The anger [mēnis] of Peleus’ son Achilles, goddess, perform its song—

        disastrous anger that made countless sufferings [algos pl.] for the Achaeans,

        and many steadfast lives [psukhē pl.; n:v.l. heads] it drove down to Hades,

        heroes’ lives, but their selves it made prizes for dogs

5      and for all birds [n:v.l. a feast for birds], and the plan of Zeus was being fulfilled [telos]

        sing starting from the point where the two first clashed [eris],

        the son of Atreus, lord of men, and radiant Achilles.

 

        So, which of the gods was it that pushed the two to clash [eris] and fight?

        It was the son of Leto and Zeus. Infuriated [kholos] at the king,

10    he stirred up an evil pestilence throughout the mass of warriors, and the warriors kept on dying,

        because Chryses, the one who prays and curses, was dishonored [timē] 

        by the son of Atreus. For Chryses came to the swift ships of the Achaeans 

        to get his daughter’s release, bringing with him a ransom [apoina] beyond telling, [n:=I-1.372]

        holding in his hands the suppliant wreaths of far-shooting Apollo [n:=I-1.373]

15    wound around a golden scepter, and he supplicated all the Achaeans,

        but most of all the two sons of Atreus, who marshal the warriors.

 

“Sons of Atreus and you other well-greaved Achaeans,

may the gods who possess homes on Olympus grant to you

that you destroy the city [polis] of Priam and that you have a good homecoming;

20    but you, release to me my dear [philē] daughter, and accept a ransom [apoina],

in awe of the son of Zeus, far-shooting Apollo.”

 

At this point all the other Achaeans voiced their assent,

to show respect [aidōs] to the priest [hiereus] and to accept the splendid ransom;

but this was not pleasing to the son of Atreus, Agamemnon, in his heart [thumos].

25    Instead, dismissing him—a bad thing to do—he set in motion overpowering words [muthos]:

 

“Don’t let me find you, old man, near the hollow ships,

either lingering now or coming back again later.

The scepter and the wreath of the god will not help you.

I will not release her. Before that happens, old age will come to her

30    in my house at Argos, far away from her ancestral home,

going to the upright loom and coming to my bed.

So go, don’t provoke me, or you won’t get home safely.”

 

So he spoke, and the old man was frightened and heeded the words [muthos].

He went in silence along the shore of the resounding sea.

35    Then, moving apart from the rest, the old man prayed intensely

to lord Apollo, to whom Leto with beautiful hair gave birth.

 

“Hear me, you with the silver bow, you who stand over Chrysē

and holy Killa and lord over Tenedos with might,

Apollo Smintheus, if I have ever built a temple pleasing [kharis] to you all the way to the top,

40    or if ever I have burned for you fat thigh-pieces

of bulls and goats, bring to fulfillment this wish for me:

Let the Danaans pay for my tears with your arrows.”

 

So he spoke praying, and Phoebus Apollo heard him,

and he came down from the peaks of Olympus, furious in his heart.

45    On his shoulders he had a bow and a covered quiver,

and the arrows resounded on his shoulders, furious as he was,

as his body moved; and he came looking like the night [n:v.l. wrapped up in the night].

Then he sat apart from the ships and let loose an arrow.

Terrible was the sound from the silver bow.

50    First he went after the mules and the keen hounds,

and then he let fly a sharp arrow at the people themselves,

and he was hitting them; without end the pyres of the dead kept on burning, one after another.

Nine days the arrows of the god went throughout the mass of warriors,

and on the tenth day Achilles called the warriors together to assembly,

55    for the white-armed goddess Hera put it in his heart [phrēn pl.];

for she was worried [kēdos] about the Danaans, because she saw them dying continually.

 

So when they came to assembly and were assembled together,

swift-footed Achilles stood up among them and spoke,

 

“Son of Atreus, I guess that now, set back and driven off course,

60    we really will return home [nostos]—if we manage to escape death at least—

seeing that war and plague together are overcoming the Achaeans.

But come, let us ask some seer [mantis] or priest [hiereus]

or even a diviner of dreams—in fact a dream is also from Zeus—

who could say why Phoebus Apollo has become so furious,

65    whether he finds fault with a prayer or a hecatomb,

in the hope that somehow, when the savor of lambs and perfect goats reaches him,

he may want to ward off devastation for us.”

 

So he spoke and sat down. Then stood up among them

Calchas, son of Thestor, best [aristos] by far among diviners of birds,

70    who knew things that are, things that will be, and things that were before.

He guided the ships of the Achaeans to Ilion,

through his skill as a seer [mantis], which Phoebus Apollo gave him.

With good intentions [phrēn] toward them, he spoke in assembly and said,

 

“Achilles, you call on me, you who are dear to Zeus, to speak about [muthos]

75    the anger [mēnis] of lord Apollo, the far-shooter.

So I will speak, but I want you to understand and swear to me

that hereby you will readily protect me with words [epos] and with force of hands.

I am guessing that I will really infuriate [kholos] the man who has great power over all

the Argives in his dominance [kratos], and the Achaeans heed him.

80    A king has more power when he gets infuriated [kholos] at a weaker man.

For even if he swallows and nurses his fury [kholos] today,

in the future he will still have a grudge [kotos], until he brings it to fulfillment [telos],

keeping it inside his chest. But you, consider [n:v.l. tell] whether you are willing to save me [sōzō].

 

Swift-footed Achilles answered him and said,

 

85    “Be very bold and tell whatever divine sign you know.

For I swear by Apollo, dear [philos] to Zeus, to whom you, Calchas,

pray, and you bring to light the divine signs for the Danaans,

that no one while I am alive on earth and have eyes to see

will set heavy hands on you near the hollow ships,

90    not a single one of all the Danaans, not even if you mean Agamemnon,

who now boasts that he is best [aristos] by far of the Achaeans.”

 

At that point, the faultless seer [mantis] became bold and said,

 

“The god does not find fault with a prayer or a hecatomb.

It is about the man who prays and curses, whom Agamemnon has dishonored [timē]

95    he has not released his daughter and has not accepted a ransom [apoina] for her.

For this reason the far-shooter has given these sufferings [algos pl.], and will give still more,

and he will not keep away the heavy hands of plague [n:v.l. and he will not push away hideous devastation for the Danaans]

until Agamemnon gives back the girl with the dancing eyes to her dear [philos] father

without price or ransom, and drives a sacred hecatomb of cattle

100  to Chrysē. At that point, we might appease and persuade him.”

