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War Music: An Account of Books 1-4 and 16-19 of Homer's Iliad
This text contains the first three volumes of Christopher Logue's recomposition of Homer's Iliad - Kings, The Husbands and War Music.
215 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1981
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About the author
Christopher Logue
68Ìýbooks38ÌýfollowersChristopher Logue, CBE (born 23 November 1926 in Portsmouth, Hampshire) was an English poet associated with the British Poetry Revival. He also wrote for the theatre and cinema as well as acting in a number of films. His two screenplays are Savage Messiah and The End of Arthur's Marriage. He was also a long-term contributor to Private Eye magazine, as well as writing for the Merlin literary journal of Alexander Trocchi. He won the 2005 Whitbread Poetry Award for Cold Calls.
His early popularity was marked by the release of a loose adaptation of Pablo Neruda's "Twenty Love Poems", later released as an extended play recording, "Red Bird: Jazz and Poetry", backed by a Jazz group led by Tony Kinsey.
One of his poems, "Be Not Too Hard" was set to music by Donovan Leach, and made popular by Joan Baez, from her 1967 album "Joan". Donovan's version appeared in the film "Poor Cow"(1967).
His major poetical work was an ongoing project to render Homer's Iliad into a modernist idiom. This work is published in a number of small books, usually equating to two or three books of the original text. (The volume entitled Homer: War Music was shortlisted for the 2002 International Griffin Poetry Prize.) He also published an autobiography called Prince Charming (1999).
His lines tend to be short, pithy and frequently political, as in Song of Autobiography:
"I, Christopher Logue, was baptized the year
Many thousands of Englishmen
Fists clenched, their bellies empty,
Walked day and night on the capital city."
He wrote the couplet that is sung at the beginning and end of the 1965 film A High Wind in Jamaica, the screenplay for Savage Messiah (1972), a television version of Antigone (1962), and a short play for the TV series The Wednesday Play titled The End of Arthur's Marriage (1965).
He also appeared in a number of films as an actor, most notably as Cardinal Richelieu in Ken Russell's 1971 film The Devils and as the spaghetti-eating fanatic in Terry Gilliam's 1977 film Jabberwocky.
Logue wrote for the Olympia Press under the pseudonym, Count Palmiro Vicarion, including a pornographic novel, Lust.
________________________________________
source: wikipedia.org
His early popularity was marked by the release of a loose adaptation of Pablo Neruda's "Twenty Love Poems", later released as an extended play recording, "Red Bird: Jazz and Poetry", backed by a Jazz group led by Tony Kinsey.
One of his poems, "Be Not Too Hard" was set to music by Donovan Leach, and made popular by Joan Baez, from her 1967 album "Joan". Donovan's version appeared in the film "Poor Cow"(1967).
His major poetical work was an ongoing project to render Homer's Iliad into a modernist idiom. This work is published in a number of small books, usually equating to two or three books of the original text. (The volume entitled Homer: War Music was shortlisted for the 2002 International Griffin Poetry Prize.) He also published an autobiography called Prince Charming (1999).
His lines tend to be short, pithy and frequently political, as in Song of Autobiography:
"I, Christopher Logue, was baptized the year
Many thousands of Englishmen
Fists clenched, their bellies empty,
Walked day and night on the capital city."
He wrote the couplet that is sung at the beginning and end of the 1965 film A High Wind in Jamaica, the screenplay for Savage Messiah (1972), a television version of Antigone (1962), and a short play for the TV series The Wednesday Play titled The End of Arthur's Marriage (1965).
He also appeared in a number of films as an actor, most notably as Cardinal Richelieu in Ken Russell's 1971 film The Devils and as the spaghetti-eating fanatic in Terry Gilliam's 1977 film Jabberwocky.
Logue wrote for the Olympia Press under the pseudonym, Count Palmiro Vicarion, including a pornographic novel, Lust.
________________________________________
source: wikipedia.org
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 63 reviews
February 2, 2018
Christopher Logue was a poet. Irreverent and utterly original, he was asked to “contribute to a new version� of Homer’s Iliad. Despite protestations that he knew no Greek, he looked over the earliest attempts to translate the work and came up with something…irreverent and utterly original.
Logue offers “an account� of Homer’s Iliad, just as a later poet, , would offer an interpretation…not a translation. Lovers of the Iliad, those who know well the story and joyfully encounter each new translation, will just as eagerly sink into the off-beat nature of this poet’s unique and modern take.
We know Achilles hated Agamemnön, but Achilles� shouted challenges to the older man in the voice of earlier translators did not have the modernistic sensibility of Logue’s:
The sport of the gods is evident throughout, despite the bloody gore of a war among equals.
One is never finished with the Iliad when one has read it. It lingers, and while it does, Christopher Logue’s version gives some joy.
Jeffrey Brown, Arts Correspondent for PBS� Newshour, and gives some background about the work.
Logue offers “an account� of Homer’s Iliad, just as a later poet, , would offer an interpretation…not a translation. Lovers of the Iliad, those who know well the story and joyfully encounter each new translation, will just as eagerly sink into the off-beat nature of this poet’s unique and modern take.
We know Achilles hated Agamemnön, but Achilles� shouted challenges to the older man in the voice of earlier translators did not have the modernistic sensibility of Logue’s:
‘Mouth! King mouth!�Ah, I love that. May I say I can think of another leader who fits the ‘watchful cockroach� image, who sports a hair mantle not unlike that of the cockroach's carapace. Damn hard to eradicate him, too.
Then stopped. Then from the middle of the common sand said:
“Heroes, behold your King�
Slow as an arrow fired feathers first
To puff another’s worth,
But watchful as a cockroach of his own.�
The sport of the gods is evident throughout, despite the bloody gore of a war among equals.
“But they just smile. They are the gods.And Aphrodite, Queen of Love, “her breasts alert and laden with desire…� addresses Helen:
They have all the time in the world.
And Lord Apollo orchestrates their dance.
And Leto smiles to see her son, the son of God,
Playing his lyre among them, stepping high,
Hearing his Nine sing how the gods have everlasting joy,
Feasting together, sleeping together,
Kind, color, calendar no bar, time out of mind,
And how we humans suffer at their hands,
Childish believers, fooled by science and art,
Bound for Oblivion�
“Do stop this nonsense, Helen, dear�Christopher Logue died in 2011, so his account of Books 1-4 and 16-19, this fragment that ends with the death of Petroclus, is what we have left. His similes remain: "Spears like nettles stirred by the wind," “Dust like red mist,� Pain like chalk on slate,� Arrows that drift like bees,� “Tearing its belly like a silk balloon…� And so it goes on.
...Try not to play the thankless bitch:
‘Such a mistake to leave my land, my kiddywink…�
What stuff. Millions would give that lot
For half the looks that I have given you�
...Be proud. You have brought harm. Tremendous boys
Of every age have slaughtered one another
Just for you!
� Bear this in mind:
Without my love, somewhere between the Greek and Trojan lines
A cloud of stones would turn your face to froth.
So, when they lift the curtains, and he looks—you hesitate.
And then you say: Take me, and I shall please you.�
Pause.
What do you say?
‘Take me, and I shall please you.�
“Good. Now in you go.�
One is never finished with the Iliad when one has read it. It lingers, and while it does, Christopher Logue’s version gives some joy.
Jeffrey Brown, Arts Correspondent for PBS� Newshour, and gives some background about the work.
January 8, 2018
As the subtitle of War Music tells us, this is not so much a translation as a modern poetic reworking of parts of the Iliad, and as such it stands as a great, if incomplete, literary masterwork in its own right.
I’ve just re-read it as part of my preparation for a group read of Emily Wilson’s The Odyssey in March, and was struck anew by its breath-taking imagery, which taps into the modern as well as the classical world, especially in the imagery of warfare and armaments. One of the most vivid of these images for me comes in this passage as the Greek army prepares for war after the death of Patroclus:
'Now I shall ask you to imagine how
Men under discipline of death prepare for war.
There is much more to it than armament,
And kicks from those who could not catch an hour’s sleep
Waking the ones who dozed like rows of spoons;
Or those with everything to lose, the kings,
Asleep like pistols in red velvet.'
Here it’s the ‘kings asleep like pistols in red velvet� that made me stop and look at what the image might signify. The pistols I see are set on a hair trigger, ready to spring, inlaid and burnished, with a massive kick-back and slow to reload. Beautiful and dangerous to user and opponent.
Immediately after this passage comes a reflection on the temporary equality of warriors � at this remove what I read as a terrible indictment of greed and war:
'Moments like these absolve the needs dividing men.
Whatever caught and brought and kept them here
Is lost: and for a while they join a terrible equality,
Are virtuous, self-sacrificing, free:
And so insidious is this liberty
That those surviving it will bear
An even greater servitude to its root:
Believing they were whole while they were whole, while they were brave;
That they were rich, because their loot was great;
That war was meaningful, because they lost their friends.'
