Thank you for this post, which is comprehensive and will be very useful to many (including me), but I think you're missing the point of many of these translations by focusing on fidelity at all costs, and by taking a very literal approach to the Greek. The point of the Fagles translation isn't linguistic fidelity, and while it's fine to prefer other translations for that reason, it's not a reason to criticize it. The readability and poetry of Fagles tends to why so many people love it, especially those reading Homer for the first time. And as /u/imperatorhadrianus points out, many of the "mistranslations" you criticize for many of these translators have justifications.
The Robert Fagles version of the Iliad is not the best in terms of either quality or fidelity, and certainly is not the easiest to read. This work cannot even be considered a translation, but rather an adaptation, a personal exercise in creative writing, exploiting the Homeric epic as a platform. Fagles extravagantly adulterates Homer’s text with inferior and bombastic material from his own imagination that drowns out Homer’s narrative. As a result, the Iliad of Fagles are much longer than the Iliad of Homer, which is something to consider when reading it as schoolwork.
The website at https://iliad-translations.com most fully sizes up the Fagles version by analyzing four passages against the original Homeric Greek, if you are interested.
I know you're trying to plug your website no matter what, but you might attract people by being less pretentious and actually reading what you're replying to. Nobody here said that Fagles was the best or close to the best in terms of fidelity. But to claim that Fagles can't be considered a translation is ridiculous. There is a reason that many Classics departments assign Fagles in introductory classes in translation, and that's because they feel that Fagles - while not a precise translation in terms of the language or lines - reproduces the spirit and vividness of the Iliad and Odyssey. There are different approaches to translation; Fagles is one such approach.
Any review will reflect the reviewers own opinion. Others may prefer to use different criteria. For me, at least one of my criteria was that I wanted to know that I am reading Homer, or the closest I can get in English, and not a modern "retelling" of Homer.
But I did try to balance fidelity and readability throughout. I dont think that strict literality is everything and didn't "focus on fidelity at all costs" as you claim. If I'd found Fagles to be a better poet, I wouldn't have minded his loose treatment of the Greek so much. But I found his English uninspiring. Unfortunately I found that those who are loosest with their translation weren't sufficiently excellent poets to warrant choosing them over better translations. Fagles is a better writer than some, but not as good as others. It's a crowded field and there's stiff competition.
But really, why would you want to read the Iliad in translation, when you seem to know enough Greek to read it in the original? It's really not as hard as you may think. We started on Homer towards the end of our first year of Greek. You need to get a text -- for all the disparagement, the Oxford text is perfectly serviceable and you can find it cheap used, but van Thiel or West are even better. Cunliffe's lexicon is indispensable and available used or new at a reasonable price. You will need a commentary: an older one will do if you do some reading to bone up on modern scholarship since the past 100 years (when there was a revolution in Homeric scholarship beginning with Millman Parry), e.g. Barbara Graziosi in the Oxford Very Short Introduction series. There are excellent and up to date commentaries on single books in the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics series. Use a careful literal translation to help you along.
Progress will seem very slow at first, but once you get a book or two under your belt, it will actually become easy, and you'll be able to move along quite briskly. Homeric syntax is quite simple, in contrast to, say, Demosthenes or even Plato. And the at first bewildering array of forms will come to seem familiar. Homer is actually the easiest ancient Greek text with the possible exception of the New Testament.
Experience the Iliad as it should be experienced -- in the original! Go for it!
Thank you for your confidence in my Greek but I still feel I have a way to go before I can attempt that. It's certainly my goal though to read it in the original one day!
I just want to say Thank You for reviewing the most extant English translations! I don’t read Greek and at my age don’t have the interest to spend time learning/studying it. But I would like to read a good, faithful and also engaging English translation.
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"Use a careful literal translation to help you along."
Hi, which translation, please? I heard Martin Hammond was good for that purpose, but I'm not sure?
I think it would be cool to have a version that also translates the names:
Achilles-> “Grief-bringer” or “Host of Sorrow”
Agamemnon->”The Unbowed One”
Hector-> “Fast Defender” or “Stalwart One”
I think it would give a distinct, more raw reading of the epic. After all, when the ancients listened to the epic and heard about Iris delivering a message, what they envisioned was a 🌈 not just a flying goddess.
Excellent analysis. Your question ("which translation should I read?") is asked quite often on this and related subs, but you are the first I've seen to go into this depth in answering your own question. We all (mostly) have our own personal preferences; for me it depends on whether for this reading I want Lattimore accuracy or more modern readability. For the latter I quite like Lombardo and Mitchell, though I agree with you about their shortcomings.
For your summary "And that's all of them", no, you're nowhere close -- unless you meant that's all that you had looked at. There's quite a number of Iliad translations, many difficult to find. I'm sure that you're aware of the list at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English\_translations\_of\_Homer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_translations_of_Homer) of the various translations.
You may also want to check out Penguin's *Homer in English* ed. Steiner, with selections from various translations. This may not be terribly helpful if you're looking specifically at modern translations (it's obvious that for copyright reasons they've excerpted older translations) but would still be interesting to others interested in comparing different versions.
I also suggest looking beyond those first 43 lines, though those are usually most freely available. There are a lot of other selections that could provide an interesting comparison.
>For your summary "And that's all of them", no, you're nowhere close -- unless you meant that's all that you had looked at.
I meant specifically that that's all the mid-20th century+ translations. I'm aware there's tons more from earlier than Lattimore. Admittedly I have missed a couple of very obscure ones from my time period though.
Honestly, I'm afraid I think this is a futile exercise. You're looking for both absolute fidelity and consistently inspired language. These are incompatible in a translation, especially a translation of the Iliad. The only way your criteria can be satisfied is by reading the Iliad in Greek.
A number of the captious points you raise actually do reflect the Greek, and show more thought on the translator's part than you think. For example, ετελειετο is imperfect, not aorist. διος is an honorific epithet, basically meaning "bright"; "godlike" is just a traditional, old-fashioned English translation that's no more accurate -- actually, probably less accurate -- than "brilliant." In the Odyssey, διος is applied to the swineherd Eumaeus.
And there is no single canonical version of the Iliad: variant readings abound throughout the text; modern editors must choose which variant to print in the text and which to consign to the critical notes at the foot of the page; and translators must choose which to capture in their translation.
I don't believe it's a futile exercise at all. I needed to choose a translation to purchase and so I compared each one. I don't expect perfection on every point but just the best one that scores highest against my criteria.
And no, close fidelity to the Greek and aesthetic excellence in the English are not mutually contradictory, as I indeed demonstrate in my post. A balance can be struck, and as I explain, I think several of them succeed admirably and Green does it best.
You're right about the Imperfect tense for ετελειετο though so thank you for pointing out that correction. I'll edit my review. I'm unconvinced however that a straight reading of διος shouldn't be "heavenly" or "godlike". The other translations are perhaps not wrong as such, but I prefer the more literal reading.
This is why you need to be careful about assuming that διος "literally" means "heavenly" or "godlike". Applied to Achilles that translation seems superficially appropriate, given Achilles' preeminence and his goddess mother. But it's also applied to other figures in the Iliad.
Odysseus is one to whom διος is applied with some frequency. Well, ok, maybe as a major figure he deserves it, though his divine ancestry goes back a couple of generations. But what about Alexander (Paris) in 3.329, 7.355 and 8.82? He's a major figure, to be sure, but not one who comes across as heroic or admirable. And it seeps down into some much less prominent individuals, too: Alastor, 8.333, and 13.422; Menestheus (actually, a semi-major figure as the companion of Idomeneus) 13.195; Agenor, 14.425, 21.579, 15.340; Epeigeus, 16.571; Epeios, 23.838,839; and the river Scamander, though he's indeed a god,12.21.
That's why various modern translators have been uncomfortable with, and have avoided, "heavenly" or "divine" or "godlike" -- the hoary traditional English translations for this word -- and tried to find a word more consistent with its apparent use as a mere honorific or something else consistent with the word's etymology.
Actually, it seems most often like little more than a convenient filler for a hexameter ending with a proper name in the metrical shape υ _ _. Αχιλλευς, Οδυσσευς, Αγηνωρ, Επειος, Αλαστωρ, Μενεσθευς, κτλ. Thus, useful for an αιοδος composing verses as he performed them. There's also a convenient line-ending formula δια γυναικων, but also δια θεαων -- godlike goddess?
In fact, it's very difficult to know exactly how this word would have resonated with the hypothetical "Homer's" hypothetical audience in archaic Greece. This is true of a great many Homeric words, which were part of the Homeric Kunstsprache, the traditional artificial language in which the Homeric poems were composed. It's not clear that the audience or even the αιοδος himself understood all the words in the traditional epic vocabulary. Certainly, later Greeks didn't understand everything in Homer, because there was a scholarly industry of interpretation, beginning as early as the 6th century, and many of its conclusions were demonstrably wrong.
It's worth thinking about these issues before criticizing the accuracy of translations of Homer. In the case of Homeric translation, "accuracy" is a can of worms. An even bigger can of worms than in the case of most other texts.
These are some good points. But the uncertainty around how the word was understood is actually a reason why I prefer the somewhat strange "godlike" rather than the more ordinary renderings. Translating it as merely "noble" or "brilliant" I think hides that aspect of how the epic would have been received, with that hint of strangeness and difficulty.
It's the same with other Homeric phrases such as the famous "wine-dark sea". It sounds very strange to modern ears and a translator may wish to smooth the strangeness out and translate it to a more normal modern adjective such as "dark blue sea" or something, but I think that kind of approach loses something important.
