The Odyssey (Penguin Classics) by Homer; Robert Fagles (Translator); Bernard M.W. Knox (Introduction)

Author:Homer; Robert Fagles (Translator); Bernard M.W. Knox (Introduction)
Format: mobi
Tags: Literature: Classics, Literary Collections, Poetry & poets, early & medieval, Poetry & poets: classical, General, Anthologies, letters & other prose works, Essays, journals, Works by individual poets: classical, Letters & Miscellaneous
ISBN: 9780140449952
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2010-02-20T05:00:00+00:00

THE GENEALOGY

OF THE ROYAL HOUSE

OF PHAEACIA

THE GENEALOGY OF THEOCLYMENUS

THE GENEALOGY OF TYRO

TEXTUAL VARIANTS FROM THE OXFORD CLASSICAL TEXT

2.11 duo

2.191 Omitted

3.131 Omitted

4.399 xeine

4.465 ereeineis

4.783 Omitted

5.91 Omitted

9.199 paisi

9.483 Omitted

13.400 anthropon

15.345 Omitted

18.402 metheeke

23.320 Omitted

NOTES ON THE TRANSLATION

(Here and throughout the Pronouncing Glossary that follows, line numbers refer to the translation, where the line numbers of the Greek text will be found at the top of every page.)

1.20 that year spun out by the gods when he should reach his home: The tenth year since the sack of Troy, the twentieth year since Odysseus left Ithaca.

1.34-55 Aegisthus, I the man Agamemnon's son, renowned Orestes, killed: Throughout the Odyssey, the events in the House of Atreus will provide a continuous background to Homer's narrative. Taken in sequence, these events begin with the successful vengeance of Orestes—which is chosen by Zeus as an example of justice (1.34-55)—then are used by Athena to rouse the courage of Telemachus (1.341-47), and then by Nestor (3.289-357) not only to encourage the prince but also to caution him with the additional stories of Clytemnestra's infidelity and the wanderings of Menelaus, absent from Argos when Agamemnon was assassinated. Next Menelaus tells Telemachus how Proteus informed him of Agamemnon's murder by Aegisthus (4.573-604); and the crime is dramatized when, in the underworld, Odysseus learns from the ghost of Agamemnon how both he and Cassandra were murdered by his wife together with her lover (11.457-98). However optimistic the climax of Orestes' vengeance, in other words, each version of Agamemnon's death presents a greater darkness, and so a starker foil for the luminous reunion of Odysseus and Penelope; until at the end of the Odyssey (24.210-23) Agamemnon's ghost calls for a song to immortalize the virtue of Penelope and another to condemn the perfidy of Clytemnestra. As W. B. Stanford observes (his note 24.196-98), Homer has provided the first, and Aeschylus, in the Oresteia, the second. See note 4.590.

1.62 Atlas, wicked Titan: In other accounts, Atlas is a giant who holds up the sky "with his hard and unwearying hands" (Hesiod, Theogony 519). Here he apparently stands in the sea and supports pillars that perform the same function. His location in the sea rather than on land (as in Hesiod) may be due to influence from Near Eastern myths. Why he is called "wicked" we do not know.

1.375 The Achaeans' Journey Home from Troy: Phemius' song is one of those poems (now lost) that the Greeks called Nostoi—Returns Home. During the capture and sack of Troy, Ajax, son of Oileus (not the Great Ajax, son of Telamon, who had killed himself before Troy fell: see 11.620-45 and note 11.625), attempted to rape Cassandra, King Priam's daughter, in the temple of Athena, where she had

taken refuge. The Achaeans failed to punish him for this offense, and Athena retaliated by arranging for storm winds to blow most of them off course on their way home. Ajax was killed by Poseidon when he had almost reached home (see 4.560-73), Menelaus wandered for seven years, Odysseus for ten.

1.443

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