The Iliad
translated by Edward McCrorie
(Johns Hopkins Press, 2012)

 

Sample lines from Book I

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

♦   Sing of rage, Goddess, that bane of Akhilleus,

♦   Peleus’ son, which caused untold pain for Akhaians,

♦   sent down throngs of powerful spirits to Aides,

war-chiefs rendered the prize of dogs and every

♦   sort of bird. So the plan of Zeus was accomplished

                   right from the start when two men parted in anger—

                   Atreus’ son, ruler of men, and godlike Akhilleus.

 

                   Which of the Gods brought these two into conflict?

♦  Phoibos, the son of Leto and Zeus, enraged at that ruler,

10               roused a mauling plague in the camp. Warriors perished

                   due to Atreus’ son mistreating the God’s priest:

                   Khruses had gone to the race-fast chips of the Greek force

♦  carrying boundless wealth to ransom his daughter.

                   Holding headbands of Far-shooting Apollo

                   high on a golden staff, he’d begged all the Akhaians,

                   mainly the sons of Atreus, who’d marshaled the whole corps:

♦  “Sons of Atreus, you other well-greaved Akhaians,

♦  may the Gods who have their homes on Olumpos

♦  grant you destroy Priam’s town and safely return home.

20              Free the child I love, though. Welcome my ransom,

Fearing the son of Zeus, Far-shooting Apollo.”
Promptly all the other Akhaians acclaimed him,
urging regard for the priest and his marvelous ransom.

 

Yet the heart of Atreus’ son, Agamemnon, was not pleased.

Sending him off roughly, he weighed him with strong words:

♦  “Let me not find you, old man, stopped by the hollow

                   ships for now or coming around here later,

                   lest your God’s headbands and staff will not help you.

                   I won’t free her. Aging will come on her sooner

30         ♦    living in Argos, our house, far from her homeland.

           ♦    There she can shuttle at looms and come to her lord’s bed.

           ♦    Leave now, go home safely, don’t be annoying.”

After he stopped, the old one, trembling, obeyed him.    
Soon he had quietly walked the noisy shore of the salt sea.
Once he had gone apart, the old one prayed to his lordly
Phoibos Apollo, the son of lovely haired Leto.
“You of the Silver Bow, listen! You guard well

              ♦    Khruse and sacred Killa, you rule Tenedos strongly.

              ♦    If I ever roofed a temple that graced you,

40         ♦    if I ever burned for you, Smintheus, fat-rich

                   bulls’ and goats’ thighs, act on my longing.

                   Make the Greeks pay for my tears with your arrows.”

 

                   As he prayed, Phoibos Apollo had listened.

                   Down he came from Olumpos’ heights heartily angry,

                   holding his bow, the quiver capped on a shoulder.

                   Arrows clattered along the back of the angry

                   God as he came, and he came resembling a black night.

                   Sitting away from ships, he sent off an arrow,

                   twanging the silver bow with a frightening loudness.

50              Mules were attacked at first, and dogs as they ran by.

Then he shot at men. With each of the piercing
arrows, corpses’ pyre-smoke steadily thickened.

Phoibos’ arrows were aimed at the army for nine days.

 

Review Comment

These comments are based on the material in the preview available at the following web address (i.e., on a very short sample of the total translation:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Iliad-Hopkins-Translations-Antiquity/dp/142140642X

McCrorie’s translation seems to have a number of interesting but rather odd features (many carried over from his translation of the Odyssey), including the cover (a photograph of Mohammad Ali), the black diamond symbols at the start of lines (to indicate footnotes), and the spelling of the names. But the most immediately significant peculiarity is the diction, which often eschews a direct, compressed clarity in a modern idiom in favour of something which sounds not quite right: “Aging will come on her sooner/ living in Argos,” “Twanging the silver bow with a frightening loudness,” and so on. The result is often a passage which, while clear enough, doesn’t convey an immediate and urgent poetic intensity and which seems to go out of its way to sound rather strange. The effect on the dialogue is particularly noticeable: “Never a prize for me like yours when Akhaians/ plunder a Trojan town crowded with people:/ after the pell-mell rush of a fight where my own hands/ carry the brunt, when time comes for our sharing,/ you have a prize far greater. Holding a little/ thing of my own, I walk to the ships, tired of fighting.” If the point here is, as it seems be, to establish sound patterns reminiscent of the original Greek, the result (to my way of thinking) is unfortunate. For some relevant review comments about McCrorie’s translation of the Odyssey, click here.

For reviews of McCrorie’s Iliad, please use the following links: Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews; Open Letters Monthly.

 

[List of Published English Translations of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey]