"It is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.--"

[larryhammer]

Well this is ... interesting.

1. Quarreling.

O Goddess, chant it out, the choler grown
In Peleus' son, aggrieved Achilleus,
Simply deathful, sheerly doleful for
Achaians; wholly numerous warrior souls

It sent to Hades but to dog-throngs down
By Troy and divers birds the corporal dead
In piles it highly proffered, all for prey,
And Zeus’s will thus came to pass outright,

As this began when first Atreyedes,
Monarch of chiliad-lancers, and Achilleus, bright
With God, in breaching1 closed like enemies.
Which of the Gods to rupture in a fight

Provoked them? Leto's son, whom Zeus begot,
For he a fulsome plague on Argives brought.

This being the opening partially-rhymed* sonnet (of 1823) from F. L. Light's translation of the Iliad. That it's not as bad as Hobbes's translation is a very weak defense. Available from Audible and in three volumes covering books 1-8, 9-16, and 17-24.

Found via this list of Homer translations. No thanks necessary.


* Reading on, the dominant rhyme scheme is xaxa xbxb xcxc dd, often slant-rhymed, but the first two stanzas here are just a little too slant for me to hear the chime.

---L.

Subject quote from Macbeth V.5.26-28, William Shakespeare.

Comments

[sovay]

It sent to Hades but to dog-throngs down
By Troy and divers birds the corporal dead

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Simply deathful, sheerly doleful indeed.

[larryhammer]

Hard to parse, difficult to say, and ... loosely ... translated. Doleful is a good word for it.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Yes, I lost it at "sheerly doleful."

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Trying to imitate Anglo-Saxon alliteration in an Iliad translation is an ... interesting ... choice.

[larryhammer]

I'd noticed the heavy alliteration thinning out as the rhymes clarified, but not the pattern. That ... um ... huh.

Interesting choice, yeah.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

The line "In piles it highly proffered, all for prey" is certainly trying to match Old English meter; I wouldn't say that it succeeds.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I noticed the same thing. And now I wonder what would happen if a competent poet tried to render the Iliad in Germanic-style verse.

EDIT: My attempt to then translate the first line or two into Old Norse has run aground on my inability to remember how to form the imperative of syngva. :-P

[larryhammer]

What would happen is that I'd stand there watching fascinated -- at a safe distance.

Heh, verbs.

BTW, have you met the Saga Thing podcast?

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I have not! I listen to basically no podcasts these days -- I don't have a commute or any other aspect of my life that makes for good listening time.

[larryhammer]

This is the only thing other than music I listen to by podcast -- they're gearing up for covering Njal this summer.