any respects, still, on the whole, it gives us merely
the facts of the Odyssey without providing anything of its artistic
effect. Avia's translation even, though better than almost all its
predecessors in the same field, is not worthy of taking rank beside Mr.
Morris's, for here we have a true work of art, a rendering not merely of
language into language, but of poetry into poetry, and though the new
spirit added in the transfusion may seem to many rather Norse than Greek,
and, perhaps at times, more boisterous than beautiful, there is yet a
vigour of life in every line, a splendid ardour through each canto, that
stirs the blood while one reads like the sound of a trumpet, and that,
producing a physical as well as a spiritual delight, exults the senses no
less than it exalts the soul. It may be admitted at once that, here and
there, Mr. Morris has missed something of the marvellous dignity of the
Homeric verse, and that, in his desire for rushing and ringing metre, he
has occasionally sacrificed majesty to movement, and made stateliness
give place to speed; but it is really only in such blank verse as
Milton's that this effect of calm and lofty music can be attained, and in
all other respects blank verse is the most inadequate medium for
reproducing the full flow and fervour of the Greek hexameter. One merit,
at any rate, Mr. Morris's version entirely and absolutely possesses. It
is, in no sense of the word, literary; it seems to deal immediately with
life itself, and to take from the reality of things its own form and
colour; it is always direct and simple, and at its best has something of
the 'large utterance of the early gods.'

As for individual passages of beauty, nothing could be better than the
wonderful description of the house of the Phoeacian king, or the whole
telling of the lovely legend of Circe, or the manner in which the pageant
of the pale phantoms in Hades is brought before our eyes. Perhaps the
huge epic humour of the escape from the Cyclops is hardly realised, but
there is always a linguistic difficulty about rendering this fascinating
story into English, and where we are given so much poetry we should not
complain about losing a pun; and the exquisite idyll of the meeting and
parting with the daughter of Alcinous is really delightfully told. How
good, for instance, is this passage taken at random from the Sixth Book:

But therewith unto the handmaids goodly Odysseus spake:
'Stand off I bi