Odyssey of Home
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| Odyssey of Homer |
Contents :
Book I: Telemachus Awakens — Athena inspires Telemachus to seek news of his father.
- Book II: The Assembly — Telemachus confronts the suitors.
- Book III: Nestor’s Tale — Telemachus visits Nestor at Pylos.
- Book IV: Menelaus and Helen — Telemachus learns of Odysseus’s fate.
- Books V–VIII: Odysseus’s Release — Calypso frees Odysseus; he reaches the Phaeacians.
- Books IX–XII: Adventures — Encounters with Cyclops, Circe, Sirens, Scylla, and Charybdis.
- Books XIII–XX: Return to Ithaca — Odysseus arrives home in disguise.
- Books XXI–XXIV: The Revenge — The bow contest, slaughter of the suitors, and reunion with Penelope.
From the foreword
The high school students now read the Odyssey in the original. But this should not mean that few high school students to-day read the Odyssey.
It goes against every instinct of those of us who read the great story in our own schooldays, to be content that students of to-day should miss an experience that meant so much to us.
It is only by translations that we can bridge the gap; and the more bridges we have, the more chance there is that every reader can find one to his taste.
I have tried, in this particular translation, to bring out those qualities of the Odyssey that have most appealed to me, certain qualities of mood and light narrative swiftness that I have hoped to emphasize.
I am aware of all the advantages of translation into prose, and I have the highest admiration for the beautiful prose translations. Yet to me the Odyssey is essentially a poem and J cannot think of it as in any but poetic form.
Homer’s Pegasus was meant to fly, not to walk, and I have done my utmost to get this English version of his inspiration to rise from the flat surface of daily prose. It has seemed to me, ever since I was a boy, that it must be possible, in some form of English verse, to tell Homer’s story lightly, swiftly, and with some hint or echo of its lyric quality.
Details
Translator: Herbert Bates
Publisher: Harper & Brothers, New York, 1929
Length: ~427 pages
Style: English prose translation, prioritizing straightforward narrative rather than verse.
Audience: Intended for students and teachers, with a foreword and appendix for classroom use.
14 MB PDF file
