Right. So for the first time I'll be tackling the Iliad soon and I'm at loss as to which translation to read. Which do you guys recommend?
Fagels
>>8278056
Fagels is great
Lattimore. Fagles is also decent enough.
>>8278056
>>8278062
Plus... "Fagles". Come on.
Is popes translation any good?
op is a fagels
>>8278114
ye but it's pope's homer not homer's homer
Here OP, I'll write down some passages from Fitzgerald's and compare the same passage to Fagles, and you decide which sounds better to you, and go with that one:
Fitzgerald, first stanza of book five:
Now Diomedes' hour for great action came.
Athena made him bold and gave him ease
to tower amid ARgives, to win glory,
and on his shield and helm she kindled fire
most like midsummer's purest flaming star
in heaven rising, bathed by the Ocean stream.
So fiery she made his head and shoulders
as she impelled him to the center where
the greatest number fought.
Fagles, the same stanza:
Then Pallas Athena granted Tydeus' son Diomedes
strength and daring—so the fighter would shine forth
and tower over the Argives and win himself great glory.
She set the man ablaze, his shield and helmet flaming
with tireless fire like the star that flames at harvest,
bathed in the Ocean, rising up to outshine all other stars.
Such fire Athena blazed from Tydides' head and shoulders,
drove him into the center where the masses struggled on.
>>8278163
Fitzgerald, book eleven:
Past the old tomb of Ilos in mid-plain
the Trojans streamed, and past the wild fig tree,
fighting to reach the city; and Agamemnon
followed with battle cries, attacking ever,
bloodying his inexorable hands.
At last they reached the West Gate and the oak
and halted there, awaiting one another,
as those behind in mid-plain struggled on
like cows a lion terrifies at dusk
into a stampede. One cow at a time
will see breath-taking death: clamped on her neck
with powerful fangs, the lion crunches her
to make his kill, then gulps her blood and guts.
Even so in pursuit was Agamemnon,
forever killing laggards as they fled.
Dozens fell, thrown headfirst from the chariots,
or on their backs, as with his spear he ran
around them and ahead.
Fagles:
The Trojans streaked in flight past Ilus' barrow,
ancient son of Dardanus, past the mid-field mark
of the plain and past the wild fig and struggling
to reach Troy and always in hot pursuit and shrieking,
Agamemnon splattered with gore, his hands, invincible hands.
But once they reached the Scaean Gates and the great oak,
there the two sides halted, waiting each other's charge.
Yet straggles still stampeded down the plain
like cattle driven wild by a lion lunging
in pitch darkness down on the whole herd
but to one alone a sudden death comes flashing—
first he snaps its neck, clamped in his huge jaws,
then down in gulps he bolts its blood and guts.
So King Agamemnon coursed his quarry, always cutting
the straggler from the mass and they, they fled in terror,
squads amok, spilling out of their chariots facefirst
or slammed on their backs beneath Atrides' hands—
storming and thrusting his spear and lunging on.
>>8278076
Fagles is pretty much perfect for a first reading. Easy to understand, but the poetics and imagery are pretty great.
>>8278114
It's considered one of the best and most memorable, but it's not a very literal/accurate translation.
As long as you go with Fagles, Fitzgerald or Lattimore you can't really go wrong.
>>8278053
Fagles, Fitzgerald or Lattimore for your first read
Chapman or Pope for your subsequent reads.
![519AfT6hmeL._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/40xGE6Q.jpg "519AfT6hmeL._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_[1].jpg")
>>8278053
You can't start with the greeks unless you start with the greeks
LOMBARDO
OMBARDOD
MBARDOLR
BARDOLAA
ARDOLAMB
RDOLAMBM
DOLAMBAO
OLAMBARL
>>8278839
My favourite too, for a first read.
>translation
Lol
Who cares dude its gonna be the same ideas anyway