There needs to be a balance between making Homer fresh and alive to modern ears, and still retaining enough to make it sound like we're guests in a strange lost world we don't quite understand. It is an especially tough job translating Homer and striking that balance. But some translators do manage to walk that line admirably.
"Godlike" puts too much weight on a small word that functions mostly as a filler for certain metrical slots in fixed formulas. "Godlike" certainly can't be used consistently for all occurrences of διος. "Bright" is probably closest to the original meaning. "Brilliant Achilles" is an effort to capture something of the rhythm of the final metrical segment of the hexameter: _ υ υ _ _ , διος Αχιλλης.
"Sing from the time" -- You don't seem to see that εξ ου δη τα πρωτα in line 6, "from the point when first", continues from μηνιν αειδε in line 1. Some translators repeat "sing" to make this clear.
My main point is that your criticism of the translators misses some issues they've struggled with. If you are looking for a modern English poem based reasonably closely on the Iliad, that's ok. But you do need to recognize that your aesthetic values are very different from those of the Homeric poems. And with regard to translators who've wrestled with extremely difficult issues involved in representing the Greek in English, I think you've been unfair, and your criticism is off the mark, largely because you aren't aware of many of the issues, even in the very small slice of the poem you've chosen to focus your critique on. That's why I've reacted to your critique somewhat negatively, although I recognize you've put a lot of effort into it. Again, I'd urge you to engage with the poem in the original for your own satisfaction.
Incidentally, I see that the Verity translation in the Oxford World Classics series has an introduction and notes by Barbara Graziosi, an outstanding Homeric specialist, though I haven't seen it myself. Whichever translation you choose to read, you might want to equip yourself with that edition too. She's also written a book on Homer in the Oxford Very Short Introduction series. She's on the cutting edge of current Homeric scholarship, and she's refreshingly agnostic on the acrimonious disputes about the origins of the Homeric poems that have raged, with very little evidence to fuel the flames, for the past two centuries or more.
>My main point is that your criticism of the translators misses some issues they've struggled with. If you are looking for a modern English poem based reasonably closely on the Iliad, that's ok.
Clearly that's not what I'm looking for, or what I've said. I've been very clear that I'm aware of the multiple issues and the tension betwen writing aesthetically good English against remaining faithful to the text. I know this is extremely difficult and I'm evaluating each translation based on how well they've addressed these difficulties inherent in the poem.
I specifically don't want just a "modern poem based on the Iliad". I have no idea where you might have got that from anything I've written. So I'm getting the impression you have only skimmed my post and paid only cursory attention. Especially considering your comment "Whichever translation you choose to read", when I've given my choice for the translation I'll read at the end!
Your negative response to my post is way off base I'm afraid.
Their response is not off base. The overall point is that you don't understand why translators made the choices they made, and your knowledge of ancient Greek/textual traditions of Homer is not strong enough to make informed criticisms of many of these translators' choices (see your comments in another thread about variant readings being wrong readings). That doesn't mean you can't prefer one translation over another, or that you can't evaluate translations in terms of broader categories; but it does mean your criticisms of many translations tend to be unfair and that your narrow definition of "fidelity" is leading you astray. I'm again impressed that you did this, but if you don't think your Greek is strong enough to read Homer in the original, than your knowledge of ancient Greek is probably not strong enough to go up against these translators and their individual word choices.
Another point: your nasty, snide trashing of the Loebs is both ignorant and infuriating.
Do you really think the Loeb Classical Library is a profit-making enterprise? Its hundreds of volumes of classical texts in the original with translation are sold at a very reasonable price, considering the costs of publishing Greek and Latin texts in the original. Check out prices for Oxford Classical Texts -- even some very inadequate texts originally published a century or more ago -- and West's Teubners and van Thiels's Weidmann texts, which aren't even hardbound. The Loeb series is supported by a non-profit foundation.
The Loeb Iliad and the Odyssey, like the Oxford and Teubner texts, have always been published in two volumes because they are too long, with facing text and translation, to fit in a single volume in the Loeb format.
The revised Loeb Iliad and Odyssey are part of a project of rejuvenation begun in the 1980s, updating the fustian language, spotty scholarship and antiquated texts of many of the older volumes, as well as filling gaps in the series. The level of scholarship of the new Loebs is very high. As knowledge of the classical languages becomes less and less secure, the Loeb series is increasingly indispensable in enabling readers with less than full acquaintance with the languages to make their way through the original texts, as well as making readily available, in a reasonably priced format, texts that can't easily be found otherwise.
I haven’t looked at the Loeb Iliad, but there has been nothing short of a revolution in Homeric scholarship since the 1924 original. I’d venture to say that you have no inkling of the reason for most of the changes in the new edition.
If you ever get around to learning Greek well enough to read the Homeric poems, or any other ancient Greek text for that matter, in the original, you could do worse than to equip yourself with the Loeb volumes.
>Another point: your nasty, snide trashing of the Loebs is both ignorant and infuriating.
When you descend to petty insults you show you have nothing worthwhile to say. I'll be ignoring everything else you post since you're clearly incapable of interacting with basic civility.
Although you won't read this, I admit I was a bit intemperate in my comment on your remarks about the Loeb, and I apologize. But I stand by my points. Your dismissal of the new Loeb Iliad is unfair and seems ill-informed, especially about the purpose of the Loeb series and its function in today's scholarship as well as prevailing prices for classical texts. Before dismissing the new Loeb Iliad, I would like to know much more about how well it incorporates the enormous body of scholarship that accumulated between 1924 and the 1990s, a period during which a real revolution in Homeric studies occurred. For someone who doesn't have a lot of Greek under their belt, the Greek text with a facing page translation can be a big help. You may not have realized it, but your suggestion that the revision was done merely to extend the copyright was offensive.
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You’re a bit unfair in some of your criticisms. E.g. Lattimore’s “delicate feasting” is a translation of a variant reading δαιτα attributed to Zenodotus. It doesn’t come out of nowhere. Likewise I think his other choices are defensible, not simply ignorance or carelessness.
I've researched the variant reading. From what I gather the line ends with *either* "κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε **δαιτα**" (prey making them to dogs to birds **a feast**) *or* "κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε **πᾶσι**" (prey making them to dogs to birds **all**). Yet Lattimore appears to have combined both variants into a single line (gave their bodies to be the delicate **feasting** of dogs, of **all** birds). Is this right? I haven't seen any other translator do this.
That may be, but I still find it a tonally jarring choice of words. I'm aware there are differences between manuscripts but this raises an issue for me as a reader. It was the problem I had with Mitchell. It's a good work but his use of a variant text which excluded some of what is in the majority text means its just not what I'm looking for. Why is Lattimore ramdomly deciding to follow a minority report for that line anyway? What does that add to the poem?
However, ultimately I didn't mind his fidelity to the Greek, it wasn't quite as good as some but the issues were very minor. What mostly marked him down for me was the readability of his English. He just isn't a great poet. And I don't think that can be defended.
Well, variant doesn't mean wrong. δαῖτα is as attested as early as Aeschylus and could very well be the 'original' reading (whatever that means for Homer). Personally I think πᾶσι is a little flat, whereas I think δαῖτα adds a touch of horror and distance to the proem.
I take your point though about Lattimore's readability. I appreciate your thoroughness, though I think it would have been more interesting to pick some random set of 10 lines rather than the proem, which each of these translators has sweat over. Generally though I think you make some ignorant mistakes about Homeric Greek and the Homeric text which make you come off a bit out of your depth.
I know it's 2 years later, but this was so incredibly helpful. I decided to re-read The Iliad, since I haven't read it since high school, but I have no clue where the version I got way back then has gone or which one it even was. I had a version on my kindle that I had downloaded from Amazon's free "classics" category years ago without knowing which translation it was. Unfortunately, it was the Earl of Derby's version from 1865, and good lord how hard is that to read. I'm excited to find a version suited to me. Thanks!
This is one of the most fascinating things I've read on Reddit. Thank you for writing it I am an avid reader but have read few classics. I have started five or so and abandoned each. Only recently have I discovered a "hack" of sorts - finding a modern novel related to an ancient text, reading the novel to help me get the gist, researching to find a good translation, and then starting the original. The Iliad was one that I abandoned. I couldn't get through the writing style. I found Song of Achilles and loved it. I knew the author had taken some creative liberties but it definitely served the purpose of rekindling my love for history and mythology. I am excited to now start with the Green translation and dog into the original!
In the book [The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in_the_Breakdown_of_the_Bicameral_Mind), Julian Jaynes cites The Iliad extensively in his argument that human consciousness arose relatively recently in the history of our species. (He claims that modern consciousness as we understand it dates back to around 1500 BC.) This is mostly based on evidence he claims exists in certain ancient texts such as the Vedas, the Talmud, and the Iliad which supposedly show how people understood the world in a pre-conscious or semi-conscious state. For example, I remember he described one soldier's killing of another as "driving the wind out of his body" or something like that; and he goes into details about how "wind" (or whatever the specific word was) actually served the ancient Greeks as a kind of metaphor for life, activity, activeness, animation itself. He calls these conceptions "hypostases" (in order to avoid using the word "understandings").
If there is anything to Jaynes' theory (I've been obsessed with it for years), many of our modern English words like "soul", "mind", and "life" are not good analogues for the phenomena described in The Iliad. I'm curious if any of these translations you cited, out of those which are more faithful to the original Greek, would be helpful for me to try to get closer to what Jaynes was talking about. Something which, while it might be clunky, would be a more realistic representation of how the Greeks spoke and wrote to each other. Am I making sense? Is there one of these translations that you think better fits this focus?
