The Forging of the Armour of Achilles (from the XVIIIth Book of Iliad) extract   poetry   "Her then thus answered the illustrious Vulcan:"
Issue Details: First known date: 1866... 1866 The Forging of the Armour of Achilles (from the XVIIIth Book of Iliad)
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Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Sydney Morning Herald vol. 54 no. 8773 5 July 1866 15742034 1866 newspaper issue 1866 pg. 2
    Note:

    Epigraph: "No doubt it will be objected by many readers of the following Homeric descriptions, that all the matters mentioned in them as being represented upon the shield of Achilles, could not have been so represented in anything like the given compass however magnified in imagination. But in view of such an objection as this, we are to consider, first, that it has to be granted, that this particular shield was designed and fabricated by a God—by a divine artificer; and, secondly, that Homer is criticizing, as it were,— "in a learned spirit of observation,"—this celestial piece of handicraft. Struck, with his fine insight, by the life-like might and expression of the several pictures, as these are presently displayed upon the shield, he goes on to expound, with the full privilege of a Poet, the whole story which they have each of them suggested to his special imagination. Or by the inspiring suggestiveness to him of the incidents which are thereon represented, he is enabled to relate to us, as an Interpreter, all and every of those foregone circumstances which must have concurred in progressively evolving them. And here we have at least two capital considerations that may be set, with almost plenary effect, against any such objection as that which is above anticipated.

    But why this new version? Have we not had attempts enough already, in this field, from the hands of all sorts of versifiers? Not exactly; for those versions which the present writer has happened to meet with, have nearly all of them been very obviously unfaithful, or very deplorably unequal, to the always strong, but always simple, spirit and style of the original. And they were so chiefly, as it appears to him, because habited in a poetic garb altogether too modern and ornate--or if this fault was spared them, then because of their having proceeded from men whose life-long avocations and experiences had been either too in-door and urban, or too limitedly literary.]"

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Poetical Works of Charles Harpur Charles Harpur , Elizabeth Perkins (editor), Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1984 Z459555 1984 selected work poetry satire 'This collection represents one version of almost every poem written by Charles Harpur, with the omission of some translations and paraphrases. The verse drama, "Stalwart the Bushranger", and the fragments of the dramatic poem "King Saul" are not included. ... The collection is edited from Harpur's manuscript poems held in the Mitchell Library, Sydney, and from printed copies in colonial newspapers when no manuscript version existed.' (Preface) Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1984 pg. 643-649
Last amended 4 Mar 2009 11:04:12
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