In aiming for these and other objectives in a version of the Odyssey, I have had many kinds of help. The greatest has come from my collaborator, Bernard Knox, whom I would rather call a comrade. As we worked together on Sophocles and the Iliad, so we have done on the Odyssey as well. Not only has he written the Introduction and Notes on the Translation, but he has commented on my drafts for many years. And when I leaf through the pages now, his commentary seems to ring my typescript so completely that I might be looking at a worse-for-wear, dog-eared manuscript encircled by a scholiast’s remarks. Yet Knox’s gifts are larger, for he has offered me what Yeats would call Platonic tolerance and Doric discipline, and something even more basic to the Iliad and the Odyssey. Athena, disguised as Mentor, encourages Telemachus to live up to Odysseus, “a man . . . in words and action both” (2.305). My good fortune has been to work with such a man.
Several modern scholars and critics, cited among the further readings, have helped as well, and so have several modern translators of the Odyssey. Each has introduced me to a new aspect of the poem, another potential for the present. “For if it is true,” as Maynard Mack proposes, “that what we translate from a given work is what, wearing the spectacles of our time, we see in it, it is also true that we see in it what we have the power to translate.” So the help I have derived from others is considerable, and I would like to say my thanks to them, dividing them for convenience into groups. First the ones who have translated the Odyssey into prose: from Samuel Butler, A. T. Murray, revised by George E. Dimock, and George Herbert Palmer, to W. H. D. Rouse and R. D. Dawe, and in particular to Walter Shewring and to D. C. H. Rieu who, in consultation with Peter V. Jones, has revised the earlier work of his father, E. V. Rieu. Each presents an example of accuracy as well as grace, and the stronger that example, the more instructive each has been in bringing me somewhat closer to the Greek. And next the translators who have turned the Odyssey into verse: from Albert Cook to Ennis Rees to Richmond Lattimore, Allen Mandelbaum, Oliver Taplin and Robert Fitzgerald. Each presents a kind of aspiration, and I have learned from each, probably most from Fitzgerald, since he would persuade us that Homer is, as he described him, “a living presence bringing into life his great company of imagined persons.” And finally there are the unapproachables, who either are too remote (and so to me, at least, examples not to follow), like certain Victorians, and Cowper, and Chapman —pace Keats —or are impossible to equal, like T. E. Lawrence at his best or Pope in the dozen books of the Odyssey that he produced himself.
Only a few of the recent translators have I known in person, yet we all may know each other in a way, having trekked across the same territory, perhaps having experienced the same nightmare that harried Pope throughout his Homeric efforts. “He was engaged in a long journey,” as Joseph Spence reports Pope’s dream, “puzzled which way to take, and full of fears” that it would never end. And if you reach the end, the fears may start in earnest. Your best hope, I suppose, and a distant one at that, is the one held out by Walter Benjamin in his essay “The Task of the Translator,” where he writes, “even the greatest translation is destined to become part of the growth of its own language and eventually to be absorbed by its renewal.”
Many friends have come to my side, some by reading, some by listening to me read, the work-in-progress, and responding with criticism or encouragement or a healthy blend of both. Most encouraging of all, none has asked me, “Why another Odyssey?” Each has understood, it seems, that if Homer was a performer, his translator might aim to be one as well; and no two performances of the same work —surely not of musical composition, so probably not of a work of language either —will ever be the same. The timbre and tempo of each will be distinct, let alone its deeper resonance, build and thrust. My thanks, then, to André Aciman, Clarence Brown, Andrew Ford, Rachel Hadas, Robert Hollander, David Lenson, Earl Miner, Sarah Nelson, Joyce Carol Oates, Jacqueline Savini, Ben Sonnenberg and Theodore Weiss. And I also thank the ones who invited me to try the work in public, and improve it in the bargain: Peter Bien at Dartmouth College, Ward Briggs III at the University of South Carolina, Larry Carver and Paul Woodruff at the University of Texas in Austin, and Karl Kirchwey at the Unterberg Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y. And philhellenic thanks should go to Edmund Keeley, the English voice of the great modern Greek poets, for he accompanied me on Homer’s nostos, reacting line by line and knowing well, with his Cavafy, that only Ithaca can give you “the marvelous journey” in the first place.
Several classicists have offered information and advice: Marilyn Arthur Katz, John Keaney, Richard Martin, Georgia Nugent, John Peradotto, Pietro Pucci and Froma Zeitlin. Together with the lexicons, Homeric and ancient Greek in general, the commentaries of other scholars have been my vade mecums: those on other English translations of the Odyssey —Ralph Hexter’s on Robert Fitzgerald’s and Peter Jones’s on Richmond Lattimore’s —and those on Homer’s text itself: A. F. Garvie’s on Books 6 through 8 and R. B. Rutherford’s on 19 and 20; the complete three-volume Oxford commentary compiled by M. Fernández-Galiano, J. B. Hainsworth, A. Heubeck, A. Hoekstra, J. Russo and S. West; and W. B. Stanford’s edition of the Odyssey with his commentary on the poem. The first incentive for translating Homer came from the late Stanford, who, one afternoon in County Wicklow many years ago, sketched out a route for returning to the source. And in pursuit of it, I have often consulted the familiar spirits of Anne and Adam Parry.
The roofs of some great houses have extended welcome shelter to the translator and his work. Mary and Theodore Cross have turned Nantucket into Ithaca West with their Homeric hospitality. Princeton University gave me generous leaves of absence in the spring of 1992 and, adding a McCosh Faculty Fellowship for good measure, throughout the spring and fall semesters three years later. More important, the University has enabled me to study Homer with students who have been an education to me. The Program in Hellenic Studies appointed me to a Stanley J. Seeger Fellowship, which took me to the Ionian islands in the summer of 1994 (and persuaded me that unless Cephallenia —lying “low and away, the farthest out to sea” [9.27] —was actually Ithaca, Odysseus may never have got home at all). The Rockefeller Foundation provided Bernard Knox with a resident fellowship at the Villa Serbelloni in April 1991, when he began to write the Introduction. And the staff of Comparative Literature at Princeton, Carol Szymanski and Cass Garner, have been invaluable to us both as we prepared the work for publication.
To produce the book at hand, my editor, Kathryn Court, assisted by Laurie Walsh, has treated the writing and the writer, too, with insight, affection and address. As my manuscript editor, Beena Kamlani’s efforts to tame and train a fairly unruly piece of work have been heroic. The good people at Viking Penguin —Barbara Grossman, Cathy Hemming, Paul Slovak, Leigh Butler —all have been loyal allies in New York, where Peter Mayer —like Peter Carson and Paul Keegan in London —has been a gracious host to the latest Homer in the house. Ann Gold with all her artistry, in coordination with Junie Lee, has designed a volume to companion the Iliad that came before it, and Maggie Payette and Neil Stuart have created its handsome jacket. Roni Axelrod and Cynthia Achar oversaw the production of the book, and Marjorie Horvitz’s sharp eye was helpful to the text. Dan Lundy, Mary Sunden and Maria Barbieri have labored long and hard with Joe Marcey and Peter Smith to find this version of the Odyssey some readers. Mark Stafford, Susan Mosakowski and Mary Kohl have done the same to find some listeners, too, producing the Penguin Audiobook, read by Ian McKellen, who performs the translation as if he were personifying Homer. My former editor Alan Williams, who saw me through the straits of Aeschylus and Sophocles, gave my plans a timely push toward Troy, then home again to Greece with the old dog Argos as our guide. And through it all, without the unfailing stay and strategies of my friend and agent Georges Borchardt, assisted by Cindy Klein for several years, this translation might not have seen the light.
The Odyssey, the perennial poem of adventure, stops but never really ends. Seen in one way, Od
ysseus is forever outward bound, off to another country to appease Poseidon in the future, and changing through the centuries as he goes, “the man of twists and turns,” of many incarnations, with as many destinations. Among them are Virgil’s Aeneas, who makes his way toward Rome, and Dante’s Ulysses moving toward “the world where no one lives,” and Milton’s Adam toward “a paradise within thee, happier far,” and Tennyson’s restless mariner toward “the baths / of all the western stars,” and Joyce’s Bloom toward the New Bloomusalem, until he settles for dear dirty Dublin and the moly that is Molly. For as Joyce makes clear, an equal adventure lies within the bounds of Homer’s poem itself. There, after twenty years of warfaring and wayfaring, Odysseus circles back toward Penelope, and the two together reach their resting place and share a kingdom with their offspring, as if to say, with great good spirit, that life continues here and now at home. If the translation offers any sense of this, the translator thanks his daughters, Katya and Nina, and first and last the Muse he calls on in the dedication, Lynne.