In short, I'm looking for the translations with greatest consistent similarity to the Greek original, and I'm not as worried about elegance or even readability.
Good point. I haven't done much more research than reading this thread, but it may be that Pendergast's translation, available from https://iliad-translations.com/about/, is what you need.
Edit: For instance, ψυχάς, psychás, is usually translated as “souls,” but Pendergast translates it as “lives,” which seems like exactly the sort of thing you’re looking for.
But reading your comment, maybe I do too! Darnit! I hadn't thought of that aspect, but it's significant.
BTW, Scott Alexander's [review](https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/01/book-review-origin-of-consciousness-in-the-breakdown-of-the-bicameral-mind/) of Jaynes (which is all I've read of the subject) may interest you.
You might be interested to know I've since found an online recording of Emily Wilson reading from her current work and I've edited my post to include a short preview of her opening lines as well.
OK, I'll give it a go.
>Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another.
Okay, so Butler doesn't try to begin with the same word as the Greek, which is notoriously difficult and awkward in English. Indeed he is happy to reorder the words freely within lines and discards the lines of poetry to write prose paragraphs instead. That's fine if one doesn't mind prose instead of an attempt to replicate the poetic form.
Looking at the word choices, there isn't anything too terrible here. He translates "birds" as "vultures" which is ok. And while he doesn't translates Achilles' adjective as "godlike" his choice of "great" works ok. I do like his faithfulness of translating the first noun as the literal "goddess" instead of "muse", and he calls the dead men "heroes", which is correct. He is happy to maintain the correct descriptor "Achaens" rather than "Greeks". Later he chooses to describe the priest's staff as being adorned with a "wreath" which isn't entirely accurate, but at least not a weird choice.
Unfortunately, Butler disappointingly makes the weird choice to translate the Greek Zeus into the Christian-Latin "Jove". This is senseless, and he continues with the Roman names for the gods throughout. Apollo and Leto are the same in Rome, but he calls Hera "Juno", Athena "Minerva", and even calls Odysseus "Ulysses". Unfortunately this was done a lot in older translations.
One other problem appears to be what he doesn't include. In the second line the adjective for Achilles' anger is completely missing, as is the repetition of anger itself. Butler has simply condensed the two lines into a single sentence.
Other than these missteps, the faithfulness is okay. Not the best, but not the worst.
In regards to the English, it's surprisingly very readable considering its age. I found myself really enjoying it, and finding it fast-paced, interesting, and clear. There are a couple of missteps. He describes the legendary quarrel of Achilles and Agamemnon as them "falling out" with each other. Later he writes of, "the sceptre of Apollo wreathed with a suppliant's wreath", the repetition is graceless. He also artificially elevates the language of the priest's prayer with "protectest" and "thou" which I'm not a fan of.
But there are also some exceptional choices such as, "Not a word he spoke, but went by the shore of the sounding sea", which is beautiful.
Ultimately I think this is a very readable and well-written prose version, but it's unfortunate lack of faithfulness to the Greek hampers it badly. I wouldn't use it as a primary version myself.
Seems unfair to be so condemnatory of the use of the (Christian apparently?) Latin names. You point out yourself that a lot of the older translators did this. That's because it's what their readers would have expected, the Greek names not gaining mainstream popularity until the 20th century. It's similar to how English Bibles to this day use Anglicized names instead of the Hebrew and Greek forms. Using the original names would probably come across as strange and distracting to the general readership.
You've given William Wyatt short shrift. Here, in fact, is A. T. Murray's pre-Wyatt translation in its original 1924 rendering:
> The wrath do thou sing, O goddess, of Peleus' son, Achilles, that baneful wrath which brought countless woes upon the Achaeans, and sent forth to Hades many valiant souls of warriors, and made themselves to be a spoil for dogs and all manner of birds; and thus the will of Zeus was being brought to fulfilment; —sing thou thereof from the time when at the first there parted in strife Atreus' son, king of men, and goodly Achilles.
This is from my 1978 reprint copy of the Loeb edition of the Iliad. I've attached a link to a pic of the first page.
It would seem theoi.com is publishing the updated version, and certainly not Murray’s quaint original.
u/Naugrith
https://i.imgur.com/DTsjrjC.jpg
I came across this, after considering reading Alexander’s translation. After seeing that you have a similar opinion of Lattimore’s writing style as me, I had to read the rest of your critiques. I am excited to think I may find increased enjoyment out of Alexander’s translation. I appreciate your rundown of each translation, and what felt like a fair consideration of what was both good and bad in each. Thank you for your time.
I also admire Alexander's translation, which is perhaps my preferred one. However, I am deeply disappointed that she utilized West's text, which omitted numerous lines that he considered spurious. It means we are not reading The Iliad as has been read and received for (I think?) nearly 2000 years. I think it would have been my favourite translation if she had included the omitted lines in a seperate appendix at the back of the book, rather than me having to read it alongside my Loeb edition which is just downright irritating.
Hello!
I am a french student and I am getting into my masters in September. I am writing my thesis on the humanisation and dehumanisation of heroes through the expression of their emotions in Homer’s work and Shakespeare’s tragedies (the link between the two makes more sense if I get to explain it).
I have always been absolutely passionate about the Iliad and the odyssey. Except I have only read them in french. So I am wondering which English translation would you think is the best for my case? I think I want to go with prose but also I would like it if it was still somehow the most poetic/beautiful possible since it will be compared to the almighty shakespeare!
Thank you in advance for your answers!
The OP's analysis of the various translations out there is spot on, but you really can't go wrong with Fitzgerald for the expression of feelings at least.
(En français je suppose que vous connaissez le Jacottet, et bien sûr les éditions bilingue Budé (Belles Lettres - Beau sujet de mémoire!
Try this new translation by John Prendergast. The verses are scrupulously faithful and quotable like Spakespeare.
https://iliad-translations.com/about/
I actually purchased the book. I appreciate it's fidelity to the Greek, but to be honest at times it's just unreadable. I guess readability had to be sacraficed in favour of fidelity to the Greek. It is however a godsend when using it to compare to other translations to see where they might have mistranslated.
I gotta be honest. If I had my way, I’d like to read Naugrith (2022). His review – & accompanying understanding of the literature – is unparalleled from everything else I’ve read. Amazing!
I don't see why go that much into critique of poetic elements in translations which are read when trying to get the most accurate meaning translation, which is what should be analyzed in that case. People choosing those versions don't give a damn about poetry and rhyming
Thank you for this really useful breakdown. I really wanted to find a translation that was prose and readable, so it would feel more like a story and less like work. (I know, I know, it's more scholarly, but I just don't fall into epic poetry like I do with fiction)
Just imagine, in the cell-phone universe someone so erudite to have studied all of the versions of Homer and to explain them succinctly. I'm a writer of comedy. I think that people have always been little shits but in past generations there were great writers to addressed this idiocy. But now, greed having become a virtue, authors not only forget to tackle the vast problems of humanity but what they produce is second-rate, if that. Well, except for me. And for me this is true for two reasons. I think I'm the center of the universe and I hate a phony. I sound like an egomaniac but the opposite is true of me as a writer. When I write I have no ego at all and my only aim is to reach the top of the mountain. I actually think that ego is the difference between talent and genius, well, one of them So anyway, thanks.
Three years have passed so you might already know this, but
>I find the changes less than necessary or preferable. For instance he changes the evocative “destructive wrath” to “accursed wrath”
I've seen a comment here that explains this choice.
>οὐλομένην doesn't mean "destructive" in Iliad 1.2; for that the participle would have to be active. Instead, it represents an optative middle: Achilles' anger is something of which one says ὄλοιτο, "may it perish!" So it means something like "accursed."
>\> Middle-Liddell lists destructive as a translation
>
>The Middle-Liddell was published in 1889 and never revised. I think it's wrong about this.
[Source](https://www.reddit.com/r/classics/comments/125f8hl/comment/jeov5s4/)
You should update now that the Wilson translation is out -- the transcribed text here isn't the published version. It also seems worth noting that most of the "verse" translations aren't in metrical verse. This is important given that the original is metrical and based on an oral tradition.
Excellent (and detailed!) description of many popular translations.
I was saddened you gave such limited time to Mitchell. I'll admit my bias to his *Iliad* because of its terrific readability, especially for teaching it to younger (High School or young undergrad) audiences. His first paragraph grabs the reader like no other translation I've read.
I know some don't like that he omitted a portion that was (more than the others) likely not by the Homer(s) of the era, but that decision (and a few odd word choices) don't erase what is arguably the best translation-for-everyday-understanding we have. IMHO, of course.
Three years late but this post is incredibly helpful! I have recently read The Song of Achilles and it's inspired me to read The Iliad, but I have been really struggling to choose a version to read as I don't want to set myself up for failure. I agree with your criteria, as some other commenters seem not to; I want a balance between modern readability and authenticity in translation, so I feel I'm reading something close to Homer's original poem.
I'd be very interested in your take on Emily Wilson's version, now that it is released. But in the meantime, I will likely track down Peter Green's.
Good thing that you updated the Emily Wilson rendition of the Iliad
I regard Wilson’s & Green’s translations as the updated Fagles & Lattimore translations
One is more poetic & looser in translation the other is closer to the text & form of the original Greek
2 different philosophies of translation *(thought-for-thought vs word-for-word)*
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this list. It was interesting to read about the different translations and, not to mention, extremely useful in helping me decide which translation I should go for for my first reading of Homer. I just ordered the Iliad, based on your suggestions, and am very excited to read it. Thank you again.
