R. Zaslavsky
Translation Exercise Based on Four Translations1 of Homer, Odyssey, XI, 1-137
Take one sheet of paper and divide it into four columns. At the top of each column,
put the name of one of the four translators.
Read one translation (but not the one by Pound) and highlight what you regard as the
(at least) twenty important words and/or phrases.
Then, using the Lattimore translation as your line number standard, list those words
and/or phrases that you have highlighted in line number order.
In the other three columns, list the corresponding words and/or phrases from the
other three translations.
This will give you a set of equivalent translated words and/or phrases.
Select at least ten of these and explain in each case how the different translations
would alter your understanding of the text. Be brief and to the point.
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The four translations are by (1) Richmond Lattimore, (2) T. E. Shaw, (3) Robert Fitzgerald, and (4) Ezra
Pound. They are on the pages following this assignment page.
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(1) Homer, Odyssey, XI. 1-137, tr. Richmond Lattimore
Now when we had gone down again to the sea and our vessel,
first of all we dragged the ship down into the bright water,
and in the black hull set the mast in place, and set sails,
and took the sheep and walked them aboard, and ourselves also
embarked, but sorrowful, and weeping big tears. Circe
of the lovely hair, the dread goddess who talks with mortals,
sent us an excellent companion, a following wind, filling
the sails, to carry from astern the ship with the dark prow.
We ourselves, over all the ship making fast the running gear,
sat still, and let the wind and the steersman hold her steady.
All day long her sails were filled as she went through the water,
and the sun set, and all the journeying-ways were darkened.
‘She made the limit, which is of deep-running Ocean.
There lie the community and city of Kimmerian people,
hidden in fog and cloud, nor does Helios, the radiant
sun, ever break through the dark, to illuminate them with his shining,
neither when he climbs up into the starry heaven,
nor when he wheels to return again from heaven to earth,
but always a glum night is spread over wretched mortals.
Making this point, we ran the ship ashore, and took out
the sheep, and ourselves walked along by the stream of the Ocean
until we came to that place of which Circe had spoken.
‘There Perimedes and Eurylochos held the victims
fast, and I, drawing from beside my thigh my sharp sword,
dug a pit, of about a cubit in each direction,
and poured it full of drink offerings for all the dead, first
honey mixed with milk, and the second pouring was sweet wine,
and the third, water, and over it all I sprinkled white barley.
I promised many times to the strengthless heads of the perished
dead that, returning to Ithaka, I would slaughter a barren
cow, my best, in my palace, and pile the pyre with treasures,
and to Teiresias apart would dedicate an all-black
ram, the one conspicuous in all our sheep flocks.
Now when, with sacrifices and prayers, I had so entreated
the hordes of the dead, I took the sheep and cut their throats
over the pit, and the dark-clouding blood ran in, and the souls
of the perished dead gathered to the place, up out of Erebos,
brides, and young unmarried men, and long-suffering elders,
virgins, tender and with the sorrows of young hearts upon them,
and many fighting men killed in battle, stabbed with brazen
spears, still carrying their bloody armor upon them.
These came swarming around my pit from every direction
with inhuman clamor, and green fear took hold of me.
Then I encouraged my companions and told them, taking
the sheep that were lying by, slaughtered with the pitiless
bronze, to skin these, and burn them, and pray to the divinities,
to Hades the powerful, and to revered Persephone,
while I myself, drawing from beside my thigh my sharp sword,
crouched there, and would not let the strengthless heads of the perished
dead draw nearer to the blood, until I had questioned Teiresias.
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‘But first there came the soul of my companion Elpenor,
for he had not yet been buried under earth of the wide ways,
since we had left his body behind in Circe’s palace,
unburied and unwept, with this other errand before us.
I broke into tears at the sight of him, and my heart pitied him,
and so I spoke aloud to him and addressed him in winged words:
“Elpenor, how did you come here beneath the fog and the darkness?
You have come faster on foot than I could in my black ship.”
