A Burlesque Translation of Homer

1

Every body knows Ulysses could lie with a very grave face.

2

Homer makes the gods go home at sun-set; I wish he could make all country justices and parsons do the same.

3

They made thunder formerly in the play-houses by rolling a ball in an empty mustard bowl.

4

Whoring. You see Juno keeps continually harping on that word: we may judge from thence, she came in for small share of the labours of these whoring Trojans; but Venus did. There was one Anchises, a twice five-fingered Trojan, that (as old stories say) used to thrum her jacket. Æneas was the produce of their leisure hours.

5

The same. Here Juno overlooks a very severe rub of Jupiter's, because he directly gives her leave to satiate her revenge: had it not been for that, it is thought he would hardly have escaped without a scratched face at least, or perhaps the loss of an eye.

6

Destroy 'em, &c. See the fury of an enraged woman! Rather than Troy should escape, how easily she gives up three dearly-beloved towns! But it is to be hoped, there are few such women alive now-a-days.

7

Saturn.

8

Borton, an honest chymist in Piccadilly.

9

I imagine the author has placed the troops as he thinks they should be, not as they were. The author knows the Grecians had no horses but what they used to their chariots: but, as he talks like an apothecary, he gives himself what liberty he pleases.

10

W-stm – ster H-ll

11

It is supposed they were knights of the Black Ram, or some such noble order; which is no objection to their being lords likewise.

12

Menelaus

13

The author could not help letting Mars talk in a soldier-like style.

14

There is a story goes, that a lady of the first fashion, on her wedding-night, got out of bed, and ran to her mother-in-law's room, declaring she never was used so in her life; who answered, she hoped not, but she must submit now to be used as she never was before.

15

Hecuba.

16

Cervantes tells us; if I remember right, that Sancho Pancho, after hearing the cause on both sides with wonderful attention, and taking a little time to digest the learned arguments on both sides, pulled out his box and dice to decide the matter, and the highest throw won the cause; which gave great content. If our j-dg-s would but follow his example, it would prevent their being so often interrupted in their nap, as they need be disturbed but once in a cause.

17

Whether Nestor means good or bad luck by the word hellish, we must refer to the bucks of this age, because by them this word is used indifferently for both good and bad.

18

Our author says, that going one evening into the Jews' synagogue, he observed the most devout of them making confounded ugly faces. What reason they have for striving to put on worse phizzes than God has given them, he cannot tell.

19

Harry the Eighth.

20

This man was a justice of the peace. Whilst his clerk was writing a mittimus to send a girl to Bridewell, for retailing her ware full measure for a shilling a turn, he had his own weights broken in pieces by the jury, and thrown into the street, for being short above two ounces in the pound.

21

Yorkshire word for horses.

22

Don Quichote.

23

They made thunder formerly at the play-houses in a great mustard-bowl.

24

The reader, perhaps, may think I make Iris abuse the goddess of wisdom too much in the Billingsgate style; but if he will peruse Homer, he will find Iris ten times more abusive in Greek, than I could make her in English. Homer, 1. S. lin. 423; Αννοτάτη κύον ἀδδεες [Annotatei kuon addees]. This part of Iris's abuse is not in commission from Jove, it naturally arises from the petulant malignity of the messenger. Gentle reader, if you would avoid endless quarrels, never employ an ill-natured female to deliver an angry message to one of her own sex; for it must be a very angry message indeed that a woman cannot make an addition to.

25

They make lightning at the play-house with rosin pounded very small, and thrown through the flame of a candle.

26

Thrasymede.

27

This Grimstone is a preaching shoemaker, and as fine a fellow as either of the other two brimstone-merchants; but less known, because he is confined to a small circle in the country.

28

Pope.

29

Through the Devil's Gap was the way to the Duke of Newcastle's.

30

A sea-term.

31

Ale with roasted apples in it is called lamb-wool.

32

I have heard this evil would long ago have been put a stop to, and beasts not suffered to be driven through the city; but it was apprehended it would breed great confusion to take the freedom of the city from horned cattle.

33

Free gratis. – The common people always put these two words together.