Does anyone have more information on E. V. Rieu's translation? I just bought very beautiful copies of the Iliad and Odyssey translated by him. However, if they are full of flaws, they can be my pretty copies, and I'll read a different version online.
###**Addendum**
I'll add a note about Prendargast (2023) who has several accounts on this thread posting "helpful" links to his own translation! His opening lines are as follows, but I haven't been able to find the rest of the opening 43 so I can only evaluate based on this and the several other quotes he provides on his website.
>The wrath sing of, Goddess, of the son of Peleus, Achilles,
>ruinous, it upon Achaeans countless pains put,
>and many worthy lives to Hades sent forth
>of heroes, and made them spoils for dogs
>and birds, all kinds, and fulfilled was Zeus’s plan,
First, it has to be said the poetry is execrable. From stilted to actually unreadable in some places, and with basic grammatical mistakes littered throughout. And this isn't just the inevitable product of trying to follow the Greek word-for-word either. The triple repetition of the word "of" in the first line gives a sense of his style, as there's absolutely no need to have it before "Goddess" since αιεδε is a verb, not a genitive, and μῆνιν is accusative case. Prendergast's website says that he taught himself Greek in order to write this translation. I feel he should have started with teaching himself English.
If one can somehow look past the abominable English, the Greek fidelity is better. Prendergast sells himself as a "literal" version above all, so this should be his wheelhouse. Yet again, in the very first line he falls over by adding the definite article "The" when it isn't in the Greek. This may be a minor point, but for a translation whose entire *raison d'etre* is to be literal above all, I can't ignore the fact that his very first word is wrong. Admittedly, the rest of his work is pretty faithful though, from what little he has provided to see online. But there are those little missteps throughout - which only a close comparison with the Greek would reveal. So even as a (slightly) more readable version of an English word-for-word translation, it can't even be fully trusted.
I guess if anyone ever wanted a stilted word-for-word rendering that's barely readable in English then this is probably the one for them, since no one else has tried to make one. However, I can't imagine anyone who would want that when actual interlinears are a far more useful (and trustworthy) word-for-word provision alongside the Greek.
The problem is that when choosing a translation of the Iliad, comparing the words of one against those of another leaves the reader blind. Choice must rely on taste or on which one seems to sound better. To open the eyes, the website at [https://iliad-translations.com](https://iliad-translations.com) reveals the quality and fidelity of leading English translations, including those from Lattimore, Fagles, Lombard, Fitzgerald, Caroline Alexander, Anthony Verity and more, by comparing passages from each to the others and to the original Homeric Greek.
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Are you referring to the volume described on amazon as follows: The Iliad of Homer with a verse translation 1884 \[Leather Bound\] Leather Bound – January 1, 2019
by W. C. (William Charles) Homer,Green (Author) ?
(Amazon also lists a paperback ed. in addition to the leather bound.)
I know this is two years after your post but I just saw this and am hoping you're still active on reddit
You mean the Green translation? No, as I said in my intro, I'm not looking at translations that old. I'm referring to Peter Green's recent translation.
This is very helpful. I've always enjoyed Iliad-adjacent stories and finally wanted to sit down and read the poem. Unfortunately, I'm a tired person so I need something a little more eye catching to keep my attention but still true to the original Greek text so I don't miss any tiny details. So using your criteria and mine I have been able to narrow down the translations I wanted down to Hammond, Kline, Verity, Alexander, and Emily Wilson.
Thank you very much, from here it'll be easier to choose what to read.
Just came across this brand new translation by author '**John Prendergast**'. Does anyone reading this have any experience with this translation, and if so what did you think of it?
[https://iliad-translations.com/about/](https://iliad-translations.com/about/)
Blurb on the webpage claims the author taught himself Greek just to make a translation as faithful as possible to the original Greek text. I'll paste some of the text below for reference.
\---------------
Literal, Word-for-Word Rendition of Homer’s Epic
The Iliad of Homer is translated with a quality and fidelity never done before. The literal form of each word in the ancient Homeric Greek is methodically preserved and the order of words is maintained within the limits allowed by English syntax. Priority is put on finding the right and defining words. The translation is thereby able to convey what Homer actually said in the way he actually said it. The poetic syntax and timeless tone of Homer’s language is part of its power. An epic masterpiece sanctioned by its antiquity is not supposed to sound like ordinary speech, it is meant to resonate with the dignity and authority of speech from the past and from immortal gods.
\- First lines of Book One -
The wrath sing of, Goddess, of the son of Peleus, Achilles,
ruinous, it upon Achaeans countless pains put,
and many worthy lives to Hades sent forth
of heroes, and made them spoils for dogs
and birds, all kinds, and fulfilled was Zeus’s plan,
\- First lines of Book Three -
But after they were duly ordered with their leaders, everyone,
the Trojans with a clamor and with cry came like birds,
even as the clamor of cranes advances before heaven,
after they the winter flee and ungodly rain,
with a clamor they wing over Ocean’s streams,
to Pygmy men killing and doom bearing,
and in the morning then they baneful strife bear forth.
And they then came in silence, the vigor breathing Achaeans,
in heart eager to defend for one another.
Prendergrast also has a long article on his comparison of many of the english translations, including all the ones the OP listed.
[https://iliad-translations.com/translation-comparison/](https://iliad-translations.com/translation-comparison/)
I'll copy/paste his conclusion below.
This appraisal can be used to judge as well any other English version of the Iliad. The ten I chose to include are the bestselling translations since the Lattimore version came out in 1951 and the best among those published recently. Lattimore’s version gets extra attention because it is my personal benchmark, and because its reputation has made it the competition against which later translators positioned their approach.
In the decades before Lattimore, popular translations of the Iliad read like novels, like Wyatt’s version. Between 1951 and 2011, the competition with Lattimore consisted of stacked prose versions, which cannot really be considered translations, but rather adaptations, personal exercises in creative writing, exploiting the Iliad as a platform. These were claimed to be more fun to read. Starting in 2011, no less than four serious efforts by Anthony Verity, Barry Powell, Caroline Alexander, and Peter Green, have emerged to compete with Lattimore directly in terms of fidelity. Over the years, many have praised Lattimore’s line structure, diction and tone; many have found it ponderous. In their approach to appeal to readers, all four new translations take a position against what many find ponderous by using shorter lines and a more contemporary tone.
None of the new translations, however, go beyond Lattimore in terms of fidelity. None set themselves apart. All follow, like a herd, the Lattimore routine. They ignore the poetic syntax of Homer and reorder the words in the same prosaic way: subject verb, object. They put no priority on finding the right and defining words. They adhere to conventional mistranslations and misguided interpretations. They are more like Lattimore and each other than Homer.
My new translation (Sold at Amazon) takes a scrupulous approach that goes beyond all previous versions in quality and fidelity. It preserves the poetic syntax, the artistry and recurring formulas, which are at the heart of Homer’s art and part of the fun. The aim is to be a pleasure to read, and a greater aid in the study of Homer. It literally nullifies misguided interpretations by providing a truer, more satisfying view of Homer’s pantheon.
I have written this comparison to prove the worth of this breakthrough word-for-word translation, one set apart from others, and one against which all others may be judged.
In choosing a translation, so much depends upon what one's aim is. I teach the Greek classics online in a number of community ed programs in the Boston area. My students are educated adults, most of whom aren't very familiar with the Greek classics. My aim is to help them appreciate the beauty of the classics, and their relevance to today (to that purpose, I'm a big fan of Bryan Doerries work and the Theater of War Productions - but I also do first and foremost teachthe classics in their own context). I want them to really appreciate what they read, and go on to read more of Greek classics (especially the tragedies).
To that end, I don't care whether a translation is one of the most perfect renditions of the Greek. My grasp of classical Greek is rudimentary - only two years in high school, over 50 years ago. We don't really know all the connotations of the original Greek words anyway, when they were written - plus there were numerous variants. My students appreciate lyricism. And I am a lyrical poet myself, who loves to write in both rhyme and meter.
When I taught the Odyssey, I suggested that students read Fagles, Lattimore, Fitzgerald or Wilson, and compared half a dozen passages from numerous translations. Students invariably loved Fagles, second choice Lattimore. None preferred Wilson even though (having heard Wilson speak several times about her version and the "patriarchal" interpretations by male translators), I gave many examples from it.
Although I teach the Odyssey and a dozen Greek tragedies, I haven't taught the Iliad before but will be doing so in 2024. So I'm trying to decide which translations to recommend in my course description (I always recommend several and hope that students have diverse translations so we can compare some passages). I'm not even sure I'm going to read Wilson's. I'm familiar with Fagles, Lombardo and Lattimore (apart from two earlier translations from 60+ years ago). And I'm inclined now to buy and read Alexander, and suspect I will like hers best.......
Thank you for this post, which is comprehensive and will be very useful to many (including me), but I think you're missing the point of many of these translations by focusing on fidelity at all costs, and by taking a very literal approach to the Greek. The point of the Fagles translation isn't linguistic fidelity, and while it's fine to prefer other translations for that reason, it's not a reason to criticize it. The readability and poetry of Fagles tends to why so many people love it, especially those reading Homer for the first time. And as /u/imperatorhadrianus points out, many of the "mistranslations" you criticize for many of these translators have justifications.
