Does anyone have an audiobook recommendation for this one? I feel like it’s only proper to have it told orally.

“Zeus set an evil lot upon us all,
to make us topics of a singer’s tale
for people in the future still unborn.”
…
The warriors met, bronze breastplates close together.
Hides clashed, spears struck, and human wills collided.
Shield bosses smashed together and created
great rattling clangs and cracks and thunderous noise.
Despair and triumph swelled among the killers
and those they killed. The earth ran red with blood.
…
“A man who fights his hardest in the war
gets just the same as one who stays behind.
Cowards and heroes have the same reward.
Do everything or nothing—death still comes.”
…
“Who are you? Where do you come from?
And do you dare to challenge me in battle?
When sons encounter me, their parents weep.”
…
“The gods have called me to my death.”

The Iliad tells a very small part of the ten-year Trojan War. Paris’s abduction of Helen, the face that launched a thousand ships? That happened nine years before the story told here. The infamous Trojan Horse the Greeks used to trick their way inside the walls and finally sack the city? That happens sometime after the end of this book. Instead, The Iliad tells a roughly week-long story that could be considered the beginning of the end of the Trojan War. It begins with the Greeks’ leader Agamemnon offending mighty, divine-born Achilles, who then refuses to help the Greeks fight until noble Hector, the Trojans’ greatest fighter and Paris’s brother, kills Achilles’ best friend Patroclus. And it ends with the legendary fight between Hector and Achilles, and the funeral held for the loser.

At times, The Iliad can be a bit tedious. There’s one section that is just a long catalog of the Greeks’ ships and crews. And there are a lot of combat sections that can get repetitive as one guy with a name, lineage and short backstory kills another guy with a name, lineage and short backstory. But most of the time The Iliad is highly entertaining and often quite moving. So much Greek mythology is woven through this book as the immortal, deathless Gods settle old scores with each other by granting or removing favors from the Greeks and Trojans at critical moments. And dozens of characters, both Gods and humans, are richly drawn—recognizable and believable in their rage and grief—despite the extraordinary circumstances they find themselves in.

The Iliad is not an easy read, at least it was not for me, so I turned it into a multimedia experience: listening along to the audiobook while reading the main text on my iPad and pausing to review the notes on the text on my iPhone. But I absolutely recommend the new translation by Emily Wilson, and the audiobook performed by the incomparable Audra McDonald. First, Professor Wilson spent seven years translating the original Greek into a very readable iambic pentameter. Second, the book comes with an introduction that introduces the themes, etc. that the reader should be looking for once they start reading. Finally, there is a lengthy notes section that provides additional detail on names, places, and phrases found throughout the text. Altogether, her translation feels like a class on The Iliad, containing everything you would want or need to get the most from your reading. Recommended.

هی نگه داشتم بیام مثلا ریویو خوب بنویسم دیدم تواناییش رو ندارم، بمونه بعد خوندن اودیسه.
این تجربه ایلیاد خوندنم با قبلی خیلی فرق داشت؛ با گروهی هم‌خوانی کردم که بسیار جذاب و عمیق کتاب می‌خونن و باعث شدند که مدل دیگه ای بخونم.
مرسی سعید که باعث شدی بیام برا هم‌خوانی.

راجع به ترجمه و ورژنی که خوندم و شنیدم بگم:
این سری ترجمه امیلی ویلسون رو خوندم و گوش دادم.
کتاب اولاش یه سری توضیحات کلی و خوب داره، اون وسط هم متن ترجمه شده‌است که برای سارای الان بسیار قابل فهم تر از ترجمه ی نفیسی برای سارای ده دوازده سال پیش بود، هم‌چنین قسمت آخر کتاب یه سری توضیحات اضافه برا هر سرود داشت.
قسمت آخر توی اودیوبوک نبود و وقتی داشتی متن رو گوش می‌دادی می‌تونستی ای‌بوک رو بذاری جلوت و باهاش پیش بری؛ دلیل اومدن یه سری عبارات و شرایط و چیزای مرتبط با قسمت هایی از متن رو توضیح داده بود که خوب بودند.

معرفی هایی که بچه ها از خدایگان و دوره زمانی و کتاب های مرتبط با ایلیاد کردند خیلی برام خوب بود(هرچند نرسیدم یه سری از فایل هایی که فرستادید رو گوش بدم.)

حین خوندنش یه سری نظراتم راجع به متن رو همینجا آوردم.

نتیجه گیری اخلاقیم از داستان این بود که به درگاه همه خدایان دعا کنی هیچوقت کاریت نداشته باشن، نه خوبتو بخوان نه بدتو نه هیچی! اصلا متوجه حضورت نباشن وگرنه به طریقی بدبخت میشی. محبوب این یکی باشی اون یکی حسادت می‌کنه بخواد حال یکی دیگه رو بگیره تورو اون وسط میندازه.
شما در نظر بگیر وسط جنگی که راه افتاده خدای خدایان به باقی خداها اینو بگه:

The dying human beings interest me.

I like to watch from here. The rest of you,
go there, among the Trojans and the Greeks,
and help whichever side you each prefer.

اون وسط کلی چیز کنارش راجع به ایلیاد خوندم؛ از کمیک های مرتبط گرفته تا مقالاتی راجع به برهه تاریخیش و مسائل اشاره شده درونش و... که اون وسط باعث شد با بانوگشسپ نامه هم آشنا بشم.

فکر نکنم چیزی ازش بشه گفت که اسپویل محسوب بشه، خود هومر هم با این پیش زمینه اصلا نوشته که همه می‌دونن چی میشه و حالا بذار پوئتیکش کنم، هی اون وسط مثلا فورشدو(اسپویل) می‌کنه آینده رو.

بخوام الان ازش کوئت هایی که برداشتم رو بیارم خیلی پخش و پرت و بی ربط میشن ولی یکم اون اولش از توضیحات راجع به وحشت جنگ برا زنان داشت:

The rape and abduction of an elite woman in peacetime, like the removal of Helen from her husband’s house in Sparta, is a terrible violation of social norms, because it threatens the male homeowner’s control over his own household, including its wealth, its social power, and the subordinate household members. Paris has done something not only ethically questionable, but also extremely imprudent. But in wartime, there are bad consequences for those who kidnap women only when a god’s desires or honor are violated—as with Chryseis, whose priestly father has a special relationship to Apollo.
The horrors of war for women and children were well-known to ancient storytellers and audiences, who would have included women and children. These horrors are implicit in The Iliad. But mortal women’s experiences are not as central in this epic as they were in other ancient Greek poetry, such as wedding songs, songs of lament, and, later, Athenian tragedy.

یه قسمتی بالا سر جنازه هکتور زنش داره به بچه‌ش میگه بدبخت شدیم و حالا برا طفل صغیر این تکه رو خیلی هارش و رک میگه:

And you, my child, will either come with me,
and do humiliating work, enslaved
to some harsh overlord, or else a Greek
will grab your arm and hurl you from the wall—
a dreadful death—in anger because Hector
had killed perhaps his brother, son, or father.

تو گیر و دار جنگ آکیلیس قهر کرده بود و پاتروکلوس هی خودشو می‌کشت پاشو برو جنگ با امثال این حرف ها:

But you, Achilles,
you have become impossible! I hope
the kind of anger you are fostering
never takes hold of me—you monstrous hero!
How can a person in the future learn
anything good from you, if you refuse
to save the Greeks from this catastrophe?
You have no pity. Peleus the horseman
was not your father, Thetis, not your mother.
Gray sea and soaring rocks gave birth to you,
and so you have an unrelenting heart.

که آکیلیس گوشش بدهکار نبود ولی بعدش که داشت غصه میخورد تازه عاقل شده بود و حرف های خوبی میزد:

If only conflict were eliminated
from gods and human beings! I wish anger
did not exist. Even the wisest people
are roused to rage, which trickles into you
sweeter than honey, and inside your body
it swells like smoke.

یه چیز جالبی که داشت با اینکه این‌همه خداها و بزرگاشون خرابکاری میکردند باز خیلی براشون احترام می‌ذاشتن، گویی که اشتباهاتشون هم مقدس و با اندیشه‌ست.
ولی خب خودشون به هم تیکه زیاد می‌اندازند ولی باز هم متن برمیگرده به تقدس و احترامشون.

Great father Zeus, will any mortals bother
to tell their plans and schemes to deathless gods
in any place across the boundless world?
Do you not see?

یه جا که اصلا زئوس خیلی دیگه مسخره میشه، میخواد مخ ها رو بزنه بعد میاد بهش از خوشی هاش با باقی زن ها میگه:

“You can go later on that journey, Hera,
but now let us enjoy some time in bed.
Let us make love. Such strong desire has never
suffused my senses or subdued my heart
for any goddess or for any woman
as I feel now for you. Not even when
I lusted for the wife of Ixion,
and got her pregnant with Pirithous,
a councillor as wise as any god.
Not even when I wanted Danae,
the daughter of Acrisius, a woman
with pretty ankles, and I got her pregnant
with Perseus, the best of warriors.
Not even when I lusted for the famous
Europa, child of Phoenix, and I fathered
Minos on her, and godlike Rhadamanthus.
Not even when I wanted Semele,
or when in Thebes I lusted for Alcmene,
who birthed heroic Heracles, my son—
and Semele gave birth to Dionysus,
the joy of mortals. And not even when
I lusted for the goddess, Queen Demeter,
who has such beautiful, well-braided hair—
not even when I wanted famous Leto,
not even when I wanted you yourself—
I never wanted anyone before
as much I want you right now. Such sweet
desire for you has taken hold of me.”

بعد اون وسط هرا نگران خاله زنک بازی بقیه خداهاست:

But what if one of the immortal gods
witnesses us up there in bed together,
and goes away and tells the other gods?

کلا خداهای جالبی بودن.

خلاصه که همین دیگه… تا تکه مرتبط با ایلیاد ویل دورانت رو کامل بخونم ببینم چیزی می‌خوام اضافه کنم یا نه.