Athena Harangues Odysseus (2.166-81)

ὣς ἔφατ', οὐδ' ἀπίθησε θεὰ γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη,
βῆ δὲ κατ' Οὐλύμποιο καρήνων ἀΐξασα:
καρπαλίμως δ' ἵκανε θοὰς ἐπὶ νῆας Ἀχαιῶν.
εὗρεν ἔπειτ' Ὀδυσῆα Διὶ μῆτιν ἀτάλαντον
ἑσταότ': οὐδ' ὅ γε νηὸς ἐϋσσέλμοιο μελαίνης [170]
ἅπτετ', ἐπεί μιν ἄχος κραδίην καὶ θυμὸν ἵκανεν:
ἀγχοῦ δ' ἱσταμένη προσέφη γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη:
διογενὲς Λαερτιάδη πολυμήχαν' Ὀδυσσεῦ,
οὕτω δὴ οἶκον δὲ φίλην ἐς πατρίδα γαῖαν
φεύξεσθ' ἐν νήεσσι πολυκλήïσι πεσόντες, [175]
κὰδ δέ κεν εὐχωλὴν Πριάμῳ καὶ Τρωσὶ λίποιτε
Ἀργείην Ἑλένην, ἧς εἵνεκα πολλοὶ Ἀχαιῶν
ἐν Τροίῃ ἀπόλοντο φίλης ἀπὸ πατρίδος αἴης;
ἀλλ' ἴθι νῦν κατὰ λαὸν Ἀχαιῶν, μηδ' ἔτ' ἐρώει,
σοῖς δ' ἀγανοῖς ἐπέεσσιν ἐρήτυε φῶτα ἕκαστον, [180]
μηδὲ ἔα νῆας ἅλα δ' ἑλκέμεν ἀμφιελίσσας.

Translation
So she spoke, and the grey-eyed goddess
Athena heeded her. With haste,
she darted down from Olympus’ peaks
and straightway reached the Achaean ships.
She found Odysseus standing there,
equal to Zeus in cunning thoughts;
he hadn’t lain a hand upon
his well-decked ship, for anguish gripped
his heart and mind. Standing near,
the grey-eyed goddess spoke and said:

Laertes’ son, Odysseus,
you man of many stratagems:
so now you’ll board the ships and flee
for your beloved fatherland—
you’d give up Argive Helen as a boast
for Priam and the Trojans—her
for whom so many Greeks have died
at Troy, so far away from their
beloved fatherland? But go
among the troops—rest not—and with
your soothing words restrain each man:
do not let him haul his ships to sea.

Comments
As I struggled to get this speech to work, it occurred to me that maybe I should eliminate the use of traditional epithets and other obvious formulae in direct discourse. This would help distinguish the style of the speeches from that of the narrative passages and make the former much livelier. This would be a fairly major betrayal of the source text, for it does not greatly distinguish the styles (or at any rate, the language is equally formulaic in both). It’s an idea that I need to consider at length. The real question I need to consider though is what kind of translation I ultimately am aiming at. How far am I willing to depart from the style of the source text in order to create a livelier modern version? That’s one question I’d like to answer this summer.