(Primitive in spirit, like Homer. Union of literalness with simplicity);

The Iliad, Tr. according to the Greek with introduction and notes by
George Chapman [1615], Ed. 2, 2 vols., 1874 (Written in verse. Pope says a
daring and fiery spirit animates this translation, something like that in
which one might imagine Homer would have written before he came to years
of discretion);

The Iliad, Tr. by William Cowper (Very literal and inattentive to melody,
but has more of simple majesty and manner of Homer than Pope);

The Iliad, rendered into English blank verse by the Earl of Derby, 2
vols., 1864;

The Iliad, Tr. by Alexander Pope, with notes by the Rev. T. W. A. Buckley,
n. d. (Written in couplets. Highly ornamented paraphrase).




THE STORY OF THE ILIAD.


For nine years a fleet of one thousand one hundred and eighty-six ships
and an army of more than one hundred thousand Greeks, under the command of
Agamemnon, lay before King Priam's city of Troy to avenge the wrongs of
Menelaus, King of Sparta, and to reclaim Helen, his wife, who had been
carried away by Priam's son Paris, at the instigation of Venus.

Though they had not succeeded in taking Troy, the Greeks had conquered