Which Translation: The Odyssey

Arthur S. Way

1880 · Fourteeners

Features

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84
Holdings
10
Reviews

Biography

Arthur Sanders Way (1847-1930) was an English classical scholar and translator born in Dorking, Surrey. He served as headmaster of Wesley College, Melbourne from 1882 to 1892 before returning to England to live on his translation royalties.

Way rendered the Odyssey into ballad meter in 1880, publishing under the pseudonym ‘Avia.’ He went on to become one of the most prolific classical translators of his era, translating some twenty Greek and Latin authors into English.

Way was an exceptionally prolific verse translator of classical literature, rendering works by Homer, Euripides, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Hesiod, Horace, Virgil, Lucretius, and Theocritus, as well as the Nibelungenlied, the Chanson de Roland, and Pauline epistles. A contemporary assessment described him as ‘unquestionably the most Homeric of English translators since Chapman.’

Arthur S. Way on Wikipedia ↗

Publication History

  • 1880 — Kegan Paul, The Odyssey; translated by Avia (Books 1-12)
  • 1881 — Kegan Paul, Trench, The Odyssey of Homer; done into English verse (2nd ed.)
  • 1881 — Low, Odyssey
  • 1904 — Macmillan, The Odyssey of Homer in English Verse (3rd ed.) ★

Reviews

The proem

1.1–11
The Hero of craft-renown, O Song-goddess, chant me his fame,
Who, when low he had laid Troy-town, unto many a far land came,
And many a city beheld he, and knew the hearts of their folk,
And by woes of the sea was unquelled, o’er the rock of his spirit that broke,
When he fain would have won for a prey his life and his friends’ return,
Yet never they saw that day, howsoever his heart might yearn,
But they perished every one, by their own mad deeds did they fall,
For they slaughtered the kine of the Sun, and devoured them,— fools were they all.
So in anger their home-coming day did the God take away for their guilt.
O Goddess, inspire my lay with their tale: take it up as thou wilt.

Penelope's weaving trick

2.96–111
‘Youths, suitors to me, since verily godlike Odysseus is dead,
Tarry, how eager soe’er for my bridal, until I have wrought
A shroud,—for I would not the work of mine hands should come to naught,—
A winding-sheet for the hero Laertes, against the day
When the baneful doom of the outstretcher death shall snatch him away,
Lest Achaia’s daughters at me should in indignation be loud,
If he, after all his wealth, should be lying without a shroud.’
So did she speak, and lightly consented our lordly will.
So through the days at the great tall web was she weaving still;
But at night she unravelled it all, with the torches beside her set.
Three years by her wiles were we baffled, and none mistrusted her yet.
But at last, when the fourth year came, as onward the seasons rolled,
Then one of her women, who knew full well, of her stratagems told,
And the while she unravelled the web we suddenly came on her there;
So perforce must she bring the work to an end, how loth soe’er.

Calypso's double standard

5.118–131
“Hard-hearted and jealous Gods! none other are like you,” she cried,
“Who ever begrudge that a Goddess should couch by a mortal’s side,
Though she would openly wed him, for love subduing her pride!
It was so when the rosy-fingered Eos Orion chose
Still were ye jealous of him, ye Gods in your careless repose,
Until Artemis undefiled from her golden throne had sped
And slain by her painless shafts he lay in Ortygia dead.
It was so when Demeter bent to the rush of the storm of her passion,
And she and Iasion flushed with delight in the old sweet fashion
In the thrice-eared field. Not long! That eye was scowling above her;
And the fierce white flame of the lightning came, and dead was her lover.
It is so now again! Ye begrudge that a mortal should stay at my side,
Whom I saved when the sea washed him hither, forlorn, on a keel astride,

Weeping on Calypso's shore

5.151–159
And the hero she found on the strand sitting lonely, and never his eyes
Were dry of the tears that streamed: his life’s tide ebbed in their flowing:
Of lost home ever he dreamed, and hateful the Nymph was growing
And still, in his heart’s despite, at eve to the grotto he crept,
And side by side through the night the loving and loveless slept.
But rending his heart with sighs and with tears and with yearning pain,
And wistfully gazing with eyes tear-dimmed on the harvestless main,
Alone on the shores of the sea or the cliffs he sat through the day.

