This summer I’m going to read the whole Iliad in Greek. I have assembled a vast array of scholarly tomes to help me:
Monro’s Commentary
Willcock’s Commentary
Autenreith’s Dictionary
Seymour’s Grammar
Monro’s Grammar
Iliad Loebs
EV Rieu’s translation
Hammond’s translation
Vocab lists for a lot of the books
Anything I’m missing? What’s the Leaf commentary like for instance?
Are there any outstanding commentaries on particular books? (I hear MacCleod on 24 is very good).
At the moment I’m managing about 300-400 lines a day, so a book every two days or so. I’m dipping into the grammars regularly.
Any general advice? I’m not looking forward to the middle section (10-15 or so). But perhaps the Greek there’ll be easy going.
I need to track down that Homeric Vocabularies book soon.
I don’t think, if you’re reading 100s of lines a day, you need the small Homeric Vocabulary. Simply by your reading you’ll get a feel for what words you most need to know.
Hi, I recently got Chantraine’s Grammaire homérique (on Will’s suggestion). If you can read French it’s a lot easier to read than Monro and covers different things, e.g. the chapter on accentuation talks about the introduction of Ionic and Aeolic accentuation into specific words in the text, e.g. the recessive Aeolic accent in the shorter genitive and dative forms of ui(o/j; I don’t remember Monro covering this aspect (but I’d have to check again)
I am actually pretty impressed with Monro. He seems to give very clear explanations of things. No nuance of an inflection escapes his grasp.
I am also getting very annoyed with Autenrieth, who only seems to give the nom.sg./firstpersonsing when it actually appears in Homer.. otherwise you’re left to fend for yourself. Cunliffe here I come then.
As for my free time - it’s the long gap between leaving school and starting Oxford (grades permitting). Since term 1 is basically the Iliad, I thought I’d get ahead.
I plan to go even faster soon. I could theoretically do it all day long.
Things are going well. I managed 600 lines for the first time today. I’ve got to book V, which is the first one I’ve read without a prepared vocab list. This makes it considerably slower, since it’s often hard to identify what verb an obscure form comes from.
The passages I dread most are the technical ones where I have to look up almost every single word - descriptions of feasts in book I, or the intricate details of Pandarus shooting an arrow. Hopefully they’ll crop up a few times so I’ll get used to them.
Another thing: Homer is weird! The more I read the more bizarre forms I find: aorists in ‘ka’, reduplicated aorists, augmentless forms, sigmatic second aorists, stative verbs…
I understand now why Homer is traditionally considered to be at the heart of Greek language. Reading Homer forces you to learn lots about the history of Greek and to really know your forms (particularly) verbs inside out. In addition, I can often see vocabulary familiar from Attic in its earlier form.
My approach to Homeric Grammar is to use the brief Homeric Grammars at the beginning of Monro’s Iliad Commentary (vol. I) and Stanford’s Odyssey Commentary. These provide all I need without swamping me in detail.
I’m fast coming to think that reading texts intensively is the only way to read them. I hardly need to learn vocabulary, since I see the words so often that they just stick. I see so many Homeric irregularities a day that they just aren’t that startling any more. Commentaries become superfluous.
I was wondering; do you use any translation at all as a backup? In any case a wonderful achievement, 600 lines in one day. If only I could. Congratulations.
I have a Loeb at hand always. I know some regard Loebs as shameful but my aim is to get through the Iliad once quickly; the chief requirement is to understand how the Greek fits together. Since Homeric Greek is generally easy in terms of sense, I don’t feel I’m blunting my skills at reading Greek unseen.
I surely don’t! I myself use Butlers translation as an aid, but he sometimes leaves out rather large chunks. The important thing (for me) is to get the flow of the lines, and the meaning of some words.
hi thucydides, this prob. won’t help you as you’re racing ahead already, but if you draw in your book diagrams of the vocab-intensive scenes, with greek-only labels, they become much much easier to read and then re-read later.
e.g. for book 1, the 2 ship scenes, the sacrifice, the feast, zeus’ body parts (i.e. when thetis is begging at his knees).
someone could do this and put it online but it’s far more helpful if you do it yourself i think.
Where did you find Chantraine’s grammar? I’m interested in getting it, but I’ve never found a copy. I sometimes photocopy pages from Cornell’s library, but I can only get there once every month or two.
hi swiftnicholas, yes i’ve only got it in photocopy as well: i.e. i’ve photocopied for myself the bits i wanted (in accordance with Aust copyright restrictions of course.).
thucydides, there’s also a diagram of a ship here on textkit:
however i find drawing your own pictures specific to passages much more helpful, because e.g. in book 1, the different ‘ship’ scenes talk about different parts of the ship, &c.
I noticed that abebooks also offers both volumes in an older paperback edition for a tempting price. Do you think the book to which you linked is a paperback? It isn’t designated “broché”; but a 2000 publication year suggests a paperback to me.
