The Odyssey: Rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the originalHomer
General
The Odyssey: Rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original
Homer
Epic poetry, Greek -- Translations into English; Homer -- Translations into English; Odysseus, King of Ithaca (Mythological character)
And the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, answered him, saying: ‘O father,
our father Cronides, throned in the highest; that man assuredly
lies in a death that is his due; so perish likewise all who work
such deeds! But my heart is rent for wise Odysseus, the hapless
one, who far from his friends this long while suffereth affliction
in a sea-girt isle, where is the navel of the sea, a woodland isle,
and therein a goddess hath her habitation, the daughter of the
wizard Atlas, who knows the depths of every sea, and himself
upholds the tall pillars which keep earth and sky asunder. His
daughter it is that holds the hapless man in sorrow: and ever with
soft and guileful tales she is wooing him to forgetfulness of
Ithaca. But Odysseus yearning to see if it were but the smoke leap
upwards from his own land, hath a desire to die. As for thee, thine
heart regardeth it not at all, Olympian! What! Did not Odysseus by
the ships of the Argives make thee free offering of sacrifice in
the wide Trojan land? Wherefore wast thou then so wroth with him, O
Zeus?’
The “Odyssey” (as every one knows) abounds in passages borrowed from
the “Iliad”; I had wished to print these in a slightly different type,
with marginal references to the “Iliad,” and had marked them to this
end in my MS. I found, however, that the translation would be thus
hopelessly scholasticised, and abandoned my intention. I would
nevertheless urge on those who have the management of our University
presses, that they would render a great service to students if they
would publish a Greek text of the “Odyssey” with the Iliadic passages
printed in a different type, and with marginal references. I have given
the British Museum a copy of the “Odyssey” with the Iliadic passages
underlined and referred to in MS.; I have also given an “Iliad” marked
with all the Odyssean passages, and their references; but copies of
both the “Iliad” and “Odyssey” so marked ought to be within easy reach
of all students.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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