Idyllic Greek and Honest Verse: Review of Daryl Hine, The Homeric Hymns and the Battle of the Frogs and Mice: A Translation

Authors

Thomas Nelson Winter, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Date of this Version

6-21-1973

Comments

Published in Prairie Schooner 47:2 (Summer 1973), pp. 170-171. © 1973 University of Nebraska Press. Used by permission.
http://prairieschooner.unl.edu/psmain.htm

Abstract

The editor chose to write poetry. He succeeded. I checked him against the Greek and found him accurate; I checked him against earlier translations and found him independent. I read Hine's English alone and found it poetic. I am impressed, nearly overwhelmed. The book is fun to read, just like the original.The material is captivating, too. It provides a vision of Man and the Olympians, idyllic narratives and comic ones. Many, like that of Aphrodite obliged to submit to her own power and to Anchises, deserve to become part of everyone's general cultural background. The Hymns (with the Frogs and Mice) could justly become "required reading," and Hine's the translation of choice.