For the iliad I feel it is important that the poem starts with “wrath” or “Achilles’ wrath” or some variant thereof and find opening the poem with “sing” is a weak start
Wilson and lattimore get this wrong, but fitzgerald, fagles, chapman, dryden, and pope get this right.
Shout out to the worst translation I have seen:
I didn’t write this story. I’m just delivering it. … It comes from way back, from the gods.
Yes thats everyone’s favorite quisling, the war nerd, john dolan writing his own “translation” in the “war nerd iliad”
Now this is the story of how
Odysseus’ life got flipped turned upside down
I’d like to take a minute, just sit on your ass
While I start with a few books about telemachus
Then did a whistling wind begin to rise,
And swiftly flew we through the fishy skies,
Till to Geraestus we in night were brought;
Where, through the broad sea since we safe had wrought,
At Neptune’s altars many solid thighs
Of slaughter’d bulls we burn’d for sacrifice.
still havent read the odyssey but as a january treat for myself i got a cheap copy of a translation of some kind of gaelic odysseylike, mostly bc the list of islands sounded pretty good
i’d say tag your favourite but i’m pretty sure everyone’s gonna go for “the island with a woman pelting them with nuts”
I’ve started this book. I decided to go with this audio version based on advice in this thread and because I still had a credit from back when I subscribed to Audible.
Because it’s an audiobook, I unwisely started a new area in SnowRunner to accompany it. I’m on book 7 and I’ve reached 7% completion of Belozersk Glades.
Going to switch from the Wilson translation to Fitzgerald, I think. Wilson’s is easier to understand but I think it’s much more monotonous for being so plain. I was enjoying it for the most part until the book where Odysseus is freed on his raft. Fitzgerald is only slightly more decorated than Wilson’s, but it’s a lot more lively by comparison, and surprisingly easier for me to read.
Envisioning an Odyssey anime from the 90s while reading this part
He pushed aside the bushes, breaking off
with his great hand a single branch of olive,
whose leaves might shield him in his nakedness;
so came out rustling, like a mountain lion,
rain-drenched, wind-buffeted, but in his might at ease,
with burning eyes—who prowls among the herds
or flocks, or after game, his hungry belly
taking him near stout homesteads for his prey.
Odysseus had this look, in his rough skin
advancing on the girls with pretty braids;
and he was driven on by hunger, too.
Streaked with brine, and swollen, he terrified them,
so that they fled, this way and that. Only
Alkínoös’ daughter stood her ground, being given
a bold heart by Athena, and steady knees.
vacation starts today!!! I got all these other books I wanna read and instead I’m gonna read the fucking odyssey. but at least that means I’ll get through it
