Greek Texts & Translations

I with my well-bent sickle in my hand,
Thou arm'd with one as keen. ^note
Odyssey xviii. 367. And also in tillage, Then shouldst thou see
How straight my furrow should be cut and true. ^note
Ib. xviii. 374. And Homer was not singular in his opinion regarding these matters, for all educated people appeal to him in favour of the idea that such practical knowledge is one of the chief means of acquiring understanding. 5

That eloquence is regarded as the wisdom of speech, Ulysses manifests throughout the whole poem, both in the Trial, ^note the Petitions, ^note and the Embassy. ^note Of him it is said by Antenor, But when he spake, forth from his breast did flow
A torrent swift as winter's feather'd snow. ^note
Iliad iii. 221. Who can suppose that a poet capable of effectively introducing into his scenes rhetoricians, generals, and various other characters, each displaying some peculiar excellence, was nothing more than a droll or juggler, capable only of cheating or flattering his hearer, and not of instructing him.

Are we not all agreed that the chief merit of a poet consists in his accurate representation of the affairs of life? Can this be done by a mere driveller, unacquainted with the world?

The excellence of a poet is not to be measured by the same standard as that of a mechanic or a blacksmith, where honour and virtue have nothing to do with our estimate. But the poet and the individual are connected, and he only can become a good poet, who is in the first instance a worthy man. 6

To deny that our poet possesses the graces of oratory is using us hardly indeed. What is so befitting an orator, what so poetical as eloquence, and who so sweetly eloquent as Homer? But, by heaven! you'll say, there are other styles of eloquence than those peculiar to poetry. Of course [I admit this]; in poetry itself there is the tragic and the comic style; in prose, the historic and the forensic. But is not language