by Alice Oswald
ALSO BY ALICE OSWALD
POETRY
The Thing in the Gap-Stone Stile
Dart
Woods Etc.
A Sleepwalk on the Severn
Weeds and Wild Flowers
EDITOR
The Thunder Mutters: 101 Poems for the Planet
Thomas Wyatt: Selected Poems
MEMORIAL
A VERSION OF HOMER’S ILIAD
ALICE OSWALD
W. W. NORTON & COMPANY
NEW YORK LONDON
Contents
Begin Reading
Acknowledgments
Very many thanks to: Peter Oswald, Laura Beatty and the Keens, Sheila Hooker, Jules Cashford, Rupert Smith, Paul Keegan, Kevin Mount, Joe Richards, Iris Milward, Jo Larsen, Jerome Fletcher, Philip Franses, Minni Jain, Warwick Gould and the staff at Senate House Library, University of London – and Homer.
This is a translation of the Iliad’s atmosphere, not its story. Matthew Arnold (and almost everyone ever since) has praised the Iliad for its ‘nobility’. But ancient critics praised its ‘enargeia’, which means something like ‘bright unbearable reality’. It’s the word used when gods come to earth not in disguise but as themselves. This version, trying to retrieve the poem’s enargeia, takes away its narrative, as you might lift the roof off a church in order to remember what you’re worshipping. What’s left is a bipolar poem made of similes and short biographies of soldiers, both of which derive (I think) from distinct poetic sources: the similes from pastoral lyric (you can tell this because their metre is sometimes compressed as if it originally formed part of a lyric poem); the biographies from the Greek tradition of lament poetry.
There are accounts of Greek lament in both the Iliad and the Odyssey. When a corpse was layed out, a professional poet (someone like Homer) led the mourning and was antiphonally answered by women offering personal accounts of the deceased. I like to think that the stories of individual soldiers recorded in the Iliad might be recollections of these laments, woven into the narrative by poets who regularly performed both high epic and choral lyric poetry.
The Iliad is a vocative poem. Perhaps even (in common with lament) it is invocative. It always addresses Patroclus as ‘you’, as if speaking directly to the dead. This translation presents the whole poem as a kind of oral cemetery – in the aftermath of the Trojan War, an attempt to remember people’s names and lives without the use of writing. I hope it doesn’t need too much context. I hope it will have its own coherence as a series of memories and similes laid side by side: an antiphonal account of man in his world.
I should add a note about my attitude to the printed Iliad. My ‘biographies’ are paraphrases of the Greek, my similes are translations. However, my approach to translation is fairly irreverent. I work closely with the Greek, but instead of carrying the words over into English, I use them as openings through which to see what Homer was looking at. I write through the Greek, not from it – aiming for translucence rather than translation. I think this method, as well as my reckless dismissal of seven-eighths of the poem, is compatible with the spirit of oral poetry, which was never stable but always adapting itself to a new audience, as if its language, unlike written language, was still alive and kicking.
PROTESILAUS
ECHEPOLUS
ELEPHENOR
SIMOISIUS
LEUKOS
DEMOCOON
DIORES
PIROUS
PHEGEUS
IDAEUS
ODIOS
PHAESTUS
SCAMANDRIUS
PHERECLES
PEDAEUS
HYPSENOR
ASTYNOOS
HYPEIRON
ABAS
POLYIDOS
XANTHUS
THOON
ECHEMMON
CHROMIUS
PANDARUS
DEICOON
ORSILOCHUS
CRETHON
PYLAEMENES
MYDON
MENESTHES
ANCHIALOS
AMPHIUS
TLEPOLEMOS
COERANUS
CHROMIUS
ALCASTOR
ALCANDER
HALIUS
PYRTANIS
NOEMON
TEUTHRAS
ORESTES
TRECHUS
OENOMAUS
HELENUS
ORESBIUS
PERIPHAS
ACAMAS
AXYLUS
CALESIUS
PEDASUS
AESEPUS
ASTYALOS
PIDUTES
ARETAON
ANTILOCHUS
ELATUS
PHYLAKOS
MELANTHIUS
ADRESTUS
MENESTHIUS
IPHINOUS
ENIOPEUS
AGELAOS
ORSILOCHUS
ORMENUS
OPHELESTES
DAETOR
CHROMIUS
LYCOPHONTES
AMOPAON
MELANIPPUS
GORGYTHION
ARCHEPTOLEMOS
DOLON
RHESUS
ISOS
ANTIPHOS
PEISANDER
HIPPOLOCHUS
IPHIDAMAS
COON
ASAEUS
AUTONOOS
OPITES
DOLOPS
OPHELTIUS
AGELAOS
AESYMNUS
ORUS
HIPPONOUS
THYMBRAIUS
MOLION
ADRESTUS
AMPHIUS
HIPPODAMOS
HYPEIROCHOS
AGASTRAPHUS
THOON
ENNOMUS
CHERSIDAMAS
SOCUS
CHAROPS
DORYCLES
PANDOCUS
LYSANDER
PYRASUS
PYLARTES
APISAON
DAMASOS
PYLON
ORMENOS
HIPPOMACHOS
ANTIPHATES
MENON
IAMENOS
