The Odyssey of Homer
Translated into English Blank Verse
by William Cullen Bryant
Boston 1871
[Sample
from the Opening of the Poem]
THE
ODYSSEY.
BOOK I.
TELL me, O Muse, of
that sagacious man
Who, having overthrown the sacred town
Of Ilium, wandered far and visited
The capitals of many nations, learned
The customs of their dwellers, and endured 5
Great suffering on the deep; his life was oft
In peril, as he labored to bring back
His comrades to their homes. He saved them not,
Though earnestly he strove; they perished all,
Through their own folly; for they banqueted, 10
Madmen! upon the oxen of the Sun,—
The all-o’erlooking Sun, who cut them off
From their return. O goddess, virgin-child
Of Jove, relate some part of this to me.
Now all the rest, as many as escaped 15
The cruel doom of death, were at their homes
Safe from the perils of the war and sea,
While him alone, who pined to see his home
And wife again, Calypso, queenly nymph,
Great among goddesses, detained within 20
Her spacious grot, in hope that he might yet
Become her husband. Even when the years
Brought round the time in which the gods decreed
That he should reach again his dwelling-place
In Ithaca, though he was with his friends, 25
His toils were not yet ended. Of the gods
All pitied him save Neptune, who pursued
With wrath implacable the godlike chief,
Ulysses, even to his native land.
Among the Ethiopians was the god 30
Far off,—the Ethiopians most
remote
Of men. Two tribes there are; one dwells beneath
The rising, one beneath the setting sun.
He went to grace a hecatomb of beeves
And lambs, and sat delighted
at the feast; 35
While in the palace of Olympian Jove
The other gods assembled, and to them
The father of immortals and of men
Was speaking. To his mind arose the thought
Of that
Ægisthus whom the famous son 40
Of Agamemnon, prince Orestes, slew.
Of him he thought, and thus bespake the gods:—
“How strange it is that mortals blame the gods
And say that we inflict the ills they bear,
When they, by their own folly and against 45
The will of fate, bring sorrow on themselves!
As late Ægisthus,
unconstrained by fate,
Married the queen of Atreus’ son and slew
The husband just returned from war. Yet well
He knew the bitter penalty, for we 50
Warned him. We sent the herald Argicide,
Bidding him neither slay the chief nor woo
His queen, for that Orestes, when he came
To manhood and might claim his heritage,
Would take due vengeance for Atrides
slain. 55
So Hermes said; his prudent words moved not
The purpose of Ægisthus, who now pays
The forfeit of his many crimes at once.”
REVIEW COMMENT
Bryant in this translation follows the principles he
set down in the Preface to his translation of the Iliad, and, like that poem, his verse here is faithful, clear, fast
paced, and for the most part colloquial.
This is certainly one of the more successful translations of the Odyssey
in the nineteenth century, and
it still reads well.
Readers who would like
to see the full text of Bryant’s translations of the Odyssey should use the following link: Bryant
Odyssey.
For a contemporary review
of Bryant’s translation, please use the following link: The
National Quarterly Review, Volume 25 (1872).