We are pleased to share this segment in the series on reading Homeric epic in ancient Greek. In each installment we read, translate, and discuss a small passage in the original Greek in the most accessible way. If you’ve ever dreamed of reading Homer in the original, here is your chance to do so with teachers who have spent a lifetime thinking about this poetry. With their guidance even new readers can enjoy “the poetry of grammar and the grammar of poetry” that make Homeric epic so exquisite and rewarding.
In this segment, Douglas Frame (CHS), Leonard Muellner (Brandeis University), and Gregory Nagy (Harvard University), continue their discussion of Odyssey 1. Topics include demonstratives, the verb eukhomai, Athena as Mentes, the preposition epi, the adjective allothroos, placenames, the phrases agō aithōna sidēron and epi oinopa ponton, and epithets and properties of wine in the poetic tradition.
Odyssey 1.178–186[1]
τὸν δ᾽ αὖτε προσέειπε θεά, γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη:
‘τοιγὰρ ἐγώ τοι ταῦτα μάλ᾽ ἀτρεκέως ἀγορεύσω.
Μέντης Ἀγχιάλοιο δαΐφρονος εὔχομαι εἶναι 180
υἱός, ἀτὰρ Ταφίοισι φιληρέτμοισιν ἀνάσσω.
νῦν δ᾽ ὧδε ξὺν νηὶ κατήλυθον ἠδ᾽ ἑτάροισιν
πλέων ἐπὶ οἴνοπα πόντον ἐπ᾽ ἀλλοθρόους ἀνθρώπους,
ἐς Τεμέσην μετὰ χαλκόν, ἄγω δ᾽ αἴθωνα σίδηρον. 185
νηῦς δέ μοι ἥδ᾽ ἕστηκεν ἐπ᾽ ἀγροῦ νόσφι πόληος,
ἐν λιμένι Ῥείθρῳ ὑπὸ Νηίῳ ὑλήεντι.
[1] Homer. The Odyssey with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1919.