Homer
The Odyssey;
or
The Ten Years’ Wandering of Odusseus
After the Ten Years’ Siege of Troy
Reproduced in Dramatic Blank
Verse
T. S. Norgate
Edinburgh 1863
[Sample from the Opening of
the Poem]
THE ODYSSEY OF HOMER
SYNOPSIS OF THE POEM.
“I
told him how that after many troubles
And
losing all his comrades, he himself,
In
the twentieth year,—unknown to everyone,—
Should
reach his home: and now at last all this
Is
on accomplishment.” BOOK
ii. 174-178
ARGUMENT OF THE FIRST BOOK. A
An assembly
of the gods is held, on the subject of sending Odusseus
home to Ithaca from the island of Calypso, where he has been detained about
seven years. Accordingly, Athênè,
the goddess of wisdom, under the form of Mentês, lord
of the Taphians, goes down to Ithaca,—engages
Telemachus, Odusseus’ son, in coversation,
and exhorts him to set out in search of his father, first to Nestor, king of Pylos,
and then to Menelaüs, king of Sparta. After
giving him clear instructions, she departs. The suitors’ banquet and
revels are set forth.
ALPHA:
the assembly of the gods: Athênè
Visits Telemachus, and gives him Courage,
And Wisdom for his guide: the suitor’s revels.
______
The travelled Man of many a turn,—driven far,
Far wandering, when he had
sacked Troy’s sacred Town;
Tell me, O Muse, his tale;
how too he conned
The manners of mankind, and
visited
Full many a City, and how on
the deep he suffered
Many a heart-pang, striving
to secure
5 His
own and comrades’ lives and safe
return,
Yet them he rescued not, howe’er desirous;
For by their own blind folly
they all perished:
Fools that they were! to
eat the Sun-god’s herds;
So, Hyperion, he who Walks
above,
Bereft them of their day of
home-return!
Whereof, from whatsoever
source, O goddess,
10 Daughter
of Zeus, vouchsafe to tell e’en Us!—
Already now at home were all the others
Who safe through war and sea
had scaped hard death.
Yearning for home-return and
wife, This Man
Was alone stayed by a Nymph
to hollow caves
Lady Calypso, fair of
goddesses,
15 Longing
for him to abide and be her
lord.
But when at length the years
had run their rounds,
And the time came,
predestined by the gods
For his return to Ithaca and
home,
No, not e’en
then was he released from troubles,
E’en
when amongst his friends: the gods indeed
Were all, all save Poseidon,
pitying him;
20 While
He with wrath relentlessly pursued
Godlike Odusseus
e’en to his own dear land.
Gone was Poseidon now howe’er to visit
The far off Æthiopians: (outermost
Of men the Æthiopians, and asunder
In twain divided,—to
the setting sun
25 Are these, while others dwell
towards the rising:)
To accept a hecatomb of bulls
and rams
Gone was he thither; and at
feast and merry
There was he sitting. The
other gods meanwhile
Were in Olympian Jove’s high
court assembled;
When thus began the sire of
men and gods;
For thinking was he of blemishless Ægisthus,
30 Whom Agamemnon’s far-famed son Orestès
Had put to death; and Zeus
remembering this
Spake
thus among the Deathless ones: “O Strange!
‘What blame those mortals
cast upon us gods!
‘They say that ills come
forth from Us, while They,
‘By their own impious folly,
undergo
‘Ills beyond those of
Fate. As
now, forsooth,
35 ‘Quite beyond Fate, Ægisthus wooed and married
‘Atreidès’
wedded wife, and slew Atreidès
‘On his returning home: the
murderer knew
‘Sheer death o’erhanging him, for we forewarned him
‘And sent the keen-eyed
Argus-killer, Hermès,
‘With warning not to murder
Agamemnon
‘Nor woo his wife: for, for Atreidès’ death
40 ‘Sure vengeance should
there be from prince Orestès,
‘Whene’er should He have come
to man’s estate
‘And yearn to obtain his own
inheritance.
‘Such was the word of Hermès:
kindly-minded,
‘He yet persuaded not Ægisthus’ heart,
‘Who therefore now has paid
full penalties.”
Norgate’s is surely
one of the odder Victorian attempts to render Homer’s Greek into English—a
quality symbolized by the curious paraphernalia at the start of the book and by
his decision to spell the hero’s name Odusseus. He
also includes the line numbers of the Greek text rather than of his own verse
and places them to the left of the text. A
quick reading of a few lines raises some serious questions about Norgate’s command of acceptably idiomatic English, even
given the tradition of translating Homer into very odd-sounding
English. Enough said.
To access the
full text of Norgate’s translation, please use the
following link: Norgate Odyssey.
For a
contemporary review of Norgate’s Odyssey, use the following links: The
Home and Foreign Review (1863); London
Review of Politics, Literature, Art, & Science, Vol. 6 (1863); The
Museum (1864)
[List of
Published English Translations of Homer’s Iliad
and Odyssey]