Homer

Homer:

The Claremont Institute reviews a book on Homer, remarking that Alcibiades once slapped a grammar school teacher for not having a copy on hand for his students. He then compares two famous translations into English, Robert Fagles' and Alexander Pope's:

Prince Achilles, ranging his ranks of Myrmidons,
arrayed them along the shelters, all in armor.
Hungry as wolves that rend and bolt raw flesh,
hearts filled with battle-frenzy that never dies—
off of the cliffs, ripping apart some big antlered stag
they gorge on the kill till all their jaws drip red with blood,
then down in a pack they lope to a pooling, dark spring,
their lean sharp tongues lapping the water's surface,
belching bloody meat, but the fury, never shaken,
builds inside their chests though their glutted bellies burst—
so wild the Myrmidon captains, Myrmidon field commanders
swarming round Achilles' dauntless friend-in-arms

♣
Achilles speeds from tent to tent, and warms
His hardy Myrmidons to blood and arms.
All breathing death, around their chief they stand,
A grim, terrific, formidable band:
Grim as voracious wolves that seek the springs
When scalding thirst their burning bowels wrings
(When some tall stag, fresh-slaughtered in the wood,
Has drenched their wide, insatiate throats with blood)
To the black fount they rush, a hideous throng,
With paunch distended, and with lolling tongue,
Fire fills their eye, their black jaws belch the gore,
And gorged with slaughter, still they thirst for more.
Like furious rushed the Myrmidonian crew,
Such their dread strength, and such their deathful view.

My favorite is the Fitzgerald.

Akhilleus put the Myrmidons in arms,
the whole detachment near the hut. Like wolves,
carnivorous and fierce and tireless,
who rend a great stag on the mountainside
and feed on him, their jaws reddened with blood,
loping in a pack to drink springwater,
lapping the dark rim up with slender tongues,
their chops a-drip with fresh blood, their hearts
unshaken ever, and their bellies glutted:
Such were the Myrmidons and their officers,
running to form up round Akhilleus' brave
companion-in-arms.