Homer
The Anger of Achilles
Homer’s Iliad
translated by Robert Graves
London, 1960

 [Sample from the Opening of the Poem]
 
BOOK I
THE QUARREL
 
INVOCATION OF THE MUSE

                  Sing, MOUNTAIN GODDESS, sing through me
                  That anger which most ruinously
                  Inflamed Achilles, Peleus’ son,
                  And which, before the tale was done,
                  Had glutted Hell with champions—bold, 
                  Stern spirits by the thousandfold;
                  Ravens and dogs their corpses ate.
                  For thus did ZEUS, who watched their fate,
                  See his resolve, first taken when
                  Proud Agamemnon, King of men,
                  An insult on Achilles cast,
                  Achieve accomplishment at last.

   You wish to know which of the gods originated the quarrel between these Greek princes, and how this happened?  I can tell you: it was Phoebus Apollo, the son of Almighty Zeus and Leto the Fair-Haired, who sent a fearful pestilence among the Greeks, by way of punishing Agamemnon their High King.  The trouble began with Agamemnon’s insult of Apollo’s priest Chryses, when he came to the Greek camp before Troy, armed with the Archer-god’s sacred woollen headband bound on a golden wand.  He was offering a remarkably high ransom for his daughter Chryseis, whom the Greeks held as a prisoner of war.
   In an address to the entire army, but especially their two leaders, Agamemnon and his brother Menelaus, Chryses said: ‘Royal sons of Atreus, and all you other distinguished warriors!  I sincerely pray that the Olympians will permit you to sack King Priam’s citadel yonder, and to sail safe home: but only if you honour Zeus’ son Apollo, whom I serve, by setting my daughter free.’
    The men uttered a generous roar of approval, yet Agamemnon sent Chrses about his business.  ‘Let me catch you here again, old man,’ he shouted, ‘among these ships of war, either now or later, and no wand nor priestly headband will protect you!  Understand this: I shall never release Chryseis.  She must spend her life as a royal concubine and weaver of tapestries in my palace at distant Argos.  Begone, and not another word, or you can expect the worst!’
   The venerable Chryses, scared into obedience, walked silently away beside the rough sea, until he found himself alone.  He then offered a prayer to Apollo:

                    ‘God with the bow of silver,
                      You that take your stand
                    At Chryse and holy Cilla,
                      Protector of our land,
                    Great Lord of Mice, whose sceptre
                      Holds Tenedos in fee:
                    Listen to my petition,
                      Consider well my plea!
                    ‘If ever I built a temple
                      Agreeable to your eyes,
                    Or cut from goats or bullocks
                      The fat about their thighs,
                    ‘To burn as a costly offering
                      At KING APOLLO’S shrine:
                    Let the Greeks pay with your arrows
                      These burning tears of mine!’

   Phoebus Apollo heard Chryses’ prayer, and his face grew darker than night.  Shouldering the silver bow, he hurried down from Olympus.  The arrows rattled in their quiver as he alighted at some distance from the ships, and his bow clanged dreadfully when he let fly.  His first victims were mules and hounds; next, he shot their masters, whose pures were presently seen burning everywhere.

REVIEW COMMENT

In his introduction Graves claims to be following the example of ancient Irish and Welsh bards by “as it were, taking up my harp and singing only where the prose will not suffice.”  This procedure, he claims, “avoids the pitfalls of either an all-prose or an all-verse translation, and restores something of the Iliad’s value as mixed entertainment.”  The intention is, in theory, interesting; however, the practice has its problems, mainly because Graves’S verse is (as in the sample above) too often mere doggerel which contributes nothing to the poetic quality of the lines. His prose is colloquial, even breezy at times, and for all its welcome rejection of thoroughly artifical ageing, tends to ride roughshod over interesting complexities in the Greek (as in his “rough sea” above for the evocative polufloisboio in Homer’s text).  In his introduction Graves suggests that the Iliad was intended as a satire, without a serious purpose (other than to offer amusing entertainment), a provocative suggestion that has not, so far as I can tell, elicited much interest from readers of Homer.

List of Published Englist Translations of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey