A Many-sided Man

A Homeric Ode for Odyssean presenter Michael Wood

A few years ago the TV presenter Michael Wood and Rebecca Dobbs, his partner (and producer of his marvellous documentaries, which include In Search of Troy), gave a generous charity donation of £1500 to Classics for All to win the prize of a Greek Ode composed by me. Now that Troy and Odysseus are all the rage, it seems a good time to post it.

The Ode is 28 lines in English and Greek hexameter verse. (You can read it all, with explanatory notes, via this link). Here are the opening 8 lines:

TELL, MUSE, of many-sided Michael Wood,
famed on account of Troy and other things;
Rebecca too, who with him oft has stood,
for of their partnership one gladly sings.
But where to start and where to end my song?                 5
For, like Odysseus, Michael’s done it all,
while she who’s journeyed with him far and long
strong-willed Penelope bids us recall....

ʽΥληέντα μοι ἄνδρα πολύτροπον ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα,
ὃς μέγα κῦδος ἔχει Τροΐης ἕνεκ’ ἠδὲ καὶ ἄλλων,
τῆν δὲ φίλην ἑτάρην, ἣ πολλάκις ἄγχι βέβηκεν·
τῶν γὰρ όμοφροσύνην ἀΐων χαίροιμ’ ἂν ἀείδων.
ἀλλὰ τί μοι πρῶτον, τί μοι ὕστατον ἔσσετ’ ἀοιδῆς;                   5
ἦ γὰρ ὅδ᾽ώς ʼΟδυσεὺς τόσ᾽ ἀγακλυτὰ ἔργʼ ἐτέλεσσεν,
ἣ δὲ συνεργὸς ἐοῦσ᾽, ἅτε τετληυῖα καὶ αὐτή,
ἥρωος γαμέτῃ τοι ἐοίκεν Πηνελοπείῃ...

The truly polymathic Michael has just complete a wonderful book on Athelstan, which will come out next year.