Incipit and Description of Project (1.1-7)

This site is devoted to the craft of translating Homeric poetry into English. Its central feature is an ongoing translation of the Iliad in both literal and freeform versions. It is hoped that visitors will make comments and suggestions regarding these versions, thereby making the project a collaborative one--after all, Homeric poetry was nothing if not collaborative to begin with. The site's secondary features will include links to other translations in the public domain, links to lexical and grammatical resources for translating Greek, a bibliography of criticism and theory relating to Homeric translation, and whatever other relevant materials can be dredged up, such as poetic and artistic responses to Homer through the ages.

My initial commitment to this project will be to post somewhere between 5 and 30 lines three times per week, usually on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. This pace will seem glacial to anyone who is merely interested in reading the story, but to those who are interested in the challenges of translation, this should be more than enough. It will certainly be enough to keep me busy given my other projects and responsibilities (including a course I am teaching this semester on the Iliad and its contemporary receptions).

Each posting will include, at a minimum, the Greek text and my fairly literal translation of it. I will also try to include on a regular basis my efforts at a more freeform translation, some comments on any difficulties that the day's passage presented, and some more general thoughts on the challenges of Homeric translation.

So here are the first 7 lines--only 15,686 lines to go!

ΙΛΙΑΔΟΣ Α

μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκε,
πολλὰς δ' ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προί̈αψεν
ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν
οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι, Διὸς δ' ἐτελείετο βουλή, [5]
ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε
Ἀτρεί̈δης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς.


Translation:

Book 1

The Wrath of Achilles, Son of Peleus:
sing of that ruinous wrath, Goddess,
that brought such suffering to the Achaeans
and sent to Hades the strong souls
of so many heroes and made their bodies
carrion for all the dogs and birds,
so that the will of Zeus was done.

Begin from when those two men first stood apart
in strife: Atreus’s son Agamemnon, king of men,
and godlike Achilles.


Comments:

Translating these first lines, the Iliad's incipit, one is aware of the very long shadows cast by certain previous translators such as (for me) Alexander Pope, Richmond Lattimore, Robert Fitzgerald, and Robert Fagles. Their renderings of these famous lines are so firmly engraved in my consciousness that it is hard to find a way forward in my own voice. That was my first thought, at least. But then I began to think about some of the advantages provided by this situation, which I might playfully term a "polyglossic haunting." For one thing, having this variety of translations echoing about my mind as I work actually prevents any single one of them from dominating how I think the Greek should be rendered into English. Also, this variety obviously gives me more raw material to work from. Sometimes it's like having 4 or more synonyms right at hand for each Greek word. But what's most interesting about this is that it might be a good modern equivalent to what the process of composition was like for Homer, who was working with traditional material that had been sung countless different ways by different bards.

My more pedestrian comment today is just a description of my working method. I am not actually looking at any of these or any other English translations as I work (true, I am teaching out of Fagles' translation this semester, but I am not really working closely with his language--I'm more focused on narrative and thematic analysis). What I am doing is taking a quick look at the chosen passage in the morning, using David B. Monro and Thomas W. Allen's Oxford Classical Text edition (3rd edition, 1920). For those who are unfamiliar with it, this is an edition showing only the Greek text with the apparatus criticus given in Latin. In this first encounter of the day, I just read the Greek rather quickly without consciously relaying it into English (and certainly without writing anything down). I then let it float around somewhere just beneath my consciousness as I go about my day, occasionally jotting down an idea or two in a small notebook I carry with me. Then in the evening I sit down and study the passage more closely using Autenrieth's Homeric Dictionary and, when it seems prudent, the full edition of the Liddell Scott Jones Greek-English Lexicon (the "big Liddell"). I also look at the Cambridge commentary edited by G.S. Kirk. However, when it comes to getting the Greek over into English, I find it's important not to work with these resources--not while I'm actually putting pen to paper. I try to write out one translation on paper rather quickly and without getting bogged down by details. I then spend some time trying to improve the sense and the flow. Here one of the challenges is breaking away from the archaic-sounding Victorian-era English that clutters up all the Greek-English dictionaries (it's like there is a twofold process of translation: Greek to Victorian English then from there to contemporary English). When I am pretty satisfied with the translation, I type it into a MS Word document; during this transfer into electronic form, I do a lot more clean up especially since I tend to use the thesaurus function to look for new options for tough words. From there it goes to this blog, and it is my fervent hope that reaching the blog will only mark another beginning for the passage, as visitors will offer suggestions for improvement or even risk contributing their own versions.