Brian Kemball-Cook

Name: The Odyssey (Brian Kemball-Cook, 1993)
Author: Homer

1993 · Hexameter verse

Features

Intro Notes Glossary Index Bibliography Maps Illustrations Greek text Greek line numbers Line-by-line By Iliad translator Complete

16

Holdings

0

Reviews

Biography

Brian Kemball-Cook (1912-2002) was a British classicist and headmaster of Bedford Modern School.

He translated the Odyssey line-for-line from Greek hexameter into English hexameter verse, one of the few translators to attempt to reproduce Homer’s original meter in English. The work was published by his family’s Calliope Press in Hitchin.

Kemball-Cook also translated several Homeric Hymns through the same press. The small print run limited its critical exposure.

Brian Kemball-Cook on Wikipedia ↗

Publication History

1993 — Calliope Press, The Odyssey of Homer ★

Links

The proem

1.1–11

Tell me, O Muse, of a man of resourceful spirit

Far, having taken by storm Troy’s sacred city and sacked it.

Many the men whose cities he saw, whose thoughts he discovered;

Many the grievous troubles he suffered at sea in his spirit,

Striving to save his life and restore his friends to their homeland.

Yet he failed in the end to save his friends by his efforts.

By their folly they perished, by their own folly and blindness,

Fools, who elected to feed on great Hyperion’s oxen;

So that God of the Sun denied their day of returning.

Tell us the tale, goddess, daughter of Zeus, and choose the beginning.

Penelope's weaving trick

2.96–111

“O young men who are courting me after the death of Odysseus,

Though you are eager to wed me, I beg you to wait till I finish

Weaving the robe, lest threads be woven in vain and be wasted:

This is a shroud for the hero Laertes, meant for the day when

He is at last laid low by death, destroyer of mortals;

So that none in our land of Achaean women reproach me

That he is lying unshrouded, for all his wealth and possessions.”

Thus she spoke, and our manly hearts agreed at her asking.

Thereupon she would weave at the mighty web in the daytime,

But she unravelled it during the night with torches beside her.

Thus for these three years she deceived and beguiled the Achaeans;

But when the fourth year came as season succeeded to season,

Then it was one of her women who knew the secret and told us,

So she was caught redhanded undoing her beautiful weaving.

Then she was forced, though unwilling, to carry the work to completion.

Calypso's double standard

5.118–131

‘Cruel you are indeed, you gods, and exceedingly jealous,

Grudging that any goddess should openly mate with a mortal,

Wishing to take such a mortal man to have as a husband.

So when Dawn of the rosy fingers chose her Orion,

Jealousy filled the hearts of the easy-living immortals,

Till in Ortygia virgin Artemis, she of the golden

Throne, pursued and slew with her gentle arrows Orion.

So when the goddess Demeter, she of the beautiful tresses,

Losing her heart to Iasion lay with the man in a thrice-ploughed

Fallow field in the passion of love, Lord Zeus very soon knew

And with a white-hot bolt he smote and he slaughtered the mortal.

So you are jealous now, you gods, that I mate with a mortal,

One whose life I saved when he came bestriding a ship’s keel—

Weeping on Calypso's shore

5.151–159

Him she discovered sitting there on the strand, and his eyes were

Filled with tears as he pined for home, and the sweetness of life was

Ebbing away; he delighted no more in the goddess Calypso;

But at night he was forced to sleep in the hollow caverns

By the side of Calypso, unwilling indeed-but she willed it;

While in the daytime, sitting amongst the rocks on the seashore,

Racking his spirit in sorrowful grief and tearful lamenting,

Shedding tears he gazed on the great unharvested ocean.

Nausicaa finds Odysseus

6.127–141

Thus having spoken, Odysseus came from under the bushes,

And with his hand he broke off a branch from the quickset, leafy

Saplings, so as to cover the naked parts of his body.

Forth he went as a mountain lion, proud in his power,

Prowling onward, uncaring of wind or rain, and there flashes

Fire from his eyes; he is hunting for sheep as his prey

Or for the deer that inhabit the wild; at the call of his belly

He will even attempt an assault on a well-built sheepfold.

In such wise was Odysseus then to appear to the fair-tressed

Maidens, in spite of his nakedness, since dire need was upon him.

Terrible did he appear to them then, disfigured with sea-brine.

This way and that they ran to the jutting beaches in terror;

Only the daughter of King Alcinous stayed, for Athene

Shed courage into her heart and banished fear from her body.

War-widow simile

8.521–532

Such was the lay that was sung by the famous minstrel, but tears ran

Over his cheeks from the eyes of Odysseus, stricken by sorrow;

Just as a wife will fall on her husband’s body and clasp it,

One slain fighting in front of his city, defending his people,

Seeking to keep from his city and children the day of destruction;

She, beholding him panting his life away in the death-throes,

Shrieks aloud, embracing his body; but foemen behind her,

Striking that woman with spears upon the back and the shoulders,

Drag her a captive away to a life of labour and sorrow;

With most pitiful grief the cheeks of the woman are wasted;

Even so pitiful were those tears wept there by Odysseus.

Cyclops eats the men

9.287–299

Thus I spoke, but no answer was made by the pitiless giant.

Rushing upon us he laid his hands upon my companions;

Seizing a pair he dashed them down on the floor of the cavern

Just like whelps, and the brains gushed out bedewing the earth there.

Tearing them limb from limb then the giant got ready his supper;

Like to a mountain-bred lion he gobbled it up and left nothing.

Neither the flesh nor the inward parts nor the bones full of marrow.

We meanwhile were raising our hands to Zeus and lamenting,

Seeing such horrible deeds, and our spirits were helpless within us.

When the Cyclops had finally filled his omnivorous belly,

Feeding on human flesh and swallowing draughts of his raw milk,

Then he laid himself down in the midst of his sheep in the cavern.

The Nobody trick

9.364–371

“Since you are asking me what is my famous name, I will tell you,

Cyclops, and you must give me the gift for a guest that you promised.

NOMAN is my name, and so my father and mother,

All my companions also, they all address me as NOMAN.”

Thus did I speak, but the giant with pitiless heart thus answered:

“Noman is going to be eaten the last after all his companions;

They shall be eaten first, and that shall be Noman’s guest-gift.”

Circe recognizes Odysseus

10.325–336

“What man are you? Whence come you? Where are your city and parents?

I am amazed, though you drank these drugs, they did not bewitch you.

Never, Oh! never before has any man other withstood them.

Once they had passed the guard of his teeth and once he had drunk them.

Surely your mind is armoured against any charms and bewitchment.

You must be that man of resourceful spirit, Odysseus,

Whom the God of the Golden Wand, the Slayer of Argus,

Said would be coming my way in his swift dark vessel from Troyland.

Come now, put up your sword in its sheath, and let us together

Come to bed in my chamber and joining in loving embraces

Lie together and learn this way to trust one another.”

Anticlea's shade

11.204–215

Such were the words of my mother, and I was pondering deeply,

Yearning to take her, although she was dead, in my arms and embrace her;

Thrice, as my heart urged forth I darted and tried to embrace her;

Thrice from my arms did my mother go flitting, like to a shadow,

Like to a dream; most bitter the pain I felt in my heart then.

So I spoke to her then; my words sped on wings to my mother:

“Mother, O mother, why stay you not when I seek to embrace you,

So that clasping each other, although in the kingdom of Hades,

Mother and son may both have our fill of chill lamentation.

Or is this only a phantom that queenly Persephone sent me

So as to bring to me more lamentation and sorrowful wailing.

Achilles in the underworld

11.488–501

“Do not attempt the commending of death to me, famous Odysseus.

I would rather be bound as a serf upon earth and be living,

Though I be serving a landless man possessing but little,

Than be the ruler of all these dead in the dwelling of Hades.

But come, what of my own fine son? Do you bring any tidings

Whether or not he followed me forth to the war as a chieftain?

What of my father too? Have you news of the virtuous Peleus?

Is due honour paid to him still by the Myrmidon people,

Or do they treat him with scant respect through Phthia and Hellas,

Now that his hands and his feet through age are afflicted with weakness?

I cannot come forth hence to succour him under the sun’s rays,

Such as I was when once in the widespread land of the Trojans

I did slaughter the best of the foemen, defending the Argives.

The Sirens' song

12.184–192

“Glorious lord, great pride of Achaea, come hither, Odysseus;

Bring your vessel to rest on our shore and hark to our singing.

