Recommended for me by Amazon...

[kouredios]

The "original version" of the Odyssey.

And it's in English.

With no translator listed.

Yeah, I don't even know.

ETA: Amazon's got the "look inside" feature on this, and I haven't checked it against the existing text, but it looks, tastes, ans smells like Pope to me. Now I'm pissed. Homer doesn't fucking rhyme you philistines

Comments

[firynze]

Remind me to show you my Worst Translation Evar someday. I think it was done by tortured bonobos sitting in pools of their own excrement, weeping softly.

As a first-year Homer student, and second-year Greek student, I had a better translation than this.

[kouredios]

Did you ever read my paper on Pope's translation of Homer? It's in here, and probably tagged "translation" as well...

[ltlbird]

Not being a Greek geek, I probably am not up to reading your paper on the Pope translation, but can you give me the summary? We read some of Pope's translation of the Iliad in one of my English classes at Williams, and I thought it was beautiful.

[kouredios]

You don't have to be a Greek geek, really! I wrote it for an audience of English professors and/or Complit folks. But, in short, Pope's translation is an imperialist project. It frames the Iliad in such a way as to support his (and Samuel Johnson's) ideas of what is heroic and good. Also, he sacrifices meaning for form (the damned rhyming couplets), and uses the Roman names for everyone. Which I hate.

[marydell]

AAAAGH! "Minerva," forsooth!

[kouredios]

Yeah, that's one of Pope's M.O.s...

[davidgoldfarb]

I did check it against Pope's translation, and you're absolutely right.

Furthermore, the Amazon page is festooned with copyright notices. How are they managing that one? (I took a quick look through and didn't find any added material...it's possible I might have missed something.)

[kouredios]

Yeah, I have no idea...

Hee. It could have been another 18th century translation, I suppose, but he was the biggie...

[fledgist]

Pope's immortal in every sense of the word.