Which Translation: The Odyssey

James Huddleston

2006 · Free verse

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Biography

James E. Huddleston (1952-2007) was an American translator and database developer who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in Latin and Greek and earned a J.D. from the University of Pittsburgh.

Huddleston produced a line-for-line English translation faithful to the original line structure and naming conventions (including heavy use of patronymics), designed to serve as a close scholarly companion to the Greek text.

The translation was placed online by the Chicago Homer project at Northwestern University and is valued as a scholarly resource for close reading alongside the Greek, though it was never commercially published in print.

Publication History

  • 2006 — Northwestern University, The Chicago Homer (online publication) ★

The proem

1.1–11
Tell me, Muse, about the wily man who wandered
long and far after he sacked the sacred citadel of Troy.
He saw the cities and knew the minds of many men,
but suffered at sea many sorrows in his heart,
struggling for his life and comrades’ return home.
But he didn’t save his comrades, much though he wanted to,
for by their own recklessness they perished,
childish fools, who devoured the cattle of the Sun, Hyperion,
who then deprived them of their homecoming day.
Tell us also, goddess, daughter of Zeus, of sundry things.

Penelope's weaving trick

2.96–111
‘Young men, my suitors, since Odysseus has died,
wait, though eager for my wedding, until I can complete
this cloth, lest my weaving be ruined and in vain,
a burial cloth for hero Laertes, for the time when
baneful doom, of death that brings long woe, takes him down,
lest any Achaean woman throughout the kingdom resent me,
should he who won many things lie without a shroud.’
So said she, and our manly spirit yielded in turn.
Then by day she wove her great web,
but at night, when she had torches placed beside it, she unraveled it.
Three years she went unnoticed in her trick, and so persuaded
the Achaeans, but when a fourth year came, and seasons came round,
right at that time, one of her women who knew it clearly told us,
and we discovered her unraveling the splendid web.
So, she finished it, albeit unwillingly, under compulsion.

Calypso's double standard

5.118–131
“You are merciless, you gods, jealous beyond others,
who resent goddesses that bed beside men
openly, if any makes a beloved one her spouse.
So, when rose-fingered Dawn took Orion for herself,
you gods who live easily resented her
until in Ortygia chaste golden-throned Artemis
attacked with her painless darts and killed him.
So, when fair-haired Demeter yielded to her heart
and mixed with Iasion in making love and love
in a thrice-plowed fallow field, but not for long was Zeus
unhearing of it, who struck him with white lightning and killed him.
So again now, gods, you resent me for being with a mortal man,
whom I saved when he was sprawled around his keel,

Weeping on Calypso's shore

5.151–159
She found him sitting on the shore, but his eyes were never dry
of tears and his sweet lifetime was passing from him
as he mourned for his return, since the nymph no longer pleased him.
But, yes, he spent the nights, by necessity,
in her hollow caves, the unwilling beside the willing,
then by day he sat on the rocks and spits,
rending his heart with tears and groans and sorrows,
shedding tears as he looked out upon the barren sea.

Nausicaa finds Odysseus

6.127–141
So saying, divine Odysseus emerged from the bushes,
and with a thick hand broke off from the thicket a limb
of leaves, to pull over his body to cover his genitals.
He made his way like a mountain-bred lion, sure in strength,
who comes, though rained and blown upon, and in whom
eyes blaze. He comes after sheep and cattle
or deer in the wild, and his belly commands him
to go, even into a fenced sheepfold, to try for sheep and goats.
So Odysseus was about to mix with the fair-haired girls,
though he was naked, for the need had arrived.
But, disfigured with brine, he seemed horrific to them,
and they fled, here and there, to the spits.
Only Alcinous’ daughter remained, for Athena
had put courage in her heart and taken terror from her limbs.

War-widow simile

8.521–532
This the far-famed singer sang, but Odysseus
melted, as tears from under eyelids wet his cheeks.
As a woman weeps, when she falls on her dear husband,
who’s fallen in front of his city and people,
warding off ruthless day from his city and children,
and as she sees him gasping and dying, she throws her
arms around him, and loudly wails, but those behind her
strike her back and shoulders with their spears
and lead her into bondage, to have hard work and hardship,
and her cheeks waste away with the most piteous grief,
so Odysseus let piteous tears fall from under his brows.

Cyclops eats the men

9.287–299
“So said I, but with a ruthless heart, he answered me nothing,
instead, he sprang up and threw his hands upon my comrades,
grabbed two at once and dashed them, like puppies,
to the ground. Brain flowed out on the ground and wet the earth.
He cut through them, limb from limb, and prepared dinner.
He ate, like a mountain-bred lion, and left nothing,
entrails, flesh, and marrowy bones.
We held our hands up to Zeus and wailed, when we saw
his reckless deeds, and helplessness took hold of our hearts.
Then after the Cyclops had filled his great stomach,
eating human meat and drinking unmixed milk on top of it,
he lay inside the cave and stretched out among the sheep.

The Nobody trick

9.364–371
‘You ask me my famous name, Cyclops? Then I’ll tell you,
but give me a guest gift, just as you promised.
My name is Nobody. And they call me Nobody,
my mother and father and all my comrades as well.’
“So said I, and he answered me at once with a ruthless heart:
‘I’ll eat Nobody last among his comrades,
and the others before him. That’ll be my guest gift to you.’

