Beauty in Sadness | The Iliad of Homer

A Noble Translation of a Magnificent Work | The Iliad of Homer | Homer

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	• The Iliad of Homer Homer University Of Chicago Press, 1961 - 528 pages average customer review:based on 66 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Excellent story, but translation had no energy

If you are seeking solely to read for pleasure, this is not the translation you want. Lattimore is brutally literal, sacrificing smooth, flowing syntax for an attempt to duplicate every word of Greek in English. Certainly, if you are interested in the problems of Greek translation, this is an advantage, and you do probably acquire a more thorough understanding of Homeric society and culture with this method, but I still prefer the only other translator I have read, Samuel Butler, who, despite his dubious 1900-era language, does manage to infuse some vitality into the text. You will have to entertain yourself when reading Lattimore. Regardless, the Iliad is a great story and has a very moving final chapter. I would like to see it on the silver screen someday.

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Beauty in Sadness

Homer opens this work, and perhaps all of Western literary history, with an appeal for help and a clearly defined thesis. He asks a muse to help him relate the story of the rage of Achilles. Forgive me for uninvitedly calling Homer's own description of the work lacking. The richness of questions brought up in this work will be apparent to anybody on a first reading. The central preoccupations of the work go beyond the anger of a single man - spanning from the finitude of human existence to the sociopolitical duties of a citizen. It is awe-inspiring that a work written so long ago can strike such a powerful chord in so many of us. Nevertheless, it goes without saying that this is a work of art, and, as a consequence, Homer strives to describe and to make us all too painfully aware of the basics of life. We are asked to reflect on not only the standard issues of family and friends, but on our roots, on our attachment to the land, and on our birth and death. Of course, not every squabble of the Gods or cataloguing of the ships strike us as particularly intriguing. Yet in every delightful passage where Homer taunts his genius by pretending to keep substantial issues at bay, proviking issues are to be found. Unsurprisingly, Homer offers us little in the means of answers for the question as to how we are to deal with the profound circumstances that surround us as humans. His use of the "divine" in controlling human affairs may sound too much like an awkwardly familiar tone of existential resignation. For those seeking "answers in life," whatever that may mean, the Illiad is not a bad starting point. We have much in common with Achilles - knowledgable about our own mortality, yet all to eager to presume otherwise. We also sympathize with Hector and the Greek soldiers - it is for the soap operas of the rich and powerful that too many of us shed blood. The striking beauty and emotive appeal of this work cannot be classified as uplifting. Yet the subtlety and craftiness of the spark of joy to be found in our peculiar human condition to which this work speaks should be ample answer for any reader as to why this work has survived for so long.

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A Noble Translation of a Magnificent Work

The ILIAD of Homer is one of the bedrock tales of Western civilization, and Richmond Lattimore's 1951 translation achieves its stated purpose of remembering the four qualities of Homer that Matthew Arnold once set out as key for his translators to keep in mind:

"[Homer] is rapid, plain and direct in thought and expression, plain and direct in substance, and noble."

Taking place in the tenth and final year of the Trojan War, the ILIAD opens with the anger of Achilles at the great king Agamemnon for taking away his favorite concubine (a spoil of war). Each man's pride is too much: Agamemnon refuses to give back the girl and Achilles refuses to continue fighting. Since Achilles is the Greeks' greatest warrior, the fortunes of the Trojans markedly improve while he famously sulks in his tent. But the Greeks fight on, and such heroes as Diomedes, Aias (Ajax) and Odysseus continue the fight to sack Troy as return the queen Helen to her husband Menelaos, King of Argos. Over the lengthy yet colorful descriptions of battle, they are driven back to their ships by the Trojans, led by their prince and greatest warrior, Hektor (brother of Paris, who has stolen Helen with the help of Aphrodite).

The ILIAD is really the story of Achilles, and is his tragedy. Once the danger of defeat seems imminent, Agamemnon offers to give the girl back and make amends (as long as Achilles realizes who's still boss) but Achilles remains caught up in his prideful wrath. He eventually returns to the fight and drives the Trojans back inside their own walls, but the price he pays is dear.

The ILIAD is also notable for its depiction of the gods. Far from being above it all, Athena, Ares and their immortal siblings get right down on the beach and take sides in the war. You might think that a battlefield is no place for the goddess of love, but don't worry, Aphrodite soon learns the same. The Greeks will suffer, but the greater powers of Mt. Olympos are behind them, effectively making their victory inevitable.

Since Lattimore was trying to get as close to the Greek as he could, his English translation is less poetic than those of Robert Fitzgerald or, I imagine, Robert Fagles (who is next on my list). But it does have its own stately rhythm that should hardly be inaccessible to the modern college student or adult. For high schoolers, though, I would recommend reading one of the other translators first, as the first time one reads Homer, it should be for the story. And what a story!

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Noble and gnarly

Alexander the Great slept with a dagger under his pillow and a copy of the Iliad next to his bed. Along with the Torah, the Iliad is one of the most inspirational texts of all time, its vivid drama suggesting a way of life for those who can attain it. The surprisingly complex ethos of the hero comes alive, moment by shattering moment, in this great work. As long shadowed spears hurtle through the air, arrows leap from straining bows, bronze armour clashes and men fall like great trees, the ground of life and death is portrayed in a way that is still gripping almost three thousand years later. Men move forward towards possible death in support of their comrades and to try to win glory, or to retrieve the bodies of their fallen comrades from the plundering clutches of their killers.

Reasonable people differ on translations. Having struggled through part of the original, and having read Lattimore, Fitzgerald, and a bit of Fagles, it is Lattimore who seems to capture best the vivid, occasionally gruesome, quality of the original along with its noble and transcendent aura.

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