Pope is equally troubled when he has to deal with Homer's downright vernacular.

He sometimes ventures apologetically to give the original word.

He allows Achilles to speak pretty vigorously to Agamemnon in the first book:-- O monster! mix'd of insolence and fear, Thou dog in forehead, but in heart a deer! Chapman translates the phrase more fully, but adds a characteristic quibble:-- Thou ever steep'd in wine, Dog's face, with heart but of a hart.
Tickell manages the imputation of drink, but has to slur over the dog and the deer:-- Valiant with wine and furious from the bowl, Thou fierce-look'd talker, with a coward soul.
Elsewhere Pope hesitates in the use of such plain speaking.

He allows Teucer to call Hector a dog, but apologizes in a note.

"This is literal from the Greek," he says, "and I have ventured it;" though he quotes Milton's "dogs of hell" to back himself with a precedent.