I’m experimenting with different ways of using this extraordinary text.
I chose a book (10) with which I am pretty unfamiliar. I had only read book 10 one time, several years ago, and I did not remember the plot. I read through the paraphrase once, not looking anything up, and not looking at the Homeric text at all. I could understand about 90% of the paraphrase. Then I read through the paraphrase again, this time glancing over at Homer to help me unpack the few passages I could not get. This worked about half the time. Then I read through the book a third time, reading a passage from Gaza (with which by this time I was quite familiar) and then reading the Homer. The extra familiarity with the underlining meaning of the Homeric text, which I had absorbed through several readings of the paraphrase, made understanding the Homeric text even easier. At this point, in just a few places, I did use a lexicon and look at the English translations, once or twice because I was truly stuck, more often just to nail down the more precise meaning. Then, finally, I read through the book once last time, this time reading only the Homer, and referring back to the paraphrase only when I got stuck.
This was a remarkably painless and fun to way to read Homer. Above all, as I said at the outset, I am thrilled to read Homer without leaving the target language. I don’t think this text would allow anyone to dispense all together with lexicons and grammar notes and translations, but it does allow one to use these minimally. It creates a Greek immersion reading environment that breaks out of grammar-translation.
I am currently reading book 11 and my practice is to switch off. On one page I read the Homer first, and then read the paraphrase, and on the next page I reverse the method. Reading Gaza first is much easier, requiring less effort, but I do think it is a mild form of “cheating.” Reading the Homer first forces you to process out the more difficult Greek, and I don’t want to relay too much on even a Greek “crutch.”
I’m also now referring to Psellos’ paraphrase from time to time, either when I get stuck on a passage or when I am curious to see his take.
chalimac wrote:
An early Demotic version would almost be equivalent to a Koine version.
There’s Nikolaos Loukanis 1526 version. > http://www.onassislibrary.gr/en/collect > … oh002.html
I will be busy for a long while with Gaza (and Psellos!) but this version also intrigues me. This book
http://books.google.com/books?id=EM5zJ1PZCzAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=twenty+centuries+of+translations&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RU8mUZWrEYevqAHBtoFw&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA
gives a brief excerpt from 1:1ff, and Loukanis is perfectly intelligible to me even though I do not read Modern Greek. It appears that Loukanis’ book is only available from Europe, and I believe it is facsimile of the original, whose ornate orthography is certainly interesting to look at in its own right, but the font, with even more ligatures than Theseus, would be somewhat difficult to read. I look forward to the day when all these texts will be printed in new, modern fonts.
Actually, the Odyssey has not been appreciated in all its nuances until recent times (Joyce for instance).
I go back and forth on which book is better. When I read the Odyssey I think it is better, more sophisticated in plot, structure, and language. But, as now, when I read the Iliad, I like it better. The language is more simple, less ornate, more direct and open air, but still masterfully intricate. It’s amazing to me that the first two books ever written in a European language remain the two best.
