The Homeric Hymns: A Verse Translation [Paperback]

Homer (Author), Thelma Sargent (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Greek --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 82 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; First Edition. 1 in number line edition (November 1975)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 039300788X
• ISBN-13: 978-0393007886
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #78,572 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars But I will remember you in another song too., April 18, 2000

By 

courtney J angermeier - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Homeric Hymns: A Verse Translation (Paperback)

After reading the Loeb translation of the Homeric Hymns and Homerica, I was inclined to look askance on this slim little volume by Thelma Sargent. Upon opening the cover, however, I found I had been mistaken. Not only are these verse translations of short invocations and hymns to the Greek Gods and Godesses lovely and effecting (to which I will give credit where credit is due to Homer,an unlikely but romantic notion,or whichever ancient bard had the presence of mind to create them), they manage to be quite readable as well (credit for which I am willing to divide up between said bard and Thelma Sargent). The hymns are very straightforeward, utilizing in conjunction with the familiar stories of the Gods and Godesses, imagery common to the times and people for which they were written. Taking this alone into consideration, their beauty is impressive; rather like poetry invoking a Goddess to be present in your daily coffee making and data processing. Then again, maybe not, to have survived two and a half centuries, they would have to be pretty good little poems. I found the Hymns to Demeter, Delian Apollo, and the Mother of the Gods particularly elegant. It is from some of these hymns that we get our primary source material for some of our knowledge of Greek mythology. It is interesting to me, who was weaned on English re-tellings of these same myths, to read them in, at least closer to, their origional form. They are much deeper, the language much more sweeeping, than I had ever imagined- like the Psalms or Song of Solomon. We don't often think of those well-worn myths as religious tales. The way (I guess I mean the words and rythms)in which they were written, and then translated in this edition, makes the fact that they are religious texts decidedly apparant. It was, if not mind-blowing, than at least mind-stretching and intriguing to have them presented in this way.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nice work if you can get it!, June 17, 2002

By 

Luciano Santos (Olinda, PE, Brazil) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Homeric Hymns: A Verse Translation (Paperback)

I found the translations included in this book beautiful and clear. A good example that narrative poems can also be translated in verse as contrasted to prose, preserving rhythm and imagery. A brief and precise introduction completes the work by helping the reader into the context of the poems and offering a very short but lucid discussion of Greek meter for those who like me can't read Greek. I just pity so elegant a book being less than 100 pages (but this probably contributes even more to its elegance, I acknowledge) and not having found the translation of Theocritus' Idylls by the same Thelma Sargent.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Really beautiful, October 3, 2001

By 

Nels Lindberg (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Homeric Hymns: A Verse Translation (Paperback)

I found "The Homeric Hymns" the most satisfying version of these ancient myths I have read; far superior to modern prose retellings. Thelma Sargent's elegant translations of these poems inspire a great sense of the sacred. The longer poems, especially "To Demeter" and "To Hermes" also develop a sense of the personalities of the gods. Those who love Homer's epics will also love these short poems, even if scholarship has taken the honor of authorship from him.