A Nearly Literal
Translation
of
Homer’s Odyssey
Into Accentuated Dramatic Verses
by the
Rev. Lovelace Bigge-Wither
Oxford 1869
[Sample from the Opening of the Poem]
HOMER’S ODYSSEY.
BOOK I.
TELL me, oh Muse, of-the-many-sided man,
Who wandered
far and wide full sore bestead,
When
he had razed the mighty town of Troy :
And-of-many-a-race
of human-kind he saw
The
cities; and he learned their mind and ways :
And
on the deep full many-a-woe he bore
In
his own hosom, while he strove to save
His
proper life, and-his-comrades’ home-return. 5
But them not so he saved
with all his zeal;
For
they in their own wilful
folly perished:
Infatuates!
to devour Hyperion’s kine!
So he bereft them
of their home-return.
Of
these things, Goddess, where thou wilt beginning, 10
Daughter
of Zeus, the tale tell e’en to us!
Now all the rest, who swift destruction,
’scaped,
At
home were safe from peril-of-war and sea:
While him alone for
home and wife sore yearning
The Ladie-Nymph Calypso, lovely goddess, 15
Held
in her grot, for love to make him hers!
But
when came-on the time, as-the-years rolled round,
At
which the gods had destined his return
To
Ithaca-home; not then was-he-free
from struggles,
E’en midst his
friends! The gods all pitied him
;
Save Posidaon: he raged
ceaselessly 20
’Gainst god-like-Odyssus, ere he reached his home:
But he was gone to
the Æthiops far away—
(Æthiops, extreme of men, all-parted twain-wise,
Some
by the setting, some by-the-rising sun)—
To
share of bulls and lambs their
hecatombs! 25
There
merrily-sat he feasting:
but the others
Were
thronged in-the-halls of Zeus Olympius.
’Mid them ’gan speak the Sire of men and gods;
For
he remembered in his heart Ægisthus,
Whom
slew Agamemnon’s famous son Orestes: 30
Of him full
mindful ’mid the gods he spake:
“Oh
heavens! how mortals now do blame the gods!
From us they say spring
ills! but they themselves
By
their own folly bring unfated woes.
As
now Ægisthus married-in-spite of
fate 35
Atrides’ wife, and slew him home returning—
Knowing
full well his own death hard at hand:
For
we ourselves foretold it him; and sent
Hermes—the
keen-eyed Argicide—to warn him—
‘Slay
not the husband, and wed not the wife!
For
vengeance-shall-come from-Orestes, son of Atreus, 40
When
grown a man he-shall-yearn for his own land.’
Thus Hermes spake: but-Ægisthus’ will he
turned not,
Tho’ kindly
wise; who now has paid for all!”
Bigge-Wither is,
so far as I can tell, among the first to hope that his English will be
sufficiently similar to the Greek so that people will think of the Greek as
they read the translation:
The aim of this translation is to be literal. In many passages it is almost line for line, and
even word for word with the original; so that to persons
well acquainted with
the Greek this version will readily suggest the very words of the divine old bard himself.
This very odd notion, which has come into vogue in
recent years in an even more pronounced manner, leaves one wondering why anyone
who wished to be reminded of the Greek does not just read Homer in Greek rather
than putting up with various unidiomatic oddities in the
English. Perhaps it is with this purpose in mind that Bigge-Wither makes such an idiosyncratic use of hyphens:
Where three syllables are intended to form one foot they are connected
by hyphens, and the stress is always on the last syllable . . . In some instances the hyphens are omitted or misplaced: the reader
will easily discover where this is so.
In keeping
with a great many Victorian (and later) translators, Bigge-Wither
looks to the poetic styles of the past to define his verse form and diction:
In order to be free to
render that text literally, the translator has
chosen the most elastic of English metres—the accentuated dramatic, in which,
though the accents are only five in each line, the syllables vary from ten to
sixteen. . . . For diction the translator has taken as
his models—Shakespeare—Milton—and above all the authorized version of the
Bible.”
Readers who
would like to see the full translation should use the following link: Bigge-Wither Odyssey
For a contemporary review of Bigge-Wither’s
translation, use the following links: Saturday
Review, Volume 28 (1869).
[List
of Published English Translations of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey]