THE ILIAD OF HOMER

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE IN THE SPENSERIAN STANZA

BY PHILIP STANHOPE WORSLEY, MA

[Sample from the Opening of the Poem]

BOOK I

1

WRATH of Achilleus, son of Peleus, sing,
O heavenly Muse, which in its fatal sway
Thousands of griefs did on the Achaians 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 forth 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 feud impel
These twain? Of Leto and of Zeus the son.
Wroth with the king he pour 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 gold 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 hands 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 recieve 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 word 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 invain.
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 ever 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 the darts, my bitter tears they quell!”

REVIEW COMMENT

Worsley dedicates the translation to his good friend Edward Lee Childe as a tribute to the latter’s uncle, General Robert E. Lee, “the hero, like Hector in the Iliad, of the most glorious cause for which men can fight.” In his Preface, Worsley surveys the traditional metres available to English translators, reviews their characteristics, and finally declares his preferance for the Spenserian stanza, the metre of his earlier translation of the Odyssey: “I do not maintain that a reader who takes eight or nine lines of Homer, and then turns to a single stanza of my translataion, will be struck with the metrical analogy. But what I hope and believe to be true is this: that the perusal of a whole book of my translation will leave echoing in the ear a voice accordant in its main swell to the voice of Homer. If that sea-like rolling effect which is so characteristic of him comes out in my pages, though not immediately by the succession of single lines, yet at last by the harmonious accumulation of stanzas, I have made out for the magnificant measure I have chosen a claim which cannot indeed be tested rapidly, but which, if true, will gradually recommend itself to favour.”

Perhaps the Spenserian stanza works more effectively among people who are thoroughly familiar with it (as Worsley seems to claim) but to any modern reader the problems it presents as a vehicle for translating Homer are obvious enough (and were pointed out by some contemporary reviewers). That “sea-like rolling effect which is so characteristic of [Homer]” (whatever that means exactly) is, so far as I can tell, quite absent, replaced by an irritatingly predictable stanza form, which often interrupts whatever movement the verse is generating. And 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 urgency and tends to turn the poem into yet another “quainte storie.” It’s almost as if Worsley, like many of his contemporaries, feels that Homer in English requires an artificial language that is no longer relevant to his century.

Of this translation Bush makes the following observation: "Vol 2, containing Books xiii-xxiv, was translated by [John] Connington, with the exception of twelve stanzas of Book xiii, which are Worsley’s. Vol. 1 is dated 1865."

For a contemporary review of Worsley's Iliad, use the following link: Worsley Iliad Review

To access Volume I of Worsley's translation, use the following link: Worsley Iliad

[List of Published English Translations of Homer]