Greek literature

Abstract

Stephen Halliwell has, at last, completed his three-volume verse translation of Aristophanes. The first instalment, published in 1997, covered Aristophanes’ ‘longest play, Birds , his sexiest play, Lysistrata , and two works from very near the end of his career, Assembly-Women and Wealth ’. Geoffrey Arnott's review of that first volume was positive: ‘H.'s style is lively, modern, and generally effective, closer perhaps in its presentation of the complexities of Aristophanic detail and reference than most of his rivals…He is virtually always accurate without being over-literal, and far more often graphically idiomatic than flat.’ Arnott's assessment was generally favourable, although he did identify some imperfections: ‘errors in detail are few and far between ( Birds 244, “marshy greens”, not “rolling hills”; 266, “like a stone curlew”, not “with a waterfall of sound”; Eccl . 1092, βολβoί not “onions”; Plut . 192, μάζα not “bread”)’, and Halliwell ‘would have benefited from having his translation of Birds vetted by an ornithologist, who would have removed the phantasmagorical blue thrush (979), and turned the moorhen (304), siskins (1079), and curlews (1140) into gallinule, chaffinches, and stone curlews’. I confess that I could not possibly have managed that menagerie myself; Arnott, of course, was an accomplished ornithologist. Halliwell's original plan was to deal with ‘the “political” plays from the 420s, Acharnians , Knights , Wasps , and Peace ’ in the second instalment, and ‘the comedies on more “cultural” themes, Clouds , Women at the Thesmophoria , and Frogs ’ in the third. In the event, the sequence of ‘cultural’ and ‘political’ volumes was recast in biblical form: ‘the last shall be first and the first shall be last’ ( Matthew 20.16). Or, perhaps, vice versa. The format for each volume is, at any rate, consistent: each volume has a substantial introduction, with a bibliography and brief chronology; and each play has its own introduction, together with fourteen or so pages of explanatory notes. As a sample of Halliwell's translation, consider (for example) this taster from Peace (996–1,014): Blend all us Greeks, As we once used to be, In an essence of friendship, and mix our minds In a milder spirit of sympathy. Allow our market to teem with goods: From Megara bring us heads of garlic, Early cucumbers, apples, pomegranates, Fancy cloaks for slaves to wear. From Boiotian traders we'd like to see Geese, ducks, wood-pigeons, and wrens, As well as baskets of Kopaic eels. Then may we all crowd round these baskets And buying our food get into a jostle With Morychos, Teleas, Glauketes, And numerous other gluttons. And next May Melanthios come to the market too late, When the eels are all sold: let him ululate, Then sing a solo from his Medea, ‘I'm doomed, I'm doomed, now quite bereft Of a female embedded in beetroot’.