ORESTES
EPICLES
IMBRIOS
AMPHIMACHOS
OTHRYON
ASIUS
ALCATHOUS
OINOMAOS
ASKALAPHOS
APHAREUS
THOON
ANTILOCHUS
DEIPUROS
PEISANDER
HARPALION
EUCHENOR
SATNIUS
PROTHOENOR
ARCHELOCHUS
PROMACHUS
ILIONEUS
STICHIUS
ARCESILAUS
MEDON
IASUS
MECISTEUS
ECHIUS
CLONIUS
DEIOCHUS
KALETOR
LYKOPHRON
KLEITOS
SCHEDIOS
LAODAMAS
OTOS
KROISMOS
DOLOPS
MELANIPPUS
PERIPHETOS
PURAICHMES
AREILYCUS
THOAS
AMPHICLUS
ATUMNIOS
MARIS
KLEOBULOS
LYKON
AKAMAS
ERYMAS
PRONOOS
THESTOR
ERYLAOS
ERYMAS
AMPHOTERUS
EPALTES
TLEPOLEMOS
ECHIOS
PURIS
IPHES
EUIPPOS
POLYMELOS
THRASYMELOS
PEDASUS
SARPEDON
EPIGEUS
BATHYCLES
LAOGONUS
> PATROCLUS
EUPHORBAS
HIPPOTHOUS
SCHEDIUS
PHORCYS
LEOCRITUS
APISAON
ARETUS
PODES
KOIRANUS
IPHITUS
DEMOLEON
HIPPODAMAS
POLYDORUS
DRYOPS
DEMUCHUS
LAOGONUS
DARDANUS
TROS
MULIUS
RHIGMOS
LYCAON
THERSILOCHUS
MYDON
ASTYPYLOS
MNESIUS
THRASIUS
AINIOS
OPHELESTES
HECTOR
The first to die was PROTESILAUS
A focused man who hurried to darkness
With forty black ships leaving the land behind
Men sailed with him from those flower-lit cliffs
Where the grass gives growth to everything
Pyrasus Iton Pteleus Antron
He died in mid-air jumping to be first ashore
There was his house half-built
His wife rushed out clawing her face
Podarcus his altogether less impressive brother
Took over command but that was long ago
He’s been in the black earth now for thousands of years
Like a wind-murmur
Begins a rumour of waves
One long note getting louder
The water breathes a deep sigh
Like a land-ripple
When the west wind runs through a field
Wishing and searching
Nothing to be found
The corn-stalks shake their green heads
Like a wind-murmur
Begins a rumour of waves
One long note getting louder
The water breathes a deep sigh
Like a land-ripple
When the west wind runs through a field
Wishing and searching
Nothing to be found
The corn-stalks shake their green heads
ECHEPOLUS a perfect fighter
Always ahead of his men
Known for his cold seed-like concentration
Moving out and out among the spears
Died at the hands of Antilochus
You can see the hole in the helmet just under the ridge
Where the point of the blade passed through
And stuck in his forehead
Letting the darkness leak down over his eyes
ELEPHENOR from Euboea in command of forty ships
Son of Chalcodon nothing is known of his mother
Died dragging the corpse of Echepolus
A little flash of flesh showing under the shield as he bent
Agenor stabbed him in the ninth year of the war
He wore his hair long at the back
Like leaves
Sometimes they light their green flames
And are fed by the earth
And sometimes it snuffs them out
Like leaves
Sometimes they light their green flames
And are fed by the earth
And sometimes it snuffs them out
SIMOISIUS born on the banks of the Simois
Son of Anthemion his mother a shepherdess
Still following the sheep when she gave birth
A lithe and promising young man unmarried
Was met by Ajax in the ninth year of the war
And died full tilt running onto his spear
The point passed clean through the nipple
And came out through the shoulderblade
He collapsed instantly an unspeakable sorrow to his parents
And LEUKOS friend of Odysseus
Little is known of him except his death
And someone’s face pierced like a piece of fruit
That was Priam’s son unlucky man
Who made his living in the horse country
North of Troy he was stepping backwards
When the darkness hit him with a dull clang
His name was DEMOCOON
Like a man steps back
Seeing a snake almost under his foot
In a heathery hollow
The fear flutters his knees it
Sucks him white he steps back
Like a man steps back
Seeing a snake almost under his foot
In a heathery hollow
The fear flutters his knees it
Sucks him white he steps back
DIORES son of Amarinceus
Struck by a flying flint
Died in a puddle of his own guts
Slammed down into mud he lies
With his arms stretched out to his friends
And PIROUS the Thracian
You can tell him by his knotted hair
Lies alongside him
He killed him and was killed
There seem to be black flints
Everywhere a man steps
Like through the jointed grass
The long-stemmed deer
Almost vanishes
But a hound has already found her flattened tracks
And he’s running through the fields towards her
Like through the jointed grass
The long-stemmed deer
Almost vanishes
