Stephen C. Carlson (www):
Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληιάδεω Ἀχιλῆος / οὐλομένην, ...

Гнев, богиня, воспой Ахиллеса, Пелеева сына
...

שִׁירִי, בַּת אֵלִים, חֲרוֹן אַף אַחִילֵס בְּנוֹ שֶׁל פֶּלֵיאוֹס

Herbert Jordan's translation of this line is:

Sing, goddess, of Peleus' son Achilles' anger, / ruinous, ...

Based on my reading of the first seven lines, that's exactly what Jordan does: attempt to carry the form over as much as possible.

I thought Kopff had interesting things to say about the Iliad, and about the general practice of translating it, in the interview; but he didn't really say much about the merits of the Jordan translation (I guess I should read his introduction for that). And I have to say, I wasn't too impressed with Jordan's version of Sarpedon's speech; it seemed a little clunky. But I was distracted while listening, so I should probably give it another try.

Also: David Kopel seemed remarkably hostile to Homer. Some of that, I assume, was just an interviewing tactic, giving Kopff something to refute, but he really thinks all the Greeks are jerks, huh? No love for Achilles at all?


[DK: Yes, basically an interviewing tactic. I bear no ill will towards Homer. As I said in the interview, I've only done the Iliad once, over 10 years ago, as a book on tape, but I was sincere in not remembering much that was admirable about the Greeks. Professor Kopff of course did a great job in addressing the issue. I will say that I liked Achilles better in 4th grade, when my class read the story of Trojan War as a fairly long short story in English, than when I listened to the Iliad itself.]

he really thinks all the Greeks are jerks, huh? No love for Achilles at all?

There's good reason for this. After all, the Illiad starts with Achilles and Agamemnon arguing on whose got first dibs on raping Briseis, a very young girl who saw these thugs killing her family before dragging her away for their later pleasure. Makes the Crips and the Bloods look like gentlemen scholars.

einhverfr:

Use Clyde Pharr's Homeric Greek. It was the book I used, and was recommended to me as the book to use for Homeric Greek. I knew Attic, so that was obviously helpful, but I don't remember that it was necessary for using Pharr to pick up Homeric. Just helped, insofar as that I only had to adjust to the differences.

I didn't think you were ever supposed to like Achilles.

I mean, he gets superpowers, he comes in as a mercenary, he's sulky about how he's used in the fight, his best friend who goes out to fight for him because he's being a whiner gets killed, he kills an honestly heroic guy who is defending his homeland, and he gets his tragic comeuppance and dies.

What's to like? Isn't he more of a cautionary tale about what to do with power?

David, please in the future mention the book and its author. Since you're interviewing someone about why the book is "important," you'd think this would be an obvious thing to do. More generally, and I mean this as constructive criticism, not to be asinine, your posts sometimes (often?) (esp with your soccer posts) are incredibly self-indulgent and/or self-flattering (look at me, how amazing I am, for appreciating soccer while listening to jazz and reading the iliad). I mean, you might as well have not even mentioned the person you were interviewing either...


[DK: The book is called "The Iliad." The author is Homer. The translator's name, and the publisher, are mentioned repeatedly during the podcast. I have never posted a single word regarding soccer or jazz. And BTW, as the podcast made clear, I have never read The Iliad. I listened to it as a book on tape.]

The translation of the first line (per Stephen Carlson above), "Sing, goddess, of Peleus' son Achilles' anger, / ruinous,.." is not promising. The first word in the line in Greek is Μῆνιν, and the translation has to find a way to start with that word (since it reflects the entire theme of the poem -- the relation between mortals and gods in terms of that unstable in-between mortal, the hero). Also, though "anger" is a typical translation for Μῆνιν, it is actually misleading. Μῆνιν is only ever used of divine anger except here where it used in reference to "godlike" Achilles. The translator has to find a way to distinguish this divine anger from ordinary mortal anger. I would do it like this: "Rage, sing goddess the destructive rage of the son of Peleus, Achilles ..." In other word, Μῆνιν is more than just ordinary anger.

Isn't he more of a cautionary tale about what to do with power?

Possibly this difficulty with Achilles is an indication of how different Greek values were from our own?

If you can get access to it, read Bernard Knox's brilliant essay, "Achilles," in Grand Street, vol 9, no. 3 (Spring 1990), 129-50.

In short, Anderson, the answer to both the previous question and yours is, "No."

Homer's decision to present the barbarian Trojans as more sympathetic characters than the Greeks.

I'm not sure that's quite right. Hector, sure, is probably the most sympathetic character in the poem, and Sarpedon, in his one significant speech, comes off looking very good. But Paris is a Trojan too, and not a very pleasant guy.

And I'd like to stick up for Achilles, at least a little bit. The conflict with Agamemnon doesn't actually start with Briseis. It starts when Calchas is asked to prophesy how to stop the plague, and says, more or less, "if my prophesy upsets someone powerful, who will defend me?" Achilles volunteers. This is the flip side of the arrogance that comes with his incredible fighting ability. On the one hand, his lack of respect for authority (in particular, Agamemnon) causes all sorts of conflict; but on the other hand, it makes him willing to defend an honest prophet when he's threatened by a king who doesn't like what he says. If you wanted to really squint through all the cultural differences, you could see Achilles as a defender of free speech.

