The Odyssey

by Homer (Author); Fagles, Robert (Translator); Knox, Bernard (Introduction by)

• ISBN13: 9780140268867
• ISBN10: 0140268863
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-11-01
• Publisher: Penguin Classics

Summary

If the Iliad is the world's greatest war epic, then the Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of everyman's journey through life. Odysseus' reliance on his wit and wiliness for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces, during his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, is at once the timeless human story and an individual test of moral endurance. In the myths and legends that are retold here, Fagles has captured the energy and poetry of Homer's original in a bold, contemporary idiom, and given us an Odyssey to read aloud, to savour, and to treasure for its sheer lyrical mastery. Renowned classicist Bernard Knox's superb Introduction and textual commentary provide new insights and background information for the general reader and scholar alike, intensifying the strength of Fagles' introduction. This is an Odyssey to delight both the classicist and the public at large, and to captivate a new generation of Homer's students.

Author Biography

Robert Fagles, the winner of the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, is Arthur W. Marks '19 Professor of Comparative Literature, Emeritus, at Princeton University and received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Yale University.

Bernard Knox is Director Emeritus of Harvard's Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION
Introduction	3	(62)
The Spelling and Pronunciation of Homeric Names	65	(3)
Maps
Homeric Geography: Mainland Greece	68	(2)
Homeric Geography: The Peloponnese	70	(2)
Homeric Geography: The Aegean and Asia Minor	72	(1)
Inset: Troy and Vicinity	73	(4)
HOMER: The Odyssey
Athena Inspires the Prince	77	(16)
Telemachus Sets Sail	93	(14)
King Nestor Remembers	107	(17)
The King and Queen of Sparta	124	(28)
Odysseus---Nymph and Shipwreck	152	(16)
The Princess and the Stranger	168	(11)
Phaeacia's Halls and Gardens	179	(12)
A Day for Songs and Contests	191	(20)
In the One-Eyed Giant's Cave	211	(19)
The Bewitching Queen of Aeaea	230	(19)
The Kingdom of the Dead	249	(22)
The Cattle of the Sun	271	(15)
Ithaca at Last	286	(15)
The Loyal Swineherd	301	(18)
The Prince Sets Sail for Home	319	(19)
Father and Son	338	(16)
Stranger at the Gates	354	(21)
The Beggar-King of Ithaca	375	(15)
Penelope and Her Guest	390	(20)
Portents Gather	410	(14)
Odysseus Strings His Bow	424	(15)
Slaughter in the Hall	439	(16)
The Great Rooted Bed	455	(13)
Peace	468	(35)
NOTES
Translator's Postscript	489	(8)
Genealogies	497	(4)
Textual Variants from the Oxford Classical Text	501	(2)
Notes on the Translation	503	(14)
Suggestions for Further Reading	517	(4)
Pronouncing Glossary	521