The Iliad of Homer
by Homer
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Book Summary Information
Author: HomerBrand: Chicago Distribution Center
Editor: Richmond Lattimore
Translator: Richmond Lattimore
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1961-06-01
ISBN: 0226469409
Number of pages: 527
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Book Reviews of The Iliad of Homer
Book Review: The Best English Version
Summary: 5 Stars
Aside from Pope's, which sadly is very difficult to locate, Lattimore's Iliad is the best English Iliad ever made for a number of reasons. First, Lattimore translates the poem line by line, so that, if you want to follow the Greek text, you'll be able to do so with much greater facility than, Fagles, for example, who translates in verse "paragraphs" rather than lines. In Lattimore's careful, graceful rendering of Homer's prosody lends the verse authenticity without ever slipping into the pedantic. The line-by-line approach, moreover, most faithfully carries Homer's rhetoric and pace.
Second, Lattimore preserves Homer's formulas. Where a series of lines appears describing some event or passing some message, Homer packages those lines and repeats them virtually verbatim when the subject comes up again. Thus, for example, Agamemnon's speech in which he "tests" the resolve of the Greeks to raze Troy (with unfortunate results), by falsely urging them to drop ship and flee, is repeated almost exactly later in the poem when Agamemmnon really means it (2: 110-141; 9: 17-28). Similarly, each major character has a set of adjectives and adjectival phrases describing the character ("brilliant", "swift-footed" Achilles; Hector "of the shining helm" the "flowing-haired" Achaens, the "deep-benched" ships, etc.) These formulas accompany the characters and objects throughout the poem. Lattimore observes these formulas. (Fagles does too, frequently but not consistently. Fitzgerald generally does not.)
Third, Lattimore's rendering of the dactylic hexameter characteristic of Homer's verse, is amazing, at times bordering on the miraculous. Dactylic meters are generally awkward in English ("higgledy piggledy"). The virtousity, ease and fluidity that Lattimore acheives is something I wouldn't have believed possible before reading it here.
Because Lattimore tries throughout to translate what Homer said, rather than what one wishes he said (see Lattimore's introduction), the English verse is supple and aptly conveys what "makes it great." Moreover, the emotional and dramatic contexts are reliable. The butchering and slaughtering are immediate and terrible; the teeth-chattering fear of the heroes in the face of certain destruction prepares the many remarkable instances when a hero will flee rather than fight; the poignancy of Hector's grim certainty of his fate (as expressed in the famous scene in Book 6 where he "lets go" his heart's dearest treasure because he knows it is his destiny to do so) is dark and heartwrenching. Consider the famous speech of Achilles to Lycaon in Book 21, before Achilles cuts him down with a single stroke of his sword: After acknowledging that in a previous encounter, Achilles agreed to spare Lycaon and sell him into slavery instead, Achilles addresses Lycaon stoically, even calling Lycaon his "friend" before butchering him. Reminding Lycaon that that was then and this is now, Achilles points out that no one can survive his rage over Patroclus' death. "So, friend, you die also. Why all this clamor about it?/ Patroklos also is dead, who was far better than you are./ Do you not see what a man I am, so huge, so splendid/ and born of a great father, and the mother who bore me immortal?/ Yet even I have also my death and my strong destiny,/ and there shall be a dawn or an afternoon or a noontime/when some man in the fighting will take the life of me also,/ either with a spearcast or an arrow flown from the bowstring...." This speech is as moving and strange in English as it is in Greek. Nobody touches Lattimore in lyricism and profundity of diction in passages like this.
These are just a few of the many qualities that put Lattimore at the top of Homer's modern English translators. It is impossible to overstate the virtuosity of Lattimore's line. I hate comparisons of apples and oranges, even where they improbably fall from the same tree. That said, if I could only have one translation, it would be Lattimore's. Fagles' is very fine, and both reveal aspects of Homer's genius with a brilliance unknown before their separate appearances. Lattimore, however, renders the poem's diction, style and thematic exposition more closely than Fagles, and since Homer's poem iw what we want to read when we read it in English, this is the bottom line. (Fitzgerald doesn't compare.) But since we live in times of unprecedented abundance, I don't have to make that choice.
My only quibble: Lattimore tries, inconsistently, to transliterate names more "accurately," than in most versions. Thus, Achilles is "Achilleus;" Ajax is "Aias." Admirable sentiment. Awkward for the verse. I ignore it and "hear" the received versions when I'm reading Lattimore.
Summary of The Iliad of Homer
"The finest translation of Homer ever made into the English language."--William Arrowsmith
"Certainly the best modern verse translation."--Gilbert Highet
"This magnificent translation of Homer's epic poem . . . will appeal to admirers of Homer and the classics, and the multitude who always wanted to read the great Iliad but never got around to doing so."--The American Book Collector
"Perhaps closer to Homer in every way than any other version made in English."--Peter Green, The New Republic
"The feat is decisive that it is reasonable to foresee a century or so in which nobody will try again to put the Iliad in English verse."--Robert Fitzgerald
"Each new generation is bound to produce new translations. [Lattimore] has done better with nobility, as well as with accuracy, than any other modern verse translator. In our age we do not often find a fine scholar who is also a genuine poet and who takes the greatest pains over the work of translation."--Hugh Lloyd-Jones, New York Review of Books
"Over the long haul Lattimore's translation is more powerful because its effects are more subtle."--Booklist
"Richmond Lattimore is a fine translator of poetry because he has a poetic voice of his own, authentic and unmistakable and yet capable of remarkable range of modulation. His translations make the English reader aware of the poetry."--Moses Hadas, The New York Times
"Certainly the best modern verse translation."--Gilbert Highet
"This magnificent translation of Homer's epic poem . . . will appeal to admirers of Homer and the classics, and the multitude who always wanted to read the great Iliad but never got around to doing so."--The American Book Collector
"Perhaps closer to Homer in every way than any other version made in English."--Peter Green, The New Republic
"The feat is decisive that it is reasonable to foresee a century or so in which nobody will try again to put the Iliad in English verse."--Robert Fitzgerald
"Each new generation is bound to produce new translations. [Lattimore] has done better with nobility, as well as with accuracy, than any other modern verse translator. In our age we do not often find a fine scholar who is also a genuine poet and who takes the greatest pains over the work of translation."--Hugh Lloyd-Jones, New York Review of Books
"Over the long haul Lattimore's translation is more powerful because its effects are more subtle."--Booklist
"Richmond Lattimore is a fine translator of poetry because he has a poetic voice of his own, authentic and unmistakable and yet capable of remarkable range of modulation. His translations make the English reader aware of the poetry."--Moses Hadas, The New York Times
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