Which Translation: The Odyssey

Edward McCrorie

2004 · Accentual verse

Features

IntroNotesGlossaryIndexBibliographyMapsIllustrationsGreek textGreek line numbersLine-by-lineBy Iliad translatorComplete
724
Holdings
1
Reviews

Biography

Edward McCrorie (b. 1936) is an American poet and translator, Professor Emeritus of English at Providence College in Rhode Island. He is the author of six collections of poetry and acclaimed verse translations of Virgil and Homer.

McCrorie’s accentual hexameter translation attempted to reproduces Greek metrical patterns with brisk, plain, idiomatic English, suitable for being read aloud. He tried to keep the metrical epithets and some of the assonance of the original, while using natural English syntax.

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2004 with an introduction by Richard P. Martin, McCrorie’s translation was praised in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review as one of the best available verse translations for readers without Greek.

Edward McCrorie on Wikipedia ↗

Publication History

  • 2004 — Johns Hopkins University Press, Homer's Odyssey ★

Reviews

The proem

1.1–11
The man, my Muse, resourceful, driven a long way
after he sacked the holy city of Trojans.
tell me all the men’s cities he saw and the men’s minds,
how often he suffered heartfelt pain on the broad sea,
striving for life and a way back home for his war-friends.
Yet he saved no friends, much as he longed to.
they lost their lives through their own reckless abandon,
fools who ate the cattle of Helios the Sun-God.
Huperion seized the day they might have arrived home.
Tell us, Goddess, daughter of Zeus, start in your own place.

Penelope's weaving trick

2.96–111
‘Young men, my suitors, now that godlike Odysseus
died, you’re anxious to marry. But wait till I finish
this work. Don’t let my yarn be useless or wasted.
The shroud’s for a war-chief, Laertes, after a deadly
portion cuts him down—remorseless death is the matter.
May no Akhaian blame me now in this country
because he lies unshrouded after he gained wealth.’
“Those were her words. Our hearts were proud but we nodded.
So every day at the huge loom she was weaving—
and every night with torches nearby she unwound it.
For three long years her guile tricked us Akhaians.
Then the fourth year came with its rolling of seasons.
One of her maids who knew what was happening told us
and promptly we caught her unwinding the beautiful web-work.
She finished her work at last—unwilling but forced to.

Calypso's double standard

5.118–131
“You Gods are cruel and faster than others at envy,
the way you begrudge a Goddess for openly sleeping
here with a man and making a lover her husband.
So when rose-fingered Dawn chose her Orion,
all you Gods with your easy living begrudged her.
Orion was killed by Artemis, pure on her gold throne:
Orion died in Ortugie, pierced by her gentle
arrows. When lovely braided Demeter surrendered
her heart to Iasion, making love on that farmland
plowed out three times, Zeus knew it before long
and hurled a glaring thunderbolt, killing him outright.
“So Gods begrudge me if a man is beside me.
I saved him myself when he came here, straddling a keel-board

Weeping on Calypso's shore

5.151–159
She found him sitting, crying there on the seashore as ever,
his eyes not drying. A lifetime’s sweetness had flowed off:
he wept for the way back home. The Nymph was a pleasure
no longer, he slept with her nights because he was forced to
in hollow caves, unwilling, although the Goddess was willing.
Every day however he sat on rocks by the seashore
and wept, his heart wasted by anguish and moaning.
He stared at the restless water, letting the tears fall.

Nausicaa finds Odysseus

6.127–141
So godlike Odysseus came out from under the bushes,
breaking some shoots with his rugged hand from a leafy
bush to cover his man’s genitals shyly.
Yet he came like a mountain lion, sure of his power,
however rained on or wind-blown: smoldering vision
bright in his head, he stalks a ram or a bullock,
maybe a forest stag, or his belly commands him
to enter a crowded fold and charge at a lamb there.
Odysseus made for the finely braided girls in the same way
to mix with them, bare as he was—he felt such a great need.
Smeared with grime from the sea, he struck them as frightful:
they ran to the jut-out beaches that way and this way.
Only Alkinoos’s daughter stayed, helped by Athene,
who made her mind bold: she took all fear from her body.

War-widow simile

8.521–532
The well-known poet sang that song but Odysseus
often wept. The cheeks under his eyelids
flowed like a woman’s, crying and holding the husband
she loves when he falls in front of the city and people.
He’s tried to keep a relentless day from his children
but now his breath is failing, she knows he is dying,
she wails and throws herself on the man. Poking her shoulders
and back are spears, the weapons of enemy soldiers
who’ll take her off into slavery, hard labor and heartbreak.
The woman’s cheeks will waste with the wretchedest mourning.
So sad tears of Odysseus fell from under his eyelids.

Cyclops eats the men

9.287–299
“I spoke that way, his ruthless heart had no answer,
he stood up fast and lunged at my men with his two hands,
grappled two of them, struck them hard on the dirt floor
like puppies and splattered their brains, drenching the cave-sand.
Then he tore them apart to make them his dinner.
He ate like a mountain-fed lion, leaving out nothing,
devouring organs and muscles, bones and their marrow.
We cried out loudly to Zeus, holding our hands up,
watching his brutal work. But our spirits were helpless.
“After the Kuklops filled his cavernous belly
devouring the men’s flesh and drinking his pure milk,
he lay and slept in the cave, stretched in the sheep-pen.

The Nobody trick

9.364–371
‘Kuklops, you asked for my well-known name and I’ll tell you.
But give me the stranger’s present, just as you promised.
My name is No-one: No-one’s the name they have called me—
my Mother and Father, and all the rest of my war-friends.’
“I spoke that way but he answered cruelly and swiftly,
‘I’ll dine on No-one myself the last of his war-friends,
the rest go first—there’s a gift for a stranger!’