And another thing: everybody here seems to have forgotten the end of the poem, where Achilles pities Priam, and returns his son's body without ransom. Because even though, in the midst of his rage about Patroclus, he's basically a wild animal, not caring about any social bonds ("there is no truce between men and lions"), in the end, he comes back to humanity, and sees his own father in Priam.

So: obviously we can't expect an ancient Greek warrior to behave entirely in ways we approve of, and even allowing for that, Achilles has his faults. But there's still a lot to admire in him, and if you dismiss that, you're missing some of the best parts of the Iliad.

Latinist:

You're right, my statement was too broad. And I certainly agree that Achilles is not an unsympathetic character. But neither is Paris. Perhaps I could revise what I said as follows: It's significant that Homer treated the barbarians with at least as much sympathy as the Greeks.

Recently listened to Iliad on CD &will state unequivocally that Homer should always be listened to - not read. Homer created Iliad &Odyssey as audio works &they should be enjoyed in that format.

Have to contradict some comments about Achilles - he allows Priam to take Hector's body back to Troy because one of Zeus's messengers orders him to; he does not release Hector's body out of sympathy for Priam (not sure why folks make that false statement) - he even chastises Priam not to presume too much regardless of how many messages he receives from the Gods, though he does allow a 3-day truce for Hector's burial.

Hey, does anyone know of a textbook for Attic Greek that would be useful for philosophers (rather than literary studies folks)? I have a great deal of difficulty moving from literary Attic Greek to philosophical Greek.

If anyone is interested in a reinterpretation rather than a new translation, I highly recommend Christopher Logue's War Music. It using modern poetic idioms and imagery, but is still set in Ancient Troy.

The cycle current consists of 5 books, with the 6th (and final) not yet written.

Here is an excerpt from All Day Permanent Red:

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16599

Javert and ChrisTS, on the reception of Aristotle issue:

I'm pretty sure that the majority of Aristotle was "lost" to the Latin West by the time Augustine came around. However, Augustine would have been familiar with Aristotle's logical works, as it seems they survived stably throughout, as well as possibly his zoological works. One scholar (can't find the paper right now--it's in a folder with about 100 other articles, and they are all just numbered: eep) noted a reference to De doctrina christiana, XXXIX, 59, suggesting that Augustine was recommending drawing on Aristotle among others for obscure zoological knowledge when reading Scripture. Of course, if you read the relevant text, you won't see anything specifically pointing to Aristotle. So, I'm not sure what led to that reference. Porphyry wrote a commentary on Aristotle's Categories, and he also wrote what was sort of the standard text on logic for the medieval West, the Isagoge. So it's probable that Augustine learned Aristotle's logic through the mediation of Neo-Platonists (like Porphyry and Plotinus, suitably translated into Latin, of course, since Augustine never learned Greek). There's actually a good chunk of writing out there about the reception of Aristotelian logic in Neo-Platonism.

ChrisTS, on Attic for philosophy:

If you can read Attic, generally, you may just want to work your way through a philosophical text with a good commentary attached to it. Maybe it was just my experience, or it's just the way my brain works (assuming it does), but I always found that it was slow-going whenever I transitioned between authors, but that once I got a basic feel for how the author wrote, I would start moving more quickly through it.

To that end, you may want to check out what Textkit has available. They're all free (you may have to register for the site, but registration is free as well). It's really a brilliant website. Or you could check out what Perseus has available. Perseus, of course, is among the best electronic classics resource out there, though you can't actually download texts like Textkit.

You're right, my statement was too broad. And I certainly agree that Achilles is not an unsympathetic character. But neither is Paris. Perhaps I could revise what I said as follows: It's significant that Homer treated the barbarians with at least as much sympathy as the Greeks.

Well, typically in oral traditions, this is how we see things. For example, if we read (or listen to) the Niebelunglied, the Huns certainly seem at least as sympathetic as the Burgundians! Hint: It isn't the huns who drink the blood of their defeated enemies......

A lot of this has to do with a sort of agonal element to oral poems. They are about conflict but the point isn't who is good vs evil, but who is best vs merely good. There is hence a tendency to build up opponents both in strength and sympathy so that they are worthy of conflict. This seems surprising to modern readers, but it is quite common in the ancient world and not something I think Homer consciously chose to do.

BTW to those who suggest listening to Homer, the same goes for Beowulf. Take a look at this performance.

If you can get access to it, read Bernard Knox's brilliant essay, "Achilles," in Grand Street, vol 9, no. 3 (Spring 1990), 129-50.

May we infer that whatever Knox writes there, he includes in some form in his introduction to Fagles?

I would agree that at least some Greeks saw something of a cautionary example in Achilles, but I imagine they had an array of interpretations; Alexander would, I suspect, have been an Achilles fan.

... For anyone who (1) cares and (2) doesn't already know, a classic essay on the challenge of Homeric translation is Guy Davenport's "Another Odyssey," in his The Geography of the Imagination. Must-read stuff.

Javert, ChrisTS, and dmv

Thank you for the helpful pointers and kind offers. The proximate cause for my question was this thread over at Larry Lessig's blog on "Jefferson's Remix of Augustine." See especially the comment from Seth Schoen here. MattJ's reply is more or less consistent with what the three of you are saying.

I'm particularly interested in tracing the various interpretations of Heraclitus's logos on Aristotle and Augustine, for reasons that the quote from Augustine linked make pretty obvious.

Thanks again for the replies. I love teh interwebs. :-)