Homer translations

Homer translations Surrender to sleep at last! What an ordeal, keeping watch all night, wide awake. Soon you’ll succumb to sleep and escape all your troubles. Sleep. — Homer, translation by Michael R. Burch Passage home? Impossible! Surely you have something else in mind, Goddess, urging me to cross the ocean’s endless expanse in a raft. So vast, so full of danger! Let’s hope the gods are willing. They rule the vaulting skies. They’re stronger than men to plan, execute and realize their ambitions. — Homer, translation by Michael R. Burch Few sons surpass their fathers; most fall short, all too few overachieve. — Homer, translation by Michael R. Burch Death is the Great Leveler, not even the immortal gods can defend the man they love most when the dread day dawns for him to take his place in the dust. — Homer, translation by Michael R. Burch Any moment might be our last. Earth’s magnificence? Magnified because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than at this moment. We will never pass this way again. — Homer, translation by Michael R. Burch Beauty! Ah, Terrible Beauty! A deathless Goddess, she startles our eyes! — Homer, translation by Michael R. Burch Many dread seas and many dark mountain ranges lie between us. — Homer, translation by Michael R. Burch The lives of mortal men? Like the leaves’ generations. Now the old leaves fall, blown and scattered by the wind. Soon the living timber bursts forth green buds as spring returns. Even so with men: as one generation is born, another expires. — Homer, translation by Michael R. Burch Since I’m attempting to temper my anger, it does not behoove me to rage unrelentingly on. — Homer, tr. Michael R. Burch Overpowering memories subsided to grief. Priam wept freely for Hector, who had died crouching at Achilles’ feet, while Achilles wept himself, first for his father, then for Patroclus, as their mutual sobbing filled the house. — Homer, tr. Michael R. Burch “Genius is discovered in adversity, not prosperity.” — Homer, tr. Michael R. Burch Ruin, the eldest daughter of Zeus, blinds us all with her fatal madness. With those delicate feet of hers, never touching the earth, she glides over our heads, trapping us all. First she entangles you, then me, in her lethal net. — Homer, tr. Michael R. Burch Death and Fate await us all. Soon comes a dawn or noon or sunset when someone takes my life in battle, with a well-flung spear or by whipping a deadly arrow from his bow. — Homer, tr. Michael R. Burch