 

So he spoke and sat down. Then stood up among them

the hero, son of Atreus, wide-ruling Agamemnon,

and he was aggrieved [akhos]. His heart [phrēn pl.] became black with anger [menos],

full of rage [menos], and his two eyes looked like glowing fire.

105  Giving an evil look first of all to Calchas, he spoke,

 

“Seer [mantis] of evil, you have never yet told me what is real.

Prophesying [mantis] evil things is endlessly dear [philos] to your heart [phrēn],

but you have never yet spoken a good [esthlos] word [epos] nor seen it to fulfillment [telos].

Now once again you come giving divine signs, speaking in assembly among the Danaans,

110  saying that for this reason the far-shooter makes sufferings for them,

that the splendid ransom [apoina] for the daughter of Chryses

I was not willing to accept, since I want very much

to keep her at home. In fact, I have come to prefer her to Clytemnestra,

the bride of my youth, since she is not inferior to her

115  in build or physique, or in feeling [phrēn pl.] or skills.

But even so I am willing to give her back, if that is better.

I do want the warriors to be safe [sōzō], and not perish.

Now prepare for me immediately a prize [geras], so that I alone

of the Argives will not be without a prize [geras], since that doesn’t look good.

120  For you all see this, that my prize [geras] is going somewhere else.”

 

Then swift-footed radiant Achilles answered him,

 

“Son of Atreus, most glorious [kudos], avaricious beyond all mankind,

how in the world will the great-hearted [thumos] Achaeans give you another prize [geras]?

We don’t know of many common possessions stored anywhere.

125  The things we plundered from the cities [polis], those have been distributed,

and it wouldn’t look good for the warriors to gather up those things and collect them again.

But you now, send forth this girl for the god, and then we Achaeans

will pay you back three and four times over, if in fact Zeus

gives us the well-walled city [polis] of Troy to destroy.”

 

130  The ruler Agamemnon answered him and said,

 

“Don’t you try, valiant [agathos] though you are, godlike Achilles,

to be deceptive in intention [noos]. You won’t get ahead of me or convince me.

Are you really willing, so that you can hold on to your prize [geras], to let me

sit here deprived like this, and are you telling me to give this girl back?

135  Well, if the great-hearted [thumos] Achaeans give me a prize [geras]

fit to my liking [thumos], to be of matching value . . .  

But if they won’t give it, then I might get one myself,

going for either your prize [geras] or Ajax’s, or Odysseus’s

I will seize it and drive it off; and whichever man I come to, he will be furious [kholos].

140  But we certainly can think these things over later on.

At the moment, we must drag a dark ship into the radiant sea,

and in it put rowers as needed, and on it let a hecatomb

be placed, and onboard it the fine-cheeked daughter of Chryses

will step. Some man of rank, one who can call a council, should be in charge,

145  either Ajax or Idomeneus or radiant Odysseus,

or even you, son of Peleus, most shocking of all men,

so that you can make sacrifices and appease on our behalf the one who works from afar [=Apollo].”

 

Then swift-footed Achilles gave him a fierce look and addressed him,

 

“Unbelievable! you are clothed in shamelessness, and your wily heart [phrēn] is set on profit.

150  How could any of the Achaeans readily be persuaded by your words [epos],

either to come in the first place or to fight mightily with men?

I did not come here on account of Trojan spearmen,

to fight them, since they are not at all responsible [aitios] as far as I’m concerned.

They have never driven off my cattle, not to mention my horses,

155  and never in fertile Phthia that nourishes men

have they destroyed my crops, since many things lie between us,

shadowy mountains and echoing sea.

But we have accompanied you, you shameless man, just to please [kharis] you,

striving to get honor [timē] for Menelaos and for you, dog eyes,

160  from the Trojans. Not one of these things do you regard or care about; [n:v.l. Zenodotus did not read this verse]

in fact, you threaten that you will take away my prize [geras] yourself,

the prize for which I toiled much, and which the sons of the Achaeans gave me.

I never have a prize [geras] equal to yours, anytime [n:v.l. not even when, Zenodotus] the Achaeans

destroy a [n: the, if the multiform in 163 is followed] well placed citadel of the Trojans.

165  But the greater part of quick-moving war

my hands tend to; yet once the moment of distribution comes

you get the greater prize [geras] by far, and I with a smaller but dear [philos] one

go back to the ships, when [n:v.l. whenever] I am worn out from making war.

Now I am going to Phthia, since it’s really much better

170  to go home with the curved ships, and I do not think that for you

I will serve up wealth and riches while I am dishonored [timē] here.”

 

Then lord of men Agamemnon answered him,

 

“Go ahead, run away, if your heart [thumos] is in a rush [n:v.l. desires]. I am not

supplicating you to stay for my sake. There are others on my side

175  who will honor [timē] me, and most of all Zeus the deviser [mētis].

You are most hateful to me of the kings nurtured by Zeus.

Strife [eris] and wars and fights are always dear [philos] to you.

If you’re so strong, some god must have given this to you.

Go home with your ships and your comrades,

180  go be lord over the Myrmidons, I don’t care about you,

and I pay no attention to you and your grudge [kotos]. Here is my threat to you:

Since Phoebus Apollo deprives me of the daughter of Chryses,

her I will send back with my ship and my comrades.

I’ll send her, but I am taking the fine-cheeked daughter of Brises,

185  your prize [geras], going in person to your tent, so that you know well

how much I am superior to you, and any other man may shrink

to speak as my equal and liken himself to me face to face.”

 

So he spoke. Anguish [akhos] came over the son Peleus, and his heart within

his hairy chest was divided

190  whether he should draw his sharp sword from alongside his thigh,

make the rest scatter and slay the son of Atreus

or whether he should check his fury [kholos] and restrain his heart [thumos].

 

While he was pondering in his mind [phrēn] and heart [thumos],

and he was drawing the great sword from its scabbard, Athena came

195  from the sky. For the white-armed goddess Hera sent her forth,

loving and caring [kēdos] for them both alike in her heart [thumos].

She stood behind him, and grabbed the son of Peleus by his golden hair,

appearing only to him. None of the others saw her.

Achilles was amazed, turned around, and immediately recognized

200  Pallas Athena. Terrible was the shining of her eyes.

He spoke out and addressed to her winged words [epos]:

 

“Why have you come this time, child of aegis-shaking Zeus?

To see the outrage [hubris] done by Agamemnon, son of Atreus?

But I will speak out to you, and I think this will be fulfilled [telos].

205  By his own acts of outrage, sometime soon he might lose his life [thumos].”

 

Now the owl-radiant goddess Athena addressed him,

 

“I came to stop your rage [menos], if you will be persuaded,

down from the sky. For the white-armed goddess Hera sent me forth

loving and caring [kēdos] for you both alike in her heart [thumos].