‘So I spoke, and he groaned aloud and spoke and answered:
“Son of Laertes and seed of Zeus, resourceful Odysseus,
the evil will of the spirit and the wild wine bewildered me.
I lay down on the roof of Circe’s palace, and never thought,
when I went down, to go by way of the long ladder,
but blundered straight off the edge of the roof, so that my neck bone
was broken out of its sockets, and my soul went down to Hades’.
But now I pray you, by those you have yet to see, who are not here,
by your wife, and by your father, who reared you when you were little,
and by Telemachos whom you left alone in your palace;
for I know that after you leave this place and the house of Hades
you will put back with your well-made ship to the island Aiaia;
there at that time, my lord, I ask that you remember me,
and do not go and leave me behind unwept, unburied,
when you leave, for fear I might become the gods’ curse upon you;
but burn me there with all my armor that belongs to me,
and heap up a grave mound beside the beach of the gray sea,
for an unhappy man, so that those to come will know of me.
Do this for me, and on top of the grave mound plant the oar
with which I rowed when I was alive and among my companions.”
‘So he spoke, and I in turn spoke to him in answer:
“All this, my unhappy friend, I will do for you as you ask me.”
‘So we two stayed there exchanging our sad words, I on
one side holding my sword over the blood, while opposite
me the phantom of my companion talked long with me.
‘Next there came to me the soul of my dead mother,
Antikleia, daughter of great-hearted Autolykos,
whom I had left alive when I went to sacred Ilion.
I broke into tears at the sight of her and my heart pitied her,
but even so, for all my thronging sorrow, I would not
let her draw near the blood until I had questioned Teiresias.
‘Now came the soul of Teiresias the Theban, holding
a staff of gold, and he knew who I was, and spoke to me:
“Son of Laertes and seed of Zeus, resourceful Odysseus,
how is it then, unhappy man, you have left the sunlight
and come here, to look on dead men, and this place without pleasure?
Now draw back from the pit, and hold your sharp sword away from me,
so that I can drink of the blood and speak the truth to you.”
‘So he spoke, and I, holding away the sword with the silver
nails, pushed it back in the sheath, and the flawless prophet,
after he had drunk the blood, began speaking to me.
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“Glorious Odysseus, what you are after is sweet homecoming,
but the god will make it hard for you. I think you will not
escape the Shaker of the Earth, who holds a grudge against you
in his heart, and because you blinded his dear son, hates you.
But even so and still you might come back, after much suffering,
if you can contain your own desire, and contain your companions’,
at that time when you first put in your well-made vessel
at the island Thrinakia, escaping the sea’s blue water,
and there discover pasturing the cattle and fat sheep
of Helios, who sees all things, and listens to all things.
Then, if you keep your mind on homecoming, and leave these unharmed,
you might all make your way to Ithaka, after much suffering;
but if you do harm them, then I testify to the destruction
of your ship and your companions, but if you yourself get clear,
you will come home in bad case, with the loss of all your companions,
in someone else’s ship, and find troubles in your household,
insolent men, who are eating away your livelihood
and courting your godlike wife and offering gifts to win her.
You may punish the violences of these men, when you come home.
But after you have killed these suitors in your own palace,
either by treachery, or openly with the sharp bronze,
then you must take up your well-shaped oar and go on a journey
until you come where there are men living who know nothing
of the sea, and who eat food that is not mixed with salt, who never
have known ships whose cheeks are painted purple, who never
have known well-shaped oars, which act for ships as wings do.
And I will tell you a very clear proof, and you cannot miss it.
When, as you walk, some other wayfarer happens to meet you,
and says you carry a winnow-fan on your bright shoulder,
then you must plant your well-shaped oar in the ground, and render
ceremonies sacrifice to the lord Poseidon,
one ram and one bull, and a mounter of sows, a boar pig,
and make your way home again and render holy hecatombs
to the immortal gods who hold the wide heaven, all
of them in order. Death will come to you from the sea, in
some altogether unwarlike way, and it will end you
in the ebbing time of a sleek old age. Your people
about you will be prosperous. All this is true that I tell you.”
