Homer’s
Iliad
Book I, II, III
Literally Translated
With Exegetical Notes
and An Introductory Essay
on the
Peculiarities of the Homeric Dialect
By Charles W. Bateman
Dublin 1862
[Selection
from the Opening of the poem]
1. Goddess, sing the destroying
wrath of Achilles, Peleus’ son, which brought woes unnumbered on the Achaeans,
and sent down to Hades many brave spirits of heroes while it consigned their corses a prey to
the dogs, and to all manner of birds—and thus
the will of Zeus was being fulfilled—from what time Atreides,
Lord of men, and godlike Achilles, having quarrelled, were first divided.
8. And who, then of the
gods incited these two in strife to engage? The son of Leto and Zeus, For he, bitterly offended with the king, sent forth a fell
plague on the host, and his people
were perishing, for that Atreides had dishonoured Chryses, his priest;
for he had come to the fleet barks of the Achaeans to release his daughter,
bearing also boundless ransom, and holding in his hands the fillets of Apollo,
the Far-darter, on his golden staff. And then besought he all the Achaeans, but
the two Atreidae in chief, the arrayers
of the host.
17. “O ye Atreidae, and ye other well-greaved
Achaeans! To you, may the Gods, dwelling in Olympian mansions, grant to destroy
utterly Priam’s city, and safely to return home, but release ye me my dear
daughter and receive ye the ransom, revering the son of Zeus, Apollo, the Far-darter.”
22. On this all the other
Achaeans shouted approval that the priest be revered, and the brilliant ransom
received; yet it pleased to the soul of Agamemnon Atreides,
but he sent him forth rudely and imposed this
harsh mandate.
26. “Old man, see that I find thee not at the hollow
ships, either dallying now, or hereafter coming again, lest haply the staff and
wreath of the God avail thee not. Her shall I not release; old age shall come
on her first, in our home in Argos, plying the loom, and preparing my couch.
But go! Incense me not, that thou mayst depart the safer.”
33. Thus spake he; and the old man feared, and obeyed his mandate.
And silently went he along the shore of the loud-roaring deep, and then, going
afar off, the aged priest prayed oft
to king Apollo, whom Leto, the fair haired, brought forth.
37. “Hear me, thou god of
the silver bow, who protectest Chrysa
and the goodly Killa, and who rulest
with might o’er Tenedos; thou god of Smynthe, if e’er I have crowned thy beauteous shrine, or if e’er to thee I have burned down the fat thighs of bulls and
goats, accomplish this my prayer. May the Danai expiate my tears by thy shafts.”
[This selection omits the
various accents Bateman uses in some of the names and the Greek words from
Homer’s text he occasionally inserts into the English text. It also does not
indicate the footnotes.]
REVIEW COMMENT
The above selection is
from Volume 1. Bateman advertises in this volume a soon-to-be-available Volume
2 (Books I to VIII) and a Volume 4 (Books IX and XVIII). I’m not sure what
happened to Volume 3. It appears that R. Mongan
translated the rest in this series, Kelly’s
Key to the Classics (i.e., Books IX to XXIV), and the combined work was published
in 1881.
Bateman obviously wishes
to provide the reader a usefully detailed introduction to Homeric Greek in his
introduction and in his frequent and generous footnotes and, equally clearly,
has little regard for the quality of the English prose in his translation,
other than scrupulous fidelity to Homer’s Greek. His text, consequently, is of
considerable interest to the student of Homeric Greek, but not one that a
person seeking a fluent English translation will find very appealing.
For a look at Bateman’s
Volume I, please use the following link: Bateman
Iliad, Volume 1.
[List of
Published English Translations of Homer’s Iliad
and Odyssey]