A reader's guide, drawn from the Skald Odyssey Translation Atlas
Which Odyssey translation should I read?
The short answer: for a first read in contemporary English, start with Emily Wilson (2017) — line-for-line iambic pentameter, plain syntax, fast and clear — or Robert Fagles (1996), the driving performance verse that put Homer on a generation of syllabuses. Robert Fitzgerald (1961) is the lyric classic; Richmond Lattimore (1965) stays closest to the Greek line. And if you want to start reading in the next five minutes for free, Samuel Butler's plain prose (1900) and George Herbert Palmer's read-aloud prose (1884–91) are both in the public domain. Chapman (1615) and Pope (1725–26) are free too, but they are period masterpieces — read them second.
The longer answer is that there is no single best translation