The Iliad of Homer by Homer (some good books to read txt) 📕

ginal,convinced that every departure from him would be punished with theforfeiture of some grace or beauty for which I could substitute noequivalent. The epithets that would consent to an English form I havepreserved as epithets; others that would not, I have melted into thecontext. There are none, I believe, which I have not translated in oneway or other, though the reader will not find them repeated so oftenas most of them are in HOMER, for a reason that need not be mentioned.

Few persons of any consideration are introduced either in the Iliad orOdyssey by their own name only, but their patronymic is given also. Tothis ceremonial I have generally attended, because it is a
circumstance of my author's manner.

HOMER never allots less than a whole line to the introduction of aspeaker. No, not even when the speech itself is no longer than theline that leads it. A practice to which, since he never departs fromit, he must have been determined by some cogent reason. He probablydeemed it a