Which Translation: The Odyssey

Peter Green

2018 · Hexameter verse

Features

IntroNotesGlossaryIndexBibliographyMapsIllustrationsGreek textGreek line numbersLine-by-lineBy Iliad translatorComplete
576
Holdings
7
Reviews

Biography

Peter Green (1924-2024) was a British classicist, ancient historian, novelist, poet, translator, and critic. He was Dougherty Centennial Professor Emeritus of Classics at the University of Texas at Austin and later adjunct professor at the University of Iowa.

Green used a hexameter-inspired English line, the same as Lattimore, with the additional objective of being natural to read aloud. His aim was to introduce the Odyssey to an audience that might know nothing about the poem. He tried to keep as many of the repetitive epithets, oral formulae, and other features of the original as possible, and included an extensive scholarly apparatus with maps, summaries, and notes.

Widely praised for its vivid expressions, as well as its detailed notes and introduction, Green’s translation was valued by both scholars and general readers. It is considered one of the finest verse translations of the early 21st century.

Peter Green on Wikipedia ↗

Publication History

  • 2018 — University of California Press, The Odyssey ★

Reviews

The proem

1.1–11
The man, Muse—tell me about that resourceful man, who wandered
far and wide, when he’d sacked Troy’s sacred citadel.
many men’s townships he saw, and learned their ways of thinking,
many the griefs he suffered at heart on the open sea,
battling for his own life and his comrades’ homecoming. Yet
no way could he save his comrades, much though he longed to—
it was through their own blind recklessness that they perished,
the fools, for they slaughtered the cattle of Helios the sun god
and ate them. for that he took from them their day of returning.
Tell us this tale, goddess, child of Zeus, start anywhere in it.

Penelope's weaving trick

2.96–111
‘You young men, my suitors now noble Odysseus is dead,
be patient, though eager to wed me, until I finish
this web: I should not want my woven work to be wasted—
a shroud for the hero Laërtēs, against that day
when the grim fate of pitiless death shall overtake him:
then the local Achaian women won’t be able to blame me
for a man who’d won so much being left with no winding-sheet.’
“So she spoke; and our proud hearts assented to what she said.
From then on, day after day, she’d be weaving at the great loom,
but at night she’d have torches set up, and undo her work.
Thus for three years she beguiled and persuaded the Achaians;
but when the fourth year arrived, and the seasons came round,
then it was that one of her women, well aware of what she did,
told us, and so we caught her undoing her elegant web,
and against her will she was forced to finish it.

Calypso's double standard

5.118–131
“Hard-hearted
are you gods indeed, and jealous beyond all others,
who resent any goddesses sleeping with mortal men
openly, if they choose one such as their bedfellow!
So it was when rose-fingered Dawn took up with Oriōn—
you easy-living gods resented it, till at last
in Ortygiē chaste Artemis, she of the golden throne,
with her painless arrows assailed and killed him; so it was
when fine-tressed Dēmētēr went with Iasiōn, gave in
to her passion, lay down and mingled with him
in thrice-plowed fallow soil; not long was it before
Zeus learned of it and with his bright bolt hit and slew him.
So now too, gods, you resent my having a mortal companion.
Him I saved when he was riding astride the keel,

Weeping on Calypso's shore

5.151–159
Him she found on the seashore, sitting; nor were his eyes
ever wiped dry of tears; sweet life was draining from him
as he yearned to be home, since the nymph no longer pleased him.
Nights indeed he would sleep beside her perforce
in the hollow caverns, the reluctant by the eager,
but all day he’d stay seated there on the stony beach,
rending his heart with tears and sighs and sorrows,
and wept as he gazed out over the unharvested deep.

