Iliad - new translations

[Epictetus]

There are several new translations, and one old translation re-released, coming for the Iliad. I was surprised to see that one was by Anthony Verity, whose work I really like. Stephen Mitchell and Alice Oswald are two others, and Richmond Lattimore is the one being re-published.

Mr Verity, a former Master of Dulwich College in London, declares that his translation “does not claim to be poetry.” Mr Mitchell, a translator who had little Greek before starting out on this project, claims that his version is more reliable as he bases it on a different edition of the text from Lattimore’s. By doing so, Mr Mitchell cuts what has, for centuries, been included in the performance tradition of the “Iliad”. Gone is the whole of Book Ten (“baroque and nasty”, apparently), most of the adjectives and fixed epithets that contribute to the life of Homer’s figures and, subsequently, most of the poetic value of Homer’s work. It is doubtful, for example, that Zeus, the father of the universe, would ever exclaim as Mr Mitchell has him do, that “I have a sensible plan”, or even that Achilles, tempestuous as he is, would rally “To hell with that man…I don’t give a damn about him.”

Similarly, although Mr Verity is far more restrained and scholarly in his translation, he too fails to capture the full force of Homer’s work. In Mr Verity’s translation, Achilles’s outburst above becomes the prim “I abominate his gifts, and I value him no more than a splinter.” Such differences may seem slight in comparison, but the accumulated result, whether of Mr Mitchell’s colloquialisms or Mr Verity’s carefulness, render these both rather dull literary works...

Ms Oswald has audaciously set out to translate the book’s atmosphere, rather than its story. A poet known for her landscape verse, Ms Oswald read classics at Oxford. The result is a work by someone who not only understands Homer’s Greek, but who also has an ear for modern verse. It is a delight to read...

Ms Oswald translates Homer’s similes literally, but paraphrases the rest, creating a modernised version that delights in the unexpected. She brings the poem’s violence shockingly to life: a figure dies as quickly as “a lift door closing”, suddenly obscured from view, while another soldier, stripping the dead, has “tin-opened them out of their armour”. Diomedes kills “Red-faced quietly like a butcher keeping up with his order”. Ms Oswald is aware that these characters can at times seem more horrific than heroic: “This is horrible this is some kind of bloodfeast”. And Hector waits for Achilles, “Like a man rushing in leaving his motorbike running”, both arrogant and charming at once.

The Economist

I haven't seen Oswald's version, but my past experiences with ancient verse being turned into modern verse have been very disappointing. And she mentions an elevator door in Homer? hock: