SKALD Butler · 1900 All analyses Translation Atlas Reader’s guide

English · Prose · Plain narrative prose

Samuel Butler

A surface-form portrait of this Odyssey: corpus scale, recurring wording, line-window variation around Greek forms, and a comparison with other English translations.

Atlas edition year: 1900 · Statistics corpus year: 1900 · All 24 books

117,938words
6,322distinct word forms
0.0536vocabulary variety (distinct ÷ total)
30.92average sentence length
Butler compared with other English translations Copper bars show this translation; pale bars show the peer median for four surface-form metrics. Butler Peer median Words 117,938 median 123,889.5 Distinct word forms 6,322 median 6,844.5 Vocabulary variety 0.0536 median 0.0577 Average sentence length 30.92 median 24.90

Comparison basis: other English translations (12 peers). Each metric has its own scale. Cross-language style-group values are descriptive only.

Repeated wording

The translator’s formulas

The ten repeated phrases of three to six words that rank highest when we multiply how often each phrase appears by its length. Overlapping phrases can describe the same recurring line.

  1. “the house of” 70 occurrences · Od. 1.22 and 2.257
  2. “as soon as” 63 occurrences · Od. 1.144 and 2.349
  3. “in the house” 55 occurrences · Od. 1.22 and 1.136
  4. “out of the” 48 occurrences · Od. 1.113 and 2.361
  5. “to the house” 43 occurrences · Od. 2.257 and 2.393
  6. “to the house of” 32 occurrences · Od. 2.257 and 2.393
  7. “when they had” 40 occurrences · Od. 2.413 and 3.337
  8. “one of the” 39 occurrences · Od. 1.325 and 2.15
  9. “on to the” 38 occurrences · Od. 1.421 and 3.29
  10. “child of morning rosy fingered dawn” 19 occurrences · Od. 2.1 and 3.404

Line-window evidence

One Greek word, many choices

Each card follows one Greek word into three visibly different passages in this translation. The Greek line containing the word appears first, followed by the nearby passage in the translation. The listed nearby words show recurring context, not direct translations of the Greek word.

δῖος

dios recurring nearby word 13%
  • ἱρὸν Ἀθηναίης, ἵνʼ ἄρʼ ἕζετο δῖος Ὀδυσσεύς.
    Greek line · Od. 6.322
    of Minerva, and there Ulysses sat down and prayed to the mighty daughter of Jove.
    Translation passage · Od. 6.323 · nearby words: daughter, mighty, prayed, sat
  • χλαῖναν πορφυρέην οὔλην ἔχε δῖος Ὀδυσσεύς,
    Greek line · Od. 19.225
    was fastened by a gold brooch with two catches for the pin. On the face of this there was a device that shewed a dog
    Translation passage · Od. 19.225 · nearby words: brooch, catches, device, dog
  • υἱέες Αὐτολύκου· μετὰ τοῖσι δὲ δῖος Ὀδυσσεὺς
    Greek line · Od. 19.430
    Parnassus and soon reached its breezy upland valleys; but as the sun was beginning to beat upon
    Translation passage · Od. 19.430 · nearby words: beat, beginning, breezy, its

φίλος

philos recurring nearby word 7%
  • ὦ φίλος, οὐδέ τοι αὐτὸς ἐρύκεσθαι μενεαίνω·
    Greek line · Od. 17.17
    do not want to stay here; a beggar can always do better in town than country, for any one who likes
    Translation passage · Od. 17.17 · nearby words: always, beggar, better, likes
  • ὦ πόποι, ὡς ὅδε πᾶσι φίλος καὶ τίμιός ἐστιν
    Greek line · Od. 10.38
    one turn to his neighbour, saying, ‘how this man gets honoured and makes friends to whatever city
    Translation passage · Od. 10.38 · nearby words: city, friends, gets, honoured
  • ὤρνυτʼ ἄρʼ ἐξ εὐνῆφιν Ὀδυσσῆος φίλος υἱὸς
    Greek line · Od. 2.2
    morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared Telemachus rose and dressed himself. He bound his sandals
    Translation passage · Od. 2.2 · nearby words: appeared, bound, dawn, dressed

πεπνυμένος

pepnymenos recurring nearby word 19%
  • τὸν δʼ αὖ Τηλέμαχος πεπνυμένος ἀντίον ηὔδα·
    Greek line · Od. 4.593
    “Son of Atreus,” replied Telemachus, “do not press me to stay longer; I should be contented
    Translation passage · Od. 4.593 · nearby words: atreus, contented, longer, press
  • Ἀμφίνομʼ, ἦ μάλα μοι δοκέεις πεπνυμένος εἶναι·
    Greek line · Od. 18.125
    “Amphinomus, you seem to be a man of good understanding, as indeed you may well be, seeing whose son
    Translation passage · Od. 18.125 · nearby words: amphinomus, indeed, seeing, seem
  • τοῖσι δὲ Τηλέμαχος πεπνυμένος ἤρχετο μύθων·
    Greek line · Od. 1.367
    cloisters, and prayed each one that he might be her bed fellow.
    Translation passage · Od. 1.367 · nearby words: bed, cloisters, each, fellow

ἀμύμονος

amymonos recurring nearby word 15%
  • ἱστίη τʼ Ὀδυσῆος ἀμύμονος, ἣν ἀφικάνω·
    Greek line · Od. 19.304
    to witness, as also that hearth of Ulysses to which I have now come, that all I have spoken shall surely
    Translation passage · Od. 19.304 · nearby words: hearth, spoken, surely, witness
  • ὠτειλὴν δʼ Ὀδυσῆος ἀμύμονος ἀντιθέοιο
    Greek line · Od. 19.456
    themselves with the carcass of the boar, and bound Ulysses’ wound; then, after saying a spell to stop
    Translation passage · Od. 19.456 · nearby words: boar, bound, carcass, saying
  • μεσσηγύς τε θόλου καὶ ἀμύμονος ἕρκεος αὐλῆς,
    Greek line · Od. 22.459
    women out and hemmed them in the narrow space between the wall of the domed room and that of
    Translation passage · Od. 22.459 · nearby words: between, domed, hemmed, narrow

συβώτης

sybōtēs recurring nearby word 42%
  • τέσσαρες, οὓς ἔθρεψε συβώτης, ὄρχαμος ἀνδρῶν.
    Greek line · Od. 14.22
    pigs, and the herdsman’s four hounds, which were as fierce as wolves, slept always with them. The swineherd
    Translation passage · Od. 14.22 · nearby words: always, fierce, four, herdsman
  • αἶψα δέ μιν διέχευαν· ὁ δʼ ὠμοθετεῖτο συβώτης,
    Greek line · Od. 14.427
    singed it. Then they cut it up, and Eumaeus began by putting raw pieces from each joint on to some of the fat; these he
    Translation passage · Od. 14.427 · nearby words: cut, each, eumaeus, fat
  • καλή τε μεγάλη τε, περίδρομος· ἥν ῥα συβώτης
    Greek line · Od. 14.7
    by the yards that he had built on a site which could be seen from far. He had made them spacious and fair
    Translation passage · Od. 14.7 · nearby words: built, fair, far, seen

Statistical comparison

Against its siblings

Butler enters the atlas as a deliberate departure from stately Victorian prose, shaped to move like a novel and closely tied to his provocative authorship theory. The corpus contains 117938 words and 6322 distinct word forms. Its score-ranked formula list begins with “the house of,” recorded 70 times; this first position does not mean it has the highest raw count. For scale within other English translations, Murray contains 133986 words. Read together, the atlas context and corpus evidence show how this version occupies its declared cohort without converting length, vocabulary counts, or recurrence into claims about merit, fidelity, intention, or reception. These measures offer a compact view of the textual evidence available here. The emphasis remains on directly observable features of the supplied corpora.

Keep the edition in context.

Open its full atlas record, or read it beside the Greek and the other bundled translations in Skald.

Atlas record App Store Google Play