I Swear I Have This Written Down Somewhere

[ase]

Does anyone have recommendations for good translations of the Iliad and Odyssey? Edit: Why do you like those translations in particular?

Also, the accepted spelling is Iliad with one (not two) "l"s, right?

Comments

[meril.livejournal.com]

Iliad only has one L.

"Illiad" is the guy who draws User Friendly (http://www.userfriendly.org) . ^_-

[kd5mdk.livejournal.com]

The really good ones:
Stanley Lombardo
Richard Fagles

then maybe
Lattimore
Pope

[technocracygirl.livejournal.com]

See, I'd go with Lattimore over Fagles.

[ase.livejournal.com]

To both of you - why would you recommend the translations you prefer? Clarity? Elegance? Useful footnotes? Or other factors?

Translations

[samthereaderman.livejournal.com]

Lattimore is pretty much the standard but I've heard good things about the Fangles translation when it came out a few years ago.

I'd go with the Lattimore since you should have no trouble finding copies dirt cheap in any used bookstore. But if you can find Fangles cheap (the library is your friend) it might be worth it as it is supposed to be more modern.

[herewiss13.livejournal.com]

It's been a while, but I believe we used the Lattimore translation back in AP English...nine years ago (Gah!).

You definitely want a poetry translation. Prose is nothing more than an extended synopsis. Homer wrote it in verse, it ought to be experienced that way.

"Sing, Goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilleus
and it's devestation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaians."

Lattimore does wonders with alliteration and the continual tag-phrases appended to every character "Hector, tamer of horses." There's some stuff in the middle that's eminently skippable (ship lists, etc.) but this is definitely the translation I'd reccomend.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0226469409/ref=sib_dp_pt/102-8229817-7833731#reader-page

You can see the first couple pages of verse.

[ann-leckie.livejournal.com]

I read Fitzgerald's Odyssey (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0374525749/qid=1085142749/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/002-8985757-5921651?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) in college, and liked it--it was the first time I managed to read all the way through without getting annoyed or bored. Translations of poetry are chancy, especially long poems. I think I had to do Beowulf four times before I found a translation that clicked with me.

Anyway, a friend of mine had a different professor who didn't like Fitzgerald's Odyssey and they read Lattimore, because the professor didn't think fitzgerald was accurate enough. But she didn't have a good time reading it, where I had, with the Fitzgerald. YMMV.

I've been meaning to read the Iliad. Really I have. My to-read stack is so high...

[cathydalek.livejournal.com]

I liked the Fitzgerald translations. I have them. You're welcome to borrow them. I'm pretty sure we read either Fitzgerald or Fagles in high school. Avoid the Chapman translation. I'm not sure Pope is still in print, but he can be picked up pretty cheap on ebay the last time I looked.