Customer Reviews

The Iliad of Homer

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For Homer to take his place among our classics it must be the case that a rendering could exercise the same spell over the collective ear as English-language poets. You could not memorize Fagles, or Lattimore - or Hobbes, a few phrases apart - while Pope, even at his least Homeric, is memorable.

Lattimore:

The day that orphans a youngster cuts him off from friends.
And he hangs his head low, humiliated in every way. . .
his cheeks streaked with tears, and pressed by hunger
the boy goes up to his father's old companions,
tugging at one man's cloak, another's tunic,
and some will pity him, true,
and one will give him a little cup to drink,
enough to wet his lips, not quench his thirst.
But then some bully with both his parents living,
beats him from the banquet, fists and abuses flying,
'You, get out - you've got no father feasting with us here!'
And the boy, sobbing, trails home to his widowed mother. . .
Astyanax!

Pope:

The Day, that to the Shades the Father sends,
Robs the sad Orphan of his Father's Friends:
He, wretched Outcast of Mankind! appears
For ever sad, for ever bath'd in Tears;
Amongst the Happy, unregarded he,
Hangs on the Robe, or trembles at the Knee,
While those his Father's former bounty fed,
Nor reach the Goblet, nor divide the Bread:
The Kindest but his present Wants allay,
To leave him wretched the succeeding Day.
Frugal Compassion! Heedless they who boast
Both Parents still, nor feel what he has lost,
Shall cry, 'Begone! Thy Father feasts not here':
The Wretch obeys, retiring with a Tear.
Thus wretched, thus retiring all in Tears,
To my sad soul Astyanax appears!

You decide.

Most are already familiar with the wartorn story of Homer's Iliad, so my only commentary is on this particular translation: it is, by merits of its flow and its close approximation of the original's hexameter, the best ever made into the English language. Lattimore does not attempt to make this 3,000 year-old epic into a flowery sonnet, a Shakespearian drama, or a willfully noble tale--instead, he goes to great lengths to preserve the feeling and the connotation of Homer's story, rendering it in highly readable, fast-paced verse that allows the reader to grasp the melodic and repetitive nature of the Greek. He consistently preserves every flavorful epithet, and thus convey the Iliad's power as closely as one can in translation. I would go so far as to say that this translation outstrips that of couplet extraordinaire Alexander Pope, for the latter's is not Homer, but rather a distant interpretation; unlike Lattimore's, it tries to make the Iliad into what it is not. For a clear picture of the original story of the Trojan War, by all means read the Lattimore version.

Few translators have had the success that Richmond Lattimore has when it comes to THE ILIAD. I would be hard pressed to find a better translation since others are either too literal to be poetic or too liberal to be faithful to Homer's story. Alexander Pope's is, of course, one of the greatest, but you have to go back 250 years to find one as enduring as Lattimore's.

Of all the verse translations of Homer's Iliad that I have read, Lattimore's is certainly the finest. Though Robert Fitzgerald's translation is probably one of the most popular, I think Fitzgerald has taken too much liberties with the language, sprinkling his own metaphors like salt and pepper indiscriminately over the text and thereby distorting Homer's style in a very inexcusable fashion. Fagles's translation is also good, but a bit too "close". Even Homer's contemporaries know that this poem with a heroic age inretrievably lost in the tide of time. Even though Lattimore's translation may seem heavily formulaic and pedantic at the first glance, a little bit of patience and thought will help you in appreciating the power and beauty of this masterpiece.
This paperback edition is probably the only real edition out there. I still cannot understand why nobody bothers to print the hardcover editions from the 50s and 60s any longer. Those give much more space in the margin for notes and scribbles (and who can read the Iliad without being tempted to scribble a line or two!). However, since the paperback is all there is one must be content...
Those who read the Iliad will not fail to see why Homer is considered the first creative genius in the Western Canon. The Iliad is a flawless masterpiece sustaining the same tone from the beginning to the end, tragic in a sense that the tragedy is too great for tears. Book 22, the climactic book of the Iliad, is THE most powerful crescendo ever constructed. There is no doubt to the outcome: Hector WILL die and Troy WILL fall--these are given in Book I. The Iliad does not rely on suspense to captivate the audience. Rather, the experience of reading the Iliad may be summarized as the twillight region between day and night, during which we the readers know what will happen--wait for it to happen--and meanwhile, when faced to death as all the Homeric heroes, reflect on the meaning of life, of death, of glory, and of our common lot.

Richmond Lattimore tries to give his translation the feel of "Greek-ness" by keeping the "k" in proper names instead of Latinizing them to "c" (and "ai" instead of "ae"), by using "but" where Homer does instead of "and," and by observing many of Homer's formulaic techniques. So one feels closer to the Greek original when reading Lattimore than one does with other translations.

But are we really closer? Actually, that's not the question we should ask, because it's quite impossible to duplicate Homer's Greek, to be faithful both to the music and to the sense. Alexander Pope understood this and instead gave us a great poet translating another great poet-- the best we can ask for.

Richmond Lattimore is not a great poet and his language is rather tame compared to that of Homer. Lattimore can be admired for not bogging down the work with Shakespearean or Miltonic language, for freeing Homer from archaisms and pseudo-poetic triteness, but the pulse he has chosen for each line is off: he "approximates" dactylic hexameter by allowing six stresses to fall rather at random across the lengthy string of words. This causes the pulse to be very faint, hardly discernible from prose. So when it's all said and done, Lattimore still reads like a novel, and Homer is not a novel.