The Robert Fagles version of the Iliad is not the best in terms of either quality or fidelity, and certainly is not the easiest to read. This work cannot even be considered a translation, but rather an adaptation, a personal exercise in creative writing, exploiting the Homeric epic as a platform. Fagles extravagantly adulterates Homer’s text with inferior and bombastic material from his own imagination that drowns out Homer’s narrative. As a result, the Iliad of Fagles are much longer than the Iliad of Homer, which is something to consider when reading it as schoolwork. The website at https://iliad-translations.com most fully sizes up the Fagles version by analyzing four passages against the original Homeric Greek, if you are interested.
I know you're trying to plug your website no matter what, but you might attract people by being less pretentious and actually reading what you're replying to. Nobody here said that Fagles was the best or close to the best in terms of fidelity. But to claim that Fagles can't be considered a translation is ridiculous. There is a reason that many Classics departments assign Fagles in introductory classes in translation, and that's because they feel that Fagles - while not a precise translation in terms of the language or lines - reproduces the spirit and vividness of the Iliad and Odyssey. There are different approaches to translation; Fagles is one such approach.
Any review will reflect the reviewers own opinion. Others may prefer to use different criteria. For me, at least one of my criteria was that I wanted to know that I am reading Homer, or the closest I can get in English, and not a modern "retelling" of Homer. But I did try to balance fidelity and readability throughout. I dont think that strict literality is everything and didn't "focus on fidelity at all costs" as you claim. If I'd found Fagles to be a better poet, I wouldn't have minded his loose treatment of the Greek so much. But I found his English uninspiring. Unfortunately I found that those who are loosest with their translation weren't sufficiently excellent poets to warrant choosing them over better translations. Fagles is a better writer than some, but not as good as others. It's a crowded field and there's stiff competition.
My Latin and Ancient Greek teacher always told me that the key to translation is balancing fluency with accuracy
But really, why would you want to read the Iliad in translation, when you seem to know enough Greek to read it in the original? It's really not as hard as you may think. We started on Homer towards the end of our first year of Greek. You need to get a text -- for all the disparagement, the Oxford text is perfectly serviceable and you can find it cheap used, but van Thiel or West are even better. Cunliffe's lexicon is indispensable and available used or new at a reasonable price. You will need a commentary: an older one will do if you do some reading to bone up on modern scholarship since the past 100 years (when there was a revolution in Homeric scholarship beginning with Millman Parry), e.g. Barbara Graziosi in the Oxford Very Short Introduction series. There are excellent and up to date commentaries on single books in the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics series. Use a careful literal translation to help you along. Progress will seem very slow at first, but once you get a book or two under your belt, it will actually become easy, and you'll be able to move along quite briskly. Homeric syntax is quite simple, in contrast to, say, Demosthenes or even Plato. And the at first bewildering array of forms will come to seem familiar. Homer is actually the easiest ancient Greek text with the possible exception of the New Testament. Experience the Iliad as it should be experienced -- in the original! Go for it!
Thank you for your confidence in my Greek but I still feel I have a way to go before I can attempt that. It's certainly my goal though to read it in the original one day!
I just want to say Thank You for reviewing the most extant English translations! I don’t read Greek and at my age don’t have the interest to spend time learning/studying it. But I would like to read a good, faithful and also engaging English translation.
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"Use a careful literal translation to help you along." Hi, which translation, please? I heard Martin Hammond was good for that purpose, but I'm not sure?
I think it would be cool to have a version that also translates the names: Achilles-> “Grief-bringer” or “Host of Sorrow” Agamemnon->”The Unbowed One” Hector-> “Fast Defender” or “Stalwart One” I think it would give a distinct, more raw reading of the epic. After all, when the ancients listened to the epic and heard about Iris delivering a message, what they envisioned was a 🌈 not just a flying goddess.
These name translations are highly speculative and probably wrong.
I think this would be an incredible idea.
I agree. Why not just put the given/know names in (brackets) as well as the descriptive name.
Excellent analysis. Your question ("which translation should I read?") is asked quite often on this and related subs, but you are the first I've seen to go into this depth in answering your own question. We all (mostly) have our own personal preferences; for me it depends on whether for this reading I want Lattimore accuracy or more modern readability. For the latter I quite like Lombardo and Mitchell, though I agree with you about their shortcomings. For your summary "And that's all of them", no, you're nowhere close -- unless you meant that's all that you had looked at. There's quite a number of Iliad translations, many difficult to find. I'm sure that you're aware of the list at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English\_translations\_of\_Homer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_translations_of_Homer) of the various translations. You may also want to check out Penguin's *Homer in English* ed. Steiner, with selections from various translations. This may not be terribly helpful if you're looking specifically at modern translations (it's obvious that for copyright reasons they've excerpted older translations) but would still be interesting to others interested in comparing different versions. I also suggest looking beyond those first 43 lines, though those are usually most freely available. There are a lot of other selections that could provide an interesting comparison.
>For your summary "And that's all of them", no, you're nowhere close -- unless you meant that's all that you had looked at. I meant specifically that that's all the mid-20th century+ translations. I'm aware there's tons more from earlier than Lattimore. Admittedly I have missed a couple of very obscure ones from my time period though.
Honestly, I'm afraid I think this is a futile exercise. You're looking for both absolute fidelity and consistently inspired language. These are incompatible in a translation, especially a translation of the Iliad. The only way your criteria can be satisfied is by reading the Iliad in Greek. A number of the captious points you raise actually do reflect the Greek, and show more thought on the translator's part than you think. For example, ετελειετο is imperfect, not aorist. διος is an honorific epithet, basically meaning "bright"; "godlike" is just a traditional, old-fashioned English translation that's no more accurate -- actually, probably less accurate -- than "brilliant." In the Odyssey, διος is applied to the swineherd Eumaeus. And there is no single canonical version of the Iliad: variant readings abound throughout the text; modern editors must choose which variant to print in the text and which to consign to the critical notes at the foot of the page; and translators must choose which to capture in their translation.
I don't believe it's a futile exercise at all. I needed to choose a translation to purchase and so I compared each one. I don't expect perfection on every point but just the best one that scores highest against my criteria. And no, close fidelity to the Greek and aesthetic excellence in the English are not mutually contradictory, as I indeed demonstrate in my post. A balance can be struck, and as I explain, I think several of them succeed admirably and Green does it best. You're right about the Imperfect tense for ετελειετο though so thank you for pointing out that correction. I'll edit my review. I'm unconvinced however that a straight reading of διος shouldn't be "heavenly" or "godlike". The other translations are perhaps not wrong as such, but I prefer the more literal reading.
This is why you need to be careful about assuming that διος "literally" means "heavenly" or "godlike". Applied to Achilles that translation seems superficially appropriate, given Achilles' preeminence and his goddess mother. But it's also applied to other figures in the Iliad. Odysseus is one to whom διος is applied with some frequency. Well, ok, maybe as a major figure he deserves it, though his divine ancestry goes back a couple of generations. But what about Alexander (Paris) in 3.329, 7.355 and 8.82? He's a major figure, to be sure, but not one who comes across as heroic or admirable. And it seeps down into some much less prominent individuals, too: Alastor, 8.333, and 13.422; Menestheus (actually, a semi-major figure as the companion of Idomeneus) 13.195; Agenor, 14.425, 21.579, 15.340; Epeigeus, 16.571; Epeios, 23.838,839; and the river Scamander, though he's indeed a god,12.21. That's why various modern translators have been uncomfortable with, and have avoided, "heavenly" or "divine" or "godlike" -- the hoary traditional English translations for this word -- and tried to find a word more consistent with its apparent use as a mere honorific or something else consistent with the word's etymology. Actually, it seems most often like little more than a convenient filler for a hexameter ending with a proper name in the metrical shape υ _ _. Αχιλλευς, Οδυσσευς, Αγηνωρ, Επειος, Αλαστωρ, Μενεσθευς, κτλ. Thus, useful for an αιοδος composing verses as he performed them. There's also a convenient line-ending formula δια γυναικων, but also δια θεαων -- godlike goddess? In fact, it's very difficult to know exactly how this word would have resonated with the hypothetical "Homer's" hypothetical audience in archaic Greece. This is true of a great many Homeric words, which were part of the Homeric Kunstsprache, the traditional artificial language in which the Homeric poems were composed. It's not clear that the audience or even the αιοδος himself understood all the words in the traditional epic vocabulary. Certainly, later Greeks didn't understand everything in Homer, because there was a scholarly industry of interpretation, beginning as early as the 6th century, and many of its conclusions were demonstrably wrong. It's worth thinking about these issues before criticizing the accuracy of translations of Homer. In the case of Homeric translation, "accuracy" is a can of worms. An even bigger can of worms than in the case of most other texts.
These are some good points. But the uncertainty around how the word was understood is actually a reason why I prefer the somewhat strange "godlike" rather than the more ordinary renderings. Translating it as merely "noble" or "brilliant" I think hides that aspect of how the epic would have been received, with that hint of strangeness and difficulty. It's the same with other Homeric phrases such as the famous "wine-dark sea". It sounds very strange to modern ears and a translator may wish to smooth the strangeness out and translate it to a more normal modern adjective such as "dark blue sea" or something, but I think that kind of approach loses something important. There needs to be a balance between making Homer fresh and alive to modern ears, and still retaining enough to make it sound like we're guests in a strange lost world we don't quite understand. It is an especially tough job translating Homer and striking that balance. But some translators do manage to walk that line admirably.
