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Homeric Haikus

Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2005 6:44 pm
by Bardo de Saldo
Here's a challenge for aedoi: Finding small poems within Homer's lines, small fragments that could stand by themselves as a poem and condense "everything that's good about Homer's poetry". (I'm starting to find a bit lame the recitation of the first lines of Book 1, especially if you're not intending to get to the end.)

I'll start with some lines chosen by Benner: Θ 555-565.

As when in heaven the stars about the moon
Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid,
And every height comes out, and jutting peak
And valley, and the immeasurable heavens
Break open to their highest, and all the stars
Shine, and the shepherd gladdens in his heart:
So many a fire between the ships and stream
Of Xanthus blazed before the towers of Troy,
A thousand on the plain: and close by each
Sat fifty in the blaze of burning fire;
And eating hoary grain and pulse the steeds,
Fixt by their cars, waited the golden dawn.

-Translated by Tennyson.