210  But come, stop clashing [eris] with him, don’t draw your sword with your hand;

instead, insult him with words [epos], telling him how it will be.

Now I, too, will speak out, and it will be a thing fulfilled [telos].

At some point you will have three times as many shining gifts

because of this outrage [hubris]. But hold back, and be persuaded by us.”

 

215  Swift-footed Achilles answered and said,

 

“One ought to keep to what you two say [epos], goddess,

even when so infuriated [kholos] at heart [thumos]. It is better that way.

Whoever is persuaded by the gods, the gods hear him.”

 

He spoke, and he stopped his firm hand on the silver handle,

220  thrust the great sword back into the scabbard, and did not disobey

the words [muthos] of Athena. But she was gone to Olympus

to the home of aegis-shaking Zeus to join the other gods [daimōn].

 

The son of Peleus once again with harmful words [epos]

addressed the son of Atreus and did not yet cease from fury.

 

225  “You drunkard, with a dog’s eyes and a deer’s heart,

whenever it comes to arming yourself for war with the rest of the warriors [laos]

or going on an ambush with the champions [aristos] of the Achaeans,

you don’t have the heart [thumos] for it. That looks like death to you.

It’s much better throughout the massed expanse of Achaean warriors

230  to take away gifts from anyone who speaks against you.

There you are, a king fattening himself on his people, and you are lord over worthless nobodies.

This could be the last time, son of Atreus, that you outrage someone.

But I will speak out and, more than that, I will swear a great oath:

I swear by this scepter—never will leaves and branches

235  sprout from it, now that it has left behind its stump in the mountains,

nor will it bloom again. For a bronze ax has stripped it of

leaves and bark. But now the sons of the Achaeans

carry it in their hands when each offers judgment, and the ordinances

from Zeus are kept by them. This will be a great oath.

240  Some day a longing [pothē] for Achilles will come upon the sons of the Achaeans,

all of them together. But at that point [n: reading of Aristarchus, v.l. tois = “them”] you will not be able, even though in great sorrow,

to help it [n:v.l. delete “it” if v.l. in 241 is followed], when many men at the hands of man-slaying Hektor

fall dying. And you will tear your heart out inside,

angry because you did not honor the best of the Achaeans.”

 

245  So spoke the son of Peleus and he threw the scepter to the ground,

the scepter pierced with golden nails, and he himself sat down.

The son of Atreus opposite him raged [mēnis]. Among them Nestor

the man of sweet words [epos] sprang up, the clear-voiced speaker of the Pylians,

from whose tongue the voice flowed sweeter than honey.

250  In his lifetime already two generations of mortal men

had perished, those who were raised and born with him before

in holy Pylos, and he lorded over the third one.

With good intentions towards all he addressed the assembly and spoke among them:

 

“What?! I see a great anguish [penthos] coming over the Achaean land.

255  I can just see Priam and the sons of Priam rejoicing

and the other Trojans being greatly pleased in their hearts [thumos]

if they found out about you two fighting over all these things—

you who excel among the Danaans in planning and fighting.

But be persuaded. You two are both younger than I am.

260  In the past with even better men than you [n:v.l. us]

I kept company, and those men, at least, never slighted me.

I never saw such men, nor am I likely to see

men like Perithoos and Dryas, who shepherded the warriors,

Kaineus and Exadios and Polyphemos, a match for the gods,

265  and Theseus son of Aegeus, who looked like the immortals. [n: this verse is absent from many manuscripts]

Most powerful [kratos] were those of men raised on earth,

most powerful [kratos] they were and they fought with the most powerful [kratos],

with mountain-dwelling beasts, and it was shocking the way they destroyed them.

I went from Pylos and joined their throng

270  from faraway, coming from a distant land; they called for me.

And I fought on my own, single-handed. Against those beasts no one

of mortals now raised on earth would fight.

The warriors heeded my counsels and were persuaded by my words [muthos].

So you, too, be persuaded—it’s better to be persuaded.

275  But you, valiant though you are, don’t you go taking the girl away from this man,

let her be, as a prize [geras] the way the sons of the Achaeans first gave her to him,

and you, son of Peleus, don’t wish to clash [eris] with a king

with matching might, since never is there the same share of honor allotted

to a scepter-bearing king, to whom Zeus grants radiant glory [kudos].

280  If you are powerful [kratos], a goddess mother bore you;

but he is superior, since he lords over more.

But you, son of Atreus, put a stop to your rage [menos]—I

supplicate you to let go of your fury [kholos] at Achilles, who for all the Achaeans

is a great wall against evil war.”

 

285  The ruler Agamemnon answered him and said,

 

“Of course, as far as all of that goes, old man, you have spoken in good measure [moira].

But this man wants to be above everyone,

he wants to be powerful over everyone, he wants to be lord over everyone,

he wants to give orders [sēma] to everyone, which I don’t think anyone will be persuaded to obey.

290  If the gods who are forever made him a spearman,

does that mean they give him permission to utter [muthos] insults at us?”

 

Radiant Achilles took his turn and answered him,

 

“I would certainly be called a coward and a worthless nobody

if I yield to you and do everything you say.

295  Give these commands to others, not to me,

don’t give me orders; I don’t think I will be persuaded to obey you any longer.

I’ll tell you something else, and you put it in your mind [phrēn]. [n:=I-4.39, I-5.259, I-9.611, I-16.444, I-16.851, I-21.94]

I, at least, will not fight you with the force of my hands for the girl,

neither you nor anyone else, now that you all who gave her have taken her away from me. [n:v.l. since you want to take her away, Zenodotus]

300  As for the other things which I have next to my swift black ship,

none of it could you pick up and carry off against my will.

Just go ahead and try. That way all these people too will find out.

Right away your dark blood will spurt around the point of my spear.”

 

So the two fought with words [epos] that match might for might,

305  and they both stood up, dissolving the assembly beside the ships of the Achaeans.

The son of Peleus heading for the tents and balanced ships

set out with the son of Menoitios and his comrades.

 


 

View digital facsimiles of the Iliad manuscripts
online at The Homer Multitext project.

