"Tell us, Goddess, daughter of Zeus, start in your own
place:
when all the rest at Troy had fled from that steep doom
and gone back home, away from war and the salt sea,
only this man longed for his wife and a way home."
Homer's "Odyssey," at once an exciting epic of strife and
subterfuge and a deeply felt tale of love and devotion, stands at
the very beginning of the Western literary tradition. From ancient
Greece to the present day its influence on later literature has
been unsurpassed, and for centuries translators have approached the
meter, tone, and pace of Homer's poetry with a variety of
strategies. Chapman and Pope paid keen attention to color, drama,
and vivacity of style, rendering the Greek verse loosely and
inventively. In the twentieth century, translators such as
Lattimore kept rigorously close to the sense of each word in the
original; others, including Fitzgerald and Fagles, have departed
further from the language of the original, employing their own
inventive modern style.
Poet and translator Edward McCrorie now opens new territory in
this striking rendition, which captures the spare, powerful tone of
Homer's epic while engaging contemporary readers with its brisk
pace, idiomatic language, and lively characterization. McCrorie
closely reproduces the Greek metrical patterns and employs a
diction and syntax that reflects the plain, at times stark, quality
of Homer's lines, rather than later English poetic styles. Avoiding
both the stiffness of word-for-word literalism and the exaggeration
and distortion of free adaptation, this translation dramatically
evokes the ancient sound and sense of the poem. McCrorie's is truly
an "Odyssey" for the twenty-first century.
To accompany this innovative translation, noted classical
scholar Richard Martin has written an accessible and wide-ranging
introduction explaining the historical and literary context of the
"Odyssey," its theological and cultural underpinnings, Homer's
poetic strategies and narrative techniques, and his cast of
characters. In addition, Martin provides detailed notes--far more
extensive than those in other editions--addressing key themes and
concepts; the histories of persons, gods, events, and myths;
literary motifs and devices; and plot development. Also included is
a pronunciation glossary and character index.
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