Which Translation: The Odyssey

Rodney Merrill

2002 · Hexameter verse

Features

IntroNotesGlossaryIndexBibliographyMapsIllustrationsGreek textGreek line numbersLine-by-lineBy Iliad translatorComplete
309
Holdings
1
Reviews

Biography

Rodney Merrill (b. 1939) is an American independent scholar and classicist who has taught at Stanford University, the University of San Francisco, and the University of California, Berkeley, specializing in ancient Greek and Latin poetry.

Merrill attempted to reproduce Homer’s dactylic hexameter relatively closely in English, preserving many of the formulaic and repetitive elements of the ancient oral epic. He argued that attempts to be colloquially idiomatic run counter to the medium; rather, the shape and rhythm of the original meter was crucial to the composition and meaning of the Odyssey, and so ought to be preserved.

The translation was praised in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review for its remarkable metrical achievement and valued as an ideal edition for students and scholars wanting to experience Homer’s original rhythmic patterns.

Publication History

  • 2002 — University of Michigan Press, The Odyssey [of] Homer; translated; with introductions by Thomas R. Walsh and Rodney Merill ★

Reviews

The proem

1.1–11
Tell me, Muse, of the man versatile and resourceful, who wandered
many a sea-mile after he ransacked Troy’s holy city.
Many the men whose towns he observed, whose minds he discovered,
many the pains in his heart he suffered, traversing the seaway,
fighting for his own life and a way back home for his comrades.
Not even so did he save his companions, as much as he wished to,
for by their own mad recklessness they were brought to destruction,
childish fools—they decided to eat up the cows of the High Lord,
Helios: he then took from the men their day of returning.
Even for us, holy daughter of Zeus, start there to recount this.

Penelope's weaving trick

2.96–111
‘Young men, suitors for me, since noble Odysseus has perished,
wait, hold off from the marriage you urge upon me, until I can
finish the mantle, lest all of the yarn be uselessly wasted.
It is a burial robe for the hero Laërtes, for when he
falls in the ruinous doom of his death so long in the mourning,
lest in the town some woman among the Achaians reproach me
that this man who acquired so much should be lying unshrouded.’
So she spoke, and the valorous spirits in us were persuaded.
Then each day she would weave at the loom, enlarging the fabric,
while each night she undid it, when torches she had set beside her.
So three years by her craft she fooled and convinced the Achaians,
but when the fourth year came with the passing of hours and of seasons,
finally one of the maids spoke out who knew of it plainly,
so that we came upon her undoing the glorious fabric.
Thus she completed the cloth unwillingly, under compulsion.

Calypso's double standard

5.118–131
“Gods, you are cruel and harsh and beyond all others are jealous,
who are resentful and grudging when goddesses lie beside mortals
openly, should one of us take a man as her own dear bedmate.
Thus it was when Oríon was taken by Dawn the rose-fingered;
so much time did the gods who abide in comfort begrudge it,
till in Ortýgia once chaste Artemis, she of the gold throne,
killed him, visiting him with her mild and benevolent missiles.
Thus it was when Deméter, the goddess with beautiful tresses,
yielding her heart to Iásion, joined him in bed and affection
out in a thrice-plowed fallow; but not very long unaware was
Zeus, who killed him by hurling a scintillant bolt of his lightning.
Thus now, gods, you begrudge me to be with a man who is mortal,
whom I rescued as he was alone and astride of a keel beam

Weeping on Calypso's shore

5.151–159
Sitting away on the shore she discovered him: never his eyes were
dry from the tears that he wept; out of him was the sweet life flowing
as for returning he yearned, for the nymph no longer was pleasing.
Yet of necessity he kept passing the nights in the spacious
cavern beside her, the man unwilling with her who willed it;
then each day he would sit down there by the rocks and the seashore,
breaking his heart with his tears and his moans and insatiable sorrows;
over the desolate sea he gazed while letting his tears flow.

Nausicaa finds Odysseus

6.127–141
So having spoken, from under the shrubs crept noble Odysseus,
then with his strong hand tore from the thick-grown coppice a leafy
branch, so that he might cover his body, concealing his privates.
Then he went like a mountain-bred lion, who trusting his prowess
sets forth, windblown, drenched by the rain, with the eyes in his muzzle
brightly ablaze, and he straightway goes among cattle or sheep flocks
or else after the deer of the wilds; for his belly commands him
even to try for the flocks by approaching a strong-built homestead;
so was Odysseus among those maidens with beautiful tresses
going to mingle, although he was nude, for the need was upon him.
Dreadful he seemed to their eyes, made filthy and foul by the sea-foam;
they took flight on the spits of the seashore, hither and thither.
Only Alkínoös’ daughter remained in the place; for Athena
into her heart put courage and out of her limbs took terror.

War-widow simile

8.521–532
This the illustrious singer was singing to them, and Odysseus
melted: the salt tears drenching his cheeks flowed down from his eyelids.
Just as a wife might weep as she falls on her own dear husband
who has himself just fallen in front of his city and people,
warding away from the town and his children a pitiless doomsday—
she then, as she beholds him dying and gasping his breath out,
throwing herself on him, cries shrilly; behind her the foemen,
striking at her with their spears, all over her back and her shoulders,
carry her off to enslavement, to have hard toil and affliction;
with a most piteous sorrow the cheeks of the weeper are wasted—
such was the piteous tear that Odysseus poured from his eyebrows.

Cyclops eats the men

9.287–299
“So I spoke; he returned no answer, in pitiless spirit;
springing instead to his feet, he stretched his hands to my comrades;
two he snatched up together and dashed them down on the ground like
puppies; the brains ran out all over the floor and bedrenched it.
Butchering these up, limb by limb, he readied his supper;
then he ate like a mountain-bred lion and left out nothing—
innards as well as the flesh and the bones with the succulent marrow.
Uttering loud lamentations, to Zeus we lifted our hands up,
seeing the pitiless deed, our impotence gripping our spirits.
But then, soon as the Kyklops had filled his enormous stomach,
eating the flesh of the men, then drinking the milk unmingled,
he lay down in the cave, through the sheep flock stretching his body.

The Nobody trick

9.364–371
‘Kyklops, you have inquired my glorious name: I will tell you
now what it is, and you give me a guest-gift, just as you promised.
Nobody is my name, yes, Nobody what I am called by
both my mother and father and all of the other companions.’
“So did I say; straightway he answered in pitiless spirit:
‘Nobody last of the men I will eat, just after his comrades—
all those others before him; and this I will give as a guest-gift.’

Circe recognizes Odysseus

10.325–336
“Who are you? Whence do you come? What city is yours, and what parents?
I am amazed that you drank these drugs and were not enchanted,
seeing that never were such drugs borne by any man else when
once he had drunk them and over the fence of his teeth they had entered.
There is indeed some unbewitchable mind in your bosom.
You are Odysseus, adept and resourceful, whom always the god who
carries the gold wand, slayer of Argos, predicted would come here,
as you returned back homeward from Troy on your swift black galley.
But come, put the sword back in the sheath, then let us together
go in the palace and get into bed, so that when we have mingled
there in bed and in love, we may give our trust to each other.”

Anticlea's shade

11.204–215
“So did she say; then pondering these things deep in my heart, I
wanted to take in my arms that spirit of my dead mother.
Thrice I started for her, as my heart bade me to embrace her;
thrice from my arms she fluttered away like a dream or a shadow.
So in the depths of my heart my sorrow became even sharper;
raising my voice I spoke, and in these winged words I addressed her:
‘Why not stay for me, Mother, as I seek now to embrace you,
so even here in Hades’ domain, with affectionate arms we
hold each other and both take comfort in cold lamentation?
Or is it some mere phantom that queenly Perséphonè summons
up for me, so that I groan yet longer in sorrow and anguish?’

Achilles in the underworld

11.488–501
‘Speak to me not about death so soothingly, brilliant Odysseus;
I would prefer to be working the earth, hired out to another,
even a landless man, whose living is far from abundant,
than to be lord over all of the phantoms of those who have perished.
But come now, of that excellent son of mine tell me the story,
whether or not he followed as champion into the battle.
If you have heard anything about excellent Peleus, tell me,
whether among those numerous Myrmidons yet he is honored
or if instead they do him dishonor in Hellas and Phthia
since he is held by his hands and his feet in the trammels of old age;
nor am I there as protector beneath bright Helios’ sunbeams,
being the man I was when once in the broad Troäd I
slaughtered the best of the fighters, defending the Argive peoples.
If being such I could enter my father’s abode but an instant,

The Sirens' song

12.184–192
“Come to us here, the Achaians’ renown, much honored Odysseus,
drawing the ship right in, so that you to our voices may listen.
This is a place past which in his dark ship no one has ever
driven, before from our lips he has heard the melodious voices;
but having taken delight, he goes on greater in knowledge.
We know all of the things that the Argive troops and the Trojans
there in the broad Troäd by the gods’ wills labored and suffered;
we know all that is on the much nourishing earth generated.”

