Which Translation: The Odyssey

William Sinclair Marris

1925 · Blank verse

Features

IntroNotesGlossaryIndexBibliographyMapsIllustrationsGreek textGreek line numbersLine-by-lineBy Iliad translatorComplete
44
Holdings
2
Reviews

Biography

Sir William Sinclair Marris, KCSI, KCIE (1873-1945) was a New Zealand-born British colonial administrator and classical scholar. Educated at Canterbury College, New Zealand, and Christ Church, Oxford, he served in the Indian Civil Service and later became Vice-Chancellor of Durham University.

Marris published his blank verse translation of the Odyssey in India, in order to introduce the poem to more Indian readers. He aimed for simplicity and concision, exceeding the line count of Homer’s original by about one-fifth to compensate for his shorter pentameter line.

The title of William Faulkner’s novel As I Lay Dying (1930) is said to be taken from Marris’s translation of Book XI, where Agamemnon’s ghost says: ‘while I, as I lay dying / Upon the sword, raised up my hands to smite her.’ No other major English Odyssey translation uses this phrase. The translation otherwise did not achieve widespread adoption.

William Sinclair Marris on Wikipedia ↗

Publication History

  • 1925 — Oxford University Press, The Odyssey of Homer ★

Reviews

The proem

1.1–11
Tell me, O Muse, of that Great Traveller
Who wandered far and wide when he had sacked
The sacred town of Troy. Of many men
He saw the cities and he learned the mind;
Ay, and at heart he suffered many woes
Upon the sea, intent to save his life
And bring his comrades home. Yet even so
His men he could not save for all his efforts,
For through their own blind wilfulness they perished;
The fools! who ate up Hyperion’s kine;
And he bereft them of their homing day.
Touching these things, beginning where thou wilt,
Tell even us, O goddess, child of Zeus.

Penelope's weaving trick

2.96–111
‘“My princely suitors, now that good Odysseus
Is dead, though ye would speed my marriage on,
Have patience yet, till I complete this robe;
I would not that my spinning should be wasted;
’Tis prince Laertes’ shroud, against the day
When the fell doom of death that lays men low
Shall strike him down, that of Achaean women
Throughout the land no one may count it blame
In me, that he should sleep without a shroud,
Who in his life had gotten great possessions.”
‘ So said she, and our haughty hearts assented.
So then by day she wove at that great web,
And in the night she bade them set beside her
The torches, and unpicked it; thus by craft
She fooled the Achaeans, and eluded them
A three years’ space : but when the fourth year came
With the returning seasons, then it was
One of her women who knew all told us,
And her we caught undoing the fine web.
And so perforce and sore against her will
She finished it.

Calypso's double standard

5.118–131
‘Hard are ye, O ye gods, and envious
Exceedingly, who grudge that goddesses
Should honourably mate with men, if any
Takes mortal man to be her bedfellow!
E’en so when rosy-fingered Dawn took to her
Orion, then ye gods who live at ease
Were envious of it, till pure Artemis,
The golden-throned, came with her gentle arrows
On him and slew him in Ortygia;
So when Demeter the fair haired gave way
To love and lay beside Iasion
In the thrice-furrowed fallow, not for long
Did Zeus lack news of it, and him he slew
With a cast of his white flame. So now, ye gods,
You grudge a mortal man to bide with me!
I saved his life, when on a keel he rode

Weeping on Calypso's shore

5.151–159
She found him sitting on the shore; his eyes
Were never dry of tears, and his sweet life
Was ebbing out in grief for his return.
No more the nymph found favour with him now:
O’ nights indeed, having therein no choice,
He slept beside her in the hollow caves,
Unwilling lover by a lady willing;
But all the day on rocks or sands he sate,
Racking his soul with tears and sighs and griefs,
And gazed through tears o’er the unresting sea.

Nausicaa finds Odysseus

6.127–141
So saying from the under-growth he crept,
Goodly Odysseus, and with strong hand brake
A leafy bough from the thick wood, to hold
Athwart his loins and hide his nakedness.
Then out he sallied, like a mountain lion
Trusting his strength, who fares forth, beaten on
By rain and wind, but in his eyes a fire:
Amid the kine he goes or ‘mid the sheep
Or on the trail of the wild deer; his belly
Bids him go even to the close-kept farm
To raid the flocks. So was Odysseus fain
To join the company of fair-haired maids,
Stark as he was; such need was come on him.
And grim he looked to them, befouled with brine;
And this and that way on the jutting spits
They fluttered; only one, Alcinous’ child,
Stood firm, because Athene in her heart
Put courage and took panic from her limbs.

War-widow simile

8.521–532
So sang he then, the famous bard. Howbeit
Odysseus’ heart was melted, and a tear
Fell from his eye and wet his cheek. And as
A woman wailing throws herself about
Her husband, who has fallen in defence
Of his own folk and city, in the struggle
To ward off from his city and his children
The day of torment; as she sees him dying,
Gasping for breath, she clings to him and shrieks
Aloud, while from behind the foemen smite
Her back and shoulders with the shafts of spears,
And lead her into bondage, to a portion
Of toil and woe, and with most piteous grief
Her cheeks are wasted: e’en so sadly dropped
Tears from Odysseus’ eyes.

Cyclops eats the men

9.287–299
‘I spake; and he out of his iron heart
Made me no answer; but sprang up and laid
Hands on my comrades. Two at once he gripped
And smashed them down like puppies on the ground,
And the brain-stuff ran out and wet the earth.
Then limb from limb he carved them, and prepared
His supper; like a mountain lion he ate
And left not, guts nor flesh nor marrow-bones.
But with a wail we raised our hands to Zeus,
At sight of deeds so foul, and helplessness
Laid hold on us. But when the Cyclops had
Filled his big belly, eating human flesh
And drinking pure milk after, down he lay
Inside the cave, stretched out among his flocks

The Nobody trick

9.364–371
‘“Cyclops, thou askest me my famous name.
Well, I will tell thee, and do thou grant me
A stranger’s gift, as thou hast promised me.
My name is Noman. Noman I am called
By those who got me, and by all my men.”
‘So said I, and anon he answered me
Out of his iron heart: “Noman will I
Eat last among his company, and all
The rest before him · that shall be thy gift.”

Circe recognizes Odysseus

10.325–336
‘“Who art thou of the sons of men, and whence?
Where are thy home and parents? Wonderment
Takes me, to see how thou hast drunk this charm
And art not witched! For there is no man else,
Not one, that hath withstood this drug, when he
Has drunk it and it once goes past his lips.
But thou, it seems, within thee hast a mind
Proof against charms. Surely thou art Odysseus
The mighty traveller, who Argus-slayer
Of the gold wand was always telling me
Would hither come in his black, speedy ship
Upon his way from Troy. Nay, but put up
Thy sword into its sheath, and then let us
Go up unto my bed, that met together
In love we may put trust in one another.”

Anticlea's shade

11.204–215
‘ So said she, and I pondered in my heart,
And fain would clasp the ghost of my dead mother;
Three times I sprang towards her, and my heart
Bade me embrace her; from my hands three times
She flitted like a shadow or a dream;
And pain grew ever sharper at my heart
And unto her I spake with wingèd word.
‘“ Mother o’ mine, stayest thou not for me,
Who long to clasp thee, that in Hades even
We too may cast our arms about each other,
And take our fill of chilly grief? Is this
Only a phantom that high Proserpine
Hath sent, to make me wail and moan the more?”’

Achilles in the underworld

11.488–501
“Speak not to me of death, renowned Odysseus,
In comfortable words! Fain would I choose,
So might I live on earth, to serve as hireling
Some other man—a landless man, a poor man—
Than be a king o’er all the dead and perished.
But give me tidings of my gallant son,
Whether or no he followed to the war
To be a leader; and of noble Peleus,
If any news thou hast—hath he still honour
Among the host of Myrmidons, or dare
Men hold him light from Hellas unto Phthia,
Because old age has bound him hand and foot?
For there am I no longer in the sunlight
To aid him with the strength I had, when once
I slew the army’s best in spacious Troy
And helped the Argives.

The Sirens' song

12.184–192
‘“Come hither and draw nigh, renowned Odysseus,
Great glory of the Achaeans! stay thy bark,
To listen to the singing of us twain;
For never yet hath any man rowed past
This isle in his black ship, till he hath heard
The honeyed music of our lips, and goes
His way delighted, and a wiser man.
For see, we know the whole tale of the travail
That Greeks and Trojans suffered in wide Troy-land
By heaven’s behest; yea, and all things we know
That come to pass upon the fruitful earth.”

Hyperion's cattle

12.341–352
To wretched mortals every kind of death
Is hateful, but to die—to meet one’s fate—
By starving is most pitiful. No, come,
Let us round up the best of Helios’ cattle,
And offer sacrifice to the immortals
Who hold wide heaven; and if we ever reach
Our homeland, Ithaca, then let us build
Forthwith a costly shrine to Hyperion
And set therein many rich offerings.
As for his straight-horned cattle, if he be
Angered at all, and wish to wreck our ship,
And all the gods go with him, well, I would
Rather lose life in one gulp at the wave,
Than slowly straitened in a desert island.”

Argos recognizes Odysseus

17.324–328
With that he walked into the well-set house,
And straight into the hall he went to join
The lordly suitors. But on Argos fell
Black death for portion, in that hour when he
Had seen Odysseus in the twentieth year.

Sleepless Odysseus

20.25–34
As when a man keeps turning
Before a great hot fire a haggis stuffed
With blood and fat, intent to cook it quickly,
So did Odysseus toss from side to side
Debating how, one man against so many,
He might lay hands upon the shameless suitors.
Then came Athene down from heaven, and drew
Near by him in the likeness of a woman,
And stood above his head and spake to him:
‘Why wakest thou again, O man unlucky
O’er all men living?

Stringing the bow

21.404–412
So said the suitors; but the deep Odysseus
As soon as he had handled the great bow
And conned it every way—as when a man
Skilled in the lyre and singing, easily
Tying the twisted sheep-gut either end,
Stretches a cord about a fresh-made peg—
So without effort did Odysseus string
That mighty bow. In his right hand he held it
And tried the string. Sweet to his touch it sang;
Its tone was like a swallow’s.

Odysseus reveals himself

22.1–8
Then deep Odysseus stripped him of his rags,
And sprang on the great threshold, with the bow
And quiver full of arrows ; and he poured
The speedy shafts out there before his feet,
And spake among the suitors :
‘ So at long last this fatal match is ended !
And now will I have at another mark,
Which never man has smitten, if maybe
I hit it and Apollo grant my prayer.’

The disloyal maids

22.465–474
Upon the word he tied to a great column
The cable of a blue-prowed ship, and slung it
About the round-house, stretching it high up
So that the feet of none might touch the ground.
And, as when thrushes with long wings, or doves
Dash right into a snare set in a thicket,
When they are making for their rest, and ’tis
A cruel bed that takes them, so the women
Held in a row their heads, and round the necks
Of all were nooses cast, that they might die
A death most piteous. With their feet they writhed
A little while—not long.

The olive-tree bed

23.181–190
So said she, and made trial of her lord
But in a burst of anger spake Odysseus
To his true wife: ‘ A bitter word is this,
That thou hast spoken, lady! who hath moved
My bed elsewhere? that were it hard to do,
E’en for a man of skill, unless some god
In person came, and lightly at his will
Set it elsewhere. But there is no man living,
However young and strong, who could upheave it
With ease, because in fashioning the bed
Was wrought a mighty token. And ’twas I
Made it and no one else.

Shipwrecked sailor simile

23.233–241
And even as
The sight of land is welcome unto swimmers,
Whose sturdy ship, hard driven by the blast
And swollen waves, Poseidon smites at sea;
And but a few have ‘scaped the grey sea-water
By swimming for the shore, and with the brine
Their bodies are all crusted; very glad
Are they to tread upon the land and ‘scape
Their evil plight: so welcome was her husband
To her beholding him; nor would she quite
Unloose her white arms from his neck.