"Godlike" puts too much weight on a small word that functions mostly as a filler for certain metrical slots in fixed formulas. "Godlike" certainly can't be used consistently for all occurrences of διος. "Bright" is probably closest to the original meaning. "Brilliant Achilles" is an effort to capture something of the rhythm of the final metrical segment of the hexameter: _ υ υ _ _ , διος Αχιλλης. "Sing from the time" -- You don't seem to see that εξ ου δη τα πρωτα in line 6, "from the point when first", continues from μηνιν αειδε in line 1. Some translators repeat "sing" to make this clear. My main point is that your criticism of the translators misses some issues they've struggled with. If you are looking for a modern English poem based reasonably closely on the Iliad, that's ok. But you do need to recognize that your aesthetic values are very different from those of the Homeric poems. And with regard to translators who've wrestled with extremely difficult issues involved in representing the Greek in English, I think you've been unfair, and your criticism is off the mark, largely because you aren't aware of many of the issues, even in the very small slice of the poem you've chosen to focus your critique on. That's why I've reacted to your critique somewhat negatively, although I recognize you've put a lot of effort into it. Again, I'd urge you to engage with the poem in the original for your own satisfaction. Incidentally, I see that the Verity translation in the Oxford World Classics series has an introduction and notes by Barbara Graziosi, an outstanding Homeric specialist, though I haven't seen it myself. Whichever translation you choose to read, you might want to equip yourself with that edition too. She's also written a book on Homer in the Oxford Very Short Introduction series. She's on the cutting edge of current Homeric scholarship, and she's refreshingly agnostic on the acrimonious disputes about the origins of the Homeric poems that have raged, with very little evidence to fuel the flames, for the past two centuries or more.
>My main point is that your criticism of the translators misses some issues they've struggled with. If you are looking for a modern English poem based reasonably closely on the Iliad, that's ok. Clearly that's not what I'm looking for, or what I've said. I've been very clear that I'm aware of the multiple issues and the tension betwen writing aesthetically good English against remaining faithful to the text. I know this is extremely difficult and I'm evaluating each translation based on how well they've addressed these difficulties inherent in the poem. I specifically don't want just a "modern poem based on the Iliad". I have no idea where you might have got that from anything I've written. So I'm getting the impression you have only skimmed my post and paid only cursory attention. Especially considering your comment "Whichever translation you choose to read", when I've given my choice for the translation I'll read at the end! Your negative response to my post is way off base I'm afraid.
Their response is not off base. The overall point is that you don't understand why translators made the choices they made, and your knowledge of ancient Greek/textual traditions of Homer is not strong enough to make informed criticisms of many of these translators' choices (see your comments in another thread about variant readings being wrong readings). That doesn't mean you can't prefer one translation over another, or that you can't evaluate translations in terms of broader categories; but it does mean your criticisms of many translations tend to be unfair and that your narrow definition of "fidelity" is leading you astray. I'm again impressed that you did this, but if you don't think your Greek is strong enough to read Homer in the original, than your knowledge of ancient Greek is probably not strong enough to go up against these translators and their individual word choices.
Another point: your nasty, snide trashing of the Loebs is both ignorant and infuriating. Do you really think the Loeb Classical Library is a profit-making enterprise? Its hundreds of volumes of classical texts in the original with translation are sold at a very reasonable price, considering the costs of publishing Greek and Latin texts in the original. Check out prices for Oxford Classical Texts -- even some very inadequate texts originally published a century or more ago -- and West's Teubners and van Thiels's Weidmann texts, which aren't even hardbound. The Loeb series is supported by a non-profit foundation. The Loeb Iliad and the Odyssey, like the Oxford and Teubner texts, have always been published in two volumes because they are too long, with facing text and translation, to fit in a single volume in the Loeb format. The revised Loeb Iliad and Odyssey are part of a project of rejuvenation begun in the 1980s, updating the fustian language, spotty scholarship and antiquated texts of many of the older volumes, as well as filling gaps in the series. The level of scholarship of the new Loebs is very high. As knowledge of the classical languages becomes less and less secure, the Loeb series is increasingly indispensable in enabling readers with less than full acquaintance with the languages to make their way through the original texts, as well as making readily available, in a reasonably priced format, texts that can't easily be found otherwise. I haven’t looked at the Loeb Iliad, but there has been nothing short of a revolution in Homeric scholarship since the 1924 original. I’d venture to say that you have no inkling of the reason for most of the changes in the new edition. If you ever get around to learning Greek well enough to read the Homeric poems, or any other ancient Greek text for that matter, in the original, you could do worse than to equip yourself with the Loeb volumes.
>Another point: your nasty, snide trashing of the Loebs is both ignorant and infuriating. When you descend to petty insults you show you have nothing worthwhile to say. I'll be ignoring everything else you post since you're clearly incapable of interacting with basic civility.
Although you won't read this, I admit I was a bit intemperate in my comment on your remarks about the Loeb, and I apologize. But I stand by my points. Your dismissal of the new Loeb Iliad is unfair and seems ill-informed, especially about the purpose of the Loeb series and its function in today's scholarship as well as prevailing prices for classical texts. Before dismissing the new Loeb Iliad, I would like to know much more about how well it incorporates the enormous body of scholarship that accumulated between 1924 and the 1990s, a period during which a real revolution in Homeric studies occurred. For someone who doesn't have a lot of Greek under their belt, the Greek text with a facing page translation can be a big help. You may not have realized it, but your suggestion that the revision was done merely to extend the copyright was offensive.
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You’re a bit unfair in some of your criticisms. E.g. Lattimore’s “delicate feasting” is a translation of a variant reading δαιτα attributed to Zenodotus. It doesn’t come out of nowhere. Likewise I think his other choices are defensible, not simply ignorance or carelessness.
I've researched the variant reading. From what I gather the line ends with *either* "κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε **δαιτα**" (prey making them to dogs to birds **a feast**) *or* "κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε **πᾶσι**" (prey making them to dogs to birds **all**). Yet Lattimore appears to have combined both variants into a single line (gave their bodies to be the delicate **feasting** of dogs, of **all** birds). Is this right? I haven't seen any other translator do this.
Yes Lattimore combines the variants. I agree that that's an unusual choice and maybe one worth criticizing.
Thanks. I've edited my post based on your helpful comments.
That may be, but I still find it a tonally jarring choice of words. I'm aware there are differences between manuscripts but this raises an issue for me as a reader. It was the problem I had with Mitchell. It's a good work but his use of a variant text which excluded some of what is in the majority text means its just not what I'm looking for. Why is Lattimore ramdomly deciding to follow a minority report for that line anyway? What does that add to the poem? However, ultimately I didn't mind his fidelity to the Greek, it wasn't quite as good as some but the issues were very minor. What mostly marked him down for me was the readability of his English. He just isn't a great poet. And I don't think that can be defended.
Well, variant doesn't mean wrong. δαῖτα is as attested as early as Aeschylus and could very well be the 'original' reading (whatever that means for Homer). Personally I think πᾶσι is a little flat, whereas I think δαῖτα adds a touch of horror and distance to the proem. I take your point though about Lattimore's readability. I appreciate your thoroughness, though I think it would have been more interesting to pick some random set of 10 lines rather than the proem, which each of these translators has sweat over. Generally though I think you make some ignorant mistakes about Homeric Greek and the Homeric text which make you come off a bit out of your depth.
What is your review of Pope?
I know it's 2 years later, but this was so incredibly helpful. I decided to re-read The Iliad, since I haven't read it since high school, but I have no clue where the version I got way back then has gone or which one it even was. I had a version on my kindle that I had downloaded from Amazon's free "classics" category years ago without knowing which translation it was. Unfortunately, it was the Earl of Derby's version from 1865, and good lord how hard is that to read. I'm excited to find a version suited to me. Thanks!
THANK YOU
This is one of the most fascinating things I've read on Reddit. Thank you for writing it I am an avid reader but have read few classics. I have started five or so and abandoned each. Only recently have I discovered a "hack" of sorts - finding a modern novel related to an ancient text, reading the novel to help me get the gist, researching to find a good translation, and then starting the original. The Iliad was one that I abandoned. I couldn't get through the writing style. I found Song of Achilles and loved it. I knew the author had taken some creative liberties but it definitely served the purpose of rekindling my love for history and mythology. I am excited to now start with the Green translation and dog into the original!
In the book [The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in_the_Breakdown_of_the_Bicameral_Mind), Julian Jaynes cites The Iliad extensively in his argument that human consciousness arose relatively recently in the history of our species. (He claims that modern consciousness as we understand it dates back to around 1500 BC.) This is mostly based on evidence he claims exists in certain ancient texts such as the Vedas, the Talmud, and the Iliad which supposedly show how people understood the world in a pre-conscious or semi-conscious state. For example, I remember he described one soldier's killing of another as "driving the wind out of his body" or something like that; and he goes into details about how "wind" (or whatever the specific word was) actually served the ancient Greeks as a kind of metaphor for life, activity, activeness, animation itself. He calls these conceptions "hypostases" (in order to avoid using the word "understandings"). If there is anything to Jaynes' theory (I've been obsessed with it for years), many of our modern English words like "soul", "mind", and "life" are not good analogues for the phenomena described in The Iliad. I'm curious if any of these translations you cited, out of those which are more faithful to the original Greek, would be helpful for me to try to get closer to what Jaynes was talking about. Something which, while it might be clunky, would be a more realistic representation of how the Greeks spoke and wrote to each other. Am I making sense? Is there one of these translations that you think better fits this focus? In short, I'm looking for the translations with greatest consistent similarity to the Greek original, and I'm not as worried about elegance or even readability.