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(2) Homer, Odyssey, XI. 1-137, tr. T. E. Shaw [= T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia)]
“At length we were at the shore where lay the ship. Promptly we launched her into the
divine sea, stepped the mast, made sail and went: not forgetting the sheep, though our
hearts were very low and big tears rained down from our eyes. Behind the dark-prowed
vessel came a favourable wind, our welcomed way-fellow, whom we owed to Circe, the
kind-spoken yet awesome Goddess: so when each man had done his duty by the ship we
could sit and watch the wind and the helmsman lead us forward, day-long going steadily
across the deep, our sails cracking full, till sundown and its darkness covered the sea’s
illimitable ways. We had attained Earth’s verge and its girdling river of Ocean, where are
the cloud-wrapped and misty confines of the Cimmerian men. For them no flashing SunGod shines down a living light, not in the morning when he climbs through the starry sky,
nor yet at day’s end when he rolls down from heaven behind the land. Instead an endless
deathful night is spread over its melancholy people.
“We beached the ship on that shore and put off our sheep. With them we made our way
up the strand of Ocean till we came to the spot which Circe had described. There Perimedes
and Eurylochus held the victims while I drew the keen blade from my hip, to hollow that
trench of a cubit square and a cubit deep. About it I poured the drink-offerings to the
congregation of the dead, a honey-and-milk draught first, sweet wine next, with water last
of all: and I made a heave-offering of our glistening barley; invoking the tenuous dead, in
general, for my intention of a heifer-not-in-calf, the best to be found in my manors when I
got back to Ithaca; which should be slain to them and burnt there on a pyre fed high with
treasure: while for Teiresias apart I vowed an all-black ram, the choicest male out of our
flocks.
“After I had been thus instant in prayer to the populations of the grave I took the two
sheep and beheaded them across my pit in such manner that the livid blood drained into it.
Then from out of Erebus they flocked to me, the dead spirits of those who had died. Brides
came and lads; old men and men of sad experience; tender girls aching from their first
agony; and many fighting men showing the stabbed wounds of brazen spears---warvictims, still in their blooded arms. All thronged to the trench and ranged restlessly this side
of it and that with an eerie wailing. Pale fear gripped me. Hastily I called the others and
bade them flay and burn with fire the sheep’s bodies which lay there, slaughtered by my
pitiless sword. They obeyed, conjuring without cease the Gods, great Hades and terrible
Persephone, while I sat over the pit holding out my sharp weapon to forbid and prevent this
shambling legion of the dead from approaching the blood till I had had my answer from
Teiresias.
“The first I knew was the spirit of my fellow, Elpenor, whose body was not yet interred
under the ample ground. We had left him unwept and unburied in the halls of Circe, for
that these other labours came upon us urgently. When I saw him I had compassion and
sharply cried across to him: ‘Elpenor, how come you here into the gloomy shades? Your feet
have been quicker than my ship.’ He in a thin wail answered me: ‘Son of Laertes, ready
Odysseus, the harsh verdict of some God sealed my doom, together with my own
unspeakable excess in wine. I had lain down on Circe’s housetop to sleep off this
drunkenness, but awoke still too confused to descend from the roof by the long ladder.
Instead I plunged headlong over the parapet and broke my neck-bone in its socket: hence
my spirit has come down here to Hades. Yet I implore you, my Lord, I adjure you by those
left behind, those not among us---by your wife and by the father who cared for you when
you were a little child, as by Telemachus, the babe you had to leave in your house alone--do not abandon me unwept and unburied, lest I be the pawn to bring upon you God’s
wrath: but consume my body in fire, with those arms and armour which remain mine, and
heap over the ashes a mound at the edge of the sea where the surf breaks white, for a token
telling of an unhappy man to after-time; and when the rites are completed fix above my
mound the oar that in life I pulled among my fellows.’
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 This is a prose translation without the line numbers indicated in its published form. I have added the line numbers
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“Thus he said and I promised him: ‘Luckless one, all these things will I see done, exactly.’
