the desire of illustrating his subject by a similitude sometimes seizes the poet in the midst of one of the most interesting parts of his narrative, and immediately there follows a striking picture of some incident bearing a certain resemblance to the one which he is relating. Sometimes, after one simile is minutely given, a second suggests itself, and is given with equal minuteness, and there is one instance at least of a third. It is curious to mark what a fascination the picturesque resemblance of objects and incidents has for the poet, and how one set of these images draws after it another, passing in magnificent procession across the mirror of his imagination. In the Odyssey are comparatively few examples of this mode of illustration; the poet is too much occupied with his narrative to think of them. How far this point of difference between the two poems tends to support the view of those who maintain that they could not have proceeded from the same author, is a question on which it is not my purpose to enter. In the Preface to my version of the Iliad, I gave very briefly my reason for preserving the names derived from the Latin, by which the deities of the Grecian mythology have hitherto been known to English readers, that is to say, Jupiter, Juno, Neptune, Pluto, Mars, Venus, and the rest, instead of Zeus, Herè, and the other names which are properly Greek. As the propriety of doing this is questioned by some persons of exact scholarship, I will state the argument a little more at large. The names I have employed have been given to the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece from the very beginnings of our language. Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, and the rest, down to Proctor and Keats, a list whose chronology extends through six hundred years, — have followed this usage, and we may even trace it back for centuries before either of them wrote. Our prose writers have done the same thing; the names of Latin derivation have been adopted by the earliest and latest translators of the New Testament. To each of the deities known by these names there is annexed in the mind of the English reader- and it is for the English reader that I have made this translation a peculiar set of attributes. Speak of Juno and Diana, and the mere English reader understands you at once; but when he reads the names of Herè and Artemis, he looks into his classical dictionary. The names of Latin origin are naturalized; the others are aliens and strangers. The conjunction and itself, which has been handed down to us unchanged from our Saxon ancestors, holds not its place in our language by a firmer and more incontestable title than the names which we have hitherto given to the deities of ancient Greece. We derive this usage from the Latin authors, — from Virgil, and Horace, and Ovid, and the prose writers of ancient Rome. Art as well as poetry knows these deities by the same names. We talk of the Venus de Medicis, the Venus of Milo, the Jupiter of Phidias, and never think of calling a statue of Mars a statue of Ares. For my part, I am satisfied with the English language as it has been handed down to us. If the lines of my translation had bristled with the names of Zeus and Herè, and Poseidon and Ares, and Artemis and Demeter, I should feel that I had departed from the immemorial usage of the English tongue, that I had introduced obscurity where the meaning should have been plain, and that I had given just cause of complaint to the readers for whom I wrote. AUGUST, 1871. W. C. BRYANT. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. BOOK I. VISIT OF PALLAS TO TELEMACHUS. - - A Council of the Gods. Deliberations concerning Ulysses. — Mer- - BOOK II. DEPARTURE OF TELEMACHUS FROM ITHACA. His Com- The Chief Men of Ithaca assembled by Telemachus. Page I 20 BOOK III. INTERVIEW OF TELEMACHUS WITH NESTOR. Arrival of Telemachus, with Pallas in the Shape of Mentor, at Pylos. 39 CONFERENCE OF TELEMACHUS AND MENELAUS. Arrival of Telemachus and his Companion at Sparta. A Wedding; the Marriage of the Daughter of Menelaus. - Helen in Sparta. — Entertainment of the Guests. Helen's Account of her Return to her Husband. -The Trojan Horse.- Narrative of the Visit of Menelaus to Egypt, in Order to consult the Sea-God, Proteus. - Menelaus informed by him that Ulysses is detained by Calypso in her Island. Plot of the Suitors to lie in Wait for Telemachus on his Voyage and destroy him. Penelope visited and consoled by Mercury despatched by Jupiter to Calypso with a Message command- ing her to send away Ulysses. A Raft constructed by Ulysses. - His Departure on the Raft.-A Storm raised by Neptune, and the Raft destroyed.- Escape of Ulysses from the Tempest, and his ULYSSES DISCOVERED BY NAUSICAÄ. Nausicaä, Daughter of Alcinoüs, King of the Phæacians, directed by Pallas to go to the River and wash her Marriage Robes. - Sports of her Maidens after the Washing is performed. — Ulysses awak- ened by the Noise, relieved and clothed by Nausicaä, and bidden to follow her into the City, and there make his Suit to the Queen, RECEPTION OF ULYSSES BY ALCINOUS. A General Council of the Phæacians, in which it is determined to The Adventures of Ulysses after the Fall of Troy related by him at the Request of Alcinoüs. — His Attack on the Ciconians and the Destruction of their City. - Rally and Reinforcement of the Cico- nians, who slaughter many of the Companions of Ulysses. · The Lotus-Eaters, who subsist on Flowers. Arrival of Ulysses at the Land of the Cyclops. - Polyphemus and his Barbarities. — Re- Arrival of Ulysses at the Land of Æolus, who gives him the Winds Folly of the Seamen, who untie the Bag while Ulysses is asleep. A Tempest. Disastrous Encounter with the Gigantic Læstrigons. Arrival at the Island of Circè. — Transformation of the Greeks to Swine, and Recovery of their former Shape. - Prep- |