Homer's Odyssey

In this new translation of the Odyssey, Norbert Albertson has succeeded in crafting a vivid and thoughtful English version of Homer’s great work. Both true to the original and resonant in the present day, it is a masterful work of story-telling for readers of our time. Translator's note: The Greek Odyssey is one of the supreme achievements of the human mind and spirit. This book is not that Odyssey, but a translation, which—like all other translations of the Odyssey—like any translation of any work of literature—is a re-creation in a different language of some of the qualities of the original work. So at the very beginning, a translator must ask himself: "Which qualities of this work can I hope to ­re-create?" If you look at a number of translations of the Odyssey, you soon see that each translator has answered that question in his own way, a way that differs—and usually differs greatly—from that of all the others. In On Translating Homer, Matthew Arnold, the great Victorian poet and critic, famously says that the qualities of Homer are four: he is rapid; he is plain and direct in thought and expression; he is plain and direct in substance; and he is noble. In this translation I have aimed at the first three, hoping (and partly believing) that, if I succeeded to some degree in those first three, the fourth would take care of itself.