So we two sat there, exchanging regrets, I with my sword held out stiffly across the bloodpool and the wraith of my follower beyond it, telling his tale. Then advanced the spirit of
my mother who had died, even Anticleia, daughter of kindly Autolycus. I had left her alive
when I started for the sacred city of Ilios, so now the sight of her melted my heart and made
me weep with quick pain. Nevertheless I would not let her near to touch the blood, for I
awaited Teiresias to speak with me. And at last he came, the spirit of Theban Teiresias, gold
sceptre in hand. He knew me and said, ‘Heaven-born Odysseus, what now? O son of
misfortune, why leave the lambent sunshine for this joyless place where only the dead are to
be seen? Stand off from the pit and put up your threatening sword that I may drink blood
and declare to you words of truth.’ So he said and I stepped back, thrusting my silver-hilted
sword home into its scabbard: while he drank of the blackening blood. Then did the
blameless seer begin to say:--“‘You come here, renowned Odysseus, in quest of a comfortable way home. I tell you the
God will make your way hard. I tell you that your movements will not remain secret from
the Earth-shaker, whose heart is bitter against you for the hurt you did him in blinding the
Cyclops, his loved son. Yet have you a chance of surviving to reach Ithaca, despite all
obstacles, if you and your followers can master your greed in the island of Thrinacia, when
your ship first puts in there for refuge from the lowering sea. For in that island you will find
at pasture the oxen and wonderful sheep of Helios our Sun, who oversees and overhears all
things. If you are so preoccupied about returning as to leave these beasts unhurt, then you
may get back to Ithaca, very toil-worn, after all: but if you meddle with them, then I certify
the doom of your men and your ship; and though yourself may escape alive, it will not be
till after many days, in a ship of strangers, alone and in sorry plight, that you win back,
having suffered the loss of all your company: while in your house you shall find trouble
awaiting you, even overbearing men who devour your substance on pretext of courting
your worshipful wife and chaffering about her marriage dues. Yet at your coming shall you
visit their violence upon them, fatally. After you have killed these suitors, either by cunning
within the house or publicly with the stark sword, then go forth under your shapely oar till
you come to a people who know not the sea and eat their victuals unsavoured with its salt: a
people ignorant of purple-prowed ships and of the smoothed and shaven oars which are the
wings of a ship’s flying. I give you this token of them, a sign so plain that you cannot miss
it: you have arrived when another wayfarer shall cross you and say that on your doughty
shoulder you bear the scatterer of haulms, a winnowing-fan. Then pitch in the earth your
polished oar and sacrifice goodly beasts to King Poseidon, a ram and a bull and a ramping
boar. Afterward turn back; and at home offer hecatombs to the Immortal Gods who possess
the broad planes of heaven: to all of them in order, as is most seemly. At the last, amidst a
happy folk, shall your own death come to you, softly, far from the salt sea, and make an end
of one utterly weary of slipping downward into old age. All these things that I relate are
true.’
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R. Zaslavsky
(3) Homer, Odyssey, I. 1-137, tr. Robert Fitzgerald
We bore down on the ship at the sea’s edge
and launched her on the salt immortal sea,
stepping our mast and spar in the black ship;
embarked the ram and ewe and went aboard
in tears, with bitter and sore dread upon us.
But now a breeze came up for us astern——
a canvas-bellying landbreeze, hale shipmate
sent by the singing nymph with sun-bright hair;
so we made fast the braces, took our thwarts,
and let the wind and steersman work the ship
with full sail spread all day above our coursing,
till the sun dipped, and all the ways grew dark
upon the fathomless unresting sea.
By night
our ship ran onward toward the Ocean’s bourne,
the realm and region of the Men of Winter,
hidden in mist and cloud. Never the flaming
eye of Hêlios lights on those men
at morning, when he climbs the sky of stars,
nor in descending earthward out of heaven;
ruinous night being rove over those wretches.
We made the land, put ram and ewe ashore,
and took our way along the Ocean stream
to find the place foretold for us by Kirkê.
There Perimêdês and Eury´lokhos
pinioned the sacred beasts. With my drawn blade
I spaded up the votive pit, and poured
libations round it to the unnumbered dead:
sweet milk and honey, then sweet wine, and last
clear water; and I scattered barley down.
then I addressed the blurred and breathless dead,
vowing to slaughter my best heifer for them
before she calved, at home in Ithaka,
and burn the choice bits on the altar fire;
as for Teirêsias, I swore to sacrifice
a black lamb, handsomest of all our flock.
Thus to assuage the nations of the dead
I pledged these rites, then slashed the lamb and ewe,
letting their black blood stream into the wellpit.
Now the souls gathered, stirring out of Erebos,
brides and young men, and men grown old in pain,
and tender girls whose hearts were new to grief;
many were there, too, torn by brazen lanceheads,
battle-slain, bearing still their bloody gear.
From every side they came and sought the pit
with rustling cries; and I grew sick with fear.
But presently I gave command to my officers
to flay those sheep the bronze cut down, and make
burnt offerings of flesh to the gods below——
to sovereign Death, to pale Perséphonê.
Meanwhile I crouched with my drawn sword to keep
the surging phantoms from the bloody pit
till I should know the presence of Teirêsias.
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One shade came first——Elpênor, of our company,
who lay unburied still on the wide earth
as we had left him——dead in Kirkê’s hall,
untouched, unmourned, when other cares compelled us.
Now when I saw him there I wept for pity
and called out to him:
‘How is this, Elpênor,
how could you journey to the western gloom
swifter afoot than I in the black lugger?’
He sighed, and answered:
‘Son of great Laërtês,
Odysseus, master mariner and soldier,
bad luck shadowed me, and no kindly power;
ignoble death I drank with so much wine.
I slept on Kirkê’s roof, then could not see
the long steep backward ladder, coming down,
and fell that height. My neck bone, buckled under,
snapped, and my spirit found this well of dark.
Now hear the grace I pray for, in the name
of those back in the world, not here——your wife
and father, he who gave you bread in childhood,
and your own child, your only son, Telémakhos,
long ago left at home.
When you make sail
and put these lodgings of dim Death behind,
you will moor ship, I know, upon Aiaia Island;
there, O my lord, remember me, I pray,
do not abandon me unwept, unburied,
to tempt the gods’ wrath, while you sail for home;
but fire my corpse, and all the gear I had,
and build a cairn for me above the breakers——
an unknown sailor’s mark for men to come.
Heap up the mound there, and implant upon it
the oar I pulled in life with my companions.’
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He ceased, and I replied:
‘Unhappy spirit,
I promise you the barrow and the burial.’
So we conversed, and grimly, at a distance,
with my long sword between, guarding the blood,
while the faint image of the lad spoke on.
Now came the soul of Antikleía, dead,
my mother, daughter of Autólykos,
dead now, though living still when I took ship
for holy Troy. Seeing this ghost I grieved,
but held her off, through pang on pang of tears,
till I should know the presence of Teirêsias.
Soon from the dark that prince of Thebes came forward
bearing a golden staff; and he addressed me:
‘Son of Laërtês and the gods of old,
Odysseus, master of land ways and sea ways,
why leave the blazing sun, O man of woe,
to see the cold dead and the joyless region?
Stand clear, put up your sword;
let me but taste of blood, I shall speak true.’
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At this I stepped aside, and in the scabbard
let my long sword ring home to the pommel silver,
as he bent down to the sombre blood. Then spoke
the prince of those with gift of speech:
‘Great captain,
a fair wind and the honey lights of home
are all you seek. But anguish lies ahead;
the god who thunders on the land prepares it,
not to be shaken from your track, implacable,
in rancor for the son whose eye you blinded.
One narrow strait may take you through his blows:
denial of yourself, restraint of shipmates.
When you make landfall on Thrinakia first
and quit the violet sea, dark on the land
you’ll find the grazing herds of Hêlios
by whom all things are seen, all speech is known.
Avoid those kine, hold fast to your intent,
and hard seafaring brings you all to Ithaka.