One thing I particularly want to note this time is the device Logue uses to symbolise the dehumanisation of women. Apart from the principal, named queens and princesses (eg Helen, Hecuba, Briseis) all women are referred to as shes. War captives, slaves, the women to whom men feel entitled in whatever capacity they choose, are shes. They are part of the loot the men claim and share, not people.
Achilles, who withdrew from the war because Agamemnon had taken his captive tribute she, Briseis, complains to Odysseus who has been sent to persuade back into the fighting:
‘K¾±²Ô²µ,
I have been a fool. The bliss self-righteousness provokes
Addled my mind.�
Odysseus nods.
‘Remembering my given she,
It would have been far better for us both
If Artemis had pinned her dead.�
So even Briseis is really just a she, and the deaths of many Greek men would have been avoided if Briseis had been killed instead of fought over.
Achilles eventually agrees to resume the fight, to make peace with Agamemnon as long as Agamemnon reciprocates.
We could see this as a summary of treaties immemorial, created from ‘mouthfuls of soft air� and often as fleeting.
'Ever since men began in time, time and
Time again they met in parliaments,
Where, in due turn, letting the next man speak,
With mouthfuls of soft air they tried to stop
Themselves from ravening their talking throats;
Hoping enunciated airs would fall
With verisimilitude in different minds,
And bring some concord to those minds; only soft air
Between the hatred human animals
Monotonously bear towards themselves.
No work was more regarded in our times,
And nothing failed so often. Knowing this,
The army came to hear Achilles say:
‘Pax, Agamemnon.� And Agamemnon’s: ‘Pax�.'
Highly recommended.
I’ve just re-read it as part of my preparation for a group read of Emily Wilson’s The Odyssey in March, and was struck anew by its breath-taking imagery, which taps into the modern as well as the classical world, especially in the imagery of warfare and armaments. One of the most vivid of these images for me comes in this passage as the Greek army prepares for war after the death of Patroclus:
'Now I shall ask you to imagine how
Men under discipline of death prepare for war.
There is much more to it than armament,
And kicks from those who could not catch an hour’s sleep
Waking the ones who dozed like rows of spoons;
Or those with everything to lose, the kings,
Asleep like pistols in red velvet.'
Here it’s the ‘kings asleep like pistols in red velvet� that made me stop and look at what the image might signify. The pistols I see are set on a hair trigger, ready to spring, inlaid and burnished, with a massive kick-back and slow to reload. Beautiful and dangerous to user and opponent.
Immediately after this passage comes a reflection on the temporary equality of warriors � at this remove what I read as a terrible indictment of greed and war:
'Moments like these absolve the needs dividing men.
Whatever caught and brought and kept them here
Is lost: and for a while they join a terrible equality,
Are virtuous, self-sacrificing, free:
And so insidious is this liberty
That those surviving it will bear
An even greater servitude to its root:
Believing they were whole while they were whole, while they were brave;
That they were rich, because their loot was great;
That war was meaningful, because they lost their friends.'
One thing I particularly want to note this time is the device Logue uses to symbolise the dehumanisation of women. Apart from the principal, named queens and princesses (eg Helen, Hecuba, Briseis) all women are referred to as shes. War captives, slaves, the women to whom men feel entitled in whatever capacity they choose, are shes. They are part of the loot the men claim and share, not people.
Achilles, who withdrew from the war because Agamemnon had taken his captive tribute she, Briseis, complains to Odysseus who has been sent to persuade back into the fighting:
‘K¾±²Ô²µ,
I have been a fool. The bliss self-righteousness provokes
Addled my mind.�
Odysseus nods.
‘Remembering my given she,
It would have been far better for us both
If Artemis had pinned her dead.�
So even Briseis is really just a she, and the deaths of many Greek men would have been avoided if Briseis had been killed instead of fought over.
Achilles eventually agrees to resume the fight, to make peace with Agamemnon as long as Agamemnon reciprocates.
We could see this as a summary of treaties immemorial, created from ‘mouthfuls of soft air� and often as fleeting.
'Ever since men began in time, time and
Time again they met in parliaments,
Where, in due turn, letting the next man speak,
With mouthfuls of soft air they tried to stop
Themselves from ravening their talking throats;
Hoping enunciated airs would fall
With verisimilitude in different minds,
And bring some concord to those minds; only soft air
Between the hatred human animals
Monotonously bear towards themselves.
No work was more regarded in our times,
And nothing failed so often. Knowing this,
The army came to hear Achilles say:
‘Pax, Agamemnon.� And Agamemnon’s: ‘Pax�.'
Highly recommended.
March 12, 2014
"Hard to say who is who: the fighters, the heroes,/
Their guts look alike." (194)
Sublime. Genius. Many more superlatives…If you have ever felt intimidated by the unending columns and lists of other translations of Homer's Iliad, give this one a whirl. Logue uses modern verse and contemporary imagery to tell Homer's classic story of Helen's abduction and the resulting war between Greece and Troy. The language, the structure, the breaks, the cadence..everything sweeps you along and puts you under some kind of poetic spell that perfectly captures the wide scope & movement of armies at war as well as the small, tedious, personal moments:
"They rise!--the Greeks with smiling iron mouths.
They are like Nature; like a mass of flame;
Great lengths of water struck by changing winds;
A forest of innumerable trees;
Boundless sand; snowfall across broad steppes at dusk.
As a huge beast stands and turns around itself,
The well-fed, glittering army, stands and turns.
Nothing can happen till Achilles wakes.
He wakes." (213)
Their guts look alike." (194)
Sublime. Genius. Many more superlatives…If you have ever felt intimidated by the unending columns and lists of other translations of Homer's Iliad, give this one a whirl. Logue uses modern verse and contemporary imagery to tell Homer's classic story of Helen's abduction and the resulting war between Greece and Troy. The language, the structure, the breaks, the cadence..everything sweeps you along and puts you under some kind of poetic spell that perfectly captures the wide scope & movement of armies at war as well as the small, tedious, personal moments:
"They rise!--the Greeks with smiling iron mouths.
They are like Nature; like a mass of flame;
Great lengths of water struck by changing winds;
A forest of innumerable trees;
Boundless sand; snowfall across broad steppes at dusk.
As a huge beast stands and turns around itself,
The well-fed, glittering army, stands and turns.
Nothing can happen till Achilles wakes.
He wakes." (213)
January 11, 2013
When I first read this book, about 18 months ago, I appear to have been slightly affronted by it.
>>>>>
Turns out I like my ancient lays either fully rounded and sonorous (Heaney's 'Beowulf') or completely remodelled (). Logue's retelling of one of the central episodes of the Iliad - where Patroclus takes Achilles' armor and is killed by Hector - hits some middle note that just didn't work for me.
Some passages I did enjoy - the battle scenes over the narrative ones:
But I'm going to be honest. I didn't like the volume because I didn't like Logue's portrayal of Hector. In the Iliad, Hector is the noblest of the heroes - loyal son, loving husband, caring father, brave warrior, shepherd of his people. Logue's Hector is weaselly, pusillanimous - ignoble. I'm all for reading against the grain, but in this - one of my most dearly-held stories - I prefer the old forms.
>>>>>
Reading has changed the way I look at this poem, and adaptions of it. From her introduction:
This time round, I'm struck by the physicality of Logue's version, the sweaty, bloody, sunstruck closeness. I've learnt to pay attention to the similes, to the singing, chanting tone. In battle it is thick and noisy:
Out of battle, it is sometimes (when we draw back from the conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon) almost peaceful:
Comparing Logue to Oswald is a little perilous. I have come to love the opening of 'War Music'
(Logue will take that phrase again and use it at the apex of the poem: Hector, / Standing above you, / Putting his spear through � ach, and saying: / ‘Why tears, Patroclus? / Did you hope to melt Troy down / And make our women fetch the ingots home?.)
But hear how Oswald treats that image
That's what I've come to love about reading poetry (and listening to filthy hip hop, for that matter) - that my ear is becoming attuned to images, phrasing, metaphors being passed from writer to writer, how each shapes the world to their own form. I am now half-way through Logue's second book in this series, 'Kings', and am very glad I have come back.
>>>>>
Turns out I like my ancient lays either fully rounded and sonorous (Heaney's 'Beowulf') or completely remodelled (). Logue's retelling of one of the central episodes of the Iliad - where Patroclus takes Achilles' armor and is killed by Hector - hits some middle note that just didn't work for me.
Some passages I did enjoy - the battle scenes over the narrative ones:
Patroclus fought like dreaming:
His head thrown back, his mouth - wide as a shrieking mask -
Sucked at the air to nourish his infuriated mind
And seemed to draw the Trojans onto him,
To lock them round his waist, red water, washed against his chest,
To lay their tired necks against his sword like birds.
