Penguin Classics Homer The Iliad

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Interwoven with this tragic sequence of events are powerfully moving descriptions of the ebb and flow of battle, of the domestic world inside Troy's besieged city of Ilium, and of the conflicts between the Gods on Olympus as they argue over the fate of mortals. What an age can read in Homer, what its translators can manage to say in his presence, is one gauge of its morale, one index to its system of exultations and reticences. The supple, the iridescent, the ironic, these modes are among our strengths, and among Mr. Fitzgerald’s.” – National Review If you really want to go down to business with every word instead, then Chicago's Homer tool is a life saver. Hammond succeeds admirably in presenting a translation that is easy and enjoyable to read and faithful to Homer

Regarding the inner didactic purpose of the poetry according to the archaic mentality, see, e.g., W. J. Verdenius, The Principles of Greek literary Criticism, “Mnemosyne” 36 (1983), espec. pp. 31-36. As to the ancient sources, it could be enough to mention, e.g., Xenophanes fr. B 10 D-K; Heraclitus fr. B 50, 57 D-K; Herodotus II, 53; Aristophanes Frogs 1031-1036a. Troll): "Before we throw you in the stew, answer this. Are any of the translations close to Homer?" the blind fools, they devoured the cattle of the Sun
and the Sungod wiped from sight the day of their return.
Launch out on the story, Muse, daughter of Zeus,
start from where you will – sing for our time too. Literature is news that stays news: Ezra Pound's flip slogan was never apter. The Iliad, though, is bad news, really bad news for us, a warning and a rebuke. Its pre-eminence and its eminence are terrifying, and cast a long shadow over civilisation: that Europe's first work of literature is almost completely a litany of blood and rage, a catalogue of deaths, should tip us off about something. (Whenever some moral imbecile whines about cinematic violence, remember Pedaios's death in Book 5 - stabbed through the nape with a spear which sliced off his tongue in the process.) The Iliad knows this about itself: it is haunted both by its knowledge of war's obscene wrongness, and its scarcely tacit admission that without war, there would be no epic - let alone no Iliad. Again, we are also assuming (quite incorrectly) to have an accurate transcription of Homer, who, to complicate things, was part of the oral tradition and as such probably altered or varied his performances. Furthermore, a standardized text of Homer was commissioned in the 2nd century AD carried out by a small group known as the Alexandrine grammarians. There’s no way to know how much was removed, or had been added along the way. So even if there was a Homer, and some of what he’d done was recorded, it’s safe to say the works as we have them now are the combined efforts of a multitude of individuals, for better or worse. I’m not suggesting that it’s not worthwhile to study ancient Greek, but if you want to get closer to an author in their native language, studying French, Russian, etc. is a better bet. Even then, it’s not without issue.See, e.g., W. Donlan, The Structure of Authority in the Iliad, in “Arethusa” 12 (1979), pp. 51-70; V. Di Benedetto, Nel laboratorio di Omero, Torino 1994, pp. 349-358. Odyssey on other hand is about the craftiness and mindfulness of man (or μήτις, a word that disappeared even from ancient Greek, but important enough for books to be written about it - referring especially to the amazing work by Vernant Jean-pierre and Detienne Marcel).

While I've only read the Iliad in modern Greek translations, and not in English, I can try and illustrate the importance of dealing with these nuances. The only evidence that Jones has introduced to support his statement that the Homeric poetry has little substantial to tell us about the Mycenaean Age is questionable; he hints at the written records, the Linear B tablets, whose contents have no relation with the society of the Iliad. In my opinion one should take into account that the discrepancy concerning the Linear B tablets’ contents, as well as other inconsistencies between Homeric poems and the Mycenaean Age, may be due to the inevitable mixture with the traits of the following ages (the Dark Age and the beginning of the Archaic Age) throughout the oral transmission of traditional material. Curiously, Jones never mentions the Dark Age that, covering a considerable length of time between the Bronze Age and the Archaic Age (i.e. the time when it is more or less agreed that Homer composed his poems), has been taken into consideration by the scholarship within the Homeric question (however, see, e.g., M. Ventris & J. Chadwich, Documents in Mycenean Greek Cambridge 1972, p. xx. R. d’A. Desborough, The Greek Dark Age London 1972, p. 321). There are still scholars that date the society described by Homer as late Dark Age (see, e.g., P.A. Draper, Homer. Iliad Book 1 with notes and vocabulary Ann Arbor 2002). Several authors have examined the descriptions of wounds in the Iliad from an anatomical perspective, 1,4,5 in particular, the excellent knowledge of vulnerable points in the human body. 6 H.’s preference for a style natural to English makes the speeches a particular success, such as the following of Odysseus to Kalypso at 5.215-224:

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E.V. Rieu's acclaimed translation of The Iliad was one of the first titles published in Penguin Classics, and now has classic status itself. For this edition, Rieu's text has been revised, and now a new introduction and notes by Peter Jones complement the original introduction. The greatest literary achievement of Greek civilization--an epic poem without rival in world literature and a cornerstone of Western culture From battle and the sea. But him
And him alone—though still he longed
For home and wife—the nymph Calypso,
A mighty goddess, kept imprisoned
Within her hollow caves, and longed
To make him there her husband. No, E.g.: "Find THE beGINning" simply cannot be the intended emphasis. FIND the beGINning would be way more natural.

H.’s new prose translation of the Odyssey offers readers a complementary volume to his successful 1987 Penguin edition of the Iliad. The book includes a brief preface by H. himself, an introductory essay by Jasper Griffin, and an index of names and places. H. does not state explicitly the type of reader for whom the edition is designed, but it is best suited to the casual reader or the student coming to Homer for the first time. The latter is particularly well served by Griffin’s essay, which is an excellent introduction to Homeric poetry. H. also includes a note on the text that he uses (Allen’s OCT) and lists the points at which he diverges—information incongruous with the non-academic atmosphere of the book but useful for students studying the original Greek and using his translation as an aid. In general, students dislike using prose translations as an aid because they often do not provide running line numbers (e.g., Shewring’s edition), which makes working from the English to the Greek unbearably tedious; H., however, has done a remarkable job of providing running line numbers and keeping his lines in rough accord with the Greek verse. One unfortunate omission, for any level of reader, is that of maps. In a poem in which geography (and confused geography at that) plays an integral role in the narrative, it is essential to understand where various cities and peoples are located. The only help available is found in the index, where brief descriptions of places are given.Fitzgerald has solved virtually every problem that has plagued translators of Homer. The narrative runs, the dialogue speaks, the military action is clear, and the repetitive epithets become useful text rather than exotic relics.”– Atlantic Monthly E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London 1951, pp. 17-18, 28. As to the transliterated form of αἰδός, I have to notice a misprint in the section under discussion (espec. p. 25) as well as later (espec. p. 312): it is always written aidôs.