OK, I know that if I need to get something from Japan or China, I go straight to Thomas Cleary, but, should I be looking for Homer, all I have is memories of falling asleep in high school and college. I hear a lot about this Fagles character and I vaguely recall a high school translation of the Odyessy that was almost a novelization of the poem, but don’t recall liking either very much. Considering that I can’t even find two summaries that sound like the same story, I’m losing hope that there’s a “definitive” version, or at least one that doesn’t completely suck.
I’m looking for something that keeps some of the fun in terms of the structure wihout getting bogged down in staying as true to the Greek as possible (leading to stretched rhymes, etc.) and preferably has some footnotes or essays that will fill me in on the background and who’s who sorts of things.
Any suggestions? I’d prefer if I could download it online, are the Gutenberg etexts any good?
My alma mater was heavily into the classics, and the faculty insisted on the Lattimore translation. Highly readable. One thing that might catch you off guard is its use of less-Anglicized versions of certain characters’ names, such as Achilleus instead of Achilles, and Aias instead of Ajax.
I hated Richmond Lattimore’s translation – it reminds me too much of the translations I did back in high school. Too much literality and not enough poetry. (It’s Richmond, btw, not Richard. I made the same mistake for a long time before I noticed it.)
My favorite is Robert Fitzgerald’s. I read his translation of The Odyssey in high school and in college, and as soon as his Iliad came out in paperback I grabbed and read it, too. I’ve been through it several times now.
I like Robert Fagles’ translation, too – it’s the current Penguin verse translation. I have his translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey on audiotape, and have listened to them several times over.
If you want a truly off-the-wall translation, pick up Christopher Logue’s. I don’t think he’s done the whole epic, but you can find individual books, if you look. His translation of Book 16 (“the Patrocleia”) is a HOOT!
I just picked up Chapman’s translation, for historical interest. But I haven’t read it yet.
Another vote for Fitzgerald–he tried to keep the real feel of the original, and didn’t convolute things to fit into a rhyming or scanning scheme that makes more sense in Greek than in English.
Whatever you do, don’t try the translation included in Encyclopædia Brittanica’s Great Books collection (does anyone remember which one that was?). After forcing myself through two pages, I decided that the original Greek would be less archaic.
I did eventually find a better translation… I think it may have been the Lattimore mentioned by Kizarvexius, as it definitely had “Aias” instead of “Ajax” (plural “Aiantes”, since of course, there were two guys by that name).
I think it was Fitzgerald’s – I don’t thin Lattimore did that, but Fitzgerald uses more direct transliterations of the Greek in his text – “Aias” instead of “Ajax”, “Kirke” instead of “Circe”, etc. At least I didn’t immediately visualize a can of cleanser fighting in the Trojan War that way.
I was glad that Wolfgang Petersen managed to restrain himself from having a scene of the Greek heroes graffiting the beaches of Ilium with “Ajax was here.”
After much thought and deciding that I needed something to read on the train, I printed Ian Johnston’s public domain translation (based entirely off the first verse, which I compared to the other online versions). Will let you know how it goes, but if it doesn’t work out for whatever reason, I’m going to switch to Lattimore.
The kicker was that I forgot it at the office and didn’t have anything to read on the way home…