Nausicaa finds Odysseus

6.127–141
That said, godlike Odysseus came out from under the bushes.
Strong-handed, he broke off a leafy branch from the dense
maquis to cover his body, hide the male parts. He came forth
like some mountain-bred lion, confident in his strength,
who, beaten by wind and rain, still advances, both his eyes
ablaze, as in among cattle or sheep he hastens, or in
pursuit of wild deer: his ravenous belly drives him
to go after the flocks even inside the close-walled farmstead.
So Odysseus was set to mingle, though naked, among these
fair-tressed young girls: such need had come upon him.
A terrifying sight they found him, all crusted with dried brine,
and they scattered in panic around the jutting sand-spits.
Alkinoös’ daughter alone stood firm, for Athēnē had put
courage into her heart, and purged the fear from her limbs.

War-widow simile

8.521–532
This was the lay the far-famed minstrel sang. But Odysseus
melted: tears from under his eyelids wet his cheeks.
And as a woman wails and clings to her dear husband
who’s fallen fighting to save his city and his people,
warding off from township and children the pitiless day,
and she sees him dying and gasping for breath, collapses
on him, shrieking aloud, while enemies behind her
batter her back and shoulders with their spears,
and drag her away into slavery, to a life of toil and grief,
while with most pitiful sorrow her cheeks are wasted—
such pitiful tears Odysseus now shed beneath his brows.

Cyclops eats the men

9.287–299
“So I spoke. He, with ruthless heart, made me no answer,
but sprang up, laid hands on my comrades, grappled two,
and down on the ground, as though they were mere puppies,
dashed them: their brains spilled earthwards, wetted the floor.
Then limb from limb he tore them to prepare his supper,
and devoured them like a mountain-bred lion, leaving nothing—
innards and flesh, bones with the marrow in them,
while we, lamenting, reached out our hands to Zeus
at the sight of such bestial deeds. Helplessness overmastered
our hearts. When the Kyklōps had glutted his vast belly
by gobbling human flesh, washed down with unmixed milk,
he settled to sleep in the cave, stretched out among his sheep.

The Nobody trick

9.364–371
do you ask me my famous name? Very well, I will tell you—
and then you give me that guest-gift, just as you promised!
Nobody is my name, Nobody’s what I’m called by
my mother and father and all my comrades.’
“So I spoke,
and at once he with pitiless heart responded: ‘Nobody
I shall eat last of all, when I’ve had all his companions,
and the others first: so, that will be your guest-gift.’

Circe recognizes Odysseus

10.325–336
‘Who are you? From where? What city? Who are your parents?
I’m amazed that you drank my drug and were not bewitched!
No other man, ever, has failed to succumb to this drug
once he’d drunk it, once it had passed the barrier of his teeth!
Truly, the mind in your breast is proof against all enchantment.
You must be resourceful Odysseus, who—so the slayer of Argos,
he of the golden wand, always told me—would visit here
in his swift black ship, on his way back home from Troy!
So come, sheath your sword, let the two of us now go up
into my bed, and by mingling there together
in the passion of love, find trust, each one in the other.’

Anticlea's shade

11.204–215
“So she spoke, and I wanted, pondering in my heart,
to embrace the ghost of my mother, now dead and gone:
three times I moved to clasp her, as my heart urged me,
three times she eluded my arms, like some shadow or dream,
so that the pain in my heart grew ever sharper,
and I spoke, addressed her with winged words, saying: ‘Mother,
why won’t you stay here when I want to hold you,
so that even in Hadēs the two of us can cast arms
about one another, and get our fill of chill lamentation?
Is this some phantom set on me by holy Persephonē
to add yet more to the weight of my grief and sorrow?’

Achilles in the underworld

11.488–501
‘Don’t talk up death to me, illustrious Odysseus!
I’d rather work as a field hand, a hireling, for some other
landless man who could just scrape a livelihood together
than be lord over all the corpses who’ve ever perished!
But come, tell me the news about that fine son of mine—
has he gone off to war, and made it as champion, or not?
And have you had any news about Pēleus? If so, tell me—
Is he still honored among the mass of the Myrmidons?
Or do they show him no honor throughout Hellas and Phthiē
now that old age has crippled him, hand and foot,
and I’m no longer there to help him, out in the sunlight,
or strong, as once I was in the wide terrain of Troy
when I slew the best of their men while defending the Argives?