 


Translation is a complex and nuanced act that requires many different kinds of choices on the part of the translator, and this is especially true of ancient Greek epic poetry. There are fundamental questions about meter and rhythm, the formulaic diction in which the poems were composed, and the use of words whose meaning we are now unsure of. Compromises must be made at every turn in order to produce an effective translation. But there is an even more fundamental question that is rarely addressed by the modern translator. What should we make of the fact that the text of these poems that is being translated is by no means monolithic? The Homeric epics evolved out of an oral epic tradition that was in its earliest phases quite multiform, to use the term of Albert Lord, and that tradition was still to some degree in flux as late as the Hellenistic era. Editors of the ancient Greek text of the Iliad and Odyssey must wrestle with a transmission of the text that includes ancient quotations and papyrus texts—our oldest witnesses—that often vary substantially from the hundreds of medievally transmitted manuscripts on which modern editions are typically based. In order to create a printed text of the Iliad or Odyssey, an editor must choose between many different, often conflicting readings in every single verse of the poem. Translators of Greek epic typically choose an edition and follow the choices of that particular editor. There is no way for the casual reader to know that such choices have even been made, much less what the choices were. This essay makes a case for doing things differently. 

❧ 

The Iliad and the Odyssey are synoptic representatives of an entire system of traditional songs that developed over many hundreds of years. These songs were composed in performance by countless singers over many generations and they were, as I have already noted, multiform. They did not exist in a fixed form until very late in their evolution. But at the same time they were traditional, in that they told the story as it had been handed down, by means of a formulaic diction that had evolved over centuries precisely for that purpose, combined with a closely associated web of traditional myths that formed their plots.[i] The fact that the Iliad and Odyssey are oral traditional poems has profound implications not just for an understanding of the relationship between myth and poetry in the Homeric epics but also for our understanding of the textual tradition that transmitted these poems over two and a half millennia.

This understanding of not only the multiform nature of the Homeric epics, but also the fact that evidence for this multiformity survives in the historical documents that transmit the poems from antiquity to modern times, led me and several collaborators to begin theorizing about a new kind of edition of the Iliad, one that would more accurately reflect the dynamic oral tradition from which the texts we read today emerged. What we came up with is the Homer Multitext (www.homermultitext.org), a digital project that seeks to make the full complexity of the textual transmission of the Iliad accessible by means of high-resolution images of the historical documents that transmit the poem, together with digital diplomatic editions of their contents. (By diplomatic, I mean simply that we don’t make any editorial interventions to correct things such as spelling or accentuation, and we don’t emend the text, even if we detect copying errors or other sorts of mistakes.) My collaborators and I assert that a multitext edition is a superior way to represent the transmission of an oral tradition, because it does not seek to establish one single original from which all other surviving texts derive (something that does not exist in such a tradition), but rather it seeks to make accessible as many historical instantiations of the text as possible. The project will eventually include papyri, select medieval manuscripts together with the ancient commentary preserved in their margins, and quotations in ancient authors. The goal is to present a picture of the dynamic nature of an orally composed and transmitted work and the consequent fluidity of the ancient textual traditions, one that is more accurate and accessible than is available in printed editions. 

Can such a song be translated for a modern audience? Obviously, the Homeric epics have been translated many times. But these translations and the editions on which they are based are misleading, in that they imply that there is a single correct text of the Iliad or Odyssey to be translated. Even as we strive to make an edition of the Iliad that is faithful to and reflective of the multiform oral tradition in which it was composed, we need translators to likewise take an “oral” and even “multitextual” approach to the poem. Few published translations of the Iliad seek to reproduce its oral formulaic style, and none seek to highlight the poem’s multiformity. With that in mind, a group that includes myself and Mary Ebbott as the Homer Multitext’s editors and Associate Editors Douglas Frame, Leonard Muellner, and Gregory Nagy began working in the early 2000s on a translation of the Iliad designed to reflect the fluidity of the textual tradition as well as the oral formulaic system within which the Iliad and Odyssey were composed. To this end we agreed upon a set of working principles that we set forth here together with an excerpt from our translation of book 1 of the Iliad

     This is truly a collaborative project, with five scholars meeting as we are able, contributing suggestions, sharing knowledge and research, and making a case for or against every word. Our various approaches and experiences add to the richness of the work. The work is slow, however, and competing claims to our time and energy mean that we may never complete and publish a translation of the Iliad or the Odyssey in full. Nor do we intend for it to be the kind of translation that you can purchase in a bookstore and curl up with at night. Our translation of the Iliad is designed not for commercial purposes but for communication with students and interested people about the oral traditional nature of the Homeric epics and the implications for our understanding of their poetics. It is our hope that by publishing our methods and their rationale here, we will inspire others to take a similar approach in their own scholarship, teaching, and translation efforts. The degree to which translators adopt these principles will necessarily vary in accordance with the aims and intended audience of the translation.

 

I. So that a reader can recognize formulaic language, we strive to translate the same word the same way every time it appears.

 

Many published translations of the Iliad intentionally vary repeated words or even leave out formulaic epithets and phrases. (A major exception, which inspired our own work in many respects, is the translation of Richmond Lattimore.) Varying or leaving out repeated phrases obscures a natural feature of Homeric diction, all of which is formulaic, having evolved to serve the needs of poets composing rapidly in performance.[ii] Instead, by striving to translate formulaic language in the same way every time, we render this element of the original visible in our translation.

It is worth noting briefly how formulaic phrases like “swift-footed Achilles” or “much-enduring Odysseus” fit into an oral epic system like the one in which the Iliad and Odyssey were composed. I and my collaborators on the Homer Multitext assert that in their earliest incarnations the poems that came to be our Iliad and Odyssey were composed both orally and in the context of performance, which is to say that performance and composition were happening at the same time. This dynamic process took place over hundreds of years and throughout a large geographical area that encompasses modern day Greece (including Crete, Lesbos, and other islands) and the coast of Asia Minor. The meter of the poetry is dactylic hexameter, and the language of the poems is one that, as we have noted, evolved specifically to serve the needs of poets composing in performance. Even the most casual reader will notice—if the Greek is translated faithfully—that it is composed of repeated elements of varying length that we call formulas.

The comparative fieldwork of Milman Parry and Albert Lord remains the best introduction to formulaic diction, though many scholars have since built upon their findings. In their expeditions to the former Yugoslavia in the 1930s, Parry and Lord together collected songs, stories, and conversations from singers of the South Slavic epic song tradition. The singers Parry and Lord encountered composed extremely long epic poems in performance. In order to do this the poets drew on a vast storehouse of traditional themes and phrases that worked within the meter or rhythm of the poetry. That is to say, they created and used formulaic language to build each verse as they went along, instead of employing static, individual words or words memorized in a fixed order. Just as formulas are the building blocks of a line in performance, themes are the larger components that make up songs. The poets recorded by Parry and Lord moved from one theme to another as they sang; themes were connected in the oral poet’s mind and his plan for the song from their habitual association in the tradition. This performance method resulted in each song being a new composition. Each song was a multiform of a notional song that never existed in a single “original” form.