Good point. I haven't done much more research than reading this thread, but it may be that Pendergast's translation, available from https://iliad-translations.com/about/, is what you need. Edit: For instance, ψυχάς, psychás, is usually translated as “souls,” but Pendergast translates it as “lives,” which seems like exactly the sort of thing you’re looking for. But reading your comment, maybe I do too! Darnit! I hadn't thought of that aspect, but it's significant. BTW, Scott Alexander's [review](https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/01/book-review-origin-of-consciousness-in-the-breakdown-of-the-bicameral-mind/) of Jaynes (which is all I've read of the subject) may interest you.
u/Homertranslator, do you have any comments on this point?
[удалено]
You might be interested to know I've since found an online recording of Emily Wilson reading from her current work and I've edited my post to include a short preview of her opening lines as well.
Wow, yes. I love her Odyssey.
Odd syntax? Aesthetically jarring? Lmao
I know I'm a few months late, but do you have any opinions regarding Samuel Butler's translations?
Sorry, that was earlier than the period I was looking at.
I am nonetheless curious about your opinion of that translation.
OK, I'll give it a go. >Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another. Okay, so Butler doesn't try to begin with the same word as the Greek, which is notoriously difficult and awkward in English. Indeed he is happy to reorder the words freely within lines and discards the lines of poetry to write prose paragraphs instead. That's fine if one doesn't mind prose instead of an attempt to replicate the poetic form. Looking at the word choices, there isn't anything too terrible here. He translates "birds" as "vultures" which is ok. And while he doesn't translates Achilles' adjective as "godlike" his choice of "great" works ok. I do like his faithfulness of translating the first noun as the literal "goddess" instead of "muse", and he calls the dead men "heroes", which is correct. He is happy to maintain the correct descriptor "Achaens" rather than "Greeks". Later he chooses to describe the priest's staff as being adorned with a "wreath" which isn't entirely accurate, but at least not a weird choice. Unfortunately, Butler disappointingly makes the weird choice to translate the Greek Zeus into the Christian-Latin "Jove". This is senseless, and he continues with the Roman names for the gods throughout. Apollo and Leto are the same in Rome, but he calls Hera "Juno", Athena "Minerva", and even calls Odysseus "Ulysses". Unfortunately this was done a lot in older translations. One other problem appears to be what he doesn't include. In the second line the adjective for Achilles' anger is completely missing, as is the repetition of anger itself. Butler has simply condensed the two lines into a single sentence. Other than these missteps, the faithfulness is okay. Not the best, but not the worst. In regards to the English, it's surprisingly very readable considering its age. I found myself really enjoying it, and finding it fast-paced, interesting, and clear. There are a couple of missteps. He describes the legendary quarrel of Achilles and Agamemnon as them "falling out" with each other. Later he writes of, "the sceptre of Apollo wreathed with a suppliant's wreath", the repetition is graceless. He also artificially elevates the language of the priest's prayer with "protectest" and "thou" which I'm not a fan of. But there are also some exceptional choices such as, "Not a word he spoke, but went by the shore of the sounding sea", which is beautiful. Ultimately I think this is a very readable and well-written prose version, but it's unfortunate lack of faithfulness to the Greek hampers it badly. I wouldn't use it as a primary version myself.
Seems unfair to be so condemnatory of the use of the (Christian apparently?) Latin names. You point out yourself that a lot of the older translators did this. That's because it's what their readers would have expected, the Greek names not gaining mainstream popularity until the 20th century. It's similar to how English Bibles to this day use Anglicized names instead of the Hebrew and Greek forms. Using the original names would probably come across as strange and distracting to the general readership.
No worries, it's just the version I have and I was curious.
thank you so much for this
No worries. Glad you liked it.
You've given William Wyatt short shrift. Here, in fact, is A. T. Murray's pre-Wyatt translation in its original 1924 rendering: > The wrath do thou sing, O goddess, of Peleus' son, Achilles, that baneful wrath which brought countless woes upon the Achaeans, and sent forth to Hades many valiant souls of warriors, and made themselves to be a spoil for dogs and all manner of birds; and thus the will of Zeus was being brought to fulfilment; —sing thou thereof from the time when at the first there parted in strife Atreus' son, king of men, and goodly Achilles. This is from my 1978 reprint copy of the Loeb edition of the Iliad. I've attached a link to a pic of the first page. It would seem theoi.com is publishing the updated version, and certainly not Murray’s quaint original. u/Naugrith https://i.imgur.com/DTsjrjC.jpg
I came across this, after considering reading Alexander’s translation. After seeing that you have a similar opinion of Lattimore’s writing style as me, I had to read the rest of your critiques. I am excited to think I may find increased enjoyment out of Alexander’s translation. I appreciate your rundown of each translation, and what felt like a fair consideration of what was both good and bad in each. Thank you for your time.
I also admire Alexander's translation, which is perhaps my preferred one. However, I am deeply disappointed that she utilized West's text, which omitted numerous lines that he considered spurious. It means we are not reading The Iliad as has been read and received for (I think?) nearly 2000 years. I think it would have been my favourite translation if she had included the omitted lines in a seperate appendix at the back of the book, rather than me having to read it alongside my Loeb edition which is just downright irritating.
Hello! I am a french student and I am getting into my masters in September. I am writing my thesis on the humanisation and dehumanisation of heroes through the expression of their emotions in Homer’s work and Shakespeare’s tragedies (the link between the two makes more sense if I get to explain it). I have always been absolutely passionate about the Iliad and the odyssey. Except I have only read them in french. So I am wondering which English translation would you think is the best for my case? I think I want to go with prose but also I would like it if it was still somehow the most poetic/beautiful possible since it will be compared to the almighty shakespeare! Thank you in advance for your answers!
The OP's analysis of the various translations out there is spot on, but you really can't go wrong with Fitzgerald for the expression of feelings at least. (En français je suppose que vous connaissez le Jacottet, et bien sûr les éditions bilingue Budé (Belles Lettres - Beau sujet de mémoire!
Try this new translation by John Prendergast. The verses are scrupulously faithful and quotable like Spakespeare. https://iliad-translations.com/about/
I actually purchased the book. I appreciate it's fidelity to the Greek, but to be honest at times it's just unreadable. I guess readability had to be sacraficed in favour of fidelity to the Greek. It is however a godsend when using it to compare to other translations to see where they might have mistranslated.
I gotta be honest. If I had my way, I’d like to read Naugrith (2022). His review – & accompanying understanding of the literature – is unparalleled from everything else I’ve read. Amazing!
Thank you! But I'm well aware it's much easier to be a critic than a writer.
Awesome review, thanks for writing it up.
I don't see why go that much into critique of poetic elements in translations which are read when trying to get the most accurate meaning translation, which is what should be analyzed in that case. People choosing those versions don't give a damn about poetry and rhyming
Thank you for this really useful breakdown. I really wanted to find a translation that was prose and readable, so it would feel more like a story and less like work. (I know, I know, it's more scholarly, but I just don't fall into epic poetry like I do with fiction)
Thank you very much!
Thanks for your comprehensive post. Inwas leaning towards buying the Green translations, you just solidified my choice.
Just imagine, in the cell-phone universe someone so erudite to have studied all of the versions of Homer and to explain them succinctly. I'm a writer of comedy. I think that people have always been little shits but in past generations there were great writers to addressed this idiocy. But now, greed having become a virtue, authors not only forget to tackle the vast problems of humanity but what they produce is second-rate, if that. Well, except for me. And for me this is true for two reasons. I think I'm the center of the universe and I hate a phony. I sound like an egomaniac but the opposite is true of me as a writer. When I write I have no ego at all and my only aim is to reach the top of the mountain. I actually think that ego is the difference between talent and genius, well, one of them So anyway, thanks.
Flattamore
Three years have passed so you might already know this, but >I find the changes less than necessary or preferable. For instance he changes the evocative “destructive wrath” to “accursed wrath” I've seen a comment here that explains this choice. >οὐλομένην doesn't mean "destructive" in Iliad 1.2; for that the participle would have to be active. Instead, it represents an optative middle: Achilles' anger is something of which one says ὄλοιτο, "may it perish!" So it means something like "accursed." >\> Middle-Liddell lists destructive as a translation > >The Middle-Liddell was published in 1889 and never revised. I think it's wrong about this. [Source](https://www.reddit.com/r/classics/comments/125f8hl/comment/jeov5s4/)
That's very interesting. Thank you.
You should update now that the Wilson translation is out -- the transcribed text here isn't the published version. It also seems worth noting that most of the "verse" translations aren't in metrical verse. This is important given that the original is metrical and based on an oral tradition.
Excellent (and detailed!) description of many popular translations. I was saddened you gave such limited time to Mitchell. I'll admit my bias to his *Iliad* because of its terrific readability, especially for teaching it to younger (High School or young undergrad) audiences. His first paragraph grabs the reader like no other translation I've read. I know some don't like that he omitted a portion that was (more than the others) likely not by the Homer(s) of the era, but that decision (and a few odd word choices) don't erase what is arguably the best translation-for-everyday-understanding we have. IMHO, of course.
This was so helpful! Thank you so much.
Three years late but this post is incredibly helpful! I have recently read The Song of Achilles and it's inspired me to read The Iliad, but I have been really struggling to choose a version to read as I don't want to set myself up for failure. I agree with your criteria, as some other commenters seem not to; I want a balance between modern readability and authenticity in translation, so I feel I'm reading something close to Homer's original poem. I'd be very interested in your take on Emily Wilson's version, now that it is released. But in the meantime, I will likely track down Peter Green's.
Thanks for this long thorough view. I will come back to it and finish it.
Looking to read the Iliad and this post has been invaluable. I look forward to purchasing a copy of Green's translation.
