And as when the land appears welcome to men who are swimming, after Poseidon has smashed their strong-built ship on the open 235 water, pounding it with the weight of wind and the heavy seas, and only a few escape the gray water landward by swimming, with a thick scurf of salt coated upon them, and gladly they set foot on the shore, escaping the evil; so welcome was her husband to her as she looked upon him, 240 and she could not let him go from the embrace of her white arms.
Your arrows for my tears.
No finer, greater gift in the world than that... when man and woman possess their home, two minds, two hearts that work as one.
Translation is the art of listening. In one ear is the sound of the original text, and in the other is a rhythm, wordless, waiting to find its voice. Somehow, eventually, the right words rise into the rhythm and become it, as if the listening created what one wanted to hear.
Bird life aplenty is found in the sunny air, not all of it significant.
Sullen Telemachus said, “Mother, no, you must not criticize the loyal bard for singing as it pleases him to sing. Poets are not to blame for how things are; Zeus is;.
No finer, greater gift in the world than that: When man and woman possess their home, two minds, two hearts that work as one. Despair to their enemies, a joy to all their friends. Their own best claim to glory.
The shock of encountering an ancient author speaking in largely recognizable language can make him seem more strange, and newly strange. I would like to invite readers to experience a sense of connection to this ancient text, while also recognizing its vast distance from our own place and time. Homer is, and is not, our contemporary.
He had better beware our wrath, great man though he is. What is he doing in his fury but insulting senseless clay?
The Wrath of Achilles is my theme, that fatal wrath which, in fulfillment of the will of Zeus, brought the Achaeans so much suffering and sent the gallant souls of many nobleman to Hades, leaving their bodies as carrion for the dogs and passing birds.
You are indeed a man of sorrows and have suffered much... pray be seated now, here on this chair, and let us leave our sorrows, bitter though they are, locked up in our own hearts, for weeping is cold comfort and does little good.
He was the loveliest born of the race of mortals, and therefore the gods caught him away to themselves, to be Zeus’ wine-pourer, for the sake of his beauty, so he might be among the immortals.
But humans cannot stay awake forever; immortal gods have set a proper time for everything that mortals do on earth.
I am at home, for I am he. I bore adversities, but in the twentieth year, I am ashore in my own land.
What is it that grieves you? Keep it not from me, but tell me, that we may know it together.
These were the colloquies in heaven.
O insolence of youth! whose tongue affords Such railing eloquence, and war of words. Studious thy country’s worthies to defame, Thy erring voice displays thy mother’s shame.
Stones and blows and I are hardly strangers. My heart is steeled by now, I’ve had my share of pain in the waves and wars. Add this to the total. Bring the trial on.
So his heart held firm and constant, but he writhed around, as when a man rotates a sausage full of fat and blood; the huge fire blazes, and he longs to have the roasting finished.
Oceanus, the genesis of all...