The Odyssey

Odyssey, by Homer (Translated
by Samuel Butler)

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Title: The Odyssey
Author: Homer Translated by Samuel Butler

Release Date: April, 1999 [EBook #1727] [Date last updated: 16th
February, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
ODYSSEY ***

Produced by Jim Tinsley [email protected]

The Odyssey
rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the
original
By Samuel Butler

Preface to First Edition
This translation is intended to supplement a work entitled "The
Authoress of the Odyssey", which I published in 1897. I could not give
the whole "Odyssey" in that book without making it unwieldy, I
therefore epitomised my translation, which was already completed and
which I now publish in full.
I shall not here argue the two main points dealt with in the work just
mentioned; I have nothing either to add to, or to withdraw from, what I
have there written. The points in question are:
(1) that the "Odyssey" was written entirely at, and drawn entirely from,

the place now called Trapani on the West Coast of Sicily, alike as
regards the Phaeacian and the Ithaca scenes; while the voyages of
Ulysses, when once he is within easy reach of Sicily, solve themselves
into a periplus of the island, practically from Trapani back to Trapani,
via the Lipari islands, the Straits of Messina, and the island of
Pantellaria;
(2) That the poem was entirely written by a very young woman, who
lived at the place now called Trapani, and introduced herself into her
work under the name of Nausicaa.
The main arguments on which I base the first of these somewhat
startling contentions, have been prominently and repeatedly before the
English and Italian public ever since they appeared (without rejoinder)
in the "Athenaeum" for January 30 and February 20, 1892. Both
contentions were urged (also without rejoinder) in the Johnian "Eagle"
for the Lent and October terms of the same year. Nothing to which I
should reply has reached me from any quarter, and knowing how
anxiously I have endeavoured to learn the existence of any flaws in my
argument, I begin to feel some confidence that, did such flaws exist, I
should have heard, at any rate about some of them, before now.
Without, therefore, for a moment pretending to think that scholars
generally acquiesce in my conclusions, I shall act as thinking them little
likely so to gainsay me as that it will be incumbent upon me to reply,
and shall confine myself to translating the "Odyssey" for English
readers, with such notes as I think will be found useful. Among these I
would especially call attention to one on xxii. 465-473 which Lord
Grimthorpe has kindly allowed me to make public.
I have repeated several of the illustrations used in "The Authoress of
the Odyssey", and have added two which I hope may bring the outer
court of Ulysses' house more vividly before the reader. I should like to
explain that the presence of a man and a dog in one illustration is
accidental, and was not observed by me till I developed the negative. In
an appendix I have also reprinted the paragraphs explanatory of the
plan of Ulysses' house, together with the plan itself. The reader is
recommended to study this plan with some attention.

In the preface to my translation of the "Iliad" I have given my views as
to the main principles by which a translator should be guided, and need
not repeat them here, beyond pointing out that the initial liberty of
translating poetry into prose involves the continual taking of more or
less liberty throughout the translation; for much that is right in poetry is
wrong in prose, and the exigencies of readable prose are the first things
to be considered in a prose translation. That