Circe recognizes Odysseus

10.325–336
‘What man and from where are you? Where are your city and parents?
Wonder holds me that you drank this drug but weren’t at all enchanted,
for no other man ever withstood this drug
the first time he drank it and it passed his wall of teeth.
In your chest you have some kind of mind that can’t be charmed.
Surely you’re Odysseus, the wily one that
Argeiphontes of the golden wand ever told me would come
with a swift black ship on his way back from Troy.
But come, put your sword in its sheath, and then
let the two of us get in our bed, so, mixing
in making love and love, we’ll get to trust each other.’

Anticlea's shade

11.204–215
“So said she, then I pondered in my mind
and wanted to embrace my dead mother’s soul.
Three times I rushed, and my heart urged me to hold her,
and three times she flew from my hands like a shadow
or even a dream, and the pain became sharper in my heart,
and, voicing winged words, I said to her:
‘My mother, why don’t you stay still for me, eager to hold you,
so even in the house of Hades we can throw our dear arms
about each other and have our fill of chilling lamentation?
Or, is this some phantom that illustrious Persephone spurs on
to me, so that I’d groan yet more in lamentation?’

Achilles in the underworld

11.488–501
‘Don’t console me about death, brilliant Odysseus.
I’d rather be a hired farmhand, slaving for another,
for a landless man who hasn’t much substance,
than rule all the dead who’ve perished.
But come, tell me word of my illustrious son,
whether he went to war to be a chief or not.
Tell me of noble Peleus, if you’ve found anything out,
whether he still has honor among all the Myrmidons
or whether they dishonor him thoughout Hellas and Phthia
because old age holds back his hands and feet,
for I’m not his protector under the bright light of the sun,
as I was when, once upon a time, in wide Troy,
I slew the best men to protect the Argives.

The Sirens' song

12.184–192
‘Come here, much-praised Odysseus, great glory of Achaeans,
and land your ship so you can hear our voice.
For no one ever passes by here with a black ship
before he hears the honey-toned voice from our mouths,
then after he enjoys it, he departs, knowing more,
since we know everything, all that in wide Troy
Argives and Trojans suffered by the will of the gods.
And we know whatever happens on the earth that feeds many.’

Hyperion's cattle

12.341–352
All deaths are loathesome to wretched mortals,
but the most pitiful is to die and meet one’s doom from hunger.
So come, let’s drive off the best of the cattle of the sun
and sacrifice to the immortals who hold wide heaven.
If we ever get to Ithaca, our fatherland,
we’ll immediately build a rich temple to the sun,
Hyperion, and place in it offerings good and many.
But if he becomes angry in some way about his straight-horned cattle
and wants to destroy our ship, and the other gods follow along,
I’d rather lose my life all at once gulping at a wave
than be drained for a long time, as I am, on a desolate island.’

Argos recognizes Odysseus

17.324–328
So saying, he entered the well-settled house,
then went straight through the hall, among the illustrious suitors.
Then in turn the doom of black death took hold of Argos,
as soon as he saw Odysseus, in the twentieth year.

Sleepless Odysseus

20.25–34
As when a man at a blazing fire tosses to and fro
a belly, quite full of fat and blood,
and is eager that it to be roasted very quickly,
so he tossed to and fro, pondering
how he could lay his hands upon the shameless suitors,
alone as he was among many. Athena came down from heaven
and came near him. She was disguised as a woman in form.
She stood over his head and said to him:
“Why are you awake again, ill-fated beyond all men?

Stringing the bow

21.404–412
So said the suitors. Then adroit Odysseus,
right after he lifted the great bow and looked it all over,
as when a man, skilled in the lyre and song,
easily stretches a string around a new peg
and fastens the well-twisted sheep’s gut at both ends,
so Odysseus effortlessly strung the great bow.
He took it with his right hand and tried the string,
which sang beautifully under him, with a sound like a sparrow.

Odysseus reveals himself

22.1–8
Adroit Odysseus then stripped off his rags,
leapt onto the great threshold, holding his bow and quiver
full of arrows, poured the swift shafts
before him at his feet, and said to the suitors:
“This contest, the decisive one, is at last completed.
Now yet another mark, that no man’s ever hit,
I’ll see if I can hit it and Apollo grant me glory!”

The disloyal maids

22.465–474
So said he, and he fastened a dark-prowed ship’s cable
to a tall pillar and threw it around the dome,
and pulled it tight, up high, lest any reach the ground with their feet.
As when doves or long-winged thrushes
fall into a snare that stands in a thicket
when they go to roost, and a loathesome bed welcomes them,
so, in a row the women held their heads, and around all their necks
were nooses, so they’d die most contemptibly.
They gasped and struggled with their feet a little, not very long at all.

The olive-tree bed

23.181–190
So said she, testing her husband. Then Odysseus,
in anger, said to his true-hearted wife:
“Woman, ah, this word you’ve said is very painful to the heart.
Who put my bed elsewhere? It would be hard,
even for a very expert one, unless a god himself came to him,
and easily, by wishing, put it in another place.
No man alive, no mortal, not even fully in his prime,
could easily move it, since a great sign is built
into the artful bed. I, and not any other, built it.

Shipwrecked sailor simile

23.233–241
As when land appears, welcome, to swimmers
whose well-made ship Poseidon wrecks upon the sea,
pressed hard by wind and mighty wave,
and a few escape from the gray sea to the mainland,
by swimming, and much sea scum thickens around their flesh,
and they gladly step upon the land, escaped from misfortune,
that welcome was her husband to her as she beheld him,
and she’d wouldn’t at all free her white arms from his neck.