Iliad | 
 enlarge | Authors: Homer, Stanley Lombardo
Publisher: Hackett Publishing Company
Category: Book
List Price: $12.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  34 reviews
Sales Rank: 173573
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 516
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 0872203522
Dewey Decimal Number: 883.01
EAN: 9780872203525
ASIN: 0872203522
Publication Date: June 1997
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Amazon.com Review
So great is the impact of ancient Greek literature on Western culture that even people who have never read Homer's Iliad or The Odyssey know a lot about them. The Trojan Horse, Achilles' heel, the Sirens' call, Scylla and Charybdis--all have entered popular mythology, becoming metaphors for the less heroic situations we face in our own lives. Ever since these oral poems were committed to paper (probably in the 8th century B.C.E.), people have been translating them. The version of Iliad translated by Stanley Lombardo is a brave departure from previous translations; Lombardo attempts to adapt the text to the needs of readers rather than the listeners for whom the work was originally intended. To this end, he has streamlined the poem, removing many of the stock repetitions such as the infamous "rosy-fingered dawn," or rewriting them in ways dependent on their context. What emerges is a vivid, lively rendition of one of the world's great stories of men and war. But classicists, beware: This Iliad has something of a '90s sensibility, from the cover art (a photograph of the D-Day Normandy landing) to Achilles' Rambo-like diction. It might well outrage the purists, but for those who remember their musty high-school reading of Homer's great epic with a barely suppressed yawn, Lombardo's energetic translation is just the version to change their minds.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 29 more reviews...
 Illiad September 17, 2008
Book delivered in proper manner but the book was not in that good of shape. Book has writing in it...many pages of writing and few pages glued together. Should maybe look over books before put up for sale.
 THE MOST EPIC TRANSLATION!!!!!! June 29, 2008
Out of all the translations I compared of "The Iliad", this was the one that shattered me (positively) the most!
It's drive, energy, fire, warmth, vision, poetry, simplicity, music, and most importantly... conviction!
The print layout, font, and spacing as well are incredible!
I am part of the Iliad when I read this one...I am on the battlefield, I am crossing the waters, I am in the heavens, I am with the Gods, I am Achilles, I am Agamemnon, I am Paris, I am Hector, I am Menaleus, I am Athene, I am Zeus...I feel that I am one with Homer...
All praise for Lombardo and Hackett Publishing.
Thank You
An epic translation May 22, 2007
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
"Sprung out of bitterness, the philosophy of the Iliad excludes resentment." Thus Rachel Bespaloff, stating the seemingly impossible. Years ago I read the Iliad in Fitzgerald's fine translation, but every page had the heavy cadence of a "classic." Now I'm reading Fagles' and Lombardo's translations back to back, and am surprised how much I'm enjoying the poem. I don't dispute those who judge Fagles the superior translator, but for me the Lombardo version is far more stirring.
Consider the opening lines. Fagles translates:
Rage--Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
great fighters' souls, but made their bodies carrion,
feasts for the dogs and birds,
and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.
Lombardo captures the rage and waste in way Fagles does not:
Rage:
Sing, Goddess, Achilles' rage,
Black and murderous, that cost the Greeks
Incalculable pain, pitched countless souls
Of heroes into Hades' dark,
And left their bodies to rot as feasts
For dogs and birds, as Zeus' will was done.
This is bitterness on the edge of blasphemy. It sounds like the war we're reading about every morning, where soldiers' bodies are blown to shreds and the bloody will of God is invoked by each side. Lombardo also brings an unexpected poetry to the brutality of the poem, reminding me of the best of Logue's ongoing masterpiece. For example, in Book 6, Hector returns to Troy for a rushed moment and is met by the wives of men dying on the plain.
He told them all,
Each woman in turn, to pray to the gods.
Sorrow clung to their heads like mist.
Again, more bitterness -- the gods regard the heroes as little more than chess pieces to be sacrificed in the course of their game. The final line evokes not only grief but the blind futility of faith. (Fagles translates the line, inertly, as "Hard sorrows were hanging over many.")
Whether this is your first go at the Iliad or if you're ready to re-read it, I recommend Lombardo's performance version, with its "heroes more godlike than the gods, and more human than men." (Bespaloff again -- from her essay "On the Iliad." NYRB recently republished it, along with Simone Weil's magnificent "The Iliad, or the Poem of Force" under the title "War and the Iliad," a slim volume which page for page beats any commentary on the Iliad I've ever read.)
Great in print, even better on CD November 24, 2006
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
What a treat!
First of all, when the Iliad is inflicted on kids in school, this is the translation that should be used. It is hands down the most accessible translation I have ever seen. Nice introduction, too.
But more to the point, do not buy this book at all in hard copy form. Instead, search Amazon & you will find a marvelous reading on cd by Stanley Lombardo. On the cd, each "book" of the Iliad is prefaced with a brief summary of what you are about to hear. And then, with a minimalist bit of drums & fiddle, Lombardo delivers one of the best readings of anything I have heard. When your kid has to read the Iliad for class, let him download the cd onto his iPod or other mp3 player. Tell him to listen while he walks the dog.
I confess that I bought both the cd & the book. And after listening to it, I bought Lombardo's cd & book of the Odyssey. I am just a few books into the Odyssey, and I am already annoyed that Lombardo does not seem to have a reading of his translation of the Aeneid. (Get on with it, will you, Stan?)
Check out Jacket Magazine number 21 on the internet for an interview by Michael Leddy of Lombardo concerning his translations. And for a real treat, look for Wired For Books on the internet. They have some mp3 files of Lombardo reading the Iliad in Greek. Even if you don't know Greek, listening can give you a sense of the rhythm and fluidity of the original.
Kudos for Lombardo September 13, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
The Lombardo translation of the Iliad has made this awesome epic much more accessible to me with its use of colloquial modern English, though he doesn't overdo it. Earlier translations have put me to sleep, Lombardo keeps me awake and turning pages. Occasionally he goes a bit overboard with colloquialisms - his use of the word "bitch" I found somewhat jarring yet forgivable. Lombardo claims his translation is poetry, with which I would take mild exception. His translation, true enough, is typeset in verse fashion, but there is no sense of traditional verse to it. Hence I find it reads more like prose than poetry, but I don't fault it for that. I understand Lombardo has given public recitations of his translation. Perhaps if I heard him declaiming it aloud I would revise my opinion. In fact, knowing he has done so has expanded my appreciation of his translation: it is meant to be recited, not just silently read. Useful are his appendices, which catalog the principal and many minor actors in the epic with brief life-stories, and which offer a guide to pronouncing the names (I was amazed at how many names I have heard mispronounced!). There is also an appendix of major speeches. All in all this is a great book. I am reading it side by side with the Chapman translation and each one complements the other.
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