Homer's Odyssey - A Line Translation in the Metre of the Original #230446

Blank verse, again, seemed to have other and perhaps greater disadvantages. The grandeur of Milton (to quote Matthew Arnold once more) is one thing, and the grandeur of Homer is another. The general movement of blank verse is that of the pie fermo — the strong, determined effort of upward motion; whereas that of the hexameter is like the downward rush of an impetuous stream. The use of blank verse, with its laboured movement, its system of pauses and its phrasing so entirely different from that of Homer, would havenecessitated more than perhaps any other metre the wholesale recasting of the original.