BookFeed Ελληνικά -751–-651
Homer is the oldest voice in Greek that still sounds like someone talking to you, and what stays with you is how close the weather and the bodies are: salt, sweat, leaves under a sleeper, the smell of a fire. Start with «Οδύσσεια», the ten-year journey home where every stop tests whether a man remembers who he is, or with «Ομήρου Οδύσσεια Τόμος Α», the first volume in a Modern Greek rendering that keeps the roughness and sweetness of the telling. Both share a plain, quick way with grief and cunning, and they reward anyone who wants old stories told with a clear eye and no fuss.
Feels like home, wonder and freedom.
Start with Ομήρου Οδύσσεια Τόμος Α.
Iakovos Polylas, active politician, orator and editor of Corfu, spent years on this translation, which is still known as «Πολυλάς» in Greek reading culture. His version brought the poem into demotic Greek at a time when that was a scandal.
On a wild beach, a man who has lost everything hides in dead leaves like a fire that won't go out.
Και τούτο συμφερώτερο του εφάνη• προς το δάσοςεκίνησε, και τωύρηκεν εις το νερό πλησίον,’ς ανοικτόν τόπον• έσκυψε κάτω από δυό δενδρούλιαομόρριζα, και το ’να εληά, και τ’ άλλο ήταν αγρίλι•κει μέσα ούτ’ άνεμοι φυσούν με την υγρή πνοή τους,ούτε του ηλιού πότ’ έφθασαν η φωτειναίς ακτίνες,ούτε η βροχή τα έσπασε• τόσο πυκνά πλεγμέναήσαν μαζή• κ’ εσύρθηκε ’ς εκείν’ ο Οδυσσέας,κ’ ευθύς στρώσιν εστοίβασε πλατειά με τα δυο χέρια•ότ’ ήσαν φύλλα περισσά χυμέν’ αυτού, ’π’ αρκούσαννα φυλαχθούν άνθρωποι δυο και τρεις ’ς ώρα χειμώνος,και αν ψύχος έπνεε δριμύ• τα είδε κ’ εχάρη ο θείοςο άνδρας ο πολύπαθος, και του σωρού ’ς την μέσηεπλάγιασε κ’ επάνω του έχυσε φύλλα πλήθος. Όμηρος, -700
A prince discovers he is not the master of his house, a soldier turns down immortality, and a naked man falls asleep in a pile of leaves on a beach. The Odyssey, translated with a rough, sweet, immediate Greekness by the Ionian poet who gave it its modern Greek voice.
Όμηρος, -750
A war ten years old and still not won: the quarrel, the losses, and the two impossible choices that keep people fighting.
Όμηρος, -750
The first road movie: a soldier spends ten years trying to get home, and every detour is a chance to get lost, forget who he is, or tell a very good story about it.
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