But I'm going to be honest. I didn't like the volume because I didn't like Logue's portrayal of Hector. In the Iliad, Hector is the noblest of the heroes - loyal son, loving husband, caring father, brave warrior, shepherd of his people. Logue's Hector is weaselly, pusillanimous - ignoble. I'm all for reading against the grain, but in this - one of my most dearly-held stories - I prefer the old forms.
>>>>>
Reading has changed the way I look at this poem, and adaptions of it. From her introduction:
This is a translation of the Iliad's atmosphere, not its story. Matthew Arnold (and almost everyone ever since) has praised the Iliad for its 'nobility'. But ancient critics praised its 'enargeia', which means something like 'bright unbearable reality'.It's the word used when gods come to earth not in disguise but as themselves. This version , trying to retrieve the poem's enargeia, takes away its narrative, as you might lift the roof off a church in order to remember what you're worshipping. What's left is a bipolar poem made of similes and short biographies of soldiers, both of which derive (I think) from distinct poetic sources: the similes from pastoral lyrics (you can tell this because their metre is sometimes compressed as if it originally formed part of a lyric poem); the biographies from the Greek tradition of lament poetry.
This time round, I'm struck by the physicality of Logue's version, the sweaty, bloody, sunstruck closeness. I've learnt to pay attention to the similes, to the singing, chanting tone. In battle it is thick and noisy:
The air near Ajax was so thick with arrows, that,
As they came, their shanks tickered against each other;
And under them the Trojans swarmed so thick
Ajax outspread his arms, turned his spear flat,
And simply pushed. Yet they came clamouring back and forth
Like a clapper inside a bell made out of sword blades.
Out of battle, it is sometimes (when we draw back from the conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon) almost peaceful:
Picture a yacht
Canting at speed
Over ripple-ribbed sand.
Change its mast to a man,
Change its boom to a bow,
Change its sail to a shield:
See Menelaos
Breasting the whalebacks to picket the corpse of Patroclus.
Comparing Logue to Oswald is a little perilous. I have come to love the opening of 'War Music'
Now hear this:
while they fought around the ship from Thessaly,
Patroclus came grying to the Greek.
"Why tears, Patroclus?" Achilles said.
"Why hang about my ankles like a child
Pestering its mother, wanting to be picked up,
Expecting her to stop what she is at, and,
In the end, getting its way through snivels?
(Logue will take that phrase again and use it at the apex of the poem: Hector, / Standing above you, / Putting his spear through � ach, and saying: / ‘Why tears, Patroclus? / Did you hope to melt Troy down / And make our women fetch the ingots home?.)
But hear how Oswald treats that image
Like when a mother is rushing
And a little girl clings to her clothes
Wants help wants arms
Won't let her walk
Like staring up at that tower of adulthood
Wanting to be light again
Wanting this whole problem of living to be lifted
And carried on a hip
That's what I've come to love about reading poetry (and listening to filthy hip hop, for that matter) - that my ear is becoming attuned to images, phrasing, metaphors being passed from writer to writer, how each shapes the world to their own form. I am now half-way through Logue's second book in this series, 'Kings', and am very glad I have come back.
July 15, 2016
War Music was begun as part of a BBC commission toward a modern rendering of parts of the Iliad. Christoper Logue re-imagines it beautifully. Without using the words of Homer he nevertheless recreates his language while hammering it, like Hephaestus making new armor for Achilles, into something as radiant as a helmet and as irresistible as a spearpoint. Logue gives us Homer in a 20th century poetic idiom. Gone are the huge unbroken Homeric books with their lines standing on the page as solid as ranks of men stood outside Troy. Instead Logue writes a modern verse form newly articulating the old stories yet still containing the personalities, motives, and emotions. In fact, the characters may be more alive. Certainly the descriptions of what it was like to live on that sandy plain and within the city's walls is captured more naturalistically, especially the full reality of the primitive nature of religious practices. Logue makes these events as authentic as the drama of their actual unfolding. He's god as well--he burnishes everything with his touch. Achilles steps into his car, the basket dips with his weight. The shout of men under stress and primed for glory fills the page. Smoke from an animal sacrifice swirls toward heaven. And yet by invoking the name of a Napoleonic general, or describing how autumn descends along Russian rivers, or pointing out that this wave lapping that Aegean beach began in Antarctica, Logue insists we remember than these emotions and events are universal, too, that this history will continue for 3000 years. There was a time I would've preferred this over Homer's Iliad, but in recent years I've been reading the Fagles translation and this summer read that by Richmond Lattimore and look forward to returning to them. But Logue's account of these 8 books is good enough.
Reread 15 Jul 16
Reread 15 Jul 16
Read
July 10, 2021Christopher Logue's "translation" of Books 16 to 19 of The Iliad is not so much a translation after all. At first, he admits, he followed translations by Chapman, Pope, Lord Derby, A.T. Murray, and Rieu. He decided to "concoct a storyline based on The Iliad's main incident; and then, knowing the gist of what this or that character said, [tried] to make their voices come alive and to keep the action on the move."
Logue wraps it up, saying, "I was not, then, making a translation in the accepted sense of the word, but what I hoped would turn out to be a poem in English dependent upon whatever, through reading and through conversation, I could guess about a small part of the Iliad, a poem whose composition is reckoned to have preceded the beginnings of our written language by fifteen centuries."
No small feat, that, but he pulls it off and injects some novelty into the familiar story of the Lord of Sulk, Achilles, in his tent, holding a grudge against Agamemnon, while poor Patroclus goes out to dirty work and give his life while he's at it.
Lots of violence and descriptions of violence, as you'd expect of Homer by way of Logue. A neat mix of ancient and startlingly new diction, too. A mere 80 pp. long, as it is only key parts of the bigger epic. Something for fans of Homer and for those new to the story, too.
Logue wraps it up, saying, "I was not, then, making a translation in the accepted sense of the word, but what I hoped would turn out to be a poem in English dependent upon whatever, through reading and through conversation, I could guess about a small part of the Iliad, a poem whose composition is reckoned to have preceded the beginnings of our written language by fifteen centuries."
No small feat, that, but he pulls it off and injects some novelty into the familiar story of the Lord of Sulk, Achilles, in his tent, holding a grudge against Agamemnon, while poor Patroclus goes out to dirty work and give his life while he's at it.
Lots of violence and descriptions of violence, as you'd expect of Homer by way of Logue. A neat mix of ancient and startlingly new diction, too. A mere 80 pp. long, as it is only key parts of the bigger epic. Something for fans of Homer and for those new to the story, too.
November 1, 2013
This is the bad-assiest poem I've read in a LONG time. Forever.
"A drink! A toast! To those who must die."
If you know Homer, and you love Homer, despite the fact that the moral ethical part of you abhors war and revenge killing, then read Christopher Logue. Your literary mind can still embrace the warrior's ethos and the burst of understanding that is the swell of the heart in battle.
This is fucking great.
(And I'm not sorry for my salty language). I want to say it ten more times.
"A drink! A toast! To those who must die."
If you know Homer, and you love Homer, despite the fact that the moral ethical part of you abhors war and revenge killing, then read Christopher Logue. Your literary mind can still embrace the warrior's ethos and the burst of understanding that is the swell of the heart in battle.
This is fucking great.
(And I'm not sorry for my salty language). I want to say it ten more times.
March 1, 2010
I've been told by a very reliable source that Logue is the best American poet right now. *Whoever told me Logue was an American is wrong, and I was wrong to believe them. Logue is British.
UPDATE:
I don't know much about poetry. But this is pretty sweet. Logue does his take on a couple chapters from the Iliad. Here's a snippet from Achilles chastising King Agamemnon for bringing a plague onto the Greeks rather than returning a priest's daughter:
"Heroes, behold your King-
Slow as an arrow fired feathers first
To puff another's worth,
But watchful as a cockroach of his own.
Behold his cause-
Me first, me second,
And if by chance there is a little left-me third."
Yah. That's totally sweet. Now check out the fight between Menelaos (the wronged ex-husband of Helen) and Paris (the Helen thief). Not exactly like the scene w/Orlando Bloom in "Troy." HA! I'd say it's much better...
Both men stand tall. Both men look large.
And though the Trojans hate him, they are proud of him,
Paris, his mirror bronze, his hair:
"Be brave!"
But heroes are not frightened by appearances.
Under his breath lord Menelaos says:
"I hate that man. I am going to kill that man.
I want to mark his face. I want to shout into his face:
YOU ARE DEAD. YOU ARE NO LONGER IN THIS WORLD."
The drum.
The 50 feet between them. Then:
"Begin"
The Trojan turns.
Five steps.
Re-turns, and right arm back, runs
-Four -three -two
And airs his point for Menelaos' throat.
But heroes are not worried by such sights.