Parry and Lord applied their fieldwork in the former Yugoslavia to the Homeric poems by analogy, and they were able to show how the workings of the South Slavic system reveal a great deal about how the Iliad and Odyssey were composed. Their fieldwork allowed them to discover in Homer the existence of a sophisticated, traditional, economical, and above all oral system that enabled great literature to be composed in performance. They showed how a singer, trained in techniques that were centuries if not millennia old, could draw upon a storehouse of traditional language, tales, and heroic figures to compose epic poetry on any given occasion.

Singers working within such a tradition can expand and compress their narratives under the influence of variety of factors, including the demands of the audience and the occasion of performance.[iii] In Homeric poetry, distinctive noun-epithet combinations—such as “swift-footed Achilles”—are the ultimate compression of a hero’s story. As Greg Nagy has written, “A distinctive epithet is like a small theme song that conjures up a thought-association with the traditional essence of an epic figure, thing, or concept.”[iv] For a traditional audience, these phrases conjure not just the present use but all previous performances, imbuing the language with what John Foley has called “traditional referentiality” and “immanent art.”[v] Foley writes for example, “‘Grey-eyed Athena’ and ‘wise Penelope’ are thus neither brilliant attributions in unrelated situations nor mindless metrical fillers of last resort. Rather they index the characters they name, in all their complexity, not merely in one given situation or even poem but against an enormously larger traditional backdrop”.[vi] Formulaic diction, then, gives the Iliad and Odyssey a hypertextual quality, in that each formula has the ability to activate a complex web of traditional associations and past uses.[vii] Another way to describe this phenomenon is “resonance”.[viii] Albert Lord noted this quality of Homeric diction long before the hypertextual markup language came to be:[ix]

 

The singer’s mode of composition is dictated by the demands of performance at high speed, and he depends upon inculcated habit and association of sounds, words, phrases, and lines. He does not shrink from the habitual; nor does he either require the fixed for memorization or seek the unusual for its own sake. His oft-used phrases and lines lose something in sharpness, yet many of them must resound with overtones from the dim past whence they came.

 

This resonance contains the echoes of all the past performances of which the singer and his audience have ever been a part. We cannot possibly recapture the experience of an audience that has been raised on epic songs. But our translations should not obscure the evidence we do have for the formulaic diction in which the Iliad and Odyssey were composed by leaving out or intentionally varying formulaic phrases.

 

II. For words that are particularly difficult to translate or that are otherwise important thematically to the epic, we gloss the translation with the transliterated Greek word.

 

It is not always possible to translate the same ancient Greek word the same way every time into English. Our own translation includes in brackets the transliterated Greek for particularly challenging or significant concepts in the original, so that the reader knows what Greek word is being translated and can trace the usage of that word throughout the poem. The list of key words that we have chosen evolved out of our teaching: Mary Ebbott and I were at one time head teaching fellows for Greg Nagy’s course at Harvard on the ancient Greek hero, now a successful open on-line course.[x]

Via these key words, for example, three kinds of anger delineated in the Iliad can be differentiated and tracked; all three are represented in the excerpt from book 1 published here. How to deal with the varieties of Homeric anger is an important issue for the translator as well as a poetic and thematic one that has been intensely studied by generations of scholars.[xi] Mēnis is the very first word in the Iliad, a compression of the entire song into a single word, and the driving theme of the poem.[xii] Understanding how Homeric anger works is key to understanding the Iliad.

In its noun form mēnis is primarily attributed to gods. As Nagy teaches in his course, this kind of anger is so powerful that it becomes coextensive with the combined forces of nature in the cosmos, so that the hero’s anger becomes a kind of cosmic sanction.[xiii] This is the kind of anger attributed to the mortal Achilles in the first verse of the Iliad (1.1-5):

 

The anger [mēnis] of Peleus’ son Achilles, goddess, perform its song—

disastrous anger that made countless sufferings [algos pl.] for the Achaeans,

and many steadfast lives [psukhē pl.; n:v.l. heads] it drove down to Hades,

heroes’ lives, but their selves it made prizes for dogs

and for all birds [n:v.l. a feast for birds], and the plan of Zeus was being fulfilled [telos]

 

In these opening lines, Achilles’ anger and the plot of the Iliad are equated with the will of Zeus, who is the supreme deity in the universe. That anger results in the deaths of countless Achaeans while Achilles refrains from battle. Achilles, then, the son of a goddess, is god-like in more ways than one. He is god-like in physical form and as a warrior on the battlefield, but the consequences of his anger are god-like as well.

Another kind of heroic anger on display in the Iliad is kholos, which we primarily translate as fury. As a prime example of kholos at work, we can cite Iliad 1.188-192:

 

So he spoke. Anguish [akhos] came over the son Peleus, and his heart within

his hairy chest was divided

whether he should draw his sharp sword from alongside his thigh,

make the rest scatter and slay the son of Atreus

or whether he should check his fury [kholos] and restrain his heart [thumos]. 

 

The akhos (here translated as “anguish”) of Achilles in this passage instantly metastasizes into kholos. Kholos, as Nagy teaches it, is an open-ended chemical chain-reaction; it has a bodily quality that can be visualized as bile or venom.[xiv] Kholos is an emotion that frequently and instantly accompanies grief in the Iliad. As Thomas Walsh notes in his 2005 study of Homeric anger, “the anger signified by khólos can be that anger that directly attends the deaths of one’s phíloi, most especially if such deaths happen before one’s very eyes”.[xv] Kholos incites more killing, as each comrade avenges his fallen philos in a continuous cycle of grief and revenge in the Iliad.

Nagy has explored this type of anger most recently in a post for Classical Inquiries, in connection with a passage from Iliad 18, in which Achilles curses his own kholos (Iliad 18.107–119, translated by Nagy): 

 

So may strife [eris], leaving the gods, leaving mortals, go to perdition,

and so may anger [kholos] as well, the kind of anger that pushes even a sound-thinking man into harshness,

the kind of anger that is much sweeter to the taste than honey as it pours down

in the breasts of men, the kind of anger that billows out like smoke from a fire,

—that is what happened to me now, angered [verb of kholos] as I have been by the king of men, Agamemnon.

Those things, though… They are in the past. Done. I should let go of them, full of sorrow though I am.

I will overcome that spirit of mine in my breast. I just have to.

And now I will go off, chasing after the one who destroyed that near-and-dear head-to-be-hugged, I will catch up with that one,

I mean, Hector. And then I will be ready to accept the fate-of-death [kēr], whenever it will be—I now see it—

that Zeus wishes to make happen, together with the other immortal gods.

I say this because not even the might of Hēraklēs could escape his own fate-of-death [kēr].

Even if he was most near-and-dear to Zeus, son of Kronos, the lord.

Still, fate [moira] overcame him, and so too did the painful anger [kholos] of Hērā.

 

This passage beautifully illustrates the way that kholos is visualized as being in the body and having a liquid quality (that can be compared to smoke). Building on the work of Joan O’Brien (1993), Nagy argues in this post that because in Greek myth the goddess Hera nursed Achilles’ mother Thetis, who in turn nursed Achilles, the kholos of Hera is already flowing in the veins of Achilles even before he ever has his quarrel with Agamemnon. His kholos, in other words, is always there. It gets roused in book 1, and then redirected against Hektor in book 18 (see also 15:68, where Zeus foretells that Achilles will kill Hektor in fury [χολωσάμενος]). The final lines of the passage then, are not just a metaphor. It will be the kholos of Hera, now ignited in the body of Achilles, that will take Hektor down, and lead to Achilles’ own death.

In line 9 of book 1 Achilles’ kholos in connection with Agamemnon is invoked in parallel with Achilles’ mēnis (“infuriated [kholos] at the king…”). But the two kinds of anger are not the same. Kholos, as Walsh explains, ebbs and flows and “is capable of being soothed, deep though it be.” He continues, “Indeed, we will see that putting an end to khólos is a major concern of early Greek poetry”.[xvi] Later on in book 1, the seer Kalchas tells Achilles that he must protect him from Agamemnon’s fury, his kholos, if he reveals that Agamemnon’s actions are the source of Apollo’s own cosmic anger (mēnis) that has rained down plague upon the Achaeans (1.74-82):

 

“Achilles, you call on me, you who are dear to Zeus, to speak about [muthos]

the anger [mēnis] of lord Apollo, the far-shooter.

So I will speak, but I want you to understand and swear to me

that hereby you will readily protect me with words [epos] and with force of hands.

I am guessing that I will really infuriate [kholos] the man who has great power over all

the Argives in his dominance [kratos], and the Achaeans heed him.

A king has more power when he gets infuriated [kholos] at a weaker man.

For even if he swallows and nurses his fury [kholos] today,

in the future he will still have a grudge [kotos], until he brings it to fulfillment [telos].

 

In addition to the cosmic anger of Apollo and the fury that will be roused in Agamemnon when challenged by a perceived subordinate, the last verse of this passage refers to yet a third kind of anger, kotos. Walsh likens the anger of kotos to a bitter, on-going feud. Kotos is a time-bomb that ticks away until it explodes at exactly the right moment in the plot of the narrative, a moment which is coextensive with the plotting of the angry hero, who has been nursing this emotion for its well-timed explosion. Kotos, in other words, has a definitive end point, and it is the kind of moment that will be sung about for all time. The most celebrated kotos scene in Greek literature is the killing of the suitors by Odysseus in the Odyssey.[xvii]

This brief overview shows that while there are contexts in which they overlap dramatically the words for anger in the Iliad differ from one other in important ways. In the Iliad, Achilles experiences all three of these variations on the theme of anger. These different forms of anger in turn interact with other poetic themes signaled by keywords in this excerpt. I myself, for example, have explored the captive woman Briseis’ status as a prize [geras] and a signifier of Achilles’ honor [timē], noting that “the loss and restoration of timē are fundamentally connected with the grief (akhos) and cosmic mēnis of Achilles”.[xviii] It is difficult for students and other readers in translation to trace these kinds of themes and make these sorts of connections if words like honor, anger, and grief are translated differently every time. For ancient audiences, however, a word like mēnis or akhos would have resonated deeply, summoning a host of poetic reverberations, and would have been imbued with meaning that had accumulated over centuries. Again, no translation will be able to perfectly replicate the fluency with which ancient poets and audiences communicated by way of formulaic diction, but key words can be a bridge for a modern reader into a deeper engagement with the core themes of the poem.

 

III. We respect the integrity of the line, the building block of composition in performance, to keep the words in the line in which they appear in the Greek.

 

The Iliad was composed in performance, and the Iliad as we now have it reflects this process. Most verses are a single sense unit, composed paratactically one upon the other. As Egbert Bakker has noted:[xix]

 

The syntax of the Homeric language, in fact, is very similar to that of spoken language. The units in which speech proceeds, being the verbalization of the speaker’s “foci of consciousness,” tend to coincide with the metrical slots of the dactylic hexameter, producing an idiom that is a stylized form of spoken language, as befits the language of a poetic tradition that was composed, received, and transmitted in oral performance. 

 

In order to give the reader a feel for this spoken, paratactic style, we keep the line intact in translation. Occasionally this comes at the expense of the distinction between active and passive voice of the verb (as is sometimes necessary when the syntax does cross over into the next verse, and the subject and verb are separated). We also repeat words from one line to another, as when, for example, an adjective is easily understood in Greek as modifying a word in the previous line (1.245-246):

 

ὣς φάτο Πηλεΐδης, ποτὶ δὲ σκῆπτρον βάλε γαίῃ
χρυσείοις ἥλοισι πεπαρμένον, ἕζετο δ᾽ αὐτός.

 

So spoke the son of Peleus and he threw the scepter to the ground,

the scepter pierced with golden nails, and he himself sat down.

 

Within the line we also try to follow the word order of the Greek, unless it renders the English overly stilted. That is, we want to avoid garbling the English while rendering as accurate a picture of the original Greek as possible (1.247-249):

 

Ἀτρεΐδης δ᾽ ἑτέρωθεν ἐμήνιε· τοῖσι δὲ Νέστωρ
ἡδυεπὴς ἀνόρουσε λιγὺς Πυλίων ἀγορητής,
τοῦ καὶ ἀπὸ γλώσσης μέλιτος γλυκίων ῥέεν αὐδή 

 

The son of Atreus opposite him raged [mēnis]. Among them Nestor

the man of sweet words [epos] sprang up, the clear-voiced speaker of the Pylians,

from whose tongue the voice flowed sweeter than honey.

 

This balancing act between being faithful to the Greek and being easy to read in English is challenging, as the examples given above indicate. “The scepter with golden nails pierced, and sat down he himself” would be a more accurate rendition of the Greek of verse 246, and “from whose tongue sweeter than honey flowed the voice” would more closely reflect the word order of verse 249. But we have tried to keep formulaic units together in the order in which they appear in Greek to the extent possible without sacrificing intelligibility.

 

IV. We highlight the formulaic nature of Homeric diction by including in brackets references to repetitions of verses.

 

In addition to striving to translate formulaic language the same way every time, we have made a conscious effort to point the reader to verses that are repeated elsewhere in the Iliad and Odyssey. If more epic poems from antiquity survived (such as the poems known as the Epic Cycle) we would no doubt be able to observe a great deal more of these repeated verses. But even with our very limited sample set, we can detect the building blocks of oral poetry. The most obvious example in the excerpt translated here is verse 1.297:

 

I’ll tell you something else, and you put it in your mind [phrēn]. [n:=I-4.39, I-5.259, I-9.611, I-16.444, I-16.851, I-21.94]

 

This verse is typically found near the end of a speech, where the speaker is making a final, dramatic and concluding point. At verse 16.851, for example, Patroklos concludes a back-and-forth exchange with Hektor with his dying breath by telling Hektor that he will soon die too, and at the hands of Achilles. At Iliad 21.94, Lykaon begs Achilles for his life and makes his final argument: he does not have the same mother as Hektor, the killer of Patroklos; they are not from the same womb. Here in book 1.297, this verse is the culmination of Achilles’ quarrel with Agamemnon. He agrees that he will not fight for Briseis, but he threatens the life of anyone who tries to take anything else. Achilles then returns to his tents, not to fight again until book 20. Such repetitions have the power to tie together what might otherwise appear to be disparate scenes, and reveal the inner workings of the oral poetic system within which our Iliad was composed. The poet does not need to intentionally repeat himself at these key moments in the narrative; rather the formulaic diction and traditional structure of such speeches empower him to convey the importance of these moments and their interconnections with one another by way of repetition.

 

V. We include a representative sample of so-called plus verses and other types of multiformity that are attested in the textual transmission.

 

As I have argued throughout my work on Homer,[xx] the textual variations that we find attested in the multitude of ancient sources—quotations from ancient authors, fragments on papyrus, and the scholia in the margins of medieval manuscripts (which derive ultimately from the work of Alexandrian and Roman scholars)—are in most cases just as likely to have been generated by the system of oral traditional poetry in which the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed, and therefore can be considered every bit as “Homeric,” as those that we find in our modern printed editions. Modern editions are primarily based on the texts found in a handful of medieval manuscripts, which postdate the oral tradition by more than a millennium. The Homer Multitext takes these far more ancient sources seriously and treats the variations, or multiforms, that they preserve as traditional variations generated in performance whose poetic implications are worthy of exploration.

To my knowledge, no translation has attempted to account for the multiformity of the textual transmission, nor would it be possible to do so in a comprehensive way. The Homer Multitext publishes historical instantiations of the text, such as the text of the 10th-century Venetus A manuscript, that of the 11th-century Venetus B manuscript, and the various texts that survive on papyrus. We do not attempt to merge these texts into a single uniform text, which would be historically very misleading. The translation we have undertaken follows the text as transmitted in the Venetus A manuscript of the Iliad, but incorporates notes pointing the reader to other known readings from a variety of sources, including papyrus texts and the ancient scholarship that is preserved in the margins of the Venetus A. Our translation is conceived of as a teaching tool, not intended to replace an editor’s critical engagement with the primary source documents that transmit the Iliad. But these notes (signaled by the abbreviation v.l. for varia lectio) can give students a sense for the kind of multiforms that survive in these sources.

In the excerpt included here, there are no examples of “plus verses,” which is the term often used to describe verses which are not present in the majority of the medieval manuscripts of the Iliad, but are instead attested in a (far more ancient) papyrus text or quotation of the poem from antiquity. But there are other intriguing variations to be found. As I explore in my 2018/2019 book,[xxi] one of the earliest allusions to the text of the Iliad in ancient literature contains a well-known and much discussed multiform from the opening verses of the poem. The text in question is Aeschylus, Suppliants 800–801, in which the chorus sings:

 

κυσὶν δ’ ἔπειθ’ ἕλωρα κἀπιχωρίοις
ὄρνισι δεῖπνον οὐκ ἀναίνομαι πελεῖν

 

A prize for the local dogs
and a feast for the birds I do not refuse to become.

 

The passage does not quote Iliad 1.4–5, but certainly seems to invoke it for an Athenian audience that would have been well versed in the Homeric epics. Here is the text of the Iliad passage as it is transmitted in the Venetus A manuscript:

 

ἡρώων· αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν
οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι· Διὸς δ᾽ ἐτελείετο βουλή·

 

heroes’ [lives], but their selves it made prizes for dogs
and for all birds, and the plan of Zeus was being fulfilled. 

 

Aeschylus seems to have known a different text than what we find in the Venetus A. There is no equivalent to πᾶσι (“all”) in Aeschylus. And in fact we are told by Athenaeus (Epitome 1.12) that the Alexandrian editor Zenodotus read δαῖτα (“feast”) here at Iliad 1.5. The Roman poet Catullus (64.152–153) may also have known δαῖτα. It would seem that δαῖτα is an ancient multiform that was known as early as the fifth century BCE. Meanwhile, all other sources read the equally Homeric πᾶσι.

A brief look at the first five lines of the Iliad as a whole will provide a sense of the complexity of the transmission and the types of multiforms that survive (1.1-5):

 

1  Μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
2  οὐλομένην· μυρί’ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε’ ἔθηκεν· [n:v.l. ἔδωκε],
3  πολλὰς δ’ ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς [n:v.l. κεφαλὰς] Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν
4  ἡρώων· αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν
5  οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι [n:v.l. δαῖτα]· Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή·

 

2: ἔδωκε read by Fulgentius, cf. Iliad 18.431 and 24.241   3: κεφαλὰς read by Apollonius of Rhodes et al., cf. Iliad 11.55   45: athetized by Zenodotus   5: δαῖτα read by Aeschylus, Zenodotus [according to Athenaeus Epitome 1.12], and possibly Catullus

 

1  The anger of Peleus’ son Achilles, goddess, perform its song—
2  disastrous anger that made countless sufferings for the Achaeans,
3  and many steadfast lives it drove down to Hades,
4  heroes’ lives, but their selves [n:v.l. heads] it made prizes for dogs
5  and for all birds [n:v.l. a feast for birds]; the plan of Zeus was being fulfilled.

