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/lit/ - Literature

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10092453 No.10092453 [Reply] [Original]

Did Robert Fagles make the quintessential English translations of the Illiad and the Odyssey?

>> No.10092511

>>10092453
Yes, and Bernard Knox wrote the best introductions

>> No.10092522

>>10092511
Christ you actually read all that?

>> No.10092524

>>10092453
Yeah

>> No.10092528

>>10092453
I actually refuse to read this because of how uncomfortable the dimensions of the book are as well as its deckled edges.

>> No.10092530

>>10092528
It's actually decent once started.

>> No.10092532

>>10092522

Not him, but I did. Autism is a superpower.

>> No.10092537

>>10092532
Is it worth it?

>> No.10092538

>>10092453

No! Lattimore is renowned for his translations by all classical scholars. Fagles is for middle schoolers.

>> No.10092541

>>10092538

Fuck, I just got a box set of the Fagles translations. Should I buy Lattimore's too?

>> No.10092546

>>10092541
No.

>> No.10092551

>>10092538
source?

>> No.10092555

>Rage—Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles,
>murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans
countless losses,

I read the first line and it doesn't even make sense.

>> No.10092557

>>10092538

Yes! But Lattimore's translations if you want the most honest translation. He adhered closely to the Ancient Greek. Luckily they're rather cheap. I think around 10 bucks each on Amazon.

>> No.10092561 [DELETED] 
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10092561

neat coincidence just about to get off /lit/ to continue reading it

>> No.10092583

>>10092537

Probably not. I read both the intro to the Illiad and the Odyssey about a year ago and the only thing I remember him discussing is bone-plate helmets and historicity by the fact that they use iron scarcely and it all indicates that it's a twisted bronze age tale that got partially updated or some shit.

>> No.10092586

>>10092541
Depends on your level honestly, and be honest with yourself. If you're reading it for the first time and are new to epic poetry, Fagles is serviceable. He gets the story right and is easy to understand. If you've read the stories before or know them well, Lattimore's is the closest to the original according to several scholars and his meter and vocabulary is stronger in catching the tone of the time.

>> No.10092593

>>10092555
What doesn't make sense? Rage is the feeling achilles has. Homer is asking the Muses to tell the tale of Achilles and how his rage costed the Greeks lives because he wouldn't fight.

>> No.10092597

>>10092593

What exactly are the words "murderous, doomed" referring to?

>> No.10092611

>>10092597
"Murderous, doomed," refers to Achilles. Rage comes first and sounds weird in English because it's the first word in the Iliad (and so the first word in any work of literature in the entire Western canon) and most translations want to preserve the shock of opening a book and being greeted by it.
>>10092538
Never read Fagles myself, but Lattimore's also noteworthy for translating each Greek line into one English line in an attempt to adhere as closely to the structure of the original poem as possible. It also makes it useful to look stuff up later if you do end up studying Greek.

>> No.10092616

>>10092597
Achilles caused the murder and doom of fellow greeks indirectly through inaction

>> No.10092649

>>10092611
>>10092616

So is he saying Achilles is murdeous and doomed, or his rage? Or that he caused the Achaens to be murdeous and doomed? The sentence seems gramatically confused

>> No.10092658

>>10092649
"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."

This might help. Fagles was just trying to make it sound dramatic like the original

>> No.10092665

>>10092528
You can buy them in the normal black Penguin Classics editions.

>> No.10092668

>>10092453
Lattimore

>> No.10092698

Popeless plebs...

>> No.10092746

>Check the Lattimore translation
>Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilleus
>Achilleus
Dropped.

>> No.10092779

>>10092746

And he doesn't even make the first word "rage" or "anger".

>> No.10092799

>>10092779
Let's look to Fitzgerald now...
>Anger be now your song, immortal one,
Fine so far.
>Akhilleus' anger, doomed and ruinous
>Akhilleus
Even worse, holy shit.

>> No.10092802

>>10092746

You're a pussy. Lattimore is a man's translation. That is the closest it gets to the original Greek. Little fag read Fagles because they need more poetry. Men read Lattimore because we want to get into the mind of the genius Homer himself, not some shitty poetic fuckup

>> No.10092817

>>10092802
The name of the person in question, in English, is Achilles. I want to read a translation into English. That seems fairly simple, doesn't it? Hey the Greeks didn't use spaces, lower case letters, or punctuation either. We need to be "authentic" don't we?
>SINGGODDESSTHEANGEROFPELEUSSONACHILLEUS
Oh, God. It's so close to the Greek. It's so close... so cloooosssseee... Once the orthography is close enough I will truly be able to enter Homer's mind...

>> No.10092836

>>10092817

Nah, faggot, it's Achilleus. You're on some faggot shit.

>> No.10092842

>>10092836
I'm sorry his name is Ἀχιλλεύς. We need to be accurate to the Greek so please stop using the Latin alphabet.

>> No.10092889

>>10092842

That's more like it faggot

>> No.10092901

>>10092889
Make sure you remember to pronounce the (pitch) accent on the "eu", which is a diphthong!

>> No.10092964

>>10092901

Make sure you lick Fagles' balls while blowing him off boy-faggot

>> No.10093020

>>10092802

But the original was written very poetically as well, if you just tried to make it exact it would be like a textbook, which isnt really faithful to the original rendering either

>> No.10093026

>>10092453
No. Lattimore did. Fagles is really good, though.

