I’m not up for the entirety of Book 1 yet. Maybe I will turn to the Iliad full time once I finish Anabasis in a few weeks. But here is a slightly longer recording. The first half is better than the second. Much of that is just speed. I should have gone much slower in the material I was less familiar with. Adding “y” or “w” to my vowel-junctures has made a great difference, but I’m still not comfortable with it.
I prefer the one you did on October 21st. Here I think you’re trying to be more relaxed or something, but in my opinion it disrupts the rhythm. The rhythm was very good on October 21st; I suppose you’re trying something new now, but I don’t exactly understand what it is… I think you should respect the basic rhythm of the hexameter, a slight pause at caesuras and at line ends.
I don’t know whether I’m in agreement with Daitz or not, but I think punctuation was never supposed to tell us where to pause. At least in my own language, pauses in delivery often don’t coincide with punctuation, especially with commas. I suppose it’s the same with English and Greek. Punctuation helps us to understand the meaning of the sentence and thus also how to pronounce it, how to stress and intonate it, it’s not just about where to pause. It’s the same with word spaces. We don’t normally pause between words, word spaces are just supposed to make reading easier.
I feel you sound more Anglophonic than you used to, especially with some unstressed vowels you pronounce as schwas – a problem you had already admirably eradicated. Some problems with vowel quantity also, especially some short vowels you pronounce as long, e.g. ἐρίσαντεεε, Ἀτρειιΐδες. And repeat after me: κύνεσσσσσιν 
(long s, short i!)
But when you read my remarks, remember this: I think it was Sibelius who said that no one ever erected a statue in honor of a music critic. It’s much easier to give comments like this than to perform Homer yourself.
I found the script that you used for this on Github. There are some advantages to getting some practice in reading this orthography (for one thing, you have to pay extra close attention to the endings, just to figure out where the next word begins), but I’m not yet ready to read Homer this way. For prose, the output is so free of visual signposts that I inevitably get lost in the middle of a paragraph and don’t know where to restart. To get ΕΝΤΑΥΘΑΕΜΕΙΝΕΝΟΚΥΡΟΣ-style prose texts that I can still navigate around, I made a small modification in the code, adding into the convert_letter function
