Psalm 114, tr. into Homeric Greek by Milton in 1634

This translation is one of the vanishingly few Greek compositions done by Milton. It came to him of a sudden by a kind of divine inspiration, while he was lying in bed before day-break. So he writes to Alexander Gil in 1634, a tutor at St Paul’s School, giving this poem in exchange for some verses that were sent by him:
"I send, what is certainly not mine, but also belongs to that truly divine poet, this Ode of whom, only last week, with no deliberate intention certainly, but from I know not what sudden impulse, before day-break, I composed, almost in bed, to the rule of Greek heroic verse.”
Milton adds the following interesting remarks:
“Should anything occur to you in it not coming up to your usual opinion of our productions, understand that, since I left your school, this is the first and only thing I have composed in Greek,--employing myself, as you know, more willingly in Latin and English matters; inasmuch as whoever spends study and pains in this age on Greek composition, runs a risk of singing generally to the deaf." (Letter to Alexander Gil, 4 December 1634; transl. from Latin by Masson 1859:499.)
A thought: may not this complaint, that Greek composition runs the risk of "singing to the deaf," have found its remedy in the modern age, where foreign-language poetry can be recited on film with bilingual subtitles?
The composition differs from the original in many interesting ways. A number of innovations have a Grecian tinge. God is called, like Zeus, a God of thunder, for which (as G. S. Gordon says) Milton even invents a new word, ἐκκτυπέοντα, the one who thunders out. Jacob is introduced under the patronymic of Isaacides, as if he were a Homeric hero: and the Egyptians are said to speak a barbarian tongue; as if to draw a parallel between the special light in which both the Greeks and Hebrews viewed their own nations, as against the outside world. We are reminded of the translation-philosophy of Chapman’s Iliad; and the work seems to pass beyond the modern conception of a translation into what we might call an emulatively original poem.
It is also an extraordinary fusion of Greek and Hebrew culture; almost seeming to revive the Hellenistic Judaism to which Philo and Josephus and the Septuagint belonged. Milton takes the greatest poet of the Hebrew nation, and expresses his thoughts in the metre and language of the greatest poet of the Greeks. He thus makes the greatest poets of both nations appear to speak with one voice. This circumstance looks forward, with dramatic irony, to the Paradise Lost, so thoroughly influenced as it is both by Homer and the Bible. And it is also interesting to think that Milton is himself the greatest poet of the English nation; so that, in this translation, we find (as it were) three of the greatest poets in history meeting in one place.
The very best essay on this poem is "Milton as a Translator of Poetry" by John Hale, originally published in Renaissance Studies 1, 1987, pp. 238-56. It is also treated of in his book "Milton's Languages" (1997).
-
My translation of this poem is free to use under CC-BY-4.0 (attribution only). For want of space, I include it in a comment beneath the video, along with the Greek text.
-
A possible erratum: Milton's name, on reflection, would be better Hellenized as Μίλτων, Μίλτωνος; as opposed to my pronunciation of Μιλτών, Μιλτῶνος. This is not only how the word is accented in modern Greek, but the analogy of nearly every bisyllabic name ending in -ων that I can think of (Πλάτων, Σόλων, Χάρων &c.), the only exception being Παιών. There was a small amount of precedent for what I have done; which is that Milton’s name is written with an oxytone accent in Professor Cook's translation of Young's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” into ancient Greek (1785:173) a work which was much praised in its day:
Ενθάδε καὶ Μιλτών τις ἄμωσος &c., Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest.

[@jasonbaker2370]

This is great! ❤

[@MarcoSilesio]

good vid, I can feel the essence of these texts through your talent

[@nre7714]

I love these, but I did not see anu Oyssey readings. I'd like to hear what "rosy fingered dawn" sounds like in ancient greek and why it functions as a repetative oral telling device.

[@ThomasWhichello]

When the children of Israel, when the glorious tribes of Jacob, left the Egyptian land, a hostile land that spoke an alien tongue; surely at that time, the only holy race was the sons of Judah. And among the peoples, God was reigning mightily as their sovereign. The sea saw it, and rushed in headlong flight, wrapped in a roaring wave; and sacred Jordan was thrust towards its silvery spring. The boundless mountains were tossed about in leapings, like lusty rams in a bountiful garden. And the lower hills all skipped together with them, like lambs to the sound of a pipe with their dear mother.
Why, dreadful sea, did you rush monstrously in flight, wrapped in a roaring wave? Why were you then thrust, sacred Jordan, towards your silvery spring? Why, boundless mountains, were you tossed about in leapings, like lusty rams in a bountiful garden? You lower hills, why did you then skip about, like lambs to the sound of a pipe with their dear mother? Shake, earth, in fear of God, who bursts out in mighty thunder! in fear, earth, of God, object of highest reverence to the son of Isaac; who even out of crags pours roaring rivers, and an everlasting spring from a weeping stone.
Ἰσραὴλ ὅτε παῖδες, ὅτ᾽ ἀγλαὰ φῦλ᾽ Ἰακώβου
Αἰγύπτιον λίπε δῆμον, ἀπεχθέα, βαρβαρόφωνον,
Δὴ τότε μοῦνον ἔην ὄσιον γένος υἷες Ἰοῦδα.
Ἔν δὲ θεὸς λαοῖσι μέγα κρείων βασίλευεν.
Εἶδε καὶ ἐντροπάδην φύγαδ᾽ ἐῤῥώησε θάλασσα
Κύματι εἰλυμένη ῥοθίῳ, ὁ δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἐστυφελίχθη
Ἱρὸς Ἰορδάνης ποτὶ ἀργυροειδέα πηγήν.
Ἐκ δ᾽ ὄρεα σκαρθμοῖσιν ἀπειρέσια κλονέοντο,
Ὡς κριοὶ σφριγόωντες ἐϋτραφερῷ ἐν ἀλωῇ.
Βαιότεραι δ᾽ ἅμα πᾶσαι ἀνασκίρτησαν ἐρίπναι,
Οἷα παραὶ σύριγγι φίλῃ ὑπὸ μητέρι ἄρνες.
Τίπτε σύ γ᾽ αἰνὰ θάλασσα πέλωρ φύγαδ᾽ ἐῤῥώησας
Κύματι εἰλυμένη ῥοθίῳ; τί δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἐστυφελίχθης
Ἱρὸς Ἰορδάνη ποτὶ ἀργυροειδέα πηγήν;
Τίπτ᾽ ὄρεα σκαρθμοῖσιν ἀπειρέσια κλονέεσθε
Ὡς κριοὶ σφριγόωντες ἐϋτραφερῷ ἐν ἀλωῇ;
Βαιότεραι τί δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ὑμμὲς ἀνασκίρτησατ᾽ ἐρίπναι,
Οἷα παραὶ σύριγγι φίλῃ ὑπὸ μητέρι ἄρνες;
Σείεο γαῖα τρέουσα θεὸν μεγάλ᾽ ἐκκτυπέοντα
Γαῖα θεὸν τρείουσ᾽ ὕπατον σέβας Ἰσσακίδαο
Ὄς τε καὶ ἐκ σπιλάδων ποταμοὺς χέε μορμύροντας,
Κρήνην τ᾽ ἀέναον πέτρης ἀπὸ δακρυοέσσης.