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The Iliad - Preferred Translation?


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Hello!

 

I am new here. We are just starting homeschooling this month. I will probably be back with more questions! 

 

So for The Iliad, is there a preferred translation or does it not really matter? The one I just got from the library is translated my Richmond Lattimore. I was also looking at listening to it free online, so if you know of a good version for that, I would love to hear it.

 

Thanks!

Liz

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Welcome!

 

Really, translation is a matter of taste -- what "clicks" for the student. You might look at samples from 4-5 versions and see what works best for you. Or, if you really want to use a specific guide, sometimes those are "keyed" to go with a specific translation.

 

Lombardo, Lattimore, Fitzgerald, Fagles, and Rouse, and sometimes Butler, are the translators I see most frequently used by others on these boards. Check out these past threads for more ideas and experiences:

 

"Favorite Odyssey translation" -- also includes recommendations for the Iliad

"Need help choosing translations of Iliad/Odyssey" -- post #12 compares different versions

"Iliad - which translation?" -- post #2 includes parallel translations of the same paragraph from 4 versions

 

LibriVox and YouTube have audio versions of Butler's translation for free.

Edited by Lori D.
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We only read one version, so I can't compare. Fagles is what we read and I don't think there's audio for that one.

May I suggest, for us, it was very helpful to listen to some sort of lectures sort of setting the background and providing context (Vandiver is what's recomended). This helped understanding and appreciating the poem. It is not a particularly hard read (basically all the various ways to die), but there are some things which were, to me (not exactly a classicist) foreign, such as the inventory of all the ships and tribes in the beginning.

Edited by madteaparty
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We only read one version, so I can't compare. Fagles is what we read and I don't think there's audio for that one.

 

Au contraire. :) Not only is there an audio of Fagles, but it's read by Derek Jacobi. It has been slightly abridged, but mostly in the interminable scenes precisely describing which organs were pierced with what weapon and how much blood was lost in which way... and they've left plenty of that info. We listened to that version and really enjoyed it. We were able to get the CDs from the library.

 

The Fagles Odyssey is read by Ian McKellan.

Edited by Matryoshka
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Au contraire. :) Not only is there an audio of Fagles, but it's read by Derek Jacobi. It has been slightly abridged, but mostly in the interminable scenes precisely describing which organs were pierced with what weapon and how much blood was lost in which way... and they've left plenty of that info. We listened to that version and really enjoyed it. We were able to get the CDs from the library.

 

The Fagles Odyssey is read by Ian McKellan.

Oh well I'm a loser that couldn't find this and read the whole darned thing out loud over about 3 weeks 😳. I even posted here, where were you then? 😂. For Odyssey, I did buy the audible version and let him listen and read and gave my vocal cords a break. Until Herodotus.😂
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Oh well I'm a loser that couldn't find this and read the whole darned thing out loud over about 3 weeks 😳. I even posted here, where were you then? 😂. For Odyssey, I did buy the audible version and let him listen and read and gave my vocal cords a break. Until Herodotus.😂

Lol, I was lucky my library had the CDs... this was a number of years back. I could never have gotten through that reading it myself! As it was, we listened to it in the car where they were a captive audience...

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We're a Fagles family although DH had the Aeneid as translated by Fitzgerald before he decided he couldn't handle it anymore & got the Fagles translation of that one, too.

Love Vandiver's lectures & the Ian M. reading of the Odyssey was much better than what I could do.  :drool5:

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