Nausicaa finds Odysseus

6.127–141
Thus as Odysseus spake, he crept from the copse-wood dense:
But or ever he left the brake, his broad hand snapped from thence
A bough leaf-laden, to hide his nakedness from sight:
And as comes from the mountain-side a lion in pride of his might,
With his hide from the rain rough-staring and blown by the wind, but his eyes
With a terrible fire are glaring, as swiftly he comes to surprise
The kine, or the sheep, or the deer, and his hunger maketh him bold,
As he prowls for the flock, to draw near to the fence of the strong-built fold;
So did Odysseus pass from the covert, and set his face
Toward the maidens, unclothed as he was, for the man was in desperate case.
But terrible did he appear, with the sea-scum fouled all o’er;
And scattered they ran in their fear to the sand-spits fringing the shore.
But Alcinous’ daughter remained alone, for Athenê gave
A spirit her limbs that sustained, and a heart unblenching and brave:

War-widow simile

8.521–532
So sang that bard of renown, but Odysseus could only languish
For the days no more, and adown his cheeks rolled tears of anguish.
And even as a woman falls on her dear-loved lord, stricken down
As he fought in front of the walls for his folk and his native town,
And battled to hold at bay from his dearest the pitiless day;
And she, beholding him gasping, and now at the point to die,
Shrieks, falling upon him and clasping with loud and bitter cry;
But the blows of the spear-staves rain on her back from the merciless foe:
She is dragged with a captive train to the slave’s lot, labour and woe;
And her cheeks grow haggard and wan with her pitiful, pitiful grief,—
So the piteous tear-drops ran from the eyes of the woe-worn chief.

Cyclops eats the men

9.287–299
But he, the pitiless-hearted, answered me nothing then,
But all at once upstarted, and shot forth his hands at my men,
And together laid hold on twain, and dashed them against the ground
Like whelps: down gushed the brain, and bespattered the rock-floor round.
And limb from limb did he shred them, and horribly supped thereon
Like a mountain-lion dread, and he left of the flesh of them none,
Of the inwards and flesh of our dead, and the marrow with the bone.
And wailing and shuddering we raised hands unto Zeus in prayer,
That horrible deed to see; but our soul was filled with despair.
And when with the flesh and the blood of our friends that maw was filled,
Over his cursed food milk-draughts he swallowed and swilled.
Then stretched through the midst of the sheep in the cavern he sprawled asleep.

The Nobody trick

9.364–371
‘Thou hast asked, O Cyclops, my name of renown: I will tell it to thee,
And then shalt thou give me the guest-gift, the which thou hast promised to me.
Noman am I, and Noman the name by the which they call
Thy guest, even father and mother, and merry companions all.’
So did I speak, and answer he made full pitilessly:
‘Noman after his fellows the last to be eaten shall be
The others before him; and this is the guest-gift from me unto thee.’

Circe recognizes Odysseus

10.325–336
‘Who art thou, and whence? and thy wife and thy parents, where do they dwell?
I marvel that drinking of this thou wast not bewitched by the spell;
For before thee hath no man’s strength availed these drugs to outlast,
When once he hath drunk, when once through the fence of his teeth they have passed.
Strangely thou hast in thy bosom a soul no charms can bind!
Can it be that thou art Odysseus, the hero of shiftful mind.
Whose coming was ever foretold me by Hermes of Golden Wand,
What time in the swift black ship thou shouldst sail from the Troad-land?
Come, put up thy sword in his sheath, and let us ascend my bed,
And from loving embrace let trustful faith in each other be bred.’

Anticlea's shade

11.204–215
Blazed in my bosom the fire of a vehement strong desire
My dear dead mother’s shade with the arms of my love to enfold;
Springing forward thrice I essayed in my clasp my beloved to hold:
From mine hands did she thrice take flight like a shadow or dream of the night!
O sharp was the thorn of my pain, O bitter my sore heart-ache,
As I cried through the darkness again, as from depths of despair I spake
‘O mother, my mother, why wilt thou not wait for mine arms to enfold thee,
That even in Hades in loving embrace to my heart I may hold thee,
That from mourning’s bitter-sweet cup the chill tear-draught we may drain?
Ah, can it be that Persephonê sends but a phantom vain
Hither, to double my sighing, and sharpen the tooth of my pain?’

Achilles in the underworld

11.488–501
‘Happy!—come not unto me with thy babble of comfort in death!
Rather would I be a hireling to drudge in the fields all day
With a landless master, who sparely would feed me and niggardly pay,
Than over the hosts of the dead which have perished a sceptre to sway.
But thou, as concerning my princely son, some tidings show;
Whether he went to the war to be first in the battle, or no.
And tell me, concerning the high-born Peleus, hast aught to unfold?
Hath he honour and worship still mid the Myrmidon folk as of old?
Or through Hellas and Phthia-land now is he held in little esteem,
For that eld hath laid hold on his hands and his feet, and hath palsied him?
For I am not with him to champion his cause in the sight of the sun,
Clothed with the might that I had, when in broad Troy many an one
Of our foes, as I fought for the Argives, was sped to the shadowland-home.