Even as he admired the skill with which
Paris released his spear "Dear God" lord Menelaos prayed
"Stand by me" as he watched the bronze head lift
"Think of the oxen I" then level out "have killed for You"
And float towards his face. And only then
(As when, modeling a skirt, if childbride Helen asked:
"Yes?" he would cock his head) he cocked his head
And let the spear cruise by.
And
-"Yes!"-
Cried the Greeks, but by that time
Their hero has done more than hurl his own, and
-"Yes!"-
He is running under it, as fast as it, and
-"Yes!"-
As the 18-inch head hits fair Paris' shield
And knocks him backwards through the air
(Bent like a gangster in his barber's chair)
Then thrusts on through that round
And pins it, plus his sword arm, to the sand
The Greek is over him, sword high, and screaming:
"Now you believe me! Now you understand me!"
Smashing the edge down right, left, right,
On either side of Paris' face, and:
"That's the stuff! That's the stuff! Pretty to watch!"
Queen Hera and Athene shout, as Paris' mask
Goes left, goes right, and from the mass:
"Off with his cock! Off with his cock!" right-left,
And on the Wall: "God kill him," (Helen to herself),
As Menelaos, happy now, raises his sword
To give the finishing stroke, and -cheering, cheering, cheering-
Down it comes: and shatters on Lord Paris' mask.
No Problem!
A hundred of us pitch our swords to him...
Yet even as they flew, their blades
Changed into wings, their pommels into heads,
Their hilts to feathers chests, and what were swords
Were turned to doves, a swirl of doves,
And waltzing out of it, in oyster silk,
Running her tongue around her strawberry lips
While repositioning a spaghetti shoulder-strap,
The Queen of Love, Our Lady Aphrodite,
Touching the massive Greek aside with one
Pink fingertip, and with her other hand
Lifting Lord Paris up, big as he was,
In his bronze bodice heavy as he was,
Lacing his fingers with her own, then leading him,
Hidden in wings, away.
Then both slopes looked this way and that and then around,
For there was no one who would hide that man.
And Menelaos is in torment, yes,
Is running naked up and down
Saying things like: "Where did he go?"
"Somebody must have seen him go?" and then
He has gone down on both his knees, naked, on both his knees,
Shaking his fists at Heaven, and shouting out:
"God God - Meek, Time-Free Trash,
Your hospitality is mocked.
And so are You. And so is Greece. And so am I."
----
How could you not want to buy this book and read it? It totally rocks.
UPDATE:
I don't know much about poetry. But this is pretty sweet. Logue does his take on a couple chapters from the Iliad. Here's a snippet from Achilles chastising King Agamemnon for bringing a plague onto the Greeks rather than returning a priest's daughter:
"Heroes, behold your King-
Slow as an arrow fired feathers first
To puff another's worth,
But watchful as a cockroach of his own.
Behold his cause-
Me first, me second,
And if by chance there is a little left-me third."
Yah. That's totally sweet. Now check out the fight between Menelaos (the wronged ex-husband of Helen) and Paris (the Helen thief). Not exactly like the scene w/Orlando Bloom in "Troy." HA! I'd say it's much better...
Both men stand tall. Both men look large.
And though the Trojans hate him, they are proud of him,
Paris, his mirror bronze, his hair:
"Be brave!"
But heroes are not frightened by appearances.
Under his breath lord Menelaos says:
"I hate that man. I am going to kill that man.
I want to mark his face. I want to shout into his face:
YOU ARE DEAD. YOU ARE NO LONGER IN THIS WORLD."
The drum.
The 50 feet between them. Then:
"Begin"
The Trojan turns.
Five steps.
Re-turns, and right arm back, runs
-Four -three -two
And airs his point for Menelaos' throat.
But heroes are not worried by such sights.
Even as he admired the skill with which
Paris released his spear "Dear God" lord Menelaos prayed
"Stand by me" as he watched the bronze head lift
"Think of the oxen I" then level out "have killed for You"
And float towards his face. And only then
(As when, modeling a skirt, if childbride Helen asked:
"Yes?" he would cock his head) he cocked his head
And let the spear cruise by.
And
-"Yes!"-
Cried the Greeks, but by that time
Their hero has done more than hurl his own, and
-"Yes!"-
He is running under it, as fast as it, and
-"Yes!"-
As the 18-inch head hits fair Paris' shield
And knocks him backwards through the air
(Bent like a gangster in his barber's chair)
Then thrusts on through that round
And pins it, plus his sword arm, to the sand
The Greek is over him, sword high, and screaming:
"Now you believe me! Now you understand me!"
Smashing the edge down right, left, right,
On either side of Paris' face, and:
"That's the stuff! That's the stuff! Pretty to watch!"
Queen Hera and Athene shout, as Paris' mask
Goes left, goes right, and from the mass:
"Off with his cock! Off with his cock!" right-left,
And on the Wall: "God kill him," (Helen to herself),
As Menelaos, happy now, raises his sword
To give the finishing stroke, and -cheering, cheering, cheering-
Down it comes: and shatters on Lord Paris' mask.
No Problem!
A hundred of us pitch our swords to him...
Yet even as they flew, their blades
Changed into wings, their pommels into heads,
Their hilts to feathers chests, and what were swords
Were turned to doves, a swirl of doves,
And waltzing out of it, in oyster silk,
Running her tongue around her strawberry lips
While repositioning a spaghetti shoulder-strap,
The Queen of Love, Our Lady Aphrodite,
Touching the massive Greek aside with one
Pink fingertip, and with her other hand
Lifting Lord Paris up, big as he was,
In his bronze bodice heavy as he was,
Lacing his fingers with her own, then leading him,
Hidden in wings, away.
Then both slopes looked this way and that and then around,
For there was no one who would hide that man.
And Menelaos is in torment, yes,
Is running naked up and down
Saying things like: "Where did he go?"
"Somebody must have seen him go?" and then
He has gone down on both his knees, naked, on both his knees,
Shaking his fists at Heaven, and shouting out:
"God God - Meek, Time-Free Trash,
Your hospitality is mocked.
And so are You. And so is Greece. And so am I."
----
How could you not want to buy this book and read it? It totally rocks.
January 21, 2008
This was so fucking good. It was like cunnilingus in my brain ... actually no, that's just given me a really gross image of some kind of mind-sucking demon out of Buffy or something. Ignore that. I've only glimpsed at a couple of translations of the Iliad, and no other adaptations, but I'm happy to wager my firstborn that this is the best. Because it's fast-paced and cinematic and stately and grand, all at once, right down in the blood and grime and up in the meddlings of the gods. Everyone sounds like they should, the metaphors are original but not obscure. It's powerful. It's exactly like poetry should be. Every page there's a line I want to just hold in my mouth forever. That came out a bit wrong too. But it will make you shiver and wince and believe.
October 5, 2021
“But Achilles could not sleep
Because he could not stop himself
Thinking about Patroclus.
How in this war or that
They saved each other's lives a dozen times a day,
Or how rash words died in him at Patroclus' glance.
He tried this side, then that.
Then he got up and went down to the beach,
Refettered Hector's ankles to his chariot's step,
And galloped the cadaver - kept from harm by visitant hands
Round and around the embers of his true heart's pyre.
Crying his eyes out.�
¹ó±«°ä°â€¦â¶Ä�
Because he could not stop himself
Thinking about Patroclus.
How in this war or that
They saved each other's lives a dozen times a day,
Or how rash words died in him at Patroclus' glance.
He tried this side, then that.
Then he got up and went down to the beach,
Refettered Hector's ankles to his chariot's step,
And galloped the cadaver - kept from harm by visitant hands
Round and around the embers of his true heart's pyre.
Crying his eyes out.�
¹ó±«°ä°â€¦â¶Ä�
July 16, 2008
Christopher Logue has a lot of guts. He's gotten into the ring with the likes of Fagles, Lattimore, Fitzgerald, and most courageously, Homer himself - and acquitted himself well. Mr. Logue has pulled "The Iliad," into the 21st Century with less a translation than a re-write. It appears there are numerous volumes containing sections of Mr. Logue's work, and it's a little hard to keep track, but two editions offered on Amazon.com's website, "War Music," and the wondrously titled, "All Day Permanent Red," seem to contain it all.
Mr. Logue writes in a robust verse form that retains the epic language while exploring possibilities for a cinematic look on scenes and situations, as well as opening the field to modern metaphor. Unlike Barry Unsworth's interpolations in "The Songs of the Kings," Mr. Logue's don't jar, but rather deepen. A sample line, "Ajax, grim underneath his tan as Rommel after `Alamein..." lifts the story from some mythical past to something that is played out continually. A great device considering "The Iliad" is arguably the blue-print for every war story ever written.