>> No.10093029

Do anons really disrespect Pope's version this much?

>Inb4 not Homer
Why though? If you're going to say that, I want detail about what he omits/changes that others do not.

>> No.10093068

I know these are often taught in high schools. Which version do they tend to use? I forget which one we used

>> No.10093073

>>10093029

Is Pope's Odyssey worth reading too? I know he didn't write that entirely himself as with the iliad

>> No.10093098

>>10092453
The Peter Green translation of the Iliad was much better than Fagles

>> No.10093134

>>10093068

We use Fagles. Not my choice.

>> No.10093136

>>10093134

do the students like it?

>> No.10093181
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10093181

Reminder, Rodney Merrill is the only English translation in Dactylic Hexameter.

>> No.10093191

How good is Rieu and Jones revision? I ordered it online and had no choice really.

>> No.10093200

>>10093136

Every year I get the old complaint: "Why do we have to read about a bunch of weird old people?" and they don't realize they're actually
>starting with the Greeks

I try to explain how it's like DC/Marvel comics of its time and they go along with it

>> No.10093217

>>10093181
Each have their advantages. I find that Fagles captures a lot of the raw emotion. "Rage" jumps right into the feeling while "Sing now" is kind of a wet blanket in comparison.

>> No.10093220

>>10093200
> it's like DC/Marvel comics of its time

Do Americans actually believe this?

>> No.10093227

>>10093134
Isn't there something in the Intro that talks about the advantages of each? I think it said of Fagles that it was written to be heard like an epic poem

>> No.10093246

>>10093220
Not really. That sounds like a distorted version of the claim that superheroes are our Greek heroes, but only for what they represent and not the contents of their source material.

>> No.10093255

>>10093220
Sorry, I spend too much time on /tv/ and tend to dumb things down for them. I forget /lit/ is a whole nother caliber

>> No.10093257

>>10092528
i respect your autism but there are other editions

>> No.10093267

>>10092528
>not liking deckled edges

sign of a pleb tbqh

>> No.10093271

>>10092649
achilles is murderous and doomed. murderous because he liked to kill trojans and also because he caused the death of his fellow acheans. doomed because his momma told him before leaving that he would win great glory but die if he went to fight at troy. the iliad assumes you are already familiar with greek myth

>> No.10093276

>>10093020
this. some translations go for literalism, others try to make it rhyme in english, altering the text too much. fagles is a happy medium

>> No.10093285

>>10093220

It's not about "believing" it, it's trying to relate to them on their level. You can act like a elitist on this board behind the Anonymous tag, but standing in front of judgmental, easily distractible teenagers is another world entirely. I do not recommend it

>> No.10093287

>>10093029
most translations try to be somewhat faithful line by line. pope's version has whole paragraphs worth of stuff he adds just cause it sounds neat. its pretty fun to read but its basically a modern reboot of homer

>> No.10093337

>>10093287
So there is new content added by Pope, but is there anytjing missing, or any radical changes in plot/characters (i.e., changes to the central metaphors).

>> No.10093352

>>10092611
It's better to keep your mouth shut if you don't know what you are talking about. "Murderous, doomed" refers to the rage, not to Achilles.

>> No.10093476

>>10093352
The rage refers to Achilles.

>> No.10093480

>>10092453
Learn Greek, faggot

>> No.10093491

>>10093480
This. If you don't bother learning Homeric Greek you can not claim to be interested in literature.

>> No.10093512

>>10093068
>I know these are often taught in high schools
Really? I've never heard of that. I went to an old-school Britbong grammar where we studied Latin, but we never read Homer.

>> No.10093696

All shit, go back to Hall.

>I Thée beséech, O Goddesse milde, the hatefull hate to plaine,
>Whereby Achilles was so wroong, and grewe in suche disdaine,

Such pottery.

>> No.10093722

I have Chapman's version ;_;

it hymes ;_;

>> No.10093740

>>10092698

Yes preach, Alexander pope is a more then worthy translator for the odyssey. Not just some translator putting his take on it but a real poet breathing new life into the story

>> No.10094394

>>10093352
>>10093476
>>10093271
>>10092649
>>10092616
>>10092611
>>10092555

Can we get a definitive answer for this? What *exactly* are the words "murderous, doomed" referring to?

-The rage of Achilles
-Achilles himself
-The Greeks

>> No.10094417

>>10094394
His rage was murderous/ruinous and doomed.

>> No.10094431

>>10094394
"The wrath sing, goddess, of Peleus' son, Achilles, that destructive wrath which brought countless woes upon the Achaeans"
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.01.0134

>> No.10094432

>>10094394
It's referring to "rage". The thing which the Goddess is told to sing is the "rage". We have the text "the rage of Peleus' son Achilles" and in apposition to that is placed "murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses". There's no cue in the text that we should understand the subject in apposition to be anything other than "rage". For example it could have been written "who cost the Achaeans..." to clearly signify Achilles but it wasn't.

>> No.10094452

>>10094432
Also I think the fact that it's written " *that* cost the Achaeans..." makes it clear enough. The natural reading is "rage... that cost the Achaeans." The alternative is "Achilles... that cost the Achaeans" which is unnatural.