I really like your translation and the decision to begin with μῆνιν. I think Fagles made a good decision to start with “Rage” despite how loose his rendition is. I’m curious about your choice of ‘anger’ vs. ‘rage’ to translate μῆνιν? Also great point to remind us that the central point of the poem is Achilles’ anger, not the battle for Troy.
Thank you. I think the more generic 'anger' covers better all the different manifestations. 'Rage' summons up a more immediate image of uncontrolled fury, but I feel that here Homer is asking the Muse to sing of the various different episodes of anger that make up the story.
I've never been able truly enjoy any translation of Homer. For sure I enjoy and applaud the genius of poets who have translated Homer, but well, as Bentley said, "Pretty, Mr. Pope, but it's not Homer." I can understand the Greek fine, and the brutality, wonder, and horror of the 8th c BCE finds no equivalent -- for the whole mix -- in this millenium.
Yes. Non-Greekers have to make do with translations, and I think they should be readable but not facile, rapid but not banal, rhythmical but not tritely so…a hard mix of requirements
I studied Greek a long time ago and this never occurred to me until I started learning Cantonese recently: Ancient Green was not a tonal language, right? Then what is the relationship between its accents and what we call tones in tonal languages? My husband's from Hong Kong so now that I hear Cantonese all the time I feel like I could have a sense of how it might have worked...maybe?
It wasn’t a tonal language like Chinese, because the pitches make no semantic difference except in about a dozen words (like ἀγών / ἄγων and βίος / βιός). But it made enough difference to how it sounded for a grammarian to invent the accent signs around 300 BC, to tell Hellenised non-Greeks how the language sounded. Of course the foreigners heard the pitches as stress, hence the accents of Greek today! But if we want to hear the nuance of Classical Greek we should understand the pitch signs and try to implement them (as I do).
I really like your translation and the decision to begin with μῆνιν. I think Fagles made a good decision to start with “Rage” despite how loose his rendition is. I’m curious about your choice of ‘anger’ vs. ‘rage’ to translate μῆνιν? Also great point to remind us that the central point of the poem is Achilles’ anger, not the battle for Troy.
Thank you. I think the more generic 'anger' covers better all the different manifestations. 'Rage' summons up a more immediate image of uncontrolled fury, but I feel that here Homer is asking the Muse to sing of the various different episodes of anger that make up the story.
Fascinating, I’ve read the Iliad a few times but never thought of Achilles anger in quite that that way, but it makes sense.
I love this. Thank you for this and noting the contrast with traditional translations.
Thank you
I've never been able truly enjoy any translation of Homer. For sure I enjoy and applaud the genius of poets who have translated Homer, but well, as Bentley said, "Pretty, Mr. Pope, but it's not Homer." I can understand the Greek fine, and the brutality, wonder, and horror of the 8th c BCE finds no equivalent -- for the whole mix -- in this millenium.
Yes. Non-Greekers have to make do with translations, and I think they should be readable but not facile, rapid but not banal, rhythmical but not tritely so…a hard mix of requirements
Indeed, very, very hard.
I studied Greek a long time ago and this never occurred to me until I started learning Cantonese recently: Ancient Green was not a tonal language, right? Then what is the relationship between its accents and what we call tones in tonal languages? My husband's from Hong Kong so now that I hear Cantonese all the time I feel like I could have a sense of how it might have worked...maybe?
It wasn’t a tonal language like Chinese, because the pitches make no semantic difference except in about a dozen words (like ἀγών / ἄγων and βίος / βιός). But it made enough difference to how it sounded for a grammarian to invent the accent signs around 300 BC, to tell Hellenised non-Greeks how the language sounded. Of course the foreigners heard the pitches as stress, hence the accents of Greek today! But if we want to hear the nuance of Classical Greek we should understand the pitch signs and try to implement them (as I do).