When "War Music," opens outside the actual text of "The Iliad," and introduces us to Achilles - angry, petulant, bent on revenge, summoning his mother and whining about Agamemnon - Mr. Logue provides character depth missing from the original, and immediately lays out his plan to re-write and enrich rather than re-tell. His plan unfolds magnificently through both books.
Mr. Logue writes in a robust verse form that retains the epic language while exploring possibilities for a cinematic look on scenes and situations, as well as opening the field to modern metaphor. Unlike Barry Unsworth's interpolations in "The Songs of the Kings," Mr. Logue's don't jar, but rather deepen. A sample line, "Ajax, grim underneath his tan as Rommel after `Alamein..." lifts the story from some mythical past to something that is played out continually. A great device considering "The Iliad" is arguably the blue-print for every war story ever written.
When "War Music," opens outside the actual text of "The Iliad," and introduces us to Achilles - angry, petulant, bent on revenge, summoning his mother and whining about Agamemnon - Mr. Logue provides character depth missing from the original, and immediately lays out his plan to re-write and enrich rather than re-tell. His plan unfolds magnificently through both books.
June 22, 2010
holy crap this is so great.
June 23, 2013
Absolutely magnificent.
February 26, 2018
2.5 stars.
I feel I should start out by saying that this book is not for me (in the most literal sense): this isn’t ‘for� classicists, but is rather a foray into Homer for the uninitiated (though, having said that, I’m not sure whether Christopher Logue intended it for people who have actually read the Iliad or not). As a result, some of my criticisms are probably informed by my classicism, but I can only be myself and review according to my own judgement of the book.
Some issues I had are in comparison to the Iliad itself: I was happy when I could recognise passages that are clearly lifted directly from Homer’s original, but I also feel that some details are misused � I’m fond of Homeric epithets and would rather see them included than excluded, but there are almost none here apart from the odd passing reference to them (‘lake-eyed Hera� being basically equivalent to ‘ox-eyed Hera�, and references to Zeus as the storm god). Yet, bizarrely, Apollo is referred to as ‘Mouse God� more or less every time he’s mentioned (from p.10 onwards), when he’s only addressed as such once in the Iliad: I thought this was odd as it’s a pretty obscure reference that even most classicists would not immediately recognise (and not really relevant to Apollo’s more well-recognised theological identity) and seems to make a very commonly known god an oddity. I’m also not sure why Athena talks to her father like a baby (pp.120ff.) � she does sweet-talk Zeus at one point in the original, but with a much more rational tone (more believable since she’s the goddess of wisdom). The book isn’t intended for classicists, and yet there are a lot of references that non-classicists won’t get.
(On top of this, there are some references that I didn’t, and still don’t understand � I have no idea who ‘Thoal� is supposed to be, though he’s referenced quite a few times and seems to be an important lord of some kind. There’s no character in the Iliad by this name. There are a few other references like this that seem inexplicable, and my searching hasn’t yielded results.)
By extension, the experimental style is what makes this book unique, but some decisions made didn’t quite work for me, though I suppose they keep the reader awake. We also have to deal with very odd ‘blurrings� and made-up portmanteaus of words (‘Snowcragbackfastnesses� p.107; ‘smoothdownsideways�, ‘imparadised� p.115), alongside weird, jarring modern synonyms (we all own a pair of ‘sparkling clogs�, I guess ). This gives the poem an engaging and experimental style, but at times the references can ruin immersion. I understand wanting to make the Iliad feel more relevant, but I’ve found Lombardo’s translation achieves this aim without breaking faith with Homer.
Some prize questionable words and phrases:
� “O cheesy Lung� (p.22 � meaning unclear)
� “This womb is now a wife� (p.23 � horrible)
� Not a god’s god, I know. But curved. (p.40) (What is this supposed to mean?)
� It was so quiet in Heaven that you could hear
The north wind pluck a chicken in Australia. (p.41)
� “Do you accept this womb…as your wife?� (p.85 � belabouring the horrible point)
� “Go. You are his. Obey him.� (p.85 � some might argue this is accurate to Iliadic culture, but it’s certainly not phrased this way in the text.)
� “Napoleon’s Murat had 50 hats
And 50 plumes each 50 inches high
And 50 uniforms and many more
Than 50 pots of facial mayonnaise
Appropriate to a man with tender skin� (p.94 � still not sure what ‘facial mayonnaise� is)
â€� “P²¹±ô´Ç´Ç°ì²¹±¹¾±±ô±ô±ðâ€� (p.95)
� Now dark, now bright, now watch �
As aircrews watch tsunamis send
Ripples across the Iwo Jima Deep,
Or as a schoolgirl makes her velveteen
Go dark, go bright (p.97 � the schoolgirl thing is too jarringly modern)
� “Make sure my pubic jewellery is on top.� (p.126 � again, perverse, and not at all faithful to the Iliad)
� The whole scene where Aphrodite forces Helen into the bath and sends her to Paris is too horribly misogynistic for me to type out (p.127-129)
� The scene where Menelaus� pubis is injured is also really lewd (p.129ff. � his injury is true to Homer, but not the way it plays out)
� Molo the Dancer from Cymatriax
Tugs at his penis as he squeaks (p.182 � not sure what this is about).
Calling absolutely all the female characters ‘shes�, making no distinction between free women and slave women, and underlining all of this with uncomfortably invasive references to the female characters� bodies (“The sweat was running down between my breasts�, p.103 [women never say this]; “Her breasts alert and laden with desire�, p.127 [this is just voyeuristic]; “Her breasts so lovely that they envy one another�, p.203 [perverted]) makes for pretty unpleasant reading, and I worry it shows an unhealthy attempt to make the Iliadic culture more ‘barbaric� than it appears in the text. The important female characters (Helen, Andromache, Briseis), who are not treated insultingly by Homer, have heavily diminished roles. Homer treats the culture as a fact of life, while Logue almost seems to be condoning the misogyny, which is far more pronounced in his interpretation, even though he’s chosen to modernise everything else. This is accompanied by strange attempts to exoticise the Trojans (Priam is never described as ‘indigo skinned� in the Iliad and this doesn’t make sense in Turkey; saying the Greeks will become ‘Panther meat� is also inaccurate [if we’re making up words now: ‘anageographic�, like ‘anachronistic’]). I understand that this is a book ‘adaptation�, not a translation, but an adaptation should always be faithful to the general ‘feel� and tone of the original, and in many aspects this is not.
On the other hand, there are also some variations or interpretations that I thought were powerful, not least:
� “If ever she sees Ilium again
She will have empty gums.� (p.11)
� And then,
And then again, but with a higher note, that note
Instantly answered by the snarl of silk
As Asia stands for Laomedon’s son, (p.102)
� They smile. They are the gods.
They have all the time in the world.
What science knows, they know. (p.115)
� “His curls
Bursting around his head like sunlit frost.� (p.133)
� (p.165)
� (p.179)
� (pp.208-209).
It’s a shame that these are so diminished by the bizarre and odd poetic decisions and prejudices that belabour the rest of the book.
I think he wanted to take what’s timeless in the original and apply it to a ‘universalised� view of the historical timeline (almost like all the events and settings he references are all ‘alive� at once), and I can appreciate the concept even if it’s sometimes jarring and therefore ineffective. (Again, I feel Lombardo’s subtler approach is more successful.) I was also relieved that he uses this sparingly, and seems to get the key moments towards the end right without too much tampering (particularly the emotional highs that don’t need a historical context). I think the Patrocleia book generally outshines the rest and has few to no questionable phrases and poetic decisions, so it saves the book overall for me.
I realise that the author/poet passed away in 2011, but I feel like he would not have cared much about my criticisms, since he seems strangely dismissive and somewhat derogatory towards classicists in the introduction. (I was surprised to learn that he was reluctant to begin the project because of his lack of Greek.) I also realise that this book is highly praised, but I can’t really see why people are so blown away by it � it has its moments, but anyone can write a bizarro version of a classic work. Despite my issues, though, the book is still preferable to some people to reading a more mundane translated version, and I acknowledge that it was written to put the Iliad in a new light, and perhaps to a new audience. At the very least, for people who are put off by the length or the obscurities of Homer, maybe this will do it.
I feel I should start out by saying that this book is not for me (in the most literal sense): this isn’t ‘for� classicists, but is rather a foray into Homer for the uninitiated (though, having said that, I’m not sure whether Christopher Logue intended it for people who have actually read the Iliad or not). As a result, some of my criticisms are probably informed by my classicism, but I can only be myself and review according to my own judgement of the book.
