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On Translations of Greek and Latin Texts

Homer

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Non-Epic Poetry of the Archaic Period

Beginning in the early 7th century BCE (and lasting through the first half of the 5th), not at all long after Homer and Hesiod's works in epic verse, archaic Greek poetry of various kinds--all of them quite different from epic--became prominent: primarily lyric, elegiac, and iambic.

The Sound and Versification of Epic Poetry

Note: The reader should feel quite justified in skipping, or at failing to understand, the following attempt at an introduction to Greek epic verse form. What I have said here will mean little to most, if not all, readers of this site. I am sending it into the world in case it might be somewhat useful to somebody, but I do not by any means want it to intimidate or bog down readers to whom it can mean little or nothing. I do recommend that everyone use the one link that I have posted here; namely, that to the recording of Stanley Lombardo's reading of the Greek text of Book I of Homer's Iliad.

In my previous post, I have referred to Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days, and the Homeric Hymns as poems composed in "epic verse." Unfortunately, it is impossible to understand an explanation of Greek versification, i.e. how Greek words are arranged to form verses (=lines of poetry), without some acquaintance with the Greek language; that makes sense in view of the fact that the words that are arranged into Greek verses are Greek rather than English ones, and most readers will not be expecting to read these poems in Greek anytime soon. It is possible, however, to say a little about the sound of epic verse, and to demonstrate approximately how it sounded: and the sound is of paramount importance for Greek poetry, because it was composed not to be read silently, but to be heard. (The ancient Greeks did not read silently.) Stanley Lombardo, Professor of Classics and Humanities at the University of Kansas, has read Greek poetry for many recordings and audiences. Students of Classics routinely read Greek literature aloud and take the practice for granted; but it comes as something of a surprise to the public. Here you can listen to Lombardo's reading of Book I of Homer's Iliad, keeping in mind that every poem that we have mentioned so far is composed in the same epic verse form and thus sounds basically the same as this one:

http://wiredforbooks.org/iliad/

Two basic features make a group of Greek words form a line of epic verse: 1) the succession of long and short syllables in it in accordance with a certain pattern (which admits of a strictly limited range of variations), which creates the rhythm of the line; and 2) an appropriate total number of syllables in the particular verse (which also can vary within strict limits). (In fact, these are the two elements that, arranged in different forms, make any type of Greek verse the type of Greek verse it is, as opposed to a different form of Greek verse, of which there are many.) The following line of English verse (given as an example in Clyde Pharr's textbook Homeric Greek: A Book for Beginners [rev. John Wright; Univ. of Oklahoma Press]), taken from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Evangeline", is in the same poetic form as a typical Greek epic verse, and reading it aloud will give an idea of the sound of a single line of Greek epic verse:

This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlocks

I fear that discussing the distinctive characteristics of the Greek epic line any further would be more confusing than informative, but I will say the following, in case it is instructive: This line of English poetry illustrates both criteria of the Greek epic verse that also apply to every complete line of every Greek poem that I have named so far: It has 1) the prescribed pattern, which admits of a certain range of variations, of long and short syllables (although, more accurately, the pattern of the English verse, as opposed to that of the Greek, is based on the succession of stressed and unstressed, rather than long and short, syllables); and 2) it contains an appropriate number of total syllables, within the proper strict range of variation. Every line of every Greek epic poem, no matter how long the poem may be, has this same basic structure, which is well illustrated by this line from Longfellow.

Next I will introduce archaic Greek poetry that is composed not in the epic, but in other poetic forms.

More Early Archaic Literature, and a Little Extra

Around, perhaps somewhat later than, the time of Homer, another poet was writing important and influential epic verse: This poet was Hesiod, author of two works respectively titled the Theogony and the Works and Days. (Homer's date is usually set around 750 BCE, Hesiod's at 700 BCE.) The Theogony sets forth the beginning of our world and the birth of the gods, the struggles among the gods that ultimately resulted in the rule of the Olympians, and how each god came to acquire his or her particular powers and domains. The Works and Days treats various topics, with a considerable emphasis on justice; reflects on the present lamentable state of the world; and dispenses much disparate but stern moral advice. Both of Hesiod's poems contain well-known myths, including the stories of Prometheus' benefactions (against the will of Zeus) for humanity, Pandora, and the Ages of the World.

Although Hesiod composes around the same time as Homer, and in the same epic form of poetry, there are major disparities between the Iliad and Odyssey on the one hand, and the Theogony and Works and Days on the other. The most obvious is that Hesiod's works are far shorter than the great epics of Homer. More importantly, no one claims that Hesiod is as great a poet as Homer; there can be no comparison in this respect. Finally, although Hesiod substantially influenced subsequent Greek literature, his influence was small compared to that of Homer, who continued to be regarded by all Greeks as their greatest poet.

The translation of Hesiod that I have read is that of M.L. West in the Oxford World's Classics series http://www.amazon.com/Theogony-Works-Oxford-Worlds-Classics/dp/019953831X/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243469058&sr=8-4. (West's notes are slightly difficult to use for a reader with no basic knowledge of Greek culture.) However, I have just learned that Richmond Lattimore, my favorite translator of archaic Greek poetry, also translated the poems (along with a work that was falsely attributed by the ancients to Hesiod, The Shield of Herakles (http://www.amazon.com/Works-Theogony-Shield-Herakles-Paperbacks/dp/0472081616/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243454834&sr=1-16). Lattimore's version will probably be somewhat closer to the Greek, but harder to read.

There is a collection of epic-verse poems by various authors that the Greeks falsely attributed to Homer: these are the so-called Homeric Hymns. Some of the poems in this collection were written much later than the archaic period; the longer ones that the translator Apostolos N. Athanassakis (http://www.amazon.com/Homeric-Hymns-Homer/dp/0801879833/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243469304&sr=8-1) believes to be archaic are: #1: "To Dionysus"; #2: "To Demeter"; #3: "To Apollon" (=Apollo); #4: "To Hermes" (?); #5: "To Aphrodite"; #7: "To Dionysus". The poems generally praise the god and / or relate an episode in the god's history. I strongly recommend Athanassakis' translation, now in its second edition, for its exemplary notes.

Preliminary History and the Earliest Greek Literature in the Archaic Period

Modern scholars sometimes classify works of Greek literature according to the chronological period of Greek history during which they were composed. I will introduce the subject of Greek history in a later post; here I will name only the two earliest periods of Greek history, from which we have no literature, and the third period, which begins with two of the world's greatest literary works.

The first period of Greek history (1600-1200 / 1100 BCE), and the culture that characterized it, are called Mycenaean, which is named for one of the great and most prosperous centers of that culture, the city of Mycenae in the northeast Peloponnese. As I noted above, we possess no literature from this period (although there are documents and inscriptions, most of them administrative records that now exist only in fragments).

Following the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization (the reasons for which are not well understood) was the period that is traditionally called the "Dark Age" (1100-750 BCE), which was characterized by a reduction in prosperity, communication, and other benefits of highly organized and cooperative societies. Again, we possess no literature from this period. The study of the Mycenaean and "Dark" Ages is properly the domain almost exclusively of archaeologists, who uncover and interpret material remains of cultures, rather than historians, who depend on written sources.

It is at the beginning of the Archaic Age (776-479) that the first Greek (and Western) literature appears: the great epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, both of which the Greeks ascribed to a single author named Homer, and the Theogony and Works and Days of Hesiod. I will introduce these literary works in the following posts.

. . . incomplete