free audio of The Odyssey?

[MommyThrice]

I've been told you can find free audio downloads of the Illiad & Odyssey, but I don't know anything about translations. I would like to find a good, free audio version and then - hopefully - purchase several copies of the book in print to go with it.

 

Any favorites?

Thanks.

[Miss Marple]

Have you seen this: http://www.learnoutloud.com/Free-Audio-Video/Literature/Ancient-and-Medieval-Classics/The-Odyssey/23731

[MommyThrice]

I've seen several - I just don't know what is considered a "good" translation, and what is also available in print.

[lizziebeth]

There are many good threads on this board re the different translations, but I will just note that my ds and I loved the Robert Fagles version, and we borrowed the audio tape (read by Ian McKellen!) from the library. It was excellent.

[MommyThrice]

There are many good threads on this board re the different translations, but I will just note that my ds and I loved the Robert Fagles version, and we borrowed the audio tape (read by Ian McKellen!) from the library. It was excellent.

 

Thank you!

[Nan in Mass]

I am not really qualified to answer your question, but I'll take a crack at it anyway, since not many other people have chimed in. We read Fagle's Iliad and are now reading Fitzgerald's Odyssey. Fagle's was plainer English, more like modern spoken English, easier to read. Fitzgerald and Lattimore were used more complicated language, more like what it typically found in older poetry. They both are poetic in places (in the modern sense). My son has no trouble understanding more complicated language, so for the second time reading Homer, I had him choose between Fitgerald and Lattimore. There are also translations that put Homer into prose and tell the story as if it were a book, not a song. If you go to a book store, you can look at them all and compare them and see which you like better. I'm not sure if any of these translators are availble free on-line. I have a feeling none of them are out of copyright yet. Your free, on-line choices might be different. I think you will find that the reader makes as much difference as the translator. A good reader will make complicated language less complicated by paying attention to the commas and adding emphasis here and there. A bad reader can make even plain language hard to understand. If you want the most easily understandable, most modern-sounding non-prose version, look for the Fagle's version at the library.

 

HTH

-Nan

[MommyThrice]

I don't know what I want... I didn't know there were so many options. :001_huh: Prose or poetry? I will definintely gather a few samples and read them first. Thanks.

[Lizzie in Ma]

I am not really qualified to answer your question, but I'll take a crack at it anyway, since not many other people have chimed in. We read Fagle's Iliad and are now reading Fitzgerald's Odyssey. Fagle's was plainer English, more like modern spoken English, easier to read. Fitzgerald and Lattimore were used more complicated language, more like what it typically found in older poetry. They both are poetic in places (in the modern sense). My son has no trouble understanding more complicated language, so for the second time reading Homer, I had him choose between Fitgerald and Lattimore. There are also translations that put Homer into prose and tell the story as if it were a book, not a song. If you go to a book store, you can look at them all and compare them and see which you like better. I'm not sure if any of these translators are availble free on-line. I have a feeling none of them are out of copyright yet. Your free, on-line choices might be different. I think you will find that the reader makes as much difference as the translator. A good reader will make complicated language less complicated by paying attention to the commas and adding emphasis here and there. A bad reader can make even plain language hard to understand. If you want the most easily understandable, most modern-sounding non-prose version, look for the Fagle's version at the library.

 

HTH

-Nan

 

Thanks Nan, that was an excellent and extremely helpful assessment.

 

http://librivox.org/the-odyssey-by-homer/ Butler Translation

review of Fagles translation audio

Amazon link to the one above with Ian McKellan

 

I am heading out right now for that one. :)

[Nan in Mass]

Here are the first two verses of the one from librivox.org (Butler):

Tell me, O Muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and

wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities

did he visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and

customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea

while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home;

but do what he might he could not save his men, for they

perished through their own sheer folly in eating the cattle of

the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god prevented them from ever

reaching home. Tell me, too, about all these things, oh daughter

of Jove, from whatsoever source you may know them.

 

So now all who escaped death in battle or by shipwreck had got

safely home except Ulysses, and he, though he was longing to

return to his wife and country, was detained by the goddess

Calypso, who had got him into a large cave and wanted to marry

him. But as years went by, there came a time when the gods

settled that he should go back to Ithaca; even then, however,

when he was among his own people, his troubles were not yet

over; nevertheless all the gods had now begun to pity him except

Neptune, who still persecuted him without ceasing and would not

let him get home.

 

Here they are in Fitzgerald (much more poetical):

 

Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story

or that man skilled in all ways of contending,

the wanderer, harried for years on end,

after he plundered the stronghold

on the proud height of Troy.

 

He saw the townlands

and learned the minds of many distant men,

and weathered many bitter nights and days

in his deep heart at sea, while he fought only

to save his life, to bring his shipmates home.

But not by will nor valor could he save them,

for their own recklessness destroyed them all-

children and fools, they killed and feasted on

the cattle of Lord Helios, the sun,

and he wo moves all day through heaven

took from their eyes the dawn of their return.

 

Of these adventures, Muse, daughter of Zeus,

tell us in our time, lift the great song again.

Begin when all the rest who left behind them

headlong death inb battle or at sea

had long ago returned, while he alone still hungered

for home an dwife. her ladyship Kalypso

clung to him in her sea-hollowed caves-

a nymph, immortal and most beautiful,

who craved him for her own.

 

And when long years and seasons

wheeling brought about that point of time

ordained for him to make his passage homeward,

trails and dangers, even so, attended him

even in Ithaka, near those he loved.

Yet all the gods had pitied Lord Odysseus,

all but Poseidon, raging cold and rough

against the brave king till he came ashore

at last on his own land.

 

 

The Lattimore sounded rather like that, too. And the Fagles was plainer and more modern but still managed to be poetical in spots, just a sparcer sort of poetical. Unless you have a child who really struggles to understand poetry, I would not go with a prose version. As I said before, we wanted poetical this time round. I suffered through many battle scenes in the Iliad LOL and decided that I was going to get some entertainment out of The Odyssey. I somehow overlooked the fact that the story of the Odyssey is something I can identify with much, much better than the story in The Iliad (since it takes place after the stupid men went to war over something stupid in the first place and then compounded their mistake by not going striaght home to their wives). I probably didn't actually need it to have interesting language to enjoy reading it. I showed the Fagles, the Lattimore, and the Fitzgerald to my son, though, and he himself picked the Fitzgerald, so I don't feel guilty about dragging him through the more poetical one. He is even enjoying (quietly, in a I am a 15yo boy sort of way) the language.

 

HTH

-Nan

 

PS - Afterwards, for fun, you should listen to OddsBodkin's version.

[MommyThrice]

Nan,

 

I had trouble just getting through Black Ships Before Troy. All those battle scenes! I am still planning out next year, but I am tempted to skip the Iliad and go straight for the Odyssey. I've got so much I want to cover, I don't know that I want to spend that much time on one author (or several authors that all wrote like Homer & called themselves Homer ;) )

 

I'm printing your samples for my son to read. Thanks.

[Nan in Mass]

I think it depends on your son. As we were finishing up The Iliad, a boating catalogue arrived in the mail. In it were some pirate teeshirts. GRIN I cut them out and glued them onto the end papers of my book. They said things like, "The beatings will continue until moral improves" and "Hobbies: Drinking, Sailing, and Pillaging" and "Loot, pillage, and plunder". Sigh. There are that appeal more to boys, though. The Iliad felt more grownup to me. Reading them both, though, would take us all year, I think.

-Nan