The Odyssey
(Book)

Greek and English text on opposite pages.

Reprint of 1919 edition.

English and Greek.

Reprint. Originally published: London : W. Heinemann, 1919.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

HOMER, The works assigned to Homer include the earliest and greatest European epic poems, but nothing is known of their Greek author (if not authors) unless it is that his country was Ionia in Asia Minor. To the ancients Homeric poetry at first was all the old epics, especially about Thebes and Troy; then 'Homer' was credited only with the Iliad and the Odyssey which we still have, and some minor poems of which we include Homeric Hymns in the volume containing Hesoid. The 24 books of the Iliad concern the 'anger of Achilles' during the war of the Greeks against Troy, extending from Achilles' quarrel with Agamemnon to the burial of Hector. The Odyssey presents the fortunes of Odysseus and his son Telamachus after the fall of Troy, and Odysseus' return home to Ithaca and his revenge on the rapacious suitors of his wife Penelope. It would require a book to list the work of scholarship done on these marvellous narratives of which part at least of the greatness can be suggested in translation.

BSLW RECAT 2023