Ilium

Author’s Note

When my kid brother and I used to take our toy soldiers out of the box, we had no problem playing with our blue and gray Civil War soldiers alongside our green World War II guys. I prefer to think of this as a precocious example of what John Keats called “Negative Capability.” (We also had a Viking, a cowboy, an Indian, and a Roman Centurion flinging grenades, but they were in our Time Commando Platoon. Some anomalies demand what the Hollywood people insist on calling a backstory.)

With Ilium, however, I thought a certain consistency was required. Those readers who teethed, as I did, on Richmond Lattimore’s wonderful 1951 translation of the Iliad will notice that Hektor, Achilleus, and Aias have become Hector, Achilles, and Ajax (Big and Little). In this I agree with Robert Fagles in his 1990 translation that while these more latinized versions are farther from the Greek—Hektor versus Akhilleus and the Akhaians and the Argeioi—the more faithful version sometimes sounds like a cat coughing up a hairball. As Fagles points out, no one can claim perfect consistency, and it tends to read more smoothly when we return to the traditional practice of the English poets by using Latinate spellings and even modern English forms for the heroes and their gods.

The exception to this, again as per Fagles, is when we would have Ulysses instead of Odysseus or, say, Minerva replacing Athena. Alexander Pope in his incredibly beautiful translation of the Iliad into heroic couplets had no problem with “Jupiter” or “Jove” ripping Ares (not Mars) a new one, but my Negative Capability falters here. Sometimes, it seems, you have to play with just the green guys.

Note: For those readers who, like me, have problems in an epic tale telling the gods, goddesses, heroes, and other characters apart without a scorecard, I would refer you to our dramatis personae beginning on page 573 .