if let in [u'.', u'·', u';', u'—']:
return u'·'
so that it generates a very lightly punctuated text with one kind of punctuation, and I’ve tried it out, following along with recordings of Xenophon’s Anabasis and Plato’s Apology, followed by rereading the passages silently.
It’s really an interesting reading experience. With so much less redundancy than I’m used to, I have to form expectations based on context for where the word is likely to end, and I have to do a lot more contextual top-down processing to figure out what the words are and how they function grammatically than is usual.
Here’s the opening of the Apology as output by the code:
ΟΤΙΜΕΝΥΜΕΙΣΩΑΝΔΡΕΣΑΘΗΝΑΙΟΙΠΕΠΟΝΘΑΤΕΥΠΟΤΩΝΕΜΩΝΚΑΤΗΓΟΡΩΝΟΥΚΟΙΔΑ·ΕΓΩΔΟΥΝΚΑΙΑΥΤΟΣΥΠΑΥΤΩΝΟΛΙΓΟΥΕΜΑΥΤΟΥΕΠΕΛΑΘΟΜΗΝΟΥΤΩΠΙΘΑΝΩΣΕΛΕΓΟΝ·ΚΑΙΤΟΙΑΛΗΘΕΣΓΕΩΣΕΠΟΣΕΙΠΕΙΝΟΥΔΕΝΕΙΡΗΚΑΣΙΝ·ΜΑΛΙΣΤΑΔΕΑΥΤΩΝΕΝΕΘΑΥΜΑΣΑΤΩΝΠΟΛΛΩΝΩΝΕΨΕΥΣΑΝΤΟΤΟΥΤΟΕΝΩΙΕΛΕΓΟΝΩΣΧΡΗΝΥΜΑΣΕΥΛΑΒΕΙΣΘΑΙΜΗΥΠΕΜΟΥΕΞΑΠΑΤΗΘΗΤΕΩΣΔΕΙΝΟΥΟΝΤΟΣΛΕΓΕΙΝ·ΤΟΓΑΡΜΗΑΙΣΧΥΝΘΗΝΑΙΟΤΙΑΥΤΙΚΑΥΠΕΜΟΥΕΞΕΛΕΓΧΘΗΣΟΝΤΑΙΕΡΓΩΙΕΠΕΙΔΑΝΜΗΔΟΠΩΣΤΙΟΥΝΦΑΙΝΩΜΑΙΔΕΙΝΟΣΛΕΓΕΙΝΤΟΥΤΟΜΟΙΕΔΟΞΕΝΑΥΤΩΝΑΝΑΙΣΧΥΝΤΟΤΑΤΟΝΕΙΝΑΙΕΙΜΗΑΡΑΔΕΙΝΟΝΚΑΛΟΥΣΙΝΟΥΤΟΙΛΕΓΕΙΝΤΟΝΤΑΛΗΘΗΛΕΓΟΝΤΑ·ΕΙΜΕΝΓΑΡΤΟΥΤΟΛΕΓΟΥΣΙΝΟΜΟΛΟΓΟΙΗΝΑΝΕΓΩΓΕΟΥΚΑΤΑΤΟΥΤΟΥΣΕΙΝΑΙΡΗΤΩΡ·
ΟΥΤΟΙΜΕΝΟΥΝΩΣΠΕΡΕΓΩΛΕΓΩΗΤΙΗΟΥΔΕΝΑΛΗΘΕΣΕΙΡΗΚΑΣΙΝΥΜΕΙΣΔΕΜΟΥΑΚΟΥΣΕΣΘΕΠΑΣΑΝΤΗΝΑΛΗΘΕΙΑΝ·ΟΥΜΕΝΤΟΙΜΑΔΙΑΩΑΝΔΡΕΣΑΘΗΝΑΙΟΙΚΕΚΑΛΛΙΕΠΗΜΕΝΟΥΣΓΕΛΟΓΟΥΣΩΣΠΕΡΟΙΤΟΥΤΩΝΡΗΜΑΣΙΤΕΚΑΙΟΝΟΜΑΣΙΝΟΥΔΕΚΕΚΟΣΜΗΜΕΝΟΥΣΑΛΛΑΚΟΥΣΕΣΘΕΕΙΚΗΙΛΕΓΟΜΕΝΑΤΟΙΣΕΠΙΤΥΧΟΥΣΙΝΟΝΟΜΑΣΙΝ·ΠΙΣΤΕΥΩΓΑΡΔΙΚΑΙΑΕΙΝΑΙΑΛΕΓΩ·ΚΑΙΜΗΔΕΙΣΥΜΩΝΠΡΟΣΔΟΚΗΣΑΤΩΑΛΛΩΣ·ΟΥΔΕΓΑΡΑΝΔΗΠΟΥΠΡΕΠΟΙΩΑΝΔΡΕΣΤΗΙΔΕΤΗΙΗΛΙΚΙΑΙΩΣΠΕΡΜΕΙΡΑΚΙΩΙΠΛΑΤΤΟΝΤΙΛΟΓΟΥΣΕΙΣΥΜΑΣΕΙΣΙΕΝΑΙ·
I think I’ve improved enough to ask for criticism once again. I’m still having a great deal of trouble feeling the rhythm, except in isolated lines. I don’t hear it at all in Daitz’s recordings.
First, my normal reading, concentrating on quantity:
http://greek.io/audio/Iliad%201-32%2012.22.14.mp3
Next, my bouncy reading (attempting to copy Norwegian pitch):
http://greek.io/audio/Iliad%201-32%2012.22.14%20Norwegian%20pitch.mp3
The bouncy reading is better in the middle than at the beginning. At a number of points, I put too much stress into my pitch accents, which in turn destroys the rhythm of the poetry. This has been my Norwegian audio example. It’s hard to find good Norwegian on the web! My reading sounds very weird I know, but it’s the only Indo-European language that I know of with pitch accent and vowel quantity. Also, when I read it like that, it’s very easy to tell the difference between different accent patterns in words.