But a hound has already found her flattened tracks
And he’s running through the fields towards her
The priest of Hephaestus
Hot-faced from staring at flames
Prayed every morning the same prayer
Please god respect my status
Protect my sons PHEGEUS and IDAEUS
Calm down their horses lift them
Out of the fight as light as ash
Hephaestus heard him but he couldn’t
Hold those bold boys back
Riding over the battlefield too fast
They met a flying spear
And like a lift door closing
Inexplicable Hephaestus
Whisked one of them away
And the other died
What happened to that man from Alybe far away in the east
What happened to ODIOS what happened to PHAESTUS
He came from Tarne where the soil is loose and crumbly
Like snow falling like snow
When the living winds shake the clouds into pieces
Like flutters of silence hurrying down
To put a stop to the earth at her leafwork
Like snow falling like snow
When the living winds shake the clouds into pieces
Like flutters of silence hurrying down
To put a stop to the earth at her leafwork
SCAMANDRIUS the hunter
Knew every deer in the woods
He used to hear the voice of Artemis
Calling out to him in the lunar
No man’s land of the mountains
She taught him to track her animals
But impartial death has killed the killer
Now Artemis with all her arrows can’t help him up
His accurate firing arm is useless
Menelaus stabbed him
One spear-thrust through the shoulders
And the point came out through the ribs
His father was Strophius
Like when a mother is rushing
And a little girl clings to her clothes
Wants help wants arms
Won’t let her walk
Like staring up at that tower of adulthood
Wanting to be light again
Wanting this whole problem of living to be lifted
And carried on a hip
Like when a mother is rushing
And a little girl clings to her clothes
Wants help wants arms
Won’t let her walk
Like staring up at that tower of adulthood
Wanting to
be light again
Wanting this whole problem of living to be lifted
And carried on a hip
Beloved of Athene PHERECLES son of Harmion
Brilliant with his hands and born of a long line of craftsmen
It was he who built the cursed fleet of Paris
Little knowing it was his own death boat
Died on his knees screaming
Meriones speared him in the buttock
And the point pierced him in the bladder
And PEDAEUS the unwanted one
The mistake of his father’s mistress
Felt the hot shock in his neck of Meges’ spear
Unswallowable sore throat of metal in his mouth
Right through his teeth
He died biting down on the spearhead
Like suddenly it thunders
And a stormwind rushes down
And roars into the sea’s ears
And the curves of many white-patched waves
Run this way and that way
Like suddenly it thunders
And a stormwind rushes down
And roars into the sea’s ears
And the curves of many white-patched waves
Run this way and that way
Brave HYPSENOR the stump of whose hand
Lies somewhere on the battlefield
He was the son of Dolopion the river-priest
Now he belongs to a great red emptiness
Like when the rainy fog pulls down its hood on the mountains
Misery for the herdsman better than night for the thief
You can see no further than you can throw a stone
Like when the rainy fog pulls down its hood on the mountains
Misery for the herdsman better than night for the thief
You can see no further than you can throw a stone
Diomedes a madman a terrible numbness
Turned inside-out and taking over everything
Killed ASTYNOOS killed HYPEIRON
Killed ABAS and POLYIDOS
Their father could tell the future
But he never prophesied that
Killed XANTHUS and THOON
Both tall men but their father
Was a little wisp of worries
Waiting at home what could he do
Now all his savings will go to other people’s children
Now he will have to live off nothing
But his sons’ names meanwhile Diomedes
With his eyes peeled down to their see-through stones
Seeing through everything to its inner emptiness
Killed ECHEMMON killed CHROMIUS
Tin-opened them out of their armour
And took for himself their high-stepping horses
Like the high unescapable eye
Of the eagle
Under whose beam
The shadow-swift hare can’t hide
Pressed flat to the floor
Of a leafy wood
That loitering eye looks once
And kills
Like the high unescapable eye
Of the eagle
Under whose beam
The shadow-swift hare can’t hide