The Richmond Lattimore Translation (1965)
The man of many ways.
Fidelity to the Greek is the whole point. Lattimore leaves the interpreting to you.
You want to know what Homer actually said, line for line, with no smoothing. Hand me the scholarly one.
What it keeps and what it changes
Keeps: the most of any translation: line-for-line fidelity, Greek word order, the epithets, a long six-beat line.
Changes: the least, sometimes at the cost of easy English. Scholars tend to swear by it.
Whose story is it?
Homer’s, as literally as English allows.
Who's here
How each character in this version compares across the whole catalog:
- Odysseus — The man of many ways, kept literal so you weigh the ways yourself.
How much time does it ask?
≈12–13 hrs (denser going than Wilson or Fagles).
“The man of many ways,” the most literal rendering of polytropos.
Where to find it
Buy the paperback — Bookshop.org →
Other ways to get it: Paperback — Amazon ↗ · Kindle — Amazon ↗
Borrow it free: Borrow on Libby ↗ · Find at your library — WorldCat ↗
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More ways home: The Emily Wilson Translation (2017) · The Robert Fagles Translation (1996) · The Robert Fitzgerald Translation (1961)
Compare on one axis: How much of the gods do you actually get? (present, as written)