 

The multiforms attested here have a good deal of ancient support, both within the formulaic diction of the Iliad itself and in the debates of the Alexandrian editors (as preserved in the scholia of medieval manuscripts). The reading κεφαλὰς (“heads”), for example, in line 3 was read by Aristophanes of Rhodes according to the scholia in the Venetus B and other manuscripts. At Iliad 11.55 we find powerful evidence that κεφαλὰς is perfectly formulaic: there this same verse is attested with κεφαλὰς in place of ψυχὰς (“souls”). Meanwhile, the Venetus A scholia record that “some” (τινες) write κεφαλὰς instead of ψυχὰς at 1.3, “badly” (κακῶς) in the judgment of the scholiast. The scholia in the Venetus A also tell us that Zenodotus athetized lines 4 and 5, meaning he did not deem them Homeric, but Zenodotus is nevertheless credited in Athenaeus with reading δαῖτα (“feast”) in the athetized verse 5.[xxii]

 

Our translation cannot do justice to the complexity of the textual transmission of the Iliad and the historical documents that preserve it. But by pointing to attested multiforms in our notes we can make our readers aware that there is not a single Iliad to be translated, and that there is more to the poem than they typically see. Scholars and teachers who are interested in engaging with the poetics of the Iliad as a dynamic and evolving oral tradition would do well to translate the text for their readers and students in a way that embraces its multiformity.

  


[i] Dué 2018/2019:1–16. 

[ii] Lord 1960/2000.

[iii] See especially Lord 1960/2000:99–123.   

[iv] See Nagy 1990:23.   

[v] See especially Foley 1991 and 1999.   

[vi] Foley 1999:18.   

[vii] For the Homeric tradition as a “hypertext,” see the papers collected in Tsagalis 2010.   

[viii] Graziosi and Haubold 2005.   

[ix] Lord 1960:65.   

[x] A glossary of these key words may be found here, as part of Nagy’s book written to accompany that course (Nagy 2013). Further discussion of these same key words may be found via the Center for Hellenic Studies Kosmos Society.   

[xi] See especially Muellner 1996 and Walsh 2005, with references to earlier studies ad loc.   

[xii] Nagy 1979:72–73.

[xiii] So also Muellner 1996:5–31.   

[xiv] See also Walsh 2005:206 and 233.   

[xv] Walsh 2005:112.   

[xvi] Ibid.   

[xvii] See, e.g., Odyssey 22.477 and Walsh 2005 54–59.   

[xviii] Dué 2002:47.

[xix] Bakker 2020:78–79.

[xx] See especially Chapter 2 of Dué 2018/2019.

[xxi] Ibid.   

[xxii] Athetized verses were not actually removed from the text of ancient editions. The critical sign known as the obelos was placed next to them, indicating that the editor did not think them to be Homeric; for more on the Alexandrian critical signs that survive in the Venetus A, see Bird 2009. 

Bibliography

Bibliographical Note

For a more in-depth explanation of the rationale for the Homer Multitext, see C. Dué, Achilles Unbound: Multiformity and Tradition in the Homeric Epics (Center for Hellenic Studies, 2018; Harvard University Press, 2019).

For a sustained demonstration of how the poetics of the Iliad can be engaged multitextually and as the product of an oral tradition, see C. Dué and M. Ebbott, Iliad 10 and the Poetics of Ambush: A Multitext Edition with Essays and Commentary (Center for Hellenic Studies, 2010) and L. Muellner, “Homeric Poetics,” in C. Pache (ed.), The Cambridge Guide to Homer (Cambridge University Press, 2020).

For more on composition in performance, see A. Lord, The Singer of Tales (Harvard University Press, 1960; Center for Hellenic Studies, 2000) and M. Ebbott, “Homeric Epic in Performance” (in Pache 2020).

For more on the textual transmission of the Homeric epics, see, in addition to Chapter 1 of Achilles Unbound (Dué 2018/2019), G. Nagy, “From Song to Text” (in Pache 2020).

On all of these topics see also the works cited below.

 

Works Cited

Bakker, E. 2020. “The Language of Homer.” In Pache 2020: 70–79.

Bird, G. 2009. “Critical Signs—Drawing Attention to “Special” Lines of Homer’s Iliad in the Manuscript Venetus A.” In Dué 2009: 89–115.

Dué, C. 2002. Homeric Variations on a Lament by Briseis. Center for Hellenic Studies. Print edition: Lexington books, 2002. 

–––, ed. 2009. Recapturing a Homeric Legacy: Images and Insights from the Venetus A Manuscript of the Iliad. Center for Hellenic Studies. Print edition: Harvard University Press, 2009.

–––. 2018/2019. Achilles Unbound: Multiformity and Tradition in the Homeric Epics. Center for Hellenic Studies. Print edition: Harvard University Press, 2019.

Dué, C. and M. Ebbott, eds. 2010. Iliad 10 and the Poetics of Ambush: A Multitext Edition with Essays and Commentary. Center for Hellenic Studies. Print edition: Harvard University Press, 2010.

Foley, J. 1991. Immanent Art: From Structure to Meaning in Traditional Oral Epic. Bloomington, IN. 

–––. 1999. Homer’s Traditional Art. University Park, PA. 

Graziosi, B. and J. Haubold. 2005. Homer: The Resonance of Epic. London. 

Lord, A. 1960/2000. The Singer of Tales. Center for Hellenic Studies. 2nd print edition (ed. S. Mitchell and G. Nagy): Harvard University Press, 2000. 

Muellner, L. 1996. The Anger of Achilles: Mênis in Greek Epic. Center for Hellenic Studies. Print edition: Cornell University Press, 1996. 

Nagy, G. 1979/1999. The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry. Baltimore. Center for Hellenic Studies. Revised print edition: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. 

–––. 1990. Greek Mythology and Poetics. Ithaca, N.Y. 

–––. 2013. The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours. Center for Hellenic Studies. Print edition: Harvard University Press, 2013. 

–––. 2020a. “From Song to Text.” In Pache 2020: 80–98. 

–––. 2020b. “Comments on comparative mythology 7, finding a cure for the anger of Hērā.” Classical Inquiries 2020.04.03.

O’Brien, J. 1993. The Transformation of Hera. Lanham, MD. 

Pache, C., ed. 2020. The Cambridge Guide to Homer. Cambridge. 

Tsagalis, C., ed. 2010. Homeric Hypertextuality. Trends in Classics 2. 

Walsh, T. 2005. Fighting Words and Feuding Words: Anger and the Homeric Poems. Center for Hellenic Studies. Print edition: Lexington Books, 2005.


Casey Dué
Mary Ebbott
Douglas Frame
Leonard Muellner
Gregory Nagy

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