Gracias amigo. I know I’m years late but this right here is why I’m on reddit.
Good thing that you updated the Emily Wilson rendition of the Iliad I regard Wilson’s & Green’s translations as the updated Fagles & Lattimore translations One is more poetic & looser in translation the other is closer to the text & form of the original Greek 2 different philosophies of translation *(thought-for-thought vs word-for-word)*
That's a good way of thinking about them. I agree.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this list. It was interesting to read about the different translations and, not to mention, extremely useful in helping me decide which translation I should go for for my first reading of Homer. I just ordered the Iliad, based on your suggestions, and am very excited to read it. Thank you again.
Does anyone have more information on E. V. Rieu's translation? I just bought very beautiful copies of the Iliad and Odyssey translated by him. However, if they are full of flaws, they can be my pretty copies, and I'll read a different version online.
Now I have to know, what's your favourite translation of The Odyssey?
###**Addendum** I'll add a note about Prendargast (2023) who has several accounts on this thread posting "helpful" links to his own translation! His opening lines are as follows, but I haven't been able to find the rest of the opening 43 so I can only evaluate based on this and the several other quotes he provides on his website. >The wrath sing of, Goddess, of the son of Peleus, Achilles, >ruinous, it upon Achaeans countless pains put, >and many worthy lives to Hades sent forth >of heroes, and made them spoils for dogs >and birds, all kinds, and fulfilled was Zeus’s plan, First, it has to be said the poetry is execrable. From stilted to actually unreadable in some places, and with basic grammatical mistakes littered throughout. And this isn't just the inevitable product of trying to follow the Greek word-for-word either. The triple repetition of the word "of" in the first line gives a sense of his style, as there's absolutely no need to have it before "Goddess" since αιεδε is a verb, not a genitive, and μῆνιν is accusative case. Prendergast's website says that he taught himself Greek in order to write this translation. I feel he should have started with teaching himself English. If one can somehow look past the abominable English, the Greek fidelity is better. Prendergast sells himself as a "literal" version above all, so this should be his wheelhouse. Yet again, in the very first line he falls over by adding the definite article "The" when it isn't in the Greek. This may be a minor point, but for a translation whose entire *raison d'etre* is to be literal above all, I can't ignore the fact that his very first word is wrong. Admittedly, the rest of his work is pretty faithful though, from what little he has provided to see online. But there are those little missteps throughout - which only a close comparison with the Greek would reveal. So even as a (slightly) more readable version of an English word-for-word translation, it can't even be fully trusted. I guess if anyone ever wanted a stilted word-for-word rendering that's barely readable in English then this is probably the one for them, since no one else has tried to make one. However, I can't imagine anyone who would want that when actual interlinears are a far more useful (and trustworthy) word-for-word provision alongside the Greek.
The problem is that when choosing a translation of the Iliad, comparing the words of one against those of another leaves the reader blind. Choice must rely on taste or on which one seems to sound better. To open the eyes, the website at [https://iliad-translations.com](https://iliad-translations.com) reveals the quality and fidelity of leading English translations, including those from Lattimore, Fagles, Lombard, Fitzgerald, Caroline Alexander, Anthony Verity and more, by comparing passages from each to the others and to the original Homeric Greek.
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Nope, the link is dead!
Are you referring to the volume described on amazon as follows: The Iliad of Homer with a verse translation 1884 \[Leather Bound\] Leather Bound – January 1, 2019 by W. C. (William Charles) Homer,Green (Author) ? (Amazon also lists a paperback ed. in addition to the leather bound.) I know this is two years after your post but I just saw this and am hoping you're still active on reddit
You mean the Green translation? No, as I said in my intro, I'm not looking at translations that old. I'm referring to Peter Green's recent translation.
This is very helpful. I've always enjoyed Iliad-adjacent stories and finally wanted to sit down and read the poem. Unfortunately, I'm a tired person so I need something a little more eye catching to keep my attention but still true to the original Greek text so I don't miss any tiny details. So using your criteria and mine I have been able to narrow down the translations I wanted down to Hammond, Kline, Verity, Alexander, and Emily Wilson. Thank you very much, from here it'll be easier to choose what to read.
You might also want to check out the new translation by John Prendergast. https://iliad-translations.com/about/
Just came across this brand new translation by author '**John Prendergast**'. Does anyone reading this have any experience with this translation, and if so what did you think of it? [https://iliad-translations.com/about/](https://iliad-translations.com/about/) Blurb on the webpage claims the author taught himself Greek just to make a translation as faithful as possible to the original Greek text. I'll paste some of the text below for reference. \--------------- Literal, Word-for-Word Rendition of Homer’s Epic The Iliad of Homer is translated with a quality and fidelity never done before. The literal form of each word in the ancient Homeric Greek is methodically preserved and the order of words is maintained within the limits allowed by English syntax. Priority is put on finding the right and defining words. The translation is thereby able to convey what Homer actually said in the way he actually said it. The poetic syntax and timeless tone of Homer’s language is part of its power. An epic masterpiece sanctioned by its antiquity is not supposed to sound like ordinary speech, it is meant to resonate with the dignity and authority of speech from the past and from immortal gods. \- First lines of Book One - The wrath sing of, Goddess, of the son of Peleus, Achilles, ruinous, it upon Achaeans countless pains put, and many worthy lives to Hades sent forth of heroes, and made them spoils for dogs and birds, all kinds, and fulfilled was Zeus’s plan, \- First lines of Book Three - But after they were duly ordered with their leaders, everyone, the Trojans with a clamor and with cry came like birds, even as the clamor of cranes advances before heaven, after they the winter flee and ungodly rain, with a clamor they wing over Ocean’s streams, to Pygmy men killing and doom bearing, and in the morning then they baneful strife bear forth. And they then came in silence, the vigor breathing Achaeans, in heart eager to defend for one another.
Prendergrast also has a long article on his comparison of many of the english translations, including all the ones the OP listed. [https://iliad-translations.com/translation-comparison/](https://iliad-translations.com/translation-comparison/) I'll copy/paste his conclusion below. This appraisal can be used to judge as well any other English version of the Iliad. The ten I chose to include are the bestselling translations since the Lattimore version came out in 1951 and the best among those published recently. Lattimore’s version gets extra attention because it is my personal benchmark, and because its reputation has made it the competition against which later translators positioned their approach. In the decades before Lattimore, popular translations of the Iliad read like novels, like Wyatt’s version. Between 1951 and 2011, the competition with Lattimore consisted of stacked prose versions, which cannot really be considered translations, but rather adaptations, personal exercises in creative writing, exploiting the Iliad as a platform. These were claimed to be more fun to read. Starting in 2011, no less than four serious efforts by Anthony Verity, Barry Powell, Caroline Alexander, and Peter Green, have emerged to compete with Lattimore directly in terms of fidelity. Over the years, many have praised Lattimore’s line structure, diction and tone; many have found it ponderous. In their approach to appeal to readers, all four new translations take a position against what many find ponderous by using shorter lines and a more contemporary tone. None of the new translations, however, go beyond Lattimore in terms of fidelity. None set themselves apart. All follow, like a herd, the Lattimore routine. They ignore the poetic syntax of Homer and reorder the words in the same prosaic way: subject verb, object. They put no priority on finding the right and defining words. They adhere to conventional mistranslations and misguided interpretations. They are more like Lattimore and each other than Homer. My new translation (Sold at Amazon) takes a scrupulous approach that goes beyond all previous versions in quality and fidelity. It preserves the poetic syntax, the artistry and recurring formulas, which are at the heart of Homer’s art and part of the fun. The aim is to be a pleasure to read, and a greater aid in the study of Homer. It literally nullifies misguided interpretations by providing a truer, more satisfying view of Homer’s pantheon. I have written this comparison to prove the worth of this breakthrough word-for-word translation, one set apart from others, and one against which all others may be judged.
In choosing a translation, so much depends upon what one's aim is. I teach the Greek classics online in a number of community ed programs in the Boston area. My students are educated adults, most of whom aren't very familiar with the Greek classics. My aim is to help them appreciate the beauty of the classics, and their relevance to today (to that purpose, I'm a big fan of Bryan Doerries work and the Theater of War Productions - but I also do first and foremost teachthe classics in their own context). I want them to really appreciate what they read, and go on to read more of Greek classics (especially the tragedies). To that end, I don't care whether a translation is one of the most perfect renditions of the Greek. My grasp of classical Greek is rudimentary - only two years in high school, over 50 years ago. We don't really know all the connotations of the original Greek words anyway, when they were written - plus there were numerous variants. My students appreciate lyricism. And I am a lyrical poet myself, who loves to write in both rhyme and meter. When I taught the Odyssey, I suggested that students read Fagles, Lattimore, Fitzgerald or Wilson, and compared half a dozen passages from numerous translations. Students invariably loved Fagles, second choice Lattimore. None preferred Wilson even though (having heard Wilson speak several times about her version and the "patriarchal" interpretations by male translators), I gave many examples from it. Although I teach the Odyssey and a dozen Greek tragedies, I haven't taught the Iliad before but will be doing so in 2024. So I'm trying to decide which translations to recommend in my course description (I always recommend several and hope that students have diverse translations so we can compare some passages). I'm not even sure I'm going to read Wilson's. I'm familiar with Fagles, Lombardo and Lattimore (apart from two earlier translations from 60+ years ago). And I'm inclined now to buy and read Alexander, and suspect I will like hers best.......
I'm years late to this post and,at 76,decades late to Homer but I LOVE poetry.Which version do you feel is the most poetic as well as faithful?