Odysseus Turns the Tide (2.182-210)

ὣς φάθ', ὃ δὲ ξυνέηκε θεᾶς ὄπα φωνησάσης,
βῆ δὲ θέειν, ἀπὸ δὲ χλαῖναν βάλε: τὴν δὲ κόμισσε
κῆρυξ Εὐρυβάτης Ἰθακήσιος ὅς οἱ ὀπήδει:
αὐτὸς δ' Ἀτρεΐδεω Ἀγαμέμνονος ἀντίος ἐλθὼν [185]
δέξατό οἱ σκῆπτρον πατρώïον ἄφθιτον αἰεί:
σὺν τῷ ἔβη κατὰ νῆας Ἀχαιῶν χαλκοχιτώνων.
ὅν τινα μὲν βασιλῆα καὶ ἔξοχον ἄνδρα κιχείη
τὸν δ' ἀγανοῖς ἐπέεσσιν ἐρητύσασκε παραστάς:
δαιμόνι' οὔ σε ἔοικε κακὸν ὣς δειδίσσεσθαι, [190]
ἀλλ' αὐτός τε κάθησο καὶ ἄλλους ἵδρυε λαούς:
οὐ γάρ πω σάφα οἶσθ' οἷος νόος Ἀτρεΐωνος:
νῦν μὲν πειρᾶται, τάχα δ' ἴψεται υἷας Ἀχαιῶν.
ἐν βουλῇ δ' οὐ πάντες ἀκούσαμεν οἷον ἔειπε.
μή τι χολωσάμενος ῥέξῃ κακὸν υἷας Ἀχαιῶν: [195]
θυμὸς δὲ μέγας ἐστὶ διοτρεφέων βασιλήων,
τιμὴ δ' ἐκ Διός ἐστι, φιλεῖ δέ ἑ μητίετα Ζεύς.
ὃν δ' αὖ δήμου τ' ἄνδρα ἴδοι βοόωντά τ' ἐφεύροι,
τὸν σκήπτρῳ ἐλάσασκεν ὁμοκλήσασκέ τε μύθῳ:
δαιμόνι' ἀτρέμας ἧσο καὶ ἄλλων μῦθον ἄκουε, [200]
οἳ σέο φέρτεροί εἰσι, σὺ δ' ἀπτόλεμος καὶ ἄναλκις
οὔτέ ποτ' ἐν πολέμῳ ἐναρίθμιος οὔτ' ἐνὶ βουλῇ:
οὐ μέν πως πάντες βασιλεύσομεν ἐνθάδ' Ἀχαιοί:
οὐκ ἀγαθὸν πολυκοιρανίη: εἷς κοίρανος ἔστω,
εἷς βασιλεύς, ᾧ δῶκε Κρόνου πάïς ἀγκυλομήτεω [205]
σκῆπτρόν τ' ἠδὲ θέμιστας, ἵνά σφισι βουλεύῃσι.
ὣς ὅ γε κοιρανέων δίεπε στρατόν: οἳ δ' ἀγορὴν δὲ
αὖτις ἐπεσσεύοντο νεῶν ἄπο καὶ κλισιάων
ἠχῇ, ὡς ὅτε κῦμα πολυφλοίσβοιο θαλάσσης
αἰγιαλῷ μεγάλῳ βρέμεται, σμαραγεῖ δέ τε πόντος. [210]

Translation
So she spoke, and he knew her voice.
He sprinted off and threw his cloak
away to Eurybates’ hands—
his herald there from Ithaca.
He went up to the son of Atreus
and took his scepter for himself—
an heirloom that could never die.
With this, he strode among the ships
of the Achaeans armed in bronze.
Each time he ran across a king
or other leading man, he’d stand hard by,
restraining him with soothing words:

Friend, are you mad? It wouldn’t be right
to scare you like some base-born man—
just take your seat and sit your troops.
You still don’t know for sure the mind
of Agamemnon: he tests us now,
but soon he’ll smite the Achaean troops.
Did we not in council hear his plan?
Let’s hope despite his rage he’ll not
inflict some damage on the host.
The spirit of a godlike king is great—
his honor comes from Zeus himself,
and Zeus adores a counselling king.

But anytime he saw some common man,
and found him shouting out, he’d strike
him with the scepter, scolding him:

Sit still, mad fool, and heed the better men—
a coward’s what you are, no warrior.
You’re never worth a damn in war
or council. We cannot all be kings—
a rule by many men’s a mess.
Let’s have one lord, one king to whom
the son of crooked-minded Kronos grants
the scepter and the right to rule.

And so he moved throughout the troops,
controlling them. They left behind
the tents and ships, and hastened back
to the assembly place, their din just like
when thunderous, open ocean waves
come crashing down upon the strand,
and all around re-echoes with the sea.

Comments
I’m thinking now of allowing much more variability in line length in order to allow me to work more intentionally with enjambment and parataxis. What I found in working with iambic pentameter is that there was often too much room in the line, which lead to padding things out. This is part of what made me decide to experiment with tetrameters; I felt that the tighter form would reduce such padding and make the translation more snappy. It has done that, for sure, but the problem with this strict form is that there frequently is not enough room in the line to complete a thought or a semantic unit, which means I have to let it spill over into the next line, introducing an enjambment that really isn’t appropriate. It’s not that I feel I must precisely shadow the use or avoidance of enjambment in the source, but on a general level I do want to be using it to about the same extent as Homer does. So I think the solution to all of this is to aim for 8 beats per line but to allow the lines to vary from 7 to 10 beats (even 6 or 11 could occasionally be indulged) in order to capture more accurately the unfolding sense and effect of the poem from line to line. We’ll see whether or not this works. Combined with an increased willingness to begin and end lines with trochees, chaos may well ensue and soon my translations will look as if handled by e.e. cummings (whose work, by the way, I do like on its own terms, but it’d be hard to imagine a style more antithetical to Homer’s).