Circe recognizes Odysseus

10.325–336
‘What man are you, where is your city, who are your parents?
I’m seized by amazement: you drank my drug and were not charmed.
No one, no other man, has taken this drug and withstood it
after he sent it past the wall of his front teeth.
Now this mind, your chest, are not to be spellbound.
Are you resourceful Odysseus? The Splendor of Argos,
God of the Golden Wand, often has told me
you’d come from Troy in your ship, a black one with great speed.
Come on then, slide your sword in its sheath. Both of us quickly
should go to my bed together! Loving each other
in bed will bring us closer to trusting each other.’

Anticlea's shade

11.204–215
“Those were her words. I wondered, I heartily wished it,
how to embrace my Mother’s ghost—she was long dead.
I reached out three times, my heart told me, ‘Embrace her’;
three times she flitted away from my hands like a shadow
or dream. The pain sharpened now in my own heart,
I spoke to the woman, my words with a feathery swiftness,
‘Mother, why don’t you stay? I’m longing to hold you.
Even in Aides’ world, throwing our arms out
to clasp each other, can’t we relish a cold grief?
Or are you a phantom sent by high-born Persephoneia
to make me moan and wail still more than before here?’

Achilles in the underworld

11.488–501
‘Don’t talk nicely of death to me, shining Odysseus.
I’d rather be stuck on a farm, a drudge for some other
threadbare man with hardly a life or resources
than rule all those who waste away and are dead here.
‘But tell me news of my son, high-born and wondrous,
whether he joined that war or not in the front ranks?
Speak about faultless Peleus too—if only you heard tell—
whether he still is esteemed by the Murmidon people.
Or maybe he’s disesteemed in Hellas and Phthie
now that his hands and feet are hobbled by old age.
I cannot help him now in the rays of the Sun-God.
I’m not as I was at wide-plained Troy in the old days,
killing their army’s best and defending the Argives.

The Sirens' song

12.184–192
‘Here, well-known Odysseus, lofty pride of Akhaians!
Stop your ship: hear the two of us singing.
No man’s ever passed our isle in a black ship
before he’s heard the honeyed song from our two mouths.
Instead they enjoyed it and left here knowing a great deal.
We know everything now about Troy and its wide plains,
Trojan and Argive suffering willed by the great Gods.
We know what happens on Earth, nourishing all men.’

Hyperion's cattle

12.341–352
every death is hateful to men who are wretched
but starving’s the sorriest way to go to your own doom.
Come on then: round up the best bulls of the Sun-God
to slaughter for deathless Powers ruling broadly in heaven.
Someday if we get to Ithakan land of our Fathers,
we’ll promptly raise a wealthy shrine to the God Huperion
and set down plenty of beautiful treasure for Helios.
Yet if he’s angry about his cattle with straight horns
and wants to destroy our ship and the rest of the Gods say
yes, I’d rather die just once gagging on water
than waste away on a lonely island slowly.’
“Eurulokhos talked that way, my other war-friends nodded

Argos recognizes Odysseus

17.324–328
He stopped and entered the house where people had lived well,
going straight to the hall and the high-born suitors.
But Argos blackened in death, seized by a grim lot
now in the twentieth year when he spotted Odysseus.

Sleepless Odysseus

20.25–34
much like a cook at a blazing fire, turning a stomach
packed with blood and fat this way and that way,
moving it fast as he can, longing to roast it.
So Odysseus tossed both ways and he wondered:
how could he get his hands on the pride-swollen suitors,
one against many? Athene came to him close by.
Down from the heavens, she’d taken the form of a woman
standing over his head and asking him shortly,
“Why are you still awake? Most hapless of all men!

Stringing the bow

21.404–412
Suitors blabbed as Odysseus, full of his own plans,
deftly raised the outsize bow and looked at it closely.
At last as a man skilled with a lyre and with singing
easily stretches the newest string to its own peg
and ties the twisted sheep-gut tightly at both ends,
Odysseus strung the outsize bow with no struggle.
His right hand briskly pulled and tested the bowstring:
it sang to his touch like the beautiful trill of a swallow.

Odysseus reveals himself

22.1–8
Now shedding his rags Odysseus, full of his own plans,
jumped on the wide threshold clutching the bow and its quiver
packed with arrows. He emptied the fast-flying weapons
there at his feet and called aloud to the suitors.
“So indeed our harmful contest is ending:
but now for another target no one has struck yet—
if only I hit it! Apollo, give me a great name.”

The disloyal maids

22.465–474
He spoke that way and knotted a line from a dark-prowed
ship to a high column, circling the roundhouse
and stretched up high: no woman’s foot would be touching
ground. Then like broad-winged thrushes or pigeons
flying in nets well laid out in the bushes,
looking to roost but hating the bed that ensnares them,
the women’s heads were lined up, necks were encircled
each with its noose that made for the wretchedest dying:
the women’s feet might jerk a little but not long.

The olive-tree bed

23.181–190
She spoke that way to test her man. But Odysseus
bridled and told his wife, who was knowing and careful,
“Woman, your words are really galling my own heart.
Who settled my old bed elsewhere? Even a greatly
skilled worker would find that hard. Maybe a God could,
arriving there and wanting blithely to settle it elsewhere.
But men? Not even the strongest man in his best prime
could simply move it. That bed was built as a great sign
worked out all by myself: nobody helped me.

Shipwrecked sailor simile

23.233–241
So land is a welcome
sight to a swimmer whose well-built ship has been ravaged
at sea by Poseidon, chased by heavy waves and a high wind.
The few who escape from the hoary rollers by swimming
ashore with plenty of salt encrusting their bodies
walk on the land with joy—they’ve run from that havoc.
The woman gazed at her welcome husband the same way,
not letting her white arms ease at all from his neck yet.