These discursions, irrespective of intrinsic interest or poetic quality, obscure rather than illuminate. The story of Troy is more vivid without them. For that reason they have been excised. The principal translations have been carefully com pared, and from various renderings, selections have been made which seem to most fully breathe the spirit of the original, although the versions given are not in all cases the most literal, poetic fire having been Chosen in preference to feeble literalness. Thus each translator is represented by his noblest passages; and the reader sees the fiery epic from many view-points.