Can anyone tell me about any reasonable medium to get to know these two tales?
Maybe I should ask this in /lit/ instead, though I'm not only restricted into reading.
>>277949
Just fucking read the Penguin Classic version.
Make sure you have a glossary near you while reading it so you can get the sick mythological references.
>>277949
DEFINE "REASONABLE MEDIUM".
![vlcsnap-2013-02-12-16h25m09s67[1].png](https://i.imgur.com/6d6HGJ6.png "vlcsnap-2013-02-12-16h25m09s67[1].png")
>>277995
>Penguin Classic version.
Fucking maximum overpleb. Reading a prose version. Choking on my own rage here
>>278031
REASONABLE, SOMETHING A COMMON HISTORYPLEBEIAN COULD GET AROUND HIS HEAD, SOMETHING BETTER THAN THE MOVIE.
>>277995
I disagree, the translation does make a significant difference on the work. It can be very different.
Robert Fagles' translation is well known but I know a guy who's read numerous translations and he really hates it. I didn't like it either, it lacked a sense of rhythm
I have translation by stanley lombardo, it's pretty good, there's a strong focus on Homer's descriptions and trying to emphasize them.
Example Robert Fagles Book 1, second page.
Poseidon had gone to visit the Ethiopians worlds away,
Ethiopians off at the farthest limits of mankind,
a people split in two, one part where the Sungod sets
and part where the Sungod rises. There Poseidon went
to receive an offering, bulls and rams by the hundred -
far away at the feast of the Sea – lord sat and took his pleasure
Same passage by Lombardo
But Poseidon was away now, among the Ethiopians,
Those burnished people at the ends of the earth-
Some near the sunset, some near the sunrise
To receive a grand sacrifice of rams and bulls. There he sat, enjoying the feast
>>278031
Something a light reader can easily undertand and finish.
>>278125
DO NOT BOTHER THEN; "YOUNG ADULT" FICTION WOULD BE BETTER SUITED TO YOUR CAPACITIES.
>>277949
I like Robert Fitzgerald's Iliad. But that's probably because his translation of The Aeneid got me into classics.
His translations are clean and accurate.
Fagle is alright.
>>278086
>reading a hamfisted rhyming version
Holy shit, there truly are retards out there.
>>277949
Just learn ancient Greek and buy the books
You should avoid English translations, English is shite.
>>278120
Lombardo has a shorter and more movement to the passage, and it's less wordy. But to each man his own. I really recomend reading a variety if you really like Homer's work. Also there's numerous really old translations you can probably find online. You don't have to buy this book.
Surpisingly enough, I do really enjoy Robert Fagles' translation of the Aeneid, it' has these moments in the verse that are so graphic, it's fucking awesome. The Fitzgerald translation in comparison lacks the same punch in descriptive power.
For example the Fitzgerald translation
With this,
To the altar step itself he dragged him trembling,
Slipping in the pooled blood of his son,
and took him by the hair with his left hand
The sword flashed in his right, up to the hilt,
He thrust it in his body
Fagles
That he said, he drags the old man
straight to the altar, quaking, slithering on through
slicks of his sons blood, and twisting Priam's hair
in his left hand, his right hand sweeping forth his sword-
a flash of steel - he buries it hilt -deep in the king's flank
From book 2
>>278186
Sorry to mention where in book 2, it's pretty long, It's around verses 680-700 ish range, some variations in different translations.
the only valid versions are the ones from Loeb, because they stay really close to literal meanings.
having greek-english side by side is an extra bonus.
>>278186
So far, book 2 is the best, it's Aeneas's acount of the sack of Troy, not favorable towards Greeks, but it's entertaining
Some at classics professor I was talking to recommended the Richard Lattimore translations to me. What do you guys think?