Never till now has a mariner passed us by in his black ship

Till he has listened first to our voices, sweeter than honey;

And he has gone on his way thereafter delighted and wiser.

We have knowledge of all those pains which Trojans and Argives

Once upon Troy’s broad plain by the will of the gods had to suffer;

All that occurs on the bountiful earth is part of our knowledge.”

Hyperion's cattle

12.341–352

Death, however it comes to us luckless mortals, is hateful,

But of all fates the most wretched indeed is to perish of hunger.

Come, let us round up the Sun-God’s oxen, choosing the best ones,

Then we will offer them up to the gods who dwell in the heavens.

Then, if we come back safely to Ithaca, land of our fathers,

There we will build a magnificent temple to honour the Sun-god,

Great Hyperion, placing within gifts many and splendid.

If however, because of his long-horned cattle, the Sun-god

Wills our vessel’s doom and has the consent of the other

Gods, then I choose to meet my death by swallowing sea-brine,

Rather than slowly be wasting away on a desolate island.”

Argos recognizes Odysseus

17.324–328

Thus having spoken he entered the pleasantly sited dwellings

And in the hall went straight to where the suitors were sitting.

Argus was stricken then by death’s black doom as he lay there,

Once having seen in the twentieth year his master Odysseus.

Sleepless Odysseus

20.25–34

As when a man has spitted a paunch in front of a blazing

Fire; that paunch is crammed with blood and with fat, and he turns it

This way and that, desiring to get it speedily roasted;

Even so was he turning this way and that, as he brooded

How he should get to grips with the shameless suitors, a single

Man against many. Athene then descended from heaven

And in a woman’s likeness approached very close to Odysseus.

Standing above his head she spoke these words as he lay there:

‘Why do you stay thus awake, O most unhappy of mortals?

Stringing the bow

21.404–412

Such was the talk of the suitors; however, resourceful Odysseus

Balanced the mighty bow in his hands and examined it fully;

Then as a man that is skilled in playing the lyre and in singing

Easily winds on a peg his new string, once he has fitted

Fast upon either end of the lyre the flexible sheep-gut,

So very peacefully then was the great bow strung by Odysseus.

Testing the bow then Odysseus plucked the string with his right hand;

Sweetly sounded the string, as sweet as the song of the swallow.

Odysseus reveals himself

22.1–8

Thereupon, baring his limbs of the rags, resourceful Odysseus

Leapt on the great hall threshold, holding the bow and the quiver

Full of his shafts, and quickly he spilt the swift-flying arrows

Down at his feet, and then he addressed these words to the suitors:

‘So this contest—a sore one as you predicted—is ended,

Now I shall aim at another mark, which no one has hit yet.

Shall I succeed, and will my prayer be heard by Apollo?’

The disloyal maids

22.465–474

Taking the cable then of a dark-prowed vessel, he fastened

One of the ends to a lofty pillar and one to the roundhouse,

Tying it high so their feet would not reach to the ground underneath them.

Even as long-winged thrushes or doves, coming back to their roosting-

Places, strike on a snare that men have placed in a thicket;

Fraught with doom is the nesting-place that is waiting to greet them;

So were the women’s heads held fast in a row; the men tightened

Nooses about their necks; and they died in a piteous manner.

Just for a little their feet were jerking, but not for a long time.

The olive-tree bed

23.181–190

Speaking thus she was putting her man to test; but Odysseus

All of a sudden was seized with anger and said to his good wife:

‘Lady, the words that you spoke to me then were bitter and wounding.

Who can have shifted my bed elsewhere? such a task would be taxing

Even for one who is skilled, unless some god were to move it

Elsewhere, since any task for a god, if he wills it, is light work;

But there is no man living today who could easily shift it,

Not if he were in his prime; built into the bed was a mighty

Secret, and no other craftsman but I constructed the bedstead.

Shipwrecked sailor simile

23.233–241

As when Poseidon has wrecked some gallant ship on the ocean,

Overwhelming the craft with the fury of winds and of billows,

Gladly the sailors behold dry land as they swim in the water;

Only a few of the sailors have won to the land from the grey sea,

And their skins are encrusted with salt sea-brine from the ocean;

Glad are the men to escape from doom, setting foot on the seashore;

Even so glad was Penelope, looking again on her husband,

Nor could she bear to give over embracing his neck with her white arms;