Which Translation: The Odyssey

Norbert A. D. Albertson

2013 · Free verse

Features

IntroNotesGlossaryIndexBibliographyMapsIllustrationsGreek textGreek line numbersLine-by-lineBy Iliad translatorComplete
0
Holdings
0
Reviews

Biography

Norbert A. D. Albertson Jr. (c. 1941-2026) was an American technical writer, screenwriter, and classicist from Montclair, New Jersey, who studied at Penn State, served in the Army, and taught himself Homeric Greek. He also wrote scripts for cult martial arts films including ‘Death Promise’ (1977).

Albertson translated both the Odyssey and the Iliad into English blank verse, aiming primarily for rapidity and directness.

A self-published effort that has received little mainstream critical attention, Albertson’s translation is advertised as a ‘masterful work of storytelling for readers of our time’.

Publication History

  • 2013 — self-published, The Odyssey of Homer ★

The proem

1.1–11
Muse, tell of the wily-minded man
Who wandered far after he sacked and burned
The holy towers of Troy; he saw many men’s cities,
And learned their minds, and his spirit suffered much
Out on the sea, striving to keep his own life
And bring his comrades home. But he did not save them,
For the fools died by their own wicked deed
When they killed and ate the cattle of Hyperion Helios,
Who took their homecoming away; but he endured.
Begin where you will, Muse, and tell his story.

Penelope's weaving trick

2.96–111
‘My suitors! Now that Odysseus is dead,
Will you not give over urging my marriage until
I complete this work, lest all my toil be wasted?
For this shall be Laertes’ burial-cloth
When fell prostrating death shall seize upon him.
For all the Greek women would greatly despise me
Should so princely a man lie naked in his grave.’
With some such words she persuaded our manly hearts.
Thereafter, day by day she would weave the web,
And night after night by torchlight ravel it out.
For three full years she deftly concealed the trick,
Beguiling us all, until in the fourth year
One of her women confessed, and we came upon her
Unravelling the great resplendent web.
Then we compelled her, unwilling, to finish the work.

Calypso's double standard

5.118–131
“Ah, you are hard, you gods, and surpassing jealous
That any goddess should lie unashamed abed
With a mortal man, and love him, and make him her lover.
When rosy-fingered Dawn chose out Orion,
The gods, who live at their ease, were filled with resentment,
Until our gold-throned Artemis the Pure
Slew him in Ortygia with onslaught of gentle arrows.
So too when fair-tressed Demeter, yielding to her heart,
In a thrice-plowed fallow field, as in a bed,
Mingled in love with Iasion; not long was Zeus unaware,
And he felled him with a white-hot lightning-bolt.
And now you gods begrudge me my mortal bedmate,
A man I myself saved as he sat perched
Alone on his ship’s keel,

Weeping on Calypso's shore

5.151–159
And found him sitting out on the jutting seacliff.
Nor were his two eyes dry of tears; and his sweet life
Was ebbing in grief for home; for he did not love her.
Yet in the nights must he ever sleep beside her
Within her hollow cave, he loveless beside her loving.
But in the days, perched on the sea-bank rocks,
His soul racked with sorrows and tears and groans,
He would wistfully gaze on the barren sea, and weep.

Nausicaa finds Odysseus

6.127–141
So saying, Odysseus stepped out of the thicket,
Tearing a leafy branch from the sturdy trunk
With his strong hands, to cover his nakedness.
He strode forth, trusting his strength, like a hill-bred lion
That ranges through wind and rain with glowing eyes
After cattle, or sheep, or the wild deer of the hills,
And if his belly compel him, will even assail
The bleating flocks penned up in a strong-built farmstead.
So Odysseus, naked as he was, went forth
To approach the fair-tressed maids; for hard need was upon him.
A gruesome sight he was, with his face swelled up by the brine;
And they fled in fear, pouring forth along the shore.
Alkinoüs’ daughter alone stood fast; for Athene
Filled her with courage, and drew the fear from her limbs.

War-widow simile

8.521–532
All this the bard sang; and Odysseus melted in grief,
And his cheeks beneath his brows were riven with tears.
As a wife falls weeping upon her darling husband
Fallen in battle before his city and people,
Fending the piteous day from his town and his children;
And when she sees him dying, and breathing his last breath,
She wraps her arms about him, wailing, while foemen beat her
About her back and shoulders with their spears,
And lead her away to bondage and toils and sorrows,
And her cheeks are wasted away with piteous grief;
So fell piteous tears from beneath Odysseus’ brows.

Cyclops eats the men

9.287–299
So I said. But his ruthless heart gave no answer.
Suddenly up he sprang, and laid his hands on my comrades,
Snatching up two as they were little puppies,
And smashed them onto the floor; and their splashed brains soaked the
earth.
Then he chopped them limb-meal to make his dinner,
Devouring them limbs and lights as a lion does —
Flesh and guts and marrowy bones all together.
And we were howling, and reaching our arms out to Zeus,
Half-mad with rage watching this wretched work.
But the Cyclops, having glutted his great belly
With mens’ flesh, and the milk he drank them down with,
Stretched himself out in the cave amidst his flocks.

The Nobody trick

9.364–371
‘Cyclops, you wished to know my renowned name,
So I shall tell you; then give me the gift you promised.
Nobody is my name, and Nobody I am called
By my own mother and father, and all my comrades.’
So I said. And he answered out of his ruthless heart,
‘Then I will eat Nobody last of his fellows —
All the others before him. That is your gift.’

