Tag: television

Troy: Fall of a City is a decent series. Achilles is the most compelling character in this telling.

Which translation of Homer to read? NY Review, in 1991, recommends Richmond Lattimore (1906–1984). The Iliad of Homer, translated by Richmond Lattimore (University of Chicago Press, 1951); The Odyssey of Homer, translated and with an introduction by Richmond Lattimore (University of Chicago Press, 1965).

“He was a Greek scholar of great distinction, who could have achieved much in pure scholarship had he not felt it more important to provide modern readers with the best possible translations of Greek poetry. His decision was surely right. Lattimore was a genuine poet in his own right, and his poetic gifts combined with his excellent knowledge of Greek and his respect for the originals to produce translations of high quality.

[…]

… let us look at Lattimore’s rendering of Achilles’ words to Priam:

Ah, unlucky,
surely you have had much evil to endure in your spirit.
How could you dare to come alone to the ships of the Achaians
and before my eyes, when I am one who have killed in such numbers
such brave sons of yours? The heart in you is iron. Come, then,
and sit down upon this chair, and you and I will even let
our sorrows lie still in the heart for all our grieving. There is not
any advantage to be won from grim lamentation.
Such is the way the gods spun life for unfortunate mortals,
that we live in unhappiness, but the gods themselves have no sorrows.
There are two urns that stand on the door-sill of Zeus. They are unlike
for the gifts that they bestow: an urn of evils, an urn of blessings.
If Zeus who delights in thunder mingles these and bestows them
on man, he shifts, and moves now in evil, again in good fortune.
But when Zeus bestows from the urn of sorrows, he makes a failure
of man, and the evil hunger drives him over the shining
earth, and he wanders respected neither of gods nor mortals.

Welcome Homer!, Hugh Lloyd-Jones

Emily Wilson translated Homer. New Yorker (2023).