Homer's Iliad
A new translation in English Verse

translated by
Sophie Grace Campbell

Sample taken from the opening of Book 9

So the Trojans watched their fires. Meanwhile the Greeks
were gripped by ghostly panic, terror's mate;
their generals overcome by bottomless sorrow.
As north and east wind together stir the depths,
when Boreas and Zephyr, winds from Thrace,
both suddenly arise--then all at once
the dark seas crest, cast wrack along the shores;
so were their spirits shipwrecked in all the Greeks.
And Agamemnon, overcome by pain,
went to and fro, berating all the heralds
telling them to muster all by name
but do it quietly; and he himself joined in.

Then they sat down to council. Agamemnon
stood up to speak, though weeping helpless tears,
weeping as a spring spills its dark waters
down a dripping overhanging cliff-face.
With heart-fetched sobs thus Agamemnon spoke:

"My friends, you lords and leaders of the Greeks,
great Zeus has trapped me in a sad delusion!
A harsh lord he, who promised--nodded assent--
that I would get home having sacked tall Troy.
But now his counsels to me prove deceit.
He tells me I must turn dishonored home,
must write off every soldier's life I lost.
This, it seems, is what mighty Zeus now wills,
Zeus who has broken the skulls of so many cities
and will yet break more; irresistible is his power.
But now you hear my orders; and must do them.
Let's run away in our ships to our dear home.
Our chance to take wide-streeted Troy is gone."

So Agamemnon spoke; but the Greeks were silent.
Minute after minute they said nothing--
Till at last an answer came from Diomedes:

REVIEW COMMENT

Sophie Campbell's "new translation in English verse" appears to be a work in progress, with almost half of Homer's epic translated into modern English.