Which Translation: The Odyssey

Robert Fagles

1996 · Free verse

Features

IntroNotesGlossaryIndexBibliographyMapsIllustrationsGreek textGreek line numbersLine-by-lineBy Iliad translatorComplete
3,241
Holdings
8
Reviews

Biography

Robert Fagles (1933-2008) was an American translator and professor of English and comparative literature at Princeton University. He received the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for lifetime achievement in translation and a National Humanities Medal.

Fagles used a muscular free verse with non-rhyming lines and uneven poetic meter, freely employing vivid contemporary imagery and bold word choices to capture the energy and drama of Homer’s epic while making it accessible to modern readers.

Fagles’s 1996 Odyssey became the most commercially successful modern translation, selling over one million copies. The New York Times Book Review called it ‘remarkably successful in finding a style that is of our time and yet timeless.’ The New York Review of Books called it ‘a distinguished achievement’ but noted occasional colloquialisms he found inappropriately suburban. It is widely assigned in secondary schools and universities.

Robert Fagles on Wikipedia ↗

Publication History

  • 1996 — Viking, The Odyssey [of] Homer; translated; introduction and notes by Bernard Knox
  • 1997 — Penguin Books, The Odyssey [of] Homer; translated; introduction and notes by Bernard Knox ★
  • 1998 — Folio Society, The Odyssey (illustrated by Grahame Baker-Smith)

Reviews

The proem

1.1–11
Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy.
Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds,
many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea,
fighting to save his life and bring his comrades home.
But he could not save them from disaster, hard as he strove—
the recklessness of their own ways destroyed them all,
the blind fools, they devoured the cattle of the Sun
and the Sungod wiped from sight the day of their return.
Launch out on his story, Muse, daughter of Zeus,
start from where you will—sing for our time too.

Penelope's weaving trick

2.96–111
‘Young men,
my suitors, now that King Odysseus is no more,
go slowly, keen as you are to marry me, until
I can finish off this web...
so my weaving won’t all fray and come to nothing.
This is a shroud for old lord Laertes, for that day
when the deadly fate that lays us out at last will take him down.
I dread the shame my countrywomen would heap upon me,
yes, if a man of such wealth should lie in state
without a shroud for cover.’
Her very words,
and despite our pride and passion we believed her.
So by day she’d weave at her great and growing web —
by night, by the light of torches set beside her,
she would unravel all she’d done. Three whole years
she deceived us blind, seduced us with this scheme . . .
Then, when the wheeling seasons brought the fourth year on,
one of her women, in on the queen’s secret, told the truth
and we caught her in the act —unweaving her gorgeous web.
So she finished it off. Against her will. We forced her.

Calypso's double standard

5.118–131
“Hard-hearted
you are, you gods! You unrivaled lords of jealousy —
scandalized when goddesses sleep with mortals,
openly, even when one has made the man her husband.
So when Dawn with her rose-red fingers took Orion,
you gods in your everlasting ease were horrified
till chaste Artemis throned in gold attacked him,
out on Delos, shot him to death with gentle shafts.
And so when Demeter the graceful one with lovely braids
gave way to her passion and made love with Iasion,
bedding down in a furrow plowed three times —
Zeus got wind of it soon enough, I’d say,
and blasted the man to death with flashing bolts.
So now at last, you gods, you train your spite on me
for keeping a mortal man beside me. The man I saved,
riding astride his keel-board,

Weeping on Calypso's shore

5.151–159
and found him there on the headland, sitting, still,
weeping, his eyes never dry, his sweet life flowing away
with the tears he wept for his foiled journey home,
since the nymph no longer pleased. In the nights, true,
he’d sleep with her in the arching cave —he had no choice —
unwilling lover alongside lover all too willing . . .
But all his days he’d sit on the rocks and beaches,
wrenching his heart with sobs and groans and anguish,
gazing out over the barren sea through blinding tears.

Nausicaa finds Odysseus

6.127–141
Muttering so, great Odysseus crept out of the bushes,
stripping off with his massive hand a leafy branch
from the tangled olive growth to shield his body,
hide his private parts. And out he stalked
as a mountain lion exultant in his power
strides through wind and rain and his eyes blaze
and he charges sheep or oxen or chases wild deer
but his hunger drives him on to go for flocks,
even to raid the best-defended homestead.
So Odysseus moved out...
about to mingle with all those lovely girls,
naked now as he was, for the need drove him on,
a terrible sight, all crusted, caked with brine —
they scattered in panic down the jutting beaches.
Only Alcinous’ daughter held fast, for Athena planted
courage within her heart, dissolved the trembling in her limbs,

War-widow simile

8.521–532
That was the song the famous harper sang
but great Odysseus melted into tears,
running down from his eyes to wet his cheeks . . .
as a woman weeps, her arms flung round her darling husband,
a man who fell in battle, fighting for town and townsmen,
trying to beat the day of doom from home and children.
Seeing the man go down, dying, gasping for breath,
she clings for dear life, screams and shrills —
but the victors, just behind her,
digging spear-butts into her back and shoulders,
drag her off in bondage, yoked to hard labor, pain,
and the most heartbreaking torment wastes her cheeks.
So from Odysseus’ eyes ran tears of heartbreak now.

Cyclops eats the men

9.287–299
Not a word in reply to that, the ruthless brute.
Lurching up, he lunged out with his hands toward my men
and snatching two at once, rapping them on the ground
he knocked them dead like pups —
their brains gushed out all over, soaked the floor —
and ripping them limb from limb to fix his meal
he bolted them down like a mountain-lion, left no scrap,
devoured entrails, flesh and bones, marrow and all!
We flung our arms to Zeus, we wept and cried aloud,
looking on at his grisly work —paralyzed, appalled.
But once the Cyclops had stuffed his enormous gut
with human flesh, washing it down with raw milk,
he slept in his cave, stretched out along his flocks.

The Nobody trick

9.364–371
‘So, you ask me the name I’m known by, Cyclops?
I will tell you. But you must give me a guest-gift
as you’ve promised. Nobody —that’s my name. Nobody —
so my mother and father call me, all my friends.’
But he boomed back at me from his ruthless heart,
‘Nobody? I’ll eat Nobody last of all his friends —
I’ll eat the others first! That’s my gift to you!’

Circe recognizes Odysseus

10.325–336
‘Who are you? where are you from? your city? your parents?
I’m wonderstruck —you drank my drugs, you’re not bewitched!
Never has any other man withstood my potion, never,
once it’s past his lips and he has drunk it down.
You have a mind in you no magic can enchant!
You must be Odysseus, man of twists and turns —
Hermes the giant-killer, god of the golden wand,
he always said you’d come,
homeward bound from Troy in your swift black ship.
Come, sheathe your sword, let’s go to bed together,
mount my bed and mix in the magic work of love —
we’ll breed deep trust between us.’

Anticlea's shade

11.204–215
And I, my mind in turmoil, how I longed
to embrace my mother’s spirit, dead as she was!
Three times I rushed toward her, desperate to hold her,
three times she fluttered through my fingers, sifting away
like a shadow, dissolving like a dream, and each time
the grief cut to the heart, sharper, yes, and I,
I cried out to her, words winging into the darkness:
‘Mother —why not wait for me? How I long to hold you! —
so even here, in the House of Death, we can fling
our loving arms around each other, take some joy
in the tears that numb the heart. Or is this just
some wraith that great Persephone sends my way
to make me ache with sorrow all the more?’

Achilles in the underworld

11.488–501
‘No winning words about death to me, shining Odysseus!
By god, I’d rather slave on earth for another man —
some dirt-poor tenant farmer who scrapes to keep alive —
than rule down here over all the breathless dead.
But come, tell me the news about my gallant son.
Did he make his way to the wars,
did the boy become a champion —yes or no?
Tell me of noble Peleus, any word you’ve heard —
still holding pride of place among his Myrmidon hordes,
or do they despise the man in Hellas and in Phthia
because old age has lamed his arms and legs?
For I no longer stand in the light of day —
the man I was —comrade-in-arms to help my father
as once I helped our armies, killing the best fighters
Troy could field in the wide world up there...

The Sirens' song

12.184–192
‘Come closer, famous Odysseus —Achaea’s pride and glory —
moor your ship on our coast so you can hear our song!
Never has any sailor passed our shores in his black craft
until he has heard the honeyed voices pouring from our lips,
and once he hears to his heart’s content sails on, a wiser man.
We know all the pains that the Greeks and Trojans once endured
on the spreading plain of Troy when the gods willed it so —
all that comes to pass on the fertile earth, we know it all!’

Hyperion's cattle

12.341–352
All ways of dying are hateful to us poor mortals,
true, but to die of hunger, starve to death —
that’s the worst of all. So up with you now,
let’s drive off the pick of Helios’ sleek herds,
slaughter them to the gods who rule the skies up there.
If we ever make it home to Ithaca, native ground,
erect at once a glorious temple to the Sungod,
line the walls with hoards of dazzling gifts!
But if the Sun, inflamed for his longhorn cattle,
means to wreck our ship and the other gods pitch in —
I’d rather die at sea, with one deep gulp of death,
than die by inches on this desolate island here!’

Argos recognizes Odysseus

17.324–328
With that he entered the well-constructed palace,
strode through the halls and joined the proud suitors.
But the dark shadow of death closed down on Argos’ eyes
the instant he saw Odysseus, twenty years away.

Sleepless Odysseus

20.25–34
intent as a cook before some white-hot blazing fire
who rolls his sizzling sausage back and forth,
packed with fat and blood —keen to broil it quickly,
tossing, turning it, this way, that way —so he cast about:
how could he get these shameless suitors in his clutches,
one man facing a mob?... when close to his side she came,
Athena sweeping down from the sky in a woman’s build
and hovering at his head, the goddess spoke:
“Why still awake? The unluckiest man alive!

Stringing the bow

21.404–412
So they mocked, but Odysseus, mastermind in action,
once he’d handled the great bow and scanned every inch,
then, like an expert singer skilled at lyre and song —
who strains a string to a new peg with ease,
making the pliant sheep-gut fast at either end —
so with his virtuoso ease Odysseus strung his mighty bow.
Quickly his right hand plucked the string to test its pitch
and under his touch it sang out clear and sharp as a swallow’s cry.

Odysseus reveals himself

22.1–8
Now stripping back his rags Odysseus master of craft and battle
vaulted onto the great threshold, gripping his bow and quiver
bristling arrows, and poured his flashing shafts before him,
loose at his feet, and thundered out to all the suitors:
“Look —your crucial test is finished, now, at last!
But another target’s left that no one’s hit before —
we’ll see if I can hit it —Apollo give me glory!”

The disloyal maids

22.465–474
With that, taking a cable used on a dark-prowed ship
he coiled it over the roundhouse, lashed it fast to a tall column,
hoisting it up so high no toes could touch the ground.
Then, as doves or thrushes beating their spread wings
against some snare rigged up in thickets —flying in
for a cozy nest but a grisly bed receives them —
so the women’s heads were trapped in a line,
nooses yanking their necks up, one by one
so all might die a pitiful, ghastly death...
they kicked up heels for a little —not for long.

The olive-tree bed

23.181–190
Putting her husband to the proof —but Odysseus
blazed up in fury, lashing out at his loyal wife:
“Woman —your words, they cut me to the core!
Who could move my bed? Impossible task,
even for some skilled craftsman —unless a god
came down in person, quick to lend a hand,
lifted it out with ease and moved it elsewhere.
Not a man on earth, not even at peak strength,
would find it easy to prise it up and shift it, no,
a great sign, a hallmark lies in its construction.
I know, I built it myself —no one else . . .

Shipwrecked sailor simile

23.233–241
Joy, warm as the joy that shipwrecked sailors feel
when they catch sight of land —Poseidon has struck
their well-rigged ship on the open sea with gale winds
and crushing walls of waves, and only a few escape, swimming,
struggling out of the frothing surf to reach the shore,
their bodies crusted with salt but buoyed up with joy
as they plant their feet on solid ground again,
spared a deadly fate. So joyous now to her
the sight of her husband, vivid in her gaze,
that her white arms, embracing his neck
would never for a moment let him go...