This safe translation beats Fagles and other recent versions and is probably the most recommendable to first-time readers. Yet I still prefer A.T. Murray's prose in the Loeb edition because it is just as musical in many ways as Lattimore's verse. For a truly poetic experience, try to find Alexander Pope's translation, edited by Steven Shankman for Penguin Classics.

The Iliad by Homer is a book that i think everyone can enjoy it comes in a lot of different reading levels and is relativly easy to understand. I thought the book was well written and the plot kept me reading for more. i recommend this book to anyone who likes the old school style of art of war and sword vs shield style genre.

The world of mythology not only interests but captivates young men. The idea of having gods that play with the outcome of everything may be what a female likes to read about. All in all this book has it all.
Homer's Iliad has action. There is a scene where Ajax's shield is jabbed by Hektor and his spear goes through 7 layers ofthe shield.
The god Zeus controls the fate of all of those involved with the Trojan war. The part the gods play is very much like a soap opera. This will mellow out the action and cause more at the same time.
This is a great book for anyone that likes history action or suspense. Read it!!!!!

Those Greeks got just about everything right, as Plato would put it, "only the dead have seen the end of war." Homer's Iliad can be interpereted many ways, which is what makes it such an interesting and multifaceted read. The original version I began reading was published in 1977 and written in a very dry, high-language style. I quickly switched to Robert Grave's "The Anger of Achilles." This is re-written version of the same story in a modernized language style. A much better read than the older version. Homer vividly shows man's arrogance and boldness at starting wars and waging them. The entire 10-year Trojan war centers around a single woman as the objective, Helen, wife of King Menelaus. Menelaus then asks Agamemnon to assist in the plot to return Helen to Sparta. Paris's bold capture of Helen from Sparta provokes the Greeks into gathering an enormous war fleet to sail for Troy with dire purpose. Much of this seems like a rediculous concept, but not if you stop to think about it. Consider this: The USA started the war on terror basically to nab 2 people, Bin Laden and Hussein. This is a strange dualism, isn't it? All variables aside, I think that this is an excellent, classic example of man's over-eagerness to wage war, but their ignorance of the consequences they reap because of it. This epic glorifies war so much, but barely explains the true psychological and social effects large wars have on the populace. I believe this novel was, in fact, written as an anti-war piece, so this is how I chose to interperet it. I am by no means downplaying the noble sacrifices the men and women of the US military have made to secure freedom for our country, because soon I will be one of those people when I enlist in the Army. Above all, a soldier prays for peace because they are the ones who must fight conflicts and be thrown headlong into the utter ugly chaos that is war. Homer may be history's first attempt at a hippy, but who knows? Homer is as much of an enigma as the reason why mankind still chooses to wage war. But war will always be a part of human nature, so we will be prepared.

I will not pretend to know much about the form and structure of this epic, for I am not an English major. However, this translation of the Iliad has put me on the path of rediscovering my interest in the humanities. The vivid yet blunt description has forced the reader into this world which revolves solely on glory and honor. The Iliad itself offers insight into the very questions that surround our existence:

"Fate is the same for the man who holds back, the same if he fights hard. We are all held in a single honour, the brave with the weaklings. A man dies still if he has done nothing, as one who has done much." Iliad, 318-20

This is a segment from Achilleus' statement in Book 9. I feel that this captures a very important question which hovers constantly on the edge of my mind: why are we here? What is our purpose if we are to all die eventually? Is it to capture glory and honor? If it is, does that mean this honor transcends onto our children? And even if it does, why is that important to us? Why do we strive for glory when it will be taken from us when we pass on? I do not study religion, so I will not pretend to be well versed in it--but these are issues which can be drawn from the Iliad, issues which have been explained in various ways by the world's several mainstream religions which have been in existence for thousands of years. All of this and more is plainly exposed, in all of its simplicity. The reader only has to pick up the book and ask the questions. Answers? You will find none here. A deeper respect and curiousity for what it means to be human? You might find yourself asking more questions.

Perhaps one of the first anti-war works of literature, the Iliad stands as relevant for our world today as it has been for the Greeks of 3000 years ago. Lattimore has given us with a brilliant translation that makes this masterpiece accessible in all its beauty to modern-day English speakers. The introduction provides the necessary understanding of the background and translation scheme, adding to the appreciation of the poem, but concise and short enough to permit the reader to delve into the beauty of the Iliad without much further ado. The Iliad of course is the most famous classic Greek poem. In reading this translation, one vividly moves into the world of the gods and heroes. Though seemingly long, the Iliad is breathtaking in its action and plot sequences. It is easy to get lost imagining the conflicts between Achilleus, Agamemnon, and Hector, or reflecting on the fascinating intrigues of Athena and Zeus. There are many lessons in these tales for everyone today, for we humans still behave within the same parameters of pride, glory, anger, vengeance, and love. After reading it, I was left reflecting about th meaning of victory, and how Achilleus was unsatisfied after obtaining his revenge. Read it, and you will instantly recognized why this epic poem has been deemed a masterpiece.