In September, a new translation of Homer’s Iliad was published by Emily Wilson the first woman translator of Homer into English; she also had an Odyssey translation published in 2017. It is from the original Greek, of course and Wilson used the Oxford Classical text.
I’ve just finished it. I’ve long lost count of the times I have read different versions of the Iliad and Odyssey.
Homer is well worth reading. I have no reluctance to dive into it again. Everyone should have a taste, and half an hour is all one needs before casually saying, “Yeah, I’ve read Homer.”
The shortcuts
Read the first book (The chapters in the Iliad and Odyssey are called books. In ancient times, the books would have been individual scrolls. There was a maximum convenient size for a scroll, and the Iliad and Odyssey were divided up accordingly) of the Iliad and book 5 of the Odyssey. It will take about half an hour each.
This will provide you with the minimum idea of Homer’s world. Drop in at your local library; they will certainly have a copy of both the Iliad and the Odyssey. Go online to make sure it is not currently borrowed.
The catch is you need to know the plots to pull off your bluff of having read all of Homer. If you’ve seen the movie Troy, it gives you a head start, but strangely, it leaves out all the gods!
My second recommendation is that you read a children’s retelling of Homer. Yes, this is taking up more than half an hour of your time now.
Gillian Cross’ two-volume illustrated retelling of Homer for children is brilliant and an ideal introduction to Homer. If your local library doesn’t have it, ask them to order it, and they will. It is also available in a single volume with text only.
Back to the adult texts
Wilson’s translation is in verse form. She says she intended it to be easily read aloud. My favourite translation of Homer is by Anthony Verity (Oxford University Press, Odyssey 2016 and the Iliad 2011).
Verity’s translation is in prose, which makes it very dense. I think, however, Verity’s interpretation is the most meaningful.
My third recommended shortcut to being a Homer reader.
In the Explanatory Notes, Verity includes a one-paragraph summary of each book/chapter at the back of his Odyssey and the Iliad. If you are willing to devote an hour, read Verity’s overview of the Iliad and Odyssey. Add another hour to dip into books 1 and 5, as recommended above.
Peter Green’s 2018 translation of the Odyssey into verse contains a sixty-five-page synopsis, so you could knock that off in a couple of hours. I have yet to read his Iliad. Presumably, it also includes a synopsis.
Suppose you do read the full texts. In that case, Barry B. Powell’s 2014 Iliad contains 24 illustrations of ancient artefacts, primarily ceramics, that illustrate scenes from the text. I have yet to read his Odyssey.
I found in a second-hand bookshop a illustrated Odyssey, of the 1946 E.V. Rieu’s translation. It, too, has many pictures of ancient Greek artefacts, but also, delightfully, has many illustrations of the Greek land and seascape.
Gareth Hinds’ 2010 and 2019 graphic novels of the Odyssey and Iliad are excellent.
All these can be weighty volumes, even in paperback. I do prefer hardbacks. Larger books are less fiddly, and the text is spread out over a larger area, which makes for easier reading. Anthony Verity’s Iliad and Odyssey come in big, meaty hardbacks and standard-sized paperbacks.
T.E. Lawrence’s 1932 prose translation of the Odyssey by Macmillan Collector’s Library is a pocket-sized hardback if that level of convenience will get you reading.
No need to justify
If you need some justification to get you reading Homer, in a 2014 essay, prominent Aboriginal activist Noel Pearson compared the Aboriginal Seven Sisters Songline to Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.
Comparative Mythology is the study of myths from different cultures attempting to identify similarities in themes and characteristics. Looking at commonalities in the world’s religions and cultures.
In his book, The Hero With A Thousand Faces, comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell promoted the concept of “monomyth”, which says similarities are that myths are universal.
He got the term monomyth from Irish writer James Joyce. His novel Ulysses (the Latin version of the name Odysseus) has a parallel plot to the Odyssey, depicted in a single day in the life of its main character, Leopold Bloom.
Understand Homer, and you gain more insight into the cultures and religions of the world.
Some lines from Homer have stuck in my mind. Anthony Verity’s Odyssey begins with, “Tell me Muse of the man of many turns, who was driven far and wide after he had sacked the sacred city of Troy.” Doesn’t that happen to all of us? Don’t you feel that life has led you through many transformations and paths after coming into this world?
Another line that has stuck in my mind is from Barry B Powell’s Iliad, “You have no lack of villainy and iniquity by which you have outraged me! Filthy dogs.” This is a great quote to put into a social media post.
The gods’ own work
Being acquainted with Homer, you could read Anthony Mason’s novel The Lost Books Of The Odyssey. He says, “It is not widely understood that the epics attributed to Homer were, in fact, written by the gods before the Trojan War – these divine books are the archetypes of that war rather than its history. Mason also depicts the most significant Greek warrior of all, Achilles, half-mortal half-god, as embarking on the path of the Buddha. If you want a mind-bending experience, read it.
Whatever you do, don’t read Homer as history, whether military or social. Sure, the places depicted did, and in many cases still exist. I have been to the ruins of Troy and stood in the Lion Gate of the citadel of Mycenae, the home of King Agamemnon, according to Homer, but read Homer as if it were a depiction of a dream. Humanities dream. Trust me, it works.
Homer has seeped into my life and myself. I can’t get him out now.
A wise waiter in a Greek restaurant in Oakleigh called Mythos, which has the Minotaur as its logo, said, “The Minotaur is not as he seems, half man, half bull. It represents something else. There is something beyond what you see in the myths.”
Read Homer. It’s grouse.
Gordon Duncan is Melbourne-based writer with degrees from La Trobe University who has a keen interest in Greek literature and mythology and has travelled extensively to Greece.