The Sirens' song

12.184–192
‘Come, pride of Achaia, Odysseus, draw nigh us!
Come, list to our chant, rest the oar from its rowing:
Never yet was there any whose galley fled by us,
But, sweet as the drops from the honeycomb flowing,
Our voices enthralled him, and stayed his ongoing,
And he passed from that rapture more wise than aforetime:
For we know all the toil that in Troyland befell,
When the will of the Gods was wrought out in the war-time:
Yea, all that is done on the earth can we tell.’

Hyperion's cattle

12.341–352
Hateful is every shape of death unto wretched mortals;
But by famine most piteous is it to pass through the shadowy portals.
Lo there the kine of the Sun;—the best of them all having driven,
We will offer them up to the Gods that dwell in the broad-arched heaven.
But if unto Ithaca ever we come, to our fathers’ land,
Straightway upreared by our hands a goodly temple shall stand
To the Sun, and therein will we lay for him offerings many and fair.
But and if in his wrath for his tall-horned kine he refuse to spare
Us and our galley, and none of the rest of the Gods will save,
Better, I say, in a moment to perish, agape to the wave,
Than slowly to pine and starve, with a desolate isle for a grave.’

Argos recognizes Odysseus

17.324–328
He hath passed the threshold-stone of the palace stately and proud;
To the feast-hall straight is he gone and the arrogant suitor-crowd.
But on Argus the doom of black death suddenly came down there,
As he looked on Odysseus come back to his own in the twentieth year.

Sleepless Odysseus

20.25–34
And as when one turneth a paunch filled full with blood and with fat
In front of a great fierce fire ever this way and that, and thereon
Stares with impatient desire for the roast to be speedily done,
So to this side and that side he tossed him, and and pondered deeply and long
How he might fall on the host of the shameless suitor-throng,
Alone against many: but nigh him Pallas Athenê drew;
For she stooped from the halls of the sky, as a woman to outward view;
And behold, she stood at his head in the dimness of night, and she spoke:
“Why wakest thou thus on thy bed, O wretched above all folk?

Stringing the bow

21.404–412
So the laugh and the jeer rang out, but Odysseus the manifold-wise,—
For by this had he turned it about, and had heedfully scanned with his eyes,—
Even as a man that can skill to play on the lyre and to sing,
On a new-fixed peg at his will full easily stretcheth the string,
Straining the sheep-gut taut, having tied it above and below,
So laboured Odysseus naught, but—lo, he hath strung the bow!
With his right hand thereafter to try it he twangeth the fateful string:
Clear-sweet to his touch as the cry of a swallow in chase did it sing.

Odysseus reveals himself

22.1–8
But Odysseus the crafty hath flung from his body his rags; and lo,
On the threshold-stone hath he sprung; in his hands are the quiver and bow.
Forth of the quiver the fleet-winged arrows abroad hath he poured,
Scattered in front of his feet, and he shouteth a mocking word:
“So at last is the ordeal dread of the archery-contest o’er.
Now will I see if a mark, such as no man hath smitten before,
May be hit by my shaft, if Apollo vouchsafe me renown once more.”

The disloyal maids

22.465–474
Then the rope of an azure-prowed ship round a lofty pillar he cast:
O’er the peak of the dome did he slip it, and lashed he the ends of it fast;
And he strained it up high, that the feet of none on the ground should light.
And as broad-winged thrushes, or sweet-cooing doves, in their homeward flight
Dash headlong into a net mid the twilight bushes set,
And as merrily nestward they go, into hatefullest bed they fall,—
So held they their heads arow, and around the necks of them all
The strangling nooses clung, a death most wretched to die.
And their feet for a little—not long—there quivered convulsively.

The olive-tree bed

23.181–190
So spake she the testing-word for her husband,—Odysseus started,
And indignation-stirred he cried to the queen wise-hearted:
“Lady, a heart-stinging word and a cruel is this thou hast said!
Who hath elsewhither moved my couch?—good sooth, he were hard bestead,
Were he never so cunning—save haply a God himself came there,
Who would lightly uplift at his pleasure and set down otherwhere;—
But no man living, though never so stalwart-young were he,
Would lightly upheave it; for there is a sign and a marvel to see
Done in the carven bed; I wrought it, and none beside.

Shipwrecked sailor simile

23.233–241
O sweet as the first far sight of the land unto them that swim,
Whose ship by the Sea-god’s might on the wild sea stormrack-dim
Hath been split by the mad wind’s roar and the shock of the surge down-crashing,
And but few have swum on to the shore through the wave-crests houry-dashing,
With the salt from the leagues of sea overcrusting their bodies around,
And with rapture from bane they flee, and they tread on the blessèdground;
So joyed that wife to behold her beloved, with white arms flung
Round his neck, and she could not unfold them, but lovingly, lovingly clung.