Pope himself thinks the passage "inimitably just and beautiful;" but on
the whole, he says, "a translator owes so much to the taste of the age
in which he lives as not to make too great a compliment to the former
[age]; and this induced me to omit the mention of the word _ass_ in the
translation." Boileau and Longinus, he tells us, would approve the
omission of mean and vulgar words. "Ass" is the vilest word imaginable
in English or Latin, but of dignity enough in Greek and Hebrew to be
employed "on the most magnificent occasions."
The Homeric phrase is thus often muffled and deadened by Pope's
verbiage. Dignity of a kind is gained at the cost of energy. If such
changes admit of some apology as an attempt to preserve what is
undoubtedly a Homeric characteristic, we must admit that the "dignity"
is often false; it rests upon mere mouthing instead of simplicity and
directness, and suggests that Pope might have approved the famous
emendation "he died in indigent circumstances," for "he died poor." The
same weakness is perhaps more annoying when it leads to sins of
commission. Pope never scruples to amend Homer by little epigrammatic
amplifications, which are characteristic of the contemporary rhetoric. A
single illustration of a fault sufficiently notorious will be
sufficient. When Nestor, in the eleventh book, rouses Diomed at night,
Pope naturally smoothes down the testy remark of the sleepy warrior;
but he tries to improve Nestor's directions. Nestor tells Diomed, in
most direct terms, that the need is great, and that he must go at once
and rouse Ajax.
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