But if you raid the beeves, I see destruction
for ship and crew. Though you survive alone,
bereft of all companions, lost for years,
under strange sail shall you come home, to find
your own house filled with trouble: insolent men
eating your livestock as they court your lady.
Aye, you shall make those men atone in blood!
But after you have dealt out death——in open
combat or by stealth——to all the suitors,
go overland on foot, and take an oar,
until one day you come where men have lived
with meat unsalted, never known the sea,
nor seen seagoing ships, with crimson bows
and oars that fledge light hulls for dipping flight.
The spot will soon be plain to you, and I
can tell you how: some passerby will say,
“What winnowing fan is that upon your shoulder?”
Halt, and implant your smooth oar in the turf
and make fair sacrifice to Lord Poseidon:
a ram, a bull, a great buck boar; turn back,
and carry out pure hekatombs at home
to all wide heaven’s lords, the undying gods,
to each in order. Then a seaborne death
soft as this hand of mist will come upon you
when you are wearied out with rich old age,
your country folk in blessed peace around you.
And all this shall be just as I foretell.’
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Ezra Pound, Cantos I, beginning
[A poetic translation of the essence of Homer, Odyssey, XI, 1-137]
And then went down to the ship,
Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and
We set up mast and sail on that swart ship,
Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also
Heavy with weeping, and winds from sternward
Bore us out onward with bellying canvas,
Circe’s this craft, the trim-coifed goddess.
Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller,
Thus with stretched sail, we went over sea till day’s end.
Sun to his slumber, shadows o’er all the ocean,
Came we then to the bounds of deepest water,
To the Kimmerian lands, and peopled cities
Covered with close-webbed mist, unpierced ever
With glitter of sun-rays
Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back from heaven
Swartest night stretched over wretched men there.
The ocean flowing backward, came we then to the place
Aforesaid by Circe.
Here did they rites, Perimedes and Eurylochus,
And drawing sword from my hip
I dug the ell-square pitkin;
Poured we libations unto each the dead,
First mead and then sweet wine, water mixed with white flour.
Then prayed I many a prayer to the sickly death’s-heads;
As set in Ithaca, sterile bulls of the best
For sacrifice, heaping the pyre with goods,
A sheep to Tiresias only, black and a bell-sheep.
Dark blood flowed in the fosse,
Souls out of Erebus, cadaverous dead, of brides
Of youths and of the old who had borne much;
Souls stained with recent tears, girls tender,
Men many, mauled with bronze lance heads,
Battle spoil, bearing yet dreory arms,
These many crowded about me; with shouting,
Pallor upon me, cried to my men for more beasts;
Slaughtered the herds, sheep slain of bronze;
Poured ointment, cried to the gods,
To Pluto the strong, and praised Proserpine;
Unsheathed the narrow sword,
I sat to keep off the impetuous impotent dead,
Till I should hear Tiresias.
But first Elpenor came, our friend Elpenor,
Unburied, cast on the wide earth,
Limbs that we left in the house of Circe,
Unwept, unwrapped in sepulchre, since toils urged other.
Pitiful spirit. And I cried in hurried speech:
“Elpenor, how art thou come to this dark coast?
Cam’st thou afoot, outstripping seamen?”
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And he in heavy speech:
“Ill fate and abundant wine. I slept in Circe’s ingle.
Going down the long ladder unguarded,
I fell against the buttress,
Shattered the nape-nerve, the soul sought Avernus.
But thou, O King, I bid remember me, unwept, unburied,
Heap up mine arms, be tomb by sea-bord, and inscribed:
A man of no fortune, and with a name to come.
And set my oar up, that I swung mid fellows.”
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And Anticlea came, whom I beat off, and then Tiresias Theban,
Holding his golden wand, knew me, and spoke first:
“A second time? why? man of ill star,
Facing the sunless dead and this joyless region?
Stand from the fosse, leave me my bloody bever
For soothsay.”
And I stepped back,
And he strong with blood, said then: “Odysseus
Shalt return through spiteful Neptune, over dark seas,
Lose all companions.”
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94
96
96-97
98-99
99-100
101-114