okay i need to break this apart in context with the other translations because this is an incredibly deft and incisive translation. i've adjusted a few of the the line breaks of the earlier translations a bit to line up with this one.
Queen! Belt out a banger of a turnmaxing moid
Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
Tell me about a complicated man. Muse, [...]
who highkey through savage sidequests toughed it
driven time and again off course, [...]
tell me how he wandered and was lost
after chopping Troy-town to dogfood deadass
once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy.
when he had wrecked the holy town of Troy,
Sailed through sick storms and dealt with dramas
Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea,
and where he went, and who he met, the pain he suffered in the storms at sea, and how
Locked in to lead his fam to a homey safe space
fighting to save his life and bring his comrades home.
he worked to save his life and bring his men back home.
Talk of the trips and trenches, the sus opps he faced how the GOAT cooked and vibed with the randos though he lowkey took the L on that mission when his bros
But he could not save them from disaster, hard as he strove – the recklessness of their own ways destroyed them all,
He failed to keep them safe; poor fools,
Like NPCS blundered badly to beef with the big G
the blind fools, they devoured the cattle of the Sun
they ate the Sun God’s cattle, and the god
and got ghosted, permablocked, cooked completely.
and the Sungod blotted out the day of their return. . . .
kept them from home. . . .
--Magnus Pharo, 2026 --Robert Fagles (1996) --Emily Wilson (2018)
