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Trivial Pursuits => History => Topic started by: PinkStainlessTail on December 10, 2003, 03:55:09 pm

Title: Future Echoes of Achewood in The Iliad
Post by: PinkStainlessTail on December 10, 2003, 03:55:09 pm

So I've been wending my way through Robert Fagles' translation of The Iliad, and I came across a passage that I thought might interest this bunch:

But then, once he received that fatal message
sent from his own daughter's husband, first
he ordered Bellerophon to kill the Chimaera-
grim monster sprung of the gods, nothing human,
all lion in front, all snake behind, all goat between,
terrible blasting lethal fire at every breath!

(Book 6, lines 210-215)

Made me giggle inappropriately anyway.

Title: Future Echoes of Achewood in The Iliad
Post by: V-Adore on December 10, 2003, 04:54:34 pm

All lion in front, all snake behind, all goat between, all gettin' it on with a ***** in Teodor's garage, all crying afterwards...

Title: Future Echoes of Achewood in The Iliad
Post by: pmcd9 on December 10, 2003, 05:19:42 pm

putting all in front of every phrase while telling a story is totally played.

~Paul

Title: Future Echoes of Achewood in The Iliad
Post by: AugustWest on December 10, 2003, 05:36:30 pm

Totally.  All totally.

Title: Future Echoes of Achewood in The Iliad
Post by: CortJstr on December 10, 2003, 05:50:02 pm

That translation rocks. As does his Odyssey. And the paper looks neat, which is always a high point for me.

Title: Future Echoes of Achewood in The Iliad
Post by: jough on December 10, 2003, 11:42:14 pm

I'll decloak as a Lit. major for a minute to note that Fagles translation is the de facto standard in the academe.

And it's good poetry, too.

Title: Future Echoes of Achewood in The Iliad
Post by: Limmo on December 10, 2003, 11:43:41 pm

I've always been partial to Robert Fitzgerald's translations, and not just because of the horrible line drawings between chapters.

Title: Future Echoes of Achewood in The Iliad
Post by: AugustWest on December 11, 2003, 12:30:27 am

Quote from: "El Guapo"

I'll decloak as a Lit. major for a minute to note that Fagles translation is the de facto standard in the academe.

And it's good poetry, too.

Huh.  Who would ever have thought that a guy who runs a poetry site was a Lit major.  Of all things.

Title: Future Echoes of Achewood in The Iliad
Post by: monkey punch on December 17, 2003, 03:17:07 am

Great quote, PST.  Makes one wonder... about achewood... and homeric greece...

I'll all decloak as a classics major for a moment to say Fagles has done much to make the Odyssey and Iliad fun to read, but has done little to render them especially accurately.  Consequently (too many "-ly"s), his translations have become standard in the introductory-level classroom.  But for upper-level study Lattimore's editions are the standard-er; as english translations go, they're unmatched in fidelity to Homer's originals.

Fitzgerald's Iliad tickles me, even though it's willy-nilly inaccurate.

Title: Future Echoes of Achewood in The Iliad
Post by: Limmo on December 17, 2003, 04:28:53 am

No argument here about Fitzgerald's inaccuracy.  But there's a certain cinematic snap to his writing that I've never found in any other translation.  Particularly his description of Odysseus' slaughter of the suitors in the Great Hall.

Title: Future Echoes of Achewood in The Iliad
Post by: monkey punch on December 17, 2003, 06:31:47 am

[deleted by author]

Title: Future Echoes of Achewood in The Iliad
Post by: Pedro Picasso on December 17, 2003, 02:40:34 pm

Quote from: "jough"

I'll decloak as a Lit. major for a minute

Couldn't you disrobe as a psych major instead?  Those chicks are hot!  Oh wait, you're a dude.  And you're not a west coaster as I had previously stated.  Augh!  Who are you?

Who who.  Who who.

Title: Future Echoes of Achewood in The Iliad
Post by: jough on December 17, 2003, 06:02:44 pm

Man, if you have to ask...

I guess I can't be defined by my job because I don't have one.  Am I a web master, a writer, a licensed arms dealer, a message board dictator, a wholesale re-distributor, a teacher, a poet, a freelance web designer, a critic?

I am all of those things.  And on any given day will be doing at least two of those "jobs" to make money to buy me things like food and laptop computers.

And no, I'm not living on the left coast at the moment.  But soon, perhaps.  Portland sounds nice.