TLGMarathon: Homeric Hymns, resources

[Redhead]

So, I'm not sure if there's much interest in this series of mine, but I will keep it up. The Odyssey is now finished and I'm about to start reading Hesiod. I'm only waiting for the last commentaries to arrive. Thus, I'm starting this thread in the meantime. If you have any suggestions on commentaries or editions(or anything else; I'll mainly use TLG och the OCT edition) that could benefit anyone reading the Homeric Hymns for the first time, please share it with us! This time I don't start with any items, so maybe there will be more suggestions starting afresh.

(And I must say I'm really getting better. The end of the Odyssey went really fast. The last session of less than 12 hours took me 670 lines. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that it was possible to read all of Homer in seven months... If anyone is thinking of doing what I'm doing, DO IT! It IS possible!)

[Hylander]

Homer gets much easier the more you read, and eventually you can work up to reading rapidly almost without a dictionary. Congratulations on finishing -- for the first time.

With so much Homer under your belt, the Homeric Hymns shouldn't be too difficult, either. There is a commentary on three of them in the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics (Green and Yellow) series by Nicholas Richardson:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Three-Homeric- ... ay&sr=8-16

Richardson has also published a separate commentary on the Hymn to Demeter, but it's very expensive.

If you can read Italian, there is a commentary on the entire set of Homeric Hymns by Filippo Càssola:

https://www.amazon.com/INNI-OMERICI-Fil ... way&sr=8-1

You can order this directly from Mondadori if you can't find it elsewhere.

The new Loeb edition by West will have, in addition to an English translation, some useful, if brief, notes:

https://www.amazon.com/Homeric-Hymns-Ap ... ay&sr=8-1

For Hesiod, try to get your hands on West's commentaries. They're 50+ years old, but they are really rich in information and insights.

It's too late to correct och. You've been exposed as Swedish.

[Redhead]

If you can read Italian, there is a commentary on the entire set of Homeric Hymns by Filippo Càssola:

For Hesiod, try to get your hands on West's commentaries. They're 50+ years old, but they are really rich in information and insights.

It's too late to correct och. You've been exposed as Swedish.

Thank you very much! The Italian will have to wait, unfortunately. But it might be good to come back to that commentary once I've learned Italian, if it's good and worth the hassle, that is. My skills in the research languages is lagging behind, I'm afraid.

Already got them! I'm armed with an entire arsenal of stuff for Hesiod, so I don't think he will pose any problems.

PFFFT, nooo...! I have no Idea what you're talking about. It was just my autocorrect that happened to be set to Swedish, duh!! Okay, I must confess that I find myself doing this particular error irritatingly often. But if you didn't have to google it, I'm impressed!

[Paul Derouda]

You ought to be impressed by Hylander; he's very knowledgeable and I'm certain he didn't google it. I'm Finnish myself, but it was he who told me that the Danish language is collapsing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_iixmqSBQw. (If you enjoy that, you might like to check the whole thread in question viewtopic.php?f=6&t=65019&p=182226).

If you read Hesiod with West's commentaries (which is an excellent idea, and the one on Works and days is actually just 40 years old...), you might also find useful his translations of Hesiod, published in a thin volume in the Oxford world classics series. These are more recent than the commentaries; I don't know if and how much West's ideas evolved in the meantime. In any case, I think it's always worthwhile to see what one of the greatest Greek scholars of all time thought about a given passage.

When I read the hymns, I wasn't aware of Richardson's commentaries, but I'm sure you can trust Hylander on this. I've intended to follow his recommendation myself and read them again with those commentaries myself, but as always, I haven't found the time.

[Menoeceus]

Hello, Redhead! I've also recently been reading through the Odyssey (expecting to finish book 10 tonight). This my first time reading the Odyssey cover-to-cover, although I've read excerpts and a few books before. I've been using a nineteenth-century Greek-Latin bilingual edition to understand the grammar and most of the vocabulary.

Since my edition also contains the Homeric Hymns, I might try to read one or two over the coming week-end (not sure which) and discuss them a bit in this read.

[Redhead]

Paul Derouda, it's a classic for me and my friends. Some of them even know a lot of it by heart. It's simply hilarious. KAMELÅÅÅSÅÅ!

I will get my hands on those translations as well, thank you!

Menoeceus, good to hear! You might want to check out my TLGMarathon thread for the Odyssey, where you will find quite a few resources, if you are interested.