/lit/ - Literature

>>3793504
>>reading translations
>>2013

read both the Fagles and Fitzgerald translations

>>3793518

Why both? Though the recommendations I'm getting from other places back up these two choices.

EV Rieu.

>>3793542
Because they're the two most notable modern translations and because it's usually a good idea to read more than one translation for timeless classics like the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Lattimore, easily

>>3793547
He did a prose translation right? Stay the fuck away from it.

>>3793551
Reading them is fine, but if one does not plan to learn Greek, then Lattimore should be read eventually

chapman's good too for the odyssey, although more "old-fashioned"
you get something different with each translation

>>3793504
Of course whenever you're reading a translation of a work, particularly a work written so long ago, you're not really reading Homer's Iliad inasmuch as you're reading Pope's or Lattimore's Iliad. All that said, I do believe that Fagles translation preserves much of Homer's theming better than the other translators.

>>3793553
Doing away with the restrictions of verse actually allowed him to be more faithful to the spirit of the text. EV Rieu is pretty much the foremost Homer scholar of the 10th century. Far better than Fagles.

Check this resource, OP: http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/homer/rieuiliad.htm

>>3793575
S Butler 1900
Still, I will not conceal it from you, though you will not like it. I do not like it myself, for Teiresias bade me travel far and wide, carrying an oar, till I came to a country where the people have never heard of the sea, and do not even mix salt with their food. They know nothing about ships, nor oars that are as the wings of a ship. He gave me this certain token which I will not hide from you. He said that a wayfarer should meet me and ask me whether it was a winnowing shovel that I had on my shoulder. On this, I was to fix my oar in the ground and sacrifice a ram, a bull, and a boar to Neptune; after which I was to go home and offer hecatombs to all the gods in heaven, one after the other. As for myself, he said that death should come to me from the sea, and that my life should ebb away very gently when I was full of years and peace of mind, and my people should bless me.


Cite:
Lattimore, Richard (trans.), The Odyssey of Homer, (New York, Harper and Row, 1967) p342
Fitzgerald, Robert (trans.), Homer’s The Odyssey, (New York, Anchor Books, 1961) p437-438
Online Resource: http://www.online-literature.com/homer/odyssey/23/


Choose for yourself,

>>3793504
Appendix II: Textual variations on the prophecy of Tiresias towards Ulysses

Richard Lattimore 1967
You will heart no joy in in this; and I myself am not happy, since he told me to go among many cities of men, taking my well-shaped oar, which act for ships as wings do. And then he told me a very clear proof. I will not conceal it. When, as I walk, some other wayfarer happens to meet me, and says I must carry a winnow fan on my bright shoulder, then I must plant my well-shaped oar in the ground, and render ceremonious sacrifice to lord Poseidon, one ram and one bull, and a mounter of sows, a boar pig, and make my way home again, and render holy hecatombs to the immortal gods who hold the wide heaven, all of them in order. Death will come to me in the sea, in some altogether unwarlike way, and it will end me in the ebbing time of a sleek old age. My people about me will prosper.

Robert Fitzgerald 1961
Here is a plodding tale; no charm in it, no relish in the telling. Teirêsias told me I must take an oar and trudge the mainland, going from town to town, until I discover men who have never known the blue sea, nor flavour of salt meat- strangers to the painted prows, to watercraft and oars like wings, dipping across the water. The moment of revelation he foretold was this, for you may share the prophecy: some traveller falling in with me will say: ‘A winnowing fan on your shoulder, sir?’ There I must plant my oar, on the very spot, with burnt offerings to Poseidon of the waters: a ram, a bull, a great buck boar. Thereafter when I come home again, I am to slay full hekatombs to the gods who own broad heaven, one by one. The death will drift upon me from seaward, mild as air, mild as your hand, in my well-tended weariness of age, contented folk around me on our island.

>>3793576
>10th century

20th

>>3793575
>>3793580

Thank you for the comparison, anon. It looks like I will be going with the Fitzgerald translation for now, since that is what's available at the library. Although I'll have to read another translation some time in the future.

>>3793608
No problem was part of a paper I gave on T.S. Eliot so had it at hand. Best of luck in your Homeric adventures.

Rieu, obviously

Anyone know of anywhere online I can find a sample of Christopher Logue's translation ? - I'm curious and don't want to spring for a copy if it turns out to be shit (got burnt by Lombardo)

Alexander Pope, you're reading two great poets at once.

>>3795940
Fucking this. Pope is the hands down most beautiful of them all, however it is his own take. I suggest Pope for a second reading.

Verse
1. Lattimore
2. Fitzgerald

Prose
1. Rieu

Lattimore and Rieu are the best translations of Homer into english.

I can't stand couplets, so Lattimore or Fagles.