Circe recognizes Odysseus

10.325–336
‘What man are you? Whence come? Where are your city and folk?
And you drank the drug! And yet you are not enchanted!
No other man has tasted the drug, and withstood it,
Once he has let it pass the fence of his teeth;
But in you is a mind not to be charmed.
Truly, you are many-minded Odysseus,
Who gold-staffed Argus-Slayer told me would come
Returning out of Troy in a swift black ship.
Come, then; sheathe your sword, and let us two
Go up into our bed, that we may mingle together
In love and sleep, and put our trust in each other.’

Anticlea's shade

11.204–215
So she said. And I, unstrung in my wits
And longing to hold my mother’s soul in my arms,
Thrice rushed forward eagerly to embrace her;
And thrice from out my hands she flew, like any
Shadow or dream. And sharp grief welled in my heart,
And I spoke to her, uttering winged words:
‘O dear mother, why do you flee from me?
I only want to clasp you in my arms,
That even in Hades’ house we might embrace
With love, and ease our hearts with bleak laments.
Or are you only a shape raised up by Persephone
To bring me to deeper sorrow, and howls of grief?’

Achilles in the underworld

11.488–501
‘Odysseus, do not speak lightly of death.
For I would sooner choose hard toil in the fields
Of some poor landless man, and and still to live,
Than to rule here as king over all the decrepit dead.
But come, say some word of my shining son;
Came he to war a leader of men, or no?
And tell what you have heard of blameless Peleus;
Keeps he his honor among the Myrmidons,
Or do they despise him, from Hellas even to Phthia,
Now old age has gripped him hand and foot?
For I am no more his defender under the brilliant sun
As once I was, when ranging the plains of Troy
I slew the enemy’s chiefs, defending the Argives.

The Sirens' song

12.184–192
‘Come hither, renowned Odysseus, glory of all the Greeks!
Now stay your ship, now hearken ye unto our voices;
For never has any man passed by in his black ship
Without he halted to hearken unto our singing,
As honey out of our mouths, and had here delight,
And after went on his way, far wiser than he came.
For all that befell in wide Troy-land do we know —
How from the gods the Greeks had with the Trojans
Great work of war. For all that was, we know,
And all that is on the fruitful earth, and shall be.’

Hyperion's cattle

12.341–352
There is no death not hateful to wretched mortals;
But dying of hunger is hatefullest of all.
So come, let us drive off the best of Helios’ cattle,
And sacrifice them to the gods who hold wide heaven.
And if we get back to Ithaca, land of our fathers,
Then we will straightway build a rich temple
For Hyperion Helios, and put in it many fine treasures;
But if in his anger over his straight-horned cattle
He chooses to wreck our ship, and the other gods agree,
Still it were better to gulp at a wave and die
Than have our lives squeezed out by drops on this island.’

Argos recognizes Odysseus

17.324–328
And so saying, he went on into the house
And the great hall, and among the high-born suitors.
But the doom of dark death took Argos, after
He saw Odysseus again, after twenty years.

Sleepless Odysseus

20.25–34
As a man takes in his hands a sheep’s paunch stuffed
With blood and fat, and holds it up to the fire,
And tosses it back and forth, to roast it all the quicker,
So was he tossed back and forth as he pondered
How to lay his hands on so many wanton suitors,
And he but one. And Athene came down from heaven
In shape of a mortal woman, and stood beside him, and said,
“Why are you not asleep, O man most given to fate?

Stringing the bow

21.404–412
So said the suitors. But wily-minded Odysseus
Hefted the bow in his hand, and inspected it closely.
Then, as a man with skill in lyre and song
Deftly tightens a new string round the lyre’s peg
And fastens the taut sheepgut at both ends,
So deftly Odysseus strung the mighty bow.
Holding it in his right hand, he plucked the string,
Which sang out, sweet as any swallow’s song.

Odysseus reveals himself

22.1–8
Then wily-minded Odysseus stripped off his rags,
And jumped onto the threshold, holding the bow and the quiver
Packed with arrows, and spilled the swift shafts out
Onto the floor at his feet, and said to the suitors,
“Now that that fatal test has reached its end,
I shall try for another mark no man has ever hit,
If I may hit it, and Apollo may give me glory.”

The disloyal maids

22.465–474
So saying, he took up a dark-prowed ship’s stern-cable
And tied it to a post, and around the great cupola,
Stretching it high, so their feet should not reach the ground.
You’ve seen long-winged thrushes or mourning-doves
Go winging into a net hung up in a thicket,
Thinking to roost, but a cruel nest receives them?
Just so these girls held their heads in a row
As nooses were cast round their necks, that they might pitifully die;
And they kicked with their feet a little, but not for long.

The olive-tree bed

23.181–190
This she said to test her lord. But Odysseus,
Flushed with anger, said to his truehearted wife,
“Woman, these words are bitter to my heart.
Who has moved my bed? Hard would that be,
Even for someone of great skill. A god
Might come and move it lightly away, if he wished.
But no living man, in all the strength of his youth,
Could easily upheave it, for a great sign is built
In the well-wrought bed; it was I who made it, no other.

Shipwrecked sailor simile

23.233–241
Welcome as sight of land to swimmers in the sea
Whose well-wrought ship Poseidon has wrecked in the deep,
Driving the wind against it, and heavy waves,
And only a few escape the sea and swim
To shore, and their skin all over is swelled by the brine,
But gladly they walk the land, escaped out of evil;
So welcome to her was the sight of her dear lord,
And she could not take her white arms from his neck.