Some issues I had are in comparison to the Iliad itself: I was happy when I could recognise passages that are clearly lifted directly from Homer’s original, but I also feel that some details are misused � I’m fond of Homeric epithets and would rather see them included than excluded, but there are almost none here apart from the odd passing reference to them (‘lake-eyed Hera� being basically equivalent to ‘ox-eyed Hera�, and references to Zeus as the storm god). Yet, bizarrely, Apollo is referred to as ‘Mouse God� more or less every time he’s mentioned (from p.10 onwards), when he’s only addressed as such once in the Iliad: I thought this was odd as it’s a pretty obscure reference that even most classicists would not immediately recognise (and not really relevant to Apollo’s more well-recognised theological identity) and seems to make a very commonly known god an oddity. I’m also not sure why Athena talks to her father like a baby (pp.120ff.) � she does sweet-talk Zeus at one point in the original, but with a much more rational tone (more believable since she’s the goddess of wisdom). The book isn’t intended for classicists, and yet there are a lot of references that non-classicists won’t get.
(On top of this, there are some references that I didn’t, and still don’t understand � I have no idea who ‘Thoal� is supposed to be, though he’s referenced quite a few times and seems to be an important lord of some kind. There’s no character in the Iliad by this name. There are a few other references like this that seem inexplicable, and my searching hasn’t yielded results.)
By extension, the experimental style is what makes this book unique, but some decisions made didn’t quite work for me, though I suppose they keep the reader awake. We also have to deal with very odd ‘blurrings� and made-up portmanteaus of words (‘Snowcragbackfastnesses� p.107; ‘smoothdownsideways�, ‘imparadised� p.115), alongside weird, jarring modern synonyms (we all own a pair of ‘sparkling clogs�, I guess ). This gives the poem an engaging and experimental style, but at times the references can ruin immersion. I understand wanting to make the Iliad feel more relevant, but I’ve found Lombardo’s translation achieves this aim without breaking faith with Homer.
Some prize questionable words and phrases:
� “O cheesy Lung� (p.22 � meaning unclear)
� “This womb is now a wife� (p.23 � horrible)
� Not a god’s god, I know. But curved. (p.40) (What is this supposed to mean?)
� It was so quiet in Heaven that you could hear
The north wind pluck a chicken in Australia. (p.41)
� “Do you accept this womb…as your wife?� (p.85 � belabouring the horrible point)
� “Go. You are his. Obey him.� (p.85 � some might argue this is accurate to Iliadic culture, but it’s certainly not phrased this way in the text.)
� “Napoleon’s Murat had 50 hats
And 50 plumes each 50 inches high
And 50 uniforms and many more
Than 50 pots of facial mayonnaise
Appropriate to a man with tender skin� (p.94 � still not sure what ‘facial mayonnaise� is)
â€� “P²¹±ô´Ç´Ç°ì²¹±¹¾±±ô±ô±ðâ€� (p.95)
� Now dark, now bright, now watch �
As aircrews watch tsunamis send
Ripples across the Iwo Jima Deep,
Or as a schoolgirl makes her velveteen
Go dark, go bright (p.97 � the schoolgirl thing is too jarringly modern)
� “Make sure my pubic jewellery is on top.� (p.126 � again, perverse, and not at all faithful to the Iliad)
� The whole scene where Aphrodite forces Helen into the bath and sends her to Paris is too horribly misogynistic for me to type out (p.127-129)
� The scene where Menelaus� pubis is injured is also really lewd (p.129ff. � his injury is true to Homer, but not the way it plays out)
� Molo the Dancer from Cymatriax
Tugs at his penis as he squeaks (p.182 � not sure what this is about).
Calling absolutely all the female characters ‘shes�, making no distinction between free women and slave women, and underlining all of this with uncomfortably invasive references to the female characters� bodies (“The sweat was running down between my breasts�, p.103 [women never say this]; “Her breasts alert and laden with desire�, p.127 [this is just voyeuristic]; “Her breasts so lovely that they envy one another�, p.203 [perverted]) makes for pretty unpleasant reading, and I worry it shows an unhealthy attempt to make the Iliadic culture more ‘barbaric� than it appears in the text. The important female characters (Helen, Andromache, Briseis), who are not treated insultingly by Homer, have heavily diminished roles. Homer treats the culture as a fact of life, while Logue almost seems to be condoning the misogyny, which is far more pronounced in his interpretation, even though he’s chosen to modernise everything else. This is accompanied by strange attempts to exoticise the Trojans (Priam is never described as ‘indigo skinned� in the Iliad and this doesn’t make sense in Turkey; saying the Greeks will become ‘Panther meat� is also inaccurate [if we’re making up words now: ‘anageographic�, like ‘anachronistic’]). I understand that this is a book ‘adaptation�, not a translation, but an adaptation should always be faithful to the general ‘feel� and tone of the original, and in many aspects this is not.
On the other hand, there are also some variations or interpretations that I thought were powerful, not least:
� “If ever she sees Ilium again
She will have empty gums.� (p.11)
� And then,
And then again, but with a higher note, that note
Instantly answered by the snarl of silk
As Asia stands for Laomedon’s son, (p.102)
� They smile. They are the gods.
They have all the time in the world.
What science knows, they know. (p.115)
� “His curls
Bursting around his head like sunlit frost.� (p.133)
� (p.165)
� (p.179)
� (pp.208-209).
It’s a shame that these are so diminished by the bizarre and odd poetic decisions and prejudices that belabour the rest of the book.
I think he wanted to take what’s timeless in the original and apply it to a ‘universalised� view of the historical timeline (almost like all the events and settings he references are all ‘alive� at once), and I can appreciate the concept even if it’s sometimes jarring and therefore ineffective. (Again, I feel Lombardo’s subtler approach is more successful.) I was also relieved that he uses this sparingly, and seems to get the key moments towards the end right without too much tampering (particularly the emotional highs that don’t need a historical context). I think the Patrocleia book generally outshines the rest and has few to no questionable phrases and poetic decisions, so it saves the book overall for me.
I realise that the author/poet passed away in 2011, but I feel like he would not have cared much about my criticisms, since he seems strangely dismissive and somewhat derogatory towards classicists in the introduction. (I was surprised to learn that he was reluctant to begin the project because of his lack of Greek.) I also realise that this book is highly praised, but I can’t really see why people are so blown away by it � it has its moments, but anyone can write a bizarro version of a classic work. Despite my issues, though, the book is still preferable to some people to reading a more mundane translated version, and I acknowledge that it was written to put the Iliad in a new light, and perhaps to a new audience. At the very least, for people who are put off by the length or the obscurities of Homer, maybe this will do it.
September 19, 2021
Just listened to the audiobook, which is powerfully narrated by Simon Vance. I enjoyed what the preface called "flagrant anachronisms."
January 30, 2019
This book is a retelling (not quite a translation) of Books 1-4 and 16-19 of the Iliad. This is my second time reading it. Reading more about Christopher Logue, I found out that he returned to this project to write more of it, which is published in .
I re-read this to prepare for reading the Emily Wilson translation of the Odyssey.
From the introduction by Gary Wills:
Since Logue does not call his work a translation of Homer but an account of him, some think he is just offering his own Trojan story, as Chaucer and Shakespeare did in their poems. But Logue is striving to reach the essence of Homer, the things most easily jettisoned if one is inventing a contemporary entertainment. Homer without theophanies, animal sacrifice, catalogues, epithets or repeated speeches is not Homer. That is why Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida is not Homer, or anything like Homer...
Logue has all of Simone Weil's disgust for war. But Weil could not admit the fierce joy in battle, which means that much of Homer was a closed book to her. Logue sees injustice and valor, reality and transcendence, all dancing warily about one another. In Homer's world, the familiar and the strange look at each other in mutual incomprehension and respect.
(Wills is referring to Simone Weil's The Iiad, or the Poem of Force which I read last year as part of .)
In general, I don’t mind Logue's use of anachronistic language. As the introduction points out, Homer did something similar:
One reason for the magic distancing achieved by Homeric similes is that the main action is remembered from a heroic past while the similes draw on the daily life of Homers contemporaries. Milton understood that, and used a Homeric simile to link the cosmology of the Bible with the most advanced scientific work of his own day.
But even with that in mind, some of the stylistic choices don’t make sense to me.
O cheesey Lung,
I know as much, in likelihood much more,
about the use of force as any here...
(That's from an exchange between Achilles and Agamemnon -- what is this image supposed to mean?)
Also, the misogyny of ancient Greece seems more extreme in Logues version than in the traditional translations I have read. (I've read two translations of The Iliad: Samuel Butler and Robert Fagles). Logue pretty much ignores any distinction between free women and slaves, as far as I can tell.
There were some powerful images and speeches, though. Some bits I liked:
Thetis delivering Achilles’s armor:
And as she laid the moonlit armour on the sand
It chimed;
And the sound that came from it
Followed the light that came from it Like sighing
Saying:
Made in Heaven.
And those who had the neck to watch Achilles weep
Could not look now.
Nobody looked. They were afraid.
and a bit later:
Moments like these absolve the needs dividing men.
