Tell me, Muse, of that man of many resources,
who wandered far and wide, after sacking the holy citadel of Troy. Many
the men whose cities he saw, whose ways he learned. Many the sorrows he
suffered at sea, while trying to bring himself and his
friends back alive. Yet despite his wishes he failed to save them, because of
their own un-wisdom, foolishly eating the cattle of
Helios, the Sun, so the god denied them their return. Tell us of these
things, beginning where you will, Goddess, Daughter of Zeus.
Now, all the others, who had escaped destruction, had reached their homes, and
were free of sea and war. He alone, longing for wife and home, Calypso,
the Nymph, kept in her echoing cavern, desiring him for a husband. Not even
when the changing seasons brought the year the gods had chosen for his return
to Ithaca was he free from
danger, and among friends. Yet all the gods pitied him, except Poseidon,
who continued his relentless anger against godlike Odysseus until he reached his own land at last.
Bk I:22-43 Zeus speaks to the Olympians.
Now, though, Poseidon was visiting the distant Ethiopians,
the most remote of all, a divided people, some of whom live where Hyperion sets the others where he rises, to
accept a hetacomb of sacrificial bulls and rams, and
there he sat, enjoying the feast: but the rest of the gods had gathered in the
halls of Olympian Zeus.
The Father of gods and men was first to address them, for he was thinking of
flawless Aegisthus, whom far-famed Orestes, Agamemnon’s
son had killed. And, thinking of him, he spoke to the immortals.
‘How surprising that men blame the gods, and say their
troubles come from us, though they, through their own un-wisdom, find suffering
beyond what is fated. Just as Aegisthus, beyond what was fated, took the
wife of Agamemnon, son of Atreus, and murdered him when he returned,
though he knew the end would be a complete disaster, since we sent Hermes,
keen-eyed slayer of Argus, to warn him not to kill the man, or court his
wife, as Orestes would
avenge Agamemnon, once he reached manhood and longed for his own land. So
Hermes told him, but despite his kind intent he could not move Aegisthus’
heart: and Aegisthus has paid the price now for it all.’
Klein’s translation is fast, accurate, clear,
and direct. His prose keeps the reader
moving very quickly through the narrative, perhaps too quickly in some
places. The text contains links to an
index (indicated in the sample by the underlined words). The links are somewhat distracting at first,
but one gets used to them, and this feature is very useful for anyone seeking
to trace the frequency of a name in the entire text (a handy research
tool). This translation is an excellent
addition to Homer on the internet and will be of particular interest to teachers
seeking to put together selections of the poem for their students or anyone who
wishes to do a quick search of the poem for specific details (especially since
the translator has put the text into the public domain for all non-commercial
use). A printed version of the
translation is now available (at Amazon).
For the complete Kline translation, please use
the following link: Kline Odyssey.
[Published
English Translations of Homer’s Iliad
and Odyssey]