Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Similes (2.474-83)

τοὺς δ' ὥς τ' αἰπόλια πλατέ' αἰγῶν αἰπόλοι ἄνδρες
ῥεῖα διακρίνωσιν ἐπεί κε νομῷ μιγέωσιν, [475]
ὣς τοὺς ἡγεμόνες διεκόσμεον ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα
ὑσμίνην δ' ἰέναι, μετὰ δὲ κρείων Ἀγαμέμνων
ὄμματα καὶ κεφαλὴν ἴκελος Διὶ τερπικεραύνῳ,
Ἄρεï δὲ ζώνην, στέρνον δὲ Ποσειδάωνι.
ἠΰτε βοῦς ἀγέληφι μέγ' ἔξοχος ἔπλετο πάντων [480]
ταῦρος: ὃ γάρ τε βόεσσι μεταπρέπει ἀγρομένῃσι:
τοῖον ἄρ' Ἀτρεΐδην θῆκε Ζεὺς ἤματι κείνῳ
ἐκπρεπέ' ἐν πολλοῖσι καὶ ἔξοχον ἡρώεσσιν.

Translation
And just as men who live by herding goats
divide their herds of ranging goats with ease
when they commingle in the pasture lands,
so then the leaders went from here to there
to marshall all the troops for war,
and Agamemnon strode among the host,
resembling thunder-loving Zeus in gaze
and head, and like to Ares in his girth,
and to Poseidon in his chest.
The way a bull will stand supreme,
conspicuous among a herd
of milling cattle—that’s how Zeus
made Agamemnon seem that day,
conspicuous among the men,
and first among the heroes there.

Comments
Of the string of similes I’ve translated this week, these two are the ones I most regard as rough drafts, the ones I’m most eager to return to. Actually, I’m satisfied with how the first simile begins, since I found a way to reflect the word play in the Greek (the repetition in αἰπόλια πλατέ' αἰγῶν αἰπόλοι ἄνδρες). The lines comparing Agamemnon to Zeus, Ares, and Poseidon are less satisfactory to me, though I think in this case the Greek itself is not that stunning to begin with. What I’m least happy with though is the final simile. Again, the Greek itself is a little awkward, as Kirk points out, but all the same I’d like to make this simile sound a little better in English, perhaps by eliminating the repetition of “conspicuous” (a reflection of the repetition of exochon in the Greek).

Tomorrow I’ll be posting a first revision of the string of similes in lines 455-83, and then it’ll be time to tackle the second invocation of the muse. Very exciting.