Whatever caught and brought and kept them here
Under Troy's Wall for ten burnt years
Is lost: and for a while they join a terrible equality,
Are virtuous, self-sacrificing, free;
And so insidious is this liberty
That those surviving it will bear
An even greater servitude to its root:
Believing they were whole, while they were brave;
That they were rich, because their loot was great,
That war was meaningful, because they lost their friends.
I re-read this to prepare for reading the Emily Wilson translation of the Odyssey.
From the introduction by Gary Wills:
Since Logue does not call his work a translation of Homer but an account of him, some think he is just offering his own Trojan story, as Chaucer and Shakespeare did in their poems. But Logue is striving to reach the essence of Homer, the things most easily jettisoned if one is inventing a contemporary entertainment. Homer without theophanies, animal sacrifice, catalogues, epithets or repeated speeches is not Homer. That is why Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida is not Homer, or anything like Homer...
Logue has all of Simone Weil's disgust for war. But Weil could not admit the fierce joy in battle, which means that much of Homer was a closed book to her. Logue sees injustice and valor, reality and transcendence, all dancing warily about one another. In Homer's world, the familiar and the strange look at each other in mutual incomprehension and respect.
(Wills is referring to Simone Weil's The Iiad, or the Poem of Force which I read last year as part of .)
In general, I don’t mind Logue's use of anachronistic language. As the introduction points out, Homer did something similar:
One reason for the magic distancing achieved by Homeric similes is that the main action is remembered from a heroic past while the similes draw on the daily life of Homers contemporaries. Milton understood that, and used a Homeric simile to link the cosmology of the Bible with the most advanced scientific work of his own day.
But even with that in mind, some of the stylistic choices don’t make sense to me.
O cheesey Lung,
I know as much, in likelihood much more,
about the use of force as any here...
(That's from an exchange between Achilles and Agamemnon -- what is this image supposed to mean?)
Also, the misogyny of ancient Greece seems more extreme in Logues version than in the traditional translations I have read. (I've read two translations of The Iliad: Samuel Butler and Robert Fagles). Logue pretty much ignores any distinction between free women and slaves, as far as I can tell.
There were some powerful images and speeches, though. Some bits I liked:
Thetis delivering Achilles’s armor:
And as she laid the moonlit armour on the sand
It chimed;
And the sound that came from it
Followed the light that came from it Like sighing
Saying:
Made in Heaven.
And those who had the neck to watch Achilles weep
Could not look now.
Nobody looked. They were afraid.
and a bit later:
Moments like these absolve the needs dividing men.
Whatever caught and brought and kept them here
Under Troy's Wall for ten burnt years
Is lost: and for a while they join a terrible equality,
Are virtuous, self-sacrificing, free;
And so insidious is this liberty
That those surviving it will bear
An even greater servitude to its root:
Believing they were whole, while they were brave;
That they were rich, because their loot was great,
That war was meaningful, because they lost their friends.
February 5, 2016
I'm glad I read this, and I really appreciate what Logue was trying to do, but I also thought it was pretty uneven. (For those who are unfamiliar, this is a sort of "reboot" of parts of the Iliad--an extremely loose translation, written based on other translations rather than by someone who could read the original Greek.)
I have previously only read the Iliad in the very staid Lattimore translation. Reading Logue is very much more like reading poetry, in both the good and the bad ways. There are certain passages that soar and really gave me a sense of immediacy, but others where I felt lost or confused about what was going on. (The best parts, I thought, were the theophanies, where gods or goddesses enter the field of battle. Logue does an excellent job of portraying their disturbingly alien natures.) It's a difficult path to tread, I guess, because while the Iliad is a poem, it's also a very good and interesting story, and it's hard to relay both together. Perhaps it's best that there are translations written in both styles; no need for one to be all things to all people. I would certainly not recommend this book to anyone as their first reading of the Iliad though!
I have recently started playing Dungeons & Dragons with some friends, and got some good inspiration from this book for epic/heroic tone!
I have previously only read the Iliad in the very staid Lattimore translation. Reading Logue is very much more like reading poetry, in both the good and the bad ways. There are certain passages that soar and really gave me a sense of immediacy, but others where I felt lost or confused about what was going on. (The best parts, I thought, were the theophanies, where gods or goddesses enter the field of battle. Logue does an excellent job of portraying their disturbingly alien natures.) It's a difficult path to tread, I guess, because while the Iliad is a poem, it's also a very good and interesting story, and it's hard to relay both together. Perhaps it's best that there are translations written in both styles; no need for one to be all things to all people. I would certainly not recommend this book to anyone as their first reading of the Iliad though!
I have recently started playing Dungeons & Dragons with some friends, and got some good inspiration from this book for epic/heroic tone!
July 8, 2014
It turns out that there is, perhaps, such a thing as translation. Logue's control of English verse and deep understanding of Homeric structures, that is, how theme is expressed through form (repeating epithets, but not using the Greek epithets themselves; repeated scenes but not stock hexameters; theophanies that bring the Olympians to life; gore) produces a compelling "account", as he calls it, of parts of Homer's epic. He is ruthless like the blind bard, his iambs are almost silky, he lights up thousand-years-gone traditions with an incandescence that modern readers can see by.
I've long loved Richard Lattimore's translation (yes, yes Fagles and Hughes, too) but they seem to be more trans-scribers of the words, more like taking a picture of the text that ends up being developed in English. Logue, though, Logue finds the heart of Homer and shoves it into your chest. Truly an accomplishment. Onward to All Day Permanent Red and Cold Calls.
Plenty of people have quoted passages from the work, so I'll refrain. You must rush out to get your hands on a copy. Go!
I've long loved Richard Lattimore's translation (yes, yes Fagles and Hughes, too) but they seem to be more trans-scribers of the words, more like taking a picture of the text that ends up being developed in English. Logue, though, Logue finds the heart of Homer and shoves it into your chest. Truly an accomplishment. Onward to All Day Permanent Red and Cold Calls.
Plenty of people have quoted passages from the work, so I'll refrain. You must rush out to get your hands on a copy. Go!
December 6, 2012
This is a brilliant adaptation of Homer's Iliad that takes epic away from a set of conventions and brings it back to narrative storytelling. Its reference pool is expansive, making use of anything that has happened before Homer and even after Homer, which in a paradoxical way gives us a truer English Homer than Fagles, Fitzgerald, or any of the other strict translators. Logue's poem is not a translation, but who would want a translation? I want to sense the poesy of Homer, not the narrative. One should never read poems strictly for narrative. Logue's filmic and scriptic writing creates an Iliad in the style we as 21st century readers can better understand; the poem feels cinematic, which is fitting since our primary mode of entertainment is movies � not campfire stories. Logue boils down anything he loves into his poem, referencing The Beatles, Milton, Byron, Homer, modern scholarship (Achilles in Book 9 now sings Gilgamesh instead of singing about the heroes of old) et al. It's the best English Homer since Pope.
February 1, 2012
Christopher Logue evidently died in December of 2011; perhaps there is more of this work yet to be published. I would be happy to see more, but would be happier to see it, and his already published Iliad work, in an extensively annotated form, binding it back to the existing texts, translations, and other Logue sources.
The work is remarkable as it stands, but it can hardly be argued that it stands entirely alone. I believe annotation would honor and envalue both Logue’s appropriation and his originality.
[Simultaneous note for All Day Permanent Red and War Music by Christopher Logue.]
October 11, 2014
A very interesting retelling of parts of the Iliad that made me tear up at certain moments. I particularly enjoyed how the gods and the surroundings are transferred into a reality half in the ancient times half in the modern world, and how the characters were true to their original spirit.
Also I was very glad that Achilles and Patroclus' relationship was not portrayed as the usual "close friendship" *coughs loudly at Troy* but as the actual very homoerotic love. Because let's face it. Come on. This is very important to me.
Also I was very glad that Achilles and Patroclus' relationship was not portrayed as the usual "close friendship" *coughs loudly at Troy* but as the actual very homoerotic love. Because let's face it. Come on. This is very important to me.
January 17, 2013
Brilliant, just brilliant! I love Christopher Logue's approach to his interpretation of Homer's The Iliad. These little volumes of poetry are well worth reading on an annual basis, and I'm saddened to to realize that Logue's poetic voice has been silenced upon his death in late-2011. I will always treasure my collection of his 'Iliad' poetry, including War Music, Cold Calls, and All Day Permanent Red.
June 16, 2008
Blue heaven above, Mount Ida's snow behind, Troy in between
And what pleasure it was to be there! To be one of that host!
Greek, and as naked as God! naked as bride and groom!
Exulting for battle!
There is beauty and ferocity and music in it. Every age can be written in myth and write myth. This is all the poetry that was missing from the bombast of 300.
And what pleasure it was to be there! To be one of that host!
Greek, and as naked as God! naked as bride and groom!
Exulting for battle!
There is beauty and ferocity and music in it. Every age can be written in myth and write myth. This is all the poetry that was missing from the bombast of 300.