Hyperion's cattle

12.341–352
every manner of dying is hateful to miserable mortals,
but most wretched by hunger to die and encounter our doomsday.
But come now, let us drive off the best among Helios’ cattle,
offering them to the gods, the immortals who hold the broad heaven.
If we should ever arrive in Ithaka, land of our fathers,
we will at once to the High Lord Helios build a resplendent
temple and put inside it our offerings many and noble;
if he instead in feelings of rage for his lofty-horned cattle
wants to destroy our ship, and the other gods follow his wishes,
I would prefer all at once by gulping a wave to lose life breath
than to be drained of my strength a long time on a desolate island.’

Argos recognizes Odysseus

17.324–328
So having said, he entered the house well-built as a dwelling.
He walked straight through the palace to find the illustrious suitors.
But as for Argos, the doom of his black death finally took him
straightway when in the twentieth year he had looked on Odysseus.

Sleepless Odysseus

20.25–34
As when a man keeps shifting a paunch that has been stuffed full with
suet and blood, in a huge fire’s blaze, one way and the other
turning it over, and wishes for it to be rapidly roasted,
so did he twist one way and the other and kept meditating
how he could manage to lay his hands on the shameless suitors,
being but one against many. Athena, descending from heaven,
Athena encourages Odysseus; Penelope wishes to die
came up close to him there; she had likened her form to a woman;
standing above his head, she spoke these words and addressed him:
“Why do you wake, who beyond all mortals are destiny-ridden?

Stringing the bow

21.404–412
So those suitors were saying; Odysseus of many devices,
once he had taken the great bow up and had looked it all over—
as when a man who has talent and skill at the lyre and at singing
easily stretches a string to a peg just recently fitted,
tightening both of the ends of the twisted and flexible sheep gut—
so did Odysseus fasten the string on the bow without effort.
Taking it up in his right hand then, he tested the bowstring;
pleasantly under his hand it sang like the voice of a swallow.

Odysseus reveals himself

22.1–8
Stripping the rags from his body, Odysseus of many devices
leapt on the great threshold; he was holding the bow and the quiver
still full-laden with arrows; the swift shafts quickly he poured out
there in front of his feet as he spoke these words to the suitors:
“This was indeed a decisive contest that now is completed!
As to another mark which no man has been able to hit yet,
now I will know if I strike it—Apollo bestow what I pray for!”

The disloyal maids

22.465–474
So did he say, then, taking the rope of a blue-prowed galley,
fastened it on a tall pillar and threw it about the round storeroom,
stretching it high, so that down to the ground no feet would be reaching.
Just as it is when thrushes with long wings stretching, or pigeons
tangle themselves in a snare that has been set up in a thicket,
as they go in to roost—most hateful the rest that receives them—
so their heads in a line those women were holding, and nooses
went around all of their necks, so they would most pitifully perish.
Then with their feet they struggled a little, but no very long time.

The olive-tree bed

23.181–190
“These are indeed, my wife, heart-anguishing words you have spoken!
Who can have put my bed in another place? Even for someone
very expert, it would be quite hard, unless one of the gods came
and easily put it elsewhere if he wished to.
No one of mortals who now are alive, even one in full vigor,
ever could easily change its position, because in the well-wrought
bed a great token was fixed—I worked on it; nobody else did.

Shipwrecked sailor simile

23.233–241
Just as appears most welcome the mainland to men who are swimming,
those whose well-made galley Poseidon has smashed on the open
sea after it has been pounded by stormwinds and powerful billows—
few are the men who escape from the silvery sea to the mainland
then most welcome they go on the mainland, escaping from evils—
so most welcome to her as she looked on him was her husband;
neither at all from his neck she loosed the embrace of her white arms.