Faces of the Past

Reading “The Iliad” in prose translation by E. V. Rieu.

What is your favourite translation and why? 🤔

Lattimore: 2/10.  I KNOW that he’s all ~academic~ or whatever, but this one both gives me a headache and puts me to bed invariably.  reading this gives me a hangover and an extreme distaste for the Iliad.

Fagles!?: is fine. 5/10.  solid. I definitely don’t read this one for fun, but it’s the best one to use in a class I think because it doesn’t make people go feral in the same way that other peoples translations do.  Definitely doesn’t make me go absolutely buck-freaking-wild, hence the 5/10.

E.V. Rieu: I have no opinions whatsoever. I think its in prose so thats interesting.

PeTer GrEeN: ALright, I’d actually recommend this to people looking for a translation to read for the first time.  Not as crazy as Lombardo’s which holds a special place in my heart… He does do freaking crazy spellings with all the glory of a -kh and an -los.  but he explains his opinions rather nicely so we’ll give him a pass on them.  8/10

Now, for my boy Lombardo.  He was the first I read, and certainly one of the more unorthodox translations (other than that strange adaptation that’s a list of the war dead). But, his translations of the similes are really beautiful and its certainly a lively translation.  it doesn’t really have the same grandeur that the epic does in the other translations but it really depends on what you’re looking for. ANd he does silly stuff like fragmenting the dawn epithets and stuff which is Not Cool. 7/10.