The first version is very nice. Congratulations on κύνεσσιν! On the first line you pronounce αιεδε,which I found disturbing , you had it right in October. Be careful with the transitional glides, fbecause you tend to diphthongize the preceding vowel (e.g. τε jαναξ → τει αναξ) and thus make it long. But basically I agree it’s clearly even better this time!
The second version I like less. I mean you manage to sound exactly Swedish/Norwegian (which really is bouncy like that, or at least that’s how a Finn would parody it! 
) but it’s not how I would imagine Homer, though of course there’s no way we can know…
That’s great, Joel, the meter comes over beautifully. (Sometimes not enough distinction between long and short alphas? e.g. ψυχὰς … προίαψεν.) Now you can relax it and go back to representing the accents if you like. So long as you have the metrical pattern fixed firmly in your head, it will come out regardless. And there’s almost always some places where an accent falls on a longum, so that helps too.
PS I see I didn’t answer your question on the other thread (Audio practice), so I’ve just done that.
Thank you. I’m excited about reading more Homer now.
The hardest thing for me to get right seems to be the consonant stops, which I don’t think can be done slowly. Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν has to be pronounced Ἄϊδιπ ροΐαπ σεν, and the temptation is for me to prolong the second iota of Ἄϊδι or the alpha in προΐαψεν because it’s so easy for me to miss the stop. The same occurs in δὴ τὰ πρῶτα which needs to be δὴ τὰπ ρῶτα. There are some other trouble spots, but they are similar.
At full speed, the stops along with the vowel lengths seem to produce this meter naturally (I was over-emphasizing it a bit in the video for clarity).
I think that I can now clarify a problem that I have heard in a some Homer recordings with some of the most regular meter: They will often save the meter by using incorrect vowel length instead of depending on the consonant stops. Ie., they will read τᾱ πρωτα with long first alpha instead of τᾰπ ρωτα.
You also noticed -ους ψυχάς which is hard for me for the opposite reason – there are three consonants in a row between two long vowels, and the -σπσ- breaks the meter a bit. Also the syllable χᾱς is simply a hard one for me.
So my advice to anyone who wants to make faster progress than me:
- Get vowel length right
- Work on your double consonants combinations
- Practice until it flows
Now you can relax it and go back to representing the accents if you like. So long as you have the metrical pattern fixed firmly in your head, it will come out regardless.
I hope so. It’s still very hard work at the moment, and each line learned seems hard-won. But I hope to get more fluent (“flow-like”) at it.
I didn’t hear any problem with vowel length in ψυχὰς … προίαψεν. If sometimes the distinction was not that clear, I don’t think it was beyond what might be acceptable in native speech (Using, again, distinctive vowel length in my own language as a guide). Since the meter works out fine, I think it was fine. What I found disturbing was the few short vowels pronounced as long later on: οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι, Διὸς δ᾽ ἐτελείετο βουλή (the last one is not as bad), ἐρίσαντε, and these mix up the rhythm from about halfway on. (The rhythm is very nice in the first half).
ευ is still “you”, but I guess that’s very hard to change for an Anglophone. I don’t know if it really matters, as there’s no ambiguity.
If Paul is happy with your ᾱ:ᾰ contrast then so am I.
He’s right about the οιωνοισι line. You stretch the iota of Διος too. You seem to be dragging the latter of two shorts throughout this line, which to me suggests you may not have the rhythm quite right here. But I don’t hear this in evidence in the rest of the piece. The ερίσαντε ending of the next verse is a bit off, you’ll agree.
But these are petty details. You’ve got it, and I think your advice is spot on.
If people tend to read τᾱ πρωτα, I wonder if that’s because they think of the alpha as “long by position,” an iniquitous but hard-to-kill confusion of syllable and vowel.