hear, and to his suit relent.
But in his mind far otherwise it went
With Agamemnon, son of Atreus. He
Nursed in his soul a bitter fierce intent,
And drave the old man back disdainfully,

And a sharp work spake forth, and bade him haste to flee:

5

“Let me not find thee by the ships, old man,
Now loitering, or returning hither again,
Lest in mine anger, if thy face I scan,
Thou plead the god’s wreath and his wand in vain.
Nor to release thy child shall I be fain,
Ere she wax old in Argos, in my home,
Far from her own dear land, across the main,
Sharing my couch and labouring at the loom—

Hence, ere my wrath take fire, if thou wouldst shun thy doom!”

6

He ended, and the old man, sore afraid,
By the sea’s rolling multitudinous roar
Paced away silent, and the word obeyed;
And from afar off did with prayers implore
Apollo, whom the bright-haired Leto bore:
“Hear now and hearken for the wrongs I weep,
Lord of the silver bow, who evermore
Chryse and Cilla the divine dost keep,

And holdest high dominion o’er the sacred steep

7

“Of Tenedos; O Smintheus, hear me now!
If to thee ever a sweet temple fair
I builded, or if every holy vow
I paid, and fat thighs to thine altar bare
Of bulls or goats, and burned them to thee there—
If ever, if at all, I served thee well—
Hearken, remember, and fulfil my prayer,
And on the Danaans pour thy death-rain fell,

Till, sorrowing with thy darts, my bitter tears they quell!”

REVIEW COMMENT

[One bookseller (Hyraxia Books) observes the following: “Worsley provided the bulk of the translation, but died before the second volume was publisher whereafter Connington took over.”]

Worsley offers his translation as a tribute to General Lee, the “brave and illustrious” uncle of the person to whom he dedicates the work, his friend Edward Lee Childe. Lee, Worsley’s dedication states, “is the hero, like Hector in the Iliad, of the most glorious cause for which men can fight; and some of the grandest passages in the poem come to me with yet more affecting power when I remember his lofty character and undeserved misfortunes.”

Worsley translated the Iliad after translating the Odyssey in Spenserian stanzas (his prefaces to the Odyssey explains why he chose that metre rather than the hexameter or blank verse). Here he again reviews why he has rejected blank verse (it is too difficult—suitable only for the very greatest of poets—and would take him too long) and has continued to translate Homer “in Spenserian metre . . . [which] will perhaps be generally acknowledged to rank, on the whole, next in heroic dignity to blank verse. . . . The Spenserian stanza is positively the noblest type of verse which any one, not overwhelmed by the consciousness of supreme poetic genius, should dare to attempt as a vehicle for translating Homer.”

The problems of the Spenserian stanza as a vehicle for translating Homer are obvious enough (and were pointed out by some contemporary reviewers). But Worsely’s diction compounds the problem for the modern reader. The artificially aged language—especially when it serves to provide the necessary rhyme (e.g., fain/main, fell/quell, and so on)—robs the English of any relevant urgency and tends to turn the poem into yet another “quainte storie.”

For a contemporary review of Worsley’s Iliad, use the following link: Saturday Review, Volume 20 (1865).

For Volume I (Books I to XII) of Worsley’s Iliad, use the following link: Worsley’s Iliad.

[List of Published English Translations of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey]