Why Homer Matters
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Southern storytelling: the multiple scenes on silver gilt bowls produced in the Near East (this one from Cyprus ca. 725–675 BC but showing Egyptian, Assyrian and Phoenician stories of battle and triumph) provide a possible model for Homer’s description of the Shield of Achilles.
The shape of the south: fluency and fragility in a Kamares eggshell-ware cup from the temple-palace at Phaistos on Crete, ca. 1900 BC, just as the Greeks were entering the Mediterranean world.
A golden libation bowl from Olympia, now in Boston. Only when Odysseus on the shores of Hades pours all the good juices of the earth on to the ground can the dead re-acquire the ability to speak.
The luxurious world of Sinuhe: an Egyptian ivory cosmetics container in the shape of a duck with fish on her back.
A Cretan bath from the mid-14th century BC, one of the elements of Mediterranean civilization most greedily adopted by Homeric Greeks.
The transforming grace and power of the sailing ship: Dionysus on a boat, on a 5th-century Attic kylix now in Munich.
ALSO BY ADAM NICOLSON
Sissinghurst: An Unfinished History
Arcadia: The Dream of Perfection in Renaissance England
Quarrel with the King: The Story of an English Family on the High Road to Civil War
Seize the Fire: Heroism, Duty, and the Battle of Trafalgar
Seamanship: A Voyage Along the Wild Coasts of the British Isles
God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible
Sea Room: An Island Life in the Hebrides
Prospects of England: Two Thousand Years Seen Through Twelve English Towns
Frontiers: From the Arctic to the Aegean
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ADAM NICOLSON’S books include Sissinghurst, God’s Secretaries, Sea Room and the acclaimed Gentry. He is winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and the W. H. Heinemann and Ondaatje Prizes, both awarded by the Royal Society of Literature. He lives on a farm in Sussex with his wife, Sarah Raven.
Gary Beckman (ed.), excerpts from Hittite Diplomatic Texts, Second Edition. Reprinted with the permission of Society of Biblical Literature.
Jeremy Black, excerpt from the Sumerian poem from “Some Structural Features of Sumerian Narrative Poetry” in Mesopotamian Epic Literature: Oral or Aural?, edited by M. E. Vogelzang and H. L. J. Vanstiphout. Reprinted with the permission of The Edwin Mellen Press.
Edmond and Jules Goncourt, excerpt from The Goncourt Journals, edited and translated by Robert Baldick. Copyright © 1962 by the Estate of Robert Baldick. Used by permission of The New York Review of Books.
Excerpt from A. Heidel, trans., The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels. Copyright 1946, 1949 by The University of Chicago. Reprinted by permission of The University of Chicago Press.
Homer, excerpt from The Iliad, with parallel translation by A. T. Murray, revised by W. F. Wyatt. Copyright © 1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Reprinted by permission of Harvard University Press. Excerpts from The Iliad of Homer, translated by Richmond Lattimore. Copyright 1951, © 2011 by The University of Chicago. Reprinted with the permission of The University of Chicago Press. Excerpts from The Iliad, translated by Robert Fagles. Copyright © 1990 by Robert Fagles. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Excerpts from The Odyssey, with parallel translation by A. T. Murray, revised by G. E. Dimock. Copyright © 1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Reprinted with the permission of Harvard University Press. Excerpts from The Odyssey, translated by Richmond Lattimore. Copyright © 1965, 1967 by Richmond Lattimore. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Inc. Excerpts from The Odyssey, translated by Robert Fagles. Copyright © 1996 by Robert Fagles. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Christopher Logue, excerpt from “The Iliad: Book XVI. An English Version” from War Music. Copyright © 1997 by Christopher Logue. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC, and Faber and Faber, Ltd.
Edwin Muir, excerpt from “The Horses” from Collected Poems. Copyright © 1960 by Willa Muir. Reprinted with the permission of Oxford University Press, Ltd., and Faber & Faber, Ltd.
R. B. Parkinson (ed. and trans.), excerpt from “The Tale of Sinuhe” from The Tale of Sinuhe and Other Egyptian Poems 1940–1640 BC. Copyright © 1997 by R. B. Parkinson. Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press, Ltd.
Milman Parry, excerpts from The Making of Homeric Verse: The Collected Papers of Milman Parry, edited by Adam Parry. Copyright © 1971 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press, Ltd.
Excerpt from Parry Conversation no. 6698 in An eEdition of The Wedding of Mustajbey’s Son Beæirbey, as performed by Halil Bajgoriæ, edited and translated by John Miles Foley, www.oraltradition.org. Reprinted by permission.
George Seferis, excerpt from “Memory II” from Logbook III in Complete Poems, translated and edited by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Copyright © 1995 by Princeton University Press. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press.
M. L. West, excerpt from Lives of Homer in Homeric Hymns, with parallel translation by M. L. West. Copyright © 2003 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Reprinted by permission of Harvard University Press.
William Butler Yeats, excerpt from “Among School Children” from The Poems of W. B. Yeats: A New Edition, edited by Richard J. Finneran. Copyright 1933 by Macmillan Publishing Company, renewed © 1961 by Georgie Yeats. Reprinted with the permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
The maps were done by HL Studios.
WHY HOMER MATTERS. Copyright © 2014 by Adam Nicolson. All rights reserved. For information, address Henry Holt and Co., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
ISBN: 978-1-62779-179-3
e-ISBN 978-1-62779-180-9
First US Edition: November 2014