The Sirens' song

12.184–192
‘Look in here on your way, famed Odysseus, the Achaians’ pride:
put in with your ship, hear the song we two sing! Never yet
has any man rowed on past us in his black ship till he’s heard
the honey-sweet music that issues from our mouths,
and he voyages on rejoicing, his knowledge increased, for we
know all the toil and suffering that in the wide land of Troy
Argives and Trojans endured through the will of the gods:
Indeed, we know all things that happen on the nurturing earth.’

Hyperion's cattle

12.341–352
All kinds of death are loathsome to wretched mortals,
but to die of starvation—that’s the most pitiful of fates!
Come, let’s rather drive off the best of Hēlios’ cattle,
and sacrifice to the immortals who hold wide heaven!
And if ever we get to Ithákē, our native country,
we’ll at once build a lavish temple to Hyperiōn Hēlios,
and fill it with plenty of high-class dedications!
And if he’s angry with us because of his straight-horned cattle,
and wants to destroy our ship, and the other gods agree,
I’d rather gulp down seawater and get it over
than starve to death slowly here on this desolate island.’

Argos recognizes Odysseus

17.324–328
So saying, he went on into the pleasantly sited building
and made straight for the hall to join the noble suitors.
But Argos the fated lot of black death overwhelmed
once he’d seen Odysseus again, in the twentieth year.

Sleepless Odysseus

20.25–34
As a man cooking a paunch chockful of fat and blood
on a fierce blazing fire will turn it to and fro,
determined to get it cooked through as fast as he can,
so Odysseus tossed this way and that, trying to work out
how he was going to lay hands on the shameless suitors,
one man against so many. Then Athēnē approached him,
down from the sky, in appearance like a woman,
and stood above his head, and addressed him, saying:
“Wakeful again, you most ill-fated of all mortals?

Stringing the bow

21.404–412
Such was the talk of the suitors. But resourceful Odysseus,
as soon as he’d got his great bow and viewed it all over—
just as a man, a professional lyre player and singer,
will easily stretch the string around a new peg, secure
the twisted sheep gut at either end, so now
Odysseus without hard effort strung the great bow,
and took it in his right hand, and tested the string,
which sang good and high at his touch, like a swallow’s voice.

Odysseus reveals himself

22.1–8
Now resourceful Odysseus stripped himself of his rags
and sprang up on the great threshold, taking the bow
and the shaft-packed quiver. He poured out the swift arrows
there at his feet, and addressed the suitors, saying:
“This contest’s over, decisively ended; and now
I’ll go for another target, reached by no man hitherto,
to see whether I can hit it, and Apollo grant me glory.”

The disloyal maids

22.465–474
So he spoke, and taking the cable of a dark-prowed vessel,
hitched one end to a tall pillar, the other about the round house,
stretching it high, so no woman could touch the ground with her feet.
As when long-winged thrushes or doves are caught in the snare
that’s been set for them in a thicket, as they’re flying back
to their roosts, and hateful the bed that now welcomes them,
these women’s heads bobbed in a line, and round their necks
nooses were set for all, to give them most piteous deaths:
they jerked with their feet a little, but not for long.

The olive-tree bed

23.181–190
So she spoke,
making trial of her husband. But Odysseus in response
burst out in anger, and addressed his true wife, saying:
“Woman, this word you’ve said embitters my heart!
Who’s moved my bed elsewhere? A hard job that would be,
even for a skilled worker, unless some god came down
in person, and chose to shift it: easy enough for him!
But of mortals no man alive, however young and strong,
could dislodge it, for a great token was embodied
in the bed that I fashioned—I, and no other man!

Shipwrecked sailor simile

23.233–241
and welcome as is the appearance of dry land to men swimming,
men whose strong ship Poseidōn has wrecked out on the deep,
as it’s driven on by the gale and the cresting waves,
and few have made it to land out of the grey salt sea
by swimming, and thick is the brine that’s crusted on their bodies,
and glad they are to have got ashore, and escaped disaster—
so welcome to her was her husband as she looked upon him,
never relaxing the hold of her white arms round his neck.