R. F.
Princeton, N.J.
June 17, 1996
A NOTE ON THIS PRINTING:
This printing contains minor revisions of the text.
R.F.
May 17, 1997
THE GENEALOGY OF THE ROYAL HOUSE OF ODYSSEUS
THE GENEALOGY OF THE ROYAL HOUSE OF PHAEACIA
THE GENEALOGY OF THEOCLYMENUS
THE GENEALOGY OF TYRO
TEXTUAL VARIANTS FROM THE OXFORD CLASSICAL TEXT
2.11, duô
2.191, Omitted
3.131, Omitted
4.399, xeine
4.465, ereeineis
4.783, Omitted
5.91, Omitted
9.199, paisi
9.483, Omitted
13.400, anthrôpon
15.345, Omitted
18.402, metheêke
23.320, Omitted
NOTES ON THE TRANSLATION
(Here and throughout the Pronouncing Glossary that follows, line numbers refer to the translation, where the line numbers of the Greek text will be found at the top of every page.)
1.20. that year spun out by the gods when he should reach his home: The tenth year since the sack of Troy, the twentieth year since Odysseus left Ithaca.
1.34. Aegisthus, / the man Agamemnon’s son, renowned Orestes, killed: Throughout the Odyssey, the events in the House of Atreus will provide a continuous background to Homer’s narrative. Taken in sequence, these events begin with the successful vengeance of Orestes —which is chosen by Zeus as an example of justice (ref) —then are used by Athena to rouse the courage of Telemachus (ref), and then by Nestor (ref) not only to encourage the prince but also to caution him with the additional stories of Clytemnestra’s infidelity and the wanderings of Menelaus, absent from Argos when Agamemnon was assassinated. Next Menelaus tells Telemachus how Proteus informed him of Agamemnon’s murder by Aegisthus (ref); and the crime is dramatized when, in the underworld, Odysseus learns from the ghost of Agamemnon how both he and Cassandra were murdered by his wife together with her lover (ref). However optimistic the climax of Orestes’ vengeance, in other words, each version of Agamemnon’s death presents a greater darkness, and so a starker foil for the luminous reunion of Odysseus and Penelope; until at the end of the Odyssey (ref) Agamemnon’s ghost calls for a song to immortalize the virtue of Penelope and another to condemn the perfidy of Clytemnestra. As W. B. Stanford observes (his note 24.196–98), Homer has provided the first, and Aeschylus, in the Oresteia, the second. See note ref.
1.62. Atlas, wicked Titan: In other accounts, Atlas is a giant who holds up the sky “with his hard and unwearying hands” (Hesiod, Theogony 519). Here he apparently stands in the sea and supports pillars that perform the same function. His location in the sea rather than on land (as in Hesiod) may be due to influence from Near Eastern myths. Why he is called “wicked” we do not know.
1.375. The Achaeans’ Journey Home from Troy: Phemius’ song is one of those poems (now lost) that the Greeks called Nostoi —Returns Home. During the capture and sack of Troy, Ajax, son of Oileus (not the Great Ajax, son of Telamon, who had killed himself before Troy fell: see ref and note ref), attempted to rape Cassandra, King Priam’s daughter, in the temple of Athena, where she had taken refuge. The Achaeans failed to punish him for this offense, and Athena retaliated by arranging for storm winds to blow most of them off course on their way home. Ajax was killed by Poseidon when he had almost reached home (see ref), Menelaus wandered for seven years, Odysseus for ten.
1.443. king of Ithaca: The Greek word translated as “king,” basileus, does not carry the connotation of hereditary monarchical rule inherent in the English word. In the kingdom of Phaeacia, Alcinous announces: “There are twelve peers of the realm who rule our land, / thirteen, counting myself” (ref). The word he uses is basilêes. They are all kings, but he is, so to speak, top king. That is why Telemachus can say: “I’d be happy to take the crown if Zeus presents it” (ref). It is a position won by acclaim and superior wealth and achievement, and clearly Antinous, as the leader of the suitors, thinks himself in line for the position once he marries Penelope.
2.172. they swooped away on the right: The lucky side for omens, lucky at least for Telemachus in this case. The idea that signs on the right are lucky and on the left unlucky is common in many cultures and languages: our word “sinister,” for example, is the Latin word for “left.” See ref, 588, ref, ref.
2.371. splitting up his goods: In the event of Telemachus’ death, the palace and all its property would revert to Penelope and whichever of the suitors she chose to marry. The suitor here seems to be suggesting a division of Telemachus’ property as a consolation prize for those who do not win Penelope’s hand. The speech emphasizes once again the reckless illegality of the suitors’ proceedings. See Introduction, pp. ref, ref.
3.46. daughter of Zeus whose shield is storm and thunder: The shield is the aegis (literally “goatskin”). It is sometimes displayed by Zeus himself, and by Apollo, as well as by Athena. Its shape is not easily determined from the text: at times it seems to be a shield, for the figure of the Gorgon’s head and other forms of terror appear on it. Its effect seems to be to stiffen morale among those it is raised to protect and inspire terror in those who face it.
3.81. roving the waves like pirates: See Introduction, pp. ref.
3.121. There Ajax lies . . . Achilles . . . Patroclus . . . Antilochus: Ajax, son of Telamon, the greatest of the Achaean warriors after Achilles, killed himself when the arms and armor of the dead Achilles, offered by his mother, Thetis, as a prize to the bravest champion, were given to Odysseus (see ref and note ref). Achilles was killed by an arrow shot by Paris, son of Priam; Patroclus, his closest friend, was killed by Euphorbus, Hector and Apollo. Antilochus, who had come to the aid of his father, Nestor, was killed by the Ethiopian prince Memnon, an ally of the Trojans.
3.150. [Athena’s] rage: See note ref.
3.213. the shining son / of lionhearted Achilles: Neoptolemus (whose name means “new war”) came to Troy after Achilles’ death and, together with Philoctetes, who wielded the unerring bow of Heracles, led the fight against the Trojans (see ref). Idomeneus, a Cretan king, is often mentioned later in Odysseus’ false travel tales (see ref, ref, ref).
3.215. Philoctetes: His safe return concludes a well-known story about the final phase of the Trojan War. The Achaeans, unable to take Troy, learned of a prophecy that they would be able to do so only with the aid of Philoctetes and his bow, a famous weapon that he had inherited from Heracles. They had to send an embassy to Lemnos to persuade him to come and help them. This embassy is the subject of Sophocles’ tragedy Philoctetes.
3.346. Orestes / home from Athens: In Athenian tragedy, he always comes home from Phocis, in central Greece. This may be due to the fact that Aeschylus, in the last play of the Oresteia (458 B.C.), brings him to Athens to stand trial for his mother’s murder —a coup de théâtre that would have been spoiled if he
had come from there in the first place.
3.373. cut out the victims’ tongues: The tongues of the sacrificed animals, like the thighbones, are reserved for the gods. In this case they were cut out when the bulls were sacrificed in the morning (ref) but put aside as a late evening offering. The first drops of wine are for the libation: the wine poured on the fire for the gods.
3.423. Zeus’s daughter . . . his third born: This is a literal rendering of Athena’s title Tritogeneia, but the meaning of the word is disputed. Some ancient sources connect it with Lake Tritonis in Libya, where Zeus sent Athena to be reared, or with the river Triton in Boeotia. A modern explanation compares the Athenian Tritopateres, i.e., genuine ancestors: this would give the meaning “genuine daughter of Zeus.”
3.485. Athena came . . . / to attend her sacred rites: What happens in the following passage is a sacrifice to the gods that is also a feast for the human worshipers (this was the way meat was eaten in the ancient world). The animal is placed at the altar, and the sacrificers wash their hands to establish purity for the ritual. They scatter barley on the victim, then stun the animal with a blow on the head, pull back its head and cut its throat over the altar. The animal’s skin is taken off and a portion of the meat prepared for the gods. This is a choice portion, the meat of the thighbones: it is wrapped in a double fold of fat and the outside covered with small pieces of meat from different parts of the animal. This portion is burned over the fire —the smoke and savor go up to the gods above. Wine is poured over it, a libation. The sacrificers at last begin their meal —with the entrails, which they have roasted on forks over the fire. They then carve the carcass and roast portions of meat on spits and set them out for the feast.
The Odyssey(Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) Page 56