January 31, 2023
I much prefer the Odyssey to the Iliad, but Logue’s poetry is just marvelous.
October 8, 2021
The greatest advocate for a bad translation is any bad translation that happens to be startlingly good. I would refer to Moncrieff’s version of Proust which, I am dutifully informed, drifts much too far from the French to be called Proust in English. It is rather Proust in Moncrieff. This combination sparks wildfires. So too might we arrange Homer and Logue. The two are not so close as between Proust and his translator, but then Logue has no intention of closeness. Rather in taking a distinctly Greek expression of the world � olden Greek, at that � and spinning it through English sensibility. I will not say The Iliad does not resound in its honest translations � Lattimore’s slavish hexameters attest to that � but rather that its bounds are not so tight as the remnants of Homeric text would require. Logue loses all pretence to ‘truth� and to ‘accuracy�, rather devising an idiosyncrasy, one to which I am increasingly convinced. In all translation some interpretative work is required, and if such a glut of translations already exist according to apparent lines (The Iliad seems to churn infinite translations from infinite translators), then why not take interpretation up as leading banner. Forgo speaking English as the Greeks would have, and rather look at their tale with contemporary eyes. And so Logue will not shy from the sinisterisms of his protagonists � the inescapable rape of the old Greek world is not removed but emphasised � and instead casts upon them a stark, amusing light. Diomedes is made a callow daddy’s boy; Nestor becomes the droning bore; Aphrodite a stripping diva. It is not all made a mockery: the sulking Achilles, for whom comedy would be an easy crutch, becomes perhaps more tragic (Logue’s own tragedy leaving Achilles at his sultry monologue: that is journey’s end). He rages that for the one woman, war might be waged and blood shed across all the Troad, and yet for another � more truly desired, he might suppose � he should be expected to waive rights and take up spear. The mindless hypocrisy of the Trojan war becomes chief subject: in the melee one cannot even distinguish red-tinged Danaan from red-tinged Dardan (whose names very almost merge). The gods and kings make great fools of themselves (and they do, with a certain dramatic gravity, in Homer’s edition the same) all in the name of dubious honour and yet-more dubious profit. And Logue’s poetry is just so good: his anachronisms so wonderfully apt, his touch so slight and so mighty. A banner wrapping round the head of an idle soldier, all the texture of waiting warfare there in a single image.
August 18, 2021
Well, I took the Summer off from reading Homer and other Greeks. It just does not seem a good fit to the season.
But I had read the last 2 of the 5 volumes of this series of long poems influenced by Homer. I have to say those 2 books, while impressive, came off as rather dry and abstract, and I did not enjoy them all that much.
But there was something in them that still made me want to read this volume of the collected first 3 books in the series.
And I am glad I did.
They are much more vibrant, and just over-all work so much better.
Logue does use Homer's meter often, but is not tied to it Some of his most powerful writing comes when he just uses short, sometime one word, lines.
And he keeps the gods - and makes them believable.
And his use of contemporary to us references. I felt at times as if I was listening to an old man tell me these tales face to face. As if he was sharing his stories of battle in Ilium, as the jets flew across the sky above.
What Logue does mostly is take an event or episode that may just be a couple lines in Homer, and fills them out to a full story. And he does it extremely well, and with an obvious scholarly understanding of the other literature pertaining to The Iliad.
He also gets the battles down beautifully, and precisely. So many warriors in one one place that they are piling up on one another. The lving and the dead - and unable to tell who is for Troy and who is for Greece.
A really excellent poetic addition to, more than a rewriting of, Homer's Iliad. I may go back and read book 4 now - the final battle between Achilles and Hector.
But I had read the last 2 of the 5 volumes of this series of long poems influenced by Homer. I have to say those 2 books, while impressive, came off as rather dry and abstract, and I did not enjoy them all that much.
But there was something in them that still made me want to read this volume of the collected first 3 books in the series.
And I am glad I did.
They are much more vibrant, and just over-all work so much better.
Logue does use Homer's meter often, but is not tied to it Some of his most powerful writing comes when he just uses short, sometime one word, lines.
And he keeps the gods - and makes them believable.
And his use of contemporary to us references. I felt at times as if I was listening to an old man tell me these tales face to face. As if he was sharing his stories of battle in Ilium, as the jets flew across the sky above.
What Logue does mostly is take an event or episode that may just be a couple lines in Homer, and fills them out to a full story. And he does it extremely well, and with an obvious scholarly understanding of the other literature pertaining to The Iliad.
He also gets the battles down beautifully, and precisely. So many warriors in one one place that they are piling up on one another. The lving and the dead - and unable to tell who is for Troy and who is for Greece.
A really excellent poetic addition to, more than a rewriting of, Homer's Iliad. I may go back and read book 4 now - the final battle between Achilles and Hector.
September 23, 2021
I haven't read the Iliad because, well... y'know. So it's difficult to make comparisons - but then, the book is pitched in a way that discourages comparisons being drawn. It's not meant to be a case of 'who did it better?'
And so, treating it in its own right - it's very strong indeed. It's not overwrought or indulgent, but one would hardly call it understated either. It's simply powerful and evocative, and occasionally wry or tongue in cheek (Logue's treatment of the Gods as petulant babies tussling over characters in their own soap opera in order to establish petty power plays is great, particularly as he tends to introduce jarringly incongruent modernities for these bits).
Usefully, it's also the 'greatest hits' bit of the legends, so fairly easy to follow - though I wouldn't mind seeing his treatment of a few more of the parts too.
And so, treating it in its own right - it's very strong indeed. It's not overwrought or indulgent, but one would hardly call it understated either. It's simply powerful and evocative, and occasionally wry or tongue in cheek (Logue's treatment of the Gods as petulant babies tussling over characters in their own soap opera in order to establish petty power plays is great, particularly as he tends to introduce jarringly incongruent modernities for these bits).
Usefully, it's also the 'greatest hits' bit of the legends, so fairly easy to follow - though I wouldn't mind seeing his treatment of a few more of the parts too.
April 27, 2018
Christopher Logue seizes the ancient story of The Illiad and retells it for the modern reader. This is not a translation. This is a vital and stirring work willing to use modern imagery to vividly bring a three thousand year old battle ringing into the present moment.
This early version tells only books 1-4 and 16-19. The Illiad has long been one of my favorite books because of the way it presents camaraderie in the face of danger. As much I enjoyed the other translation I have read, this new telling by Logue turns my previous reads to smoke. It is gripping, glorious and effecting, page after page.
There is an updated 2015 version of the book which tells the complete story -- go straight there. It has jumped to the top of my wishlist.
This early version tells only books 1-4 and 16-19. The Illiad has long been one of my favorite books because of the way it presents camaraderie in the face of danger. As much I enjoyed the other translation I have read, this new telling by Logue turns my previous reads to smoke. It is gripping, glorious and effecting, page after page.
There is an updated 2015 version of the book which tells the complete story -- go straight there. It has jumped to the top of my wishlist.
November 29, 2021
So, we all know that I love a mythology retelling and I love seeing mythology, especially Greek Mythology being told in new and interesting ways, and this is now one of my favourites.
While it only focuses on a few books from Homer’s Iliad, it picks out the most evocative ones and just pulls you all the way in, and retells them in a way that just leaves you breathless in places.
While it is poetry, there’s an element of stagecraft to the pieces as well, you can easily imagine these being performed by multiple people which harks back to Homer’s original method of oral epic poetry.
All in all, I’m really glad I picked this up and gave it a go. And I hope there’s more books like this out there!
While it only focuses on a few books from Homer’s Iliad, it picks out the most evocative ones and just pulls you all the way in, and retells them in a way that just leaves you breathless in places.
While it is poetry, there’s an element of stagecraft to the pieces as well, you can easily imagine these being performed by multiple people which harks back to Homer’s original method of oral epic poetry.
All in all, I’m really glad I picked this up and gave it a go. And I hope there’s more books like this out there!
May 15, 2017
"Picture the east Aegean sea by night,
And on a beach aslant its shimmering
Upwards of 50,000 men
Asleep like spoons beside their lethal Fleet."
Logue's poem, an account of several books from Homer's Iliad, is incredible in its own right, never mind all the good it does on behalf of the epic. It is flash-framed cinematic, disciplined, and all but orchestral, and its scope and flow is interrupted throughout only to make way for observations, asides, and aphorisms of great depth and beauty. Highly recommended.
And on a beach aslant its shimmering
Upwards of 50,000 men
Asleep like spoons beside their lethal Fleet."
Logue's poem, an account of several books from Homer's Iliad, is incredible in its own right, never mind all the good it does on behalf of the epic. It is flash-framed cinematic, disciplined, and all but orchestral, and its scope and flow is interrupted throughout only to make way for observations, asides, and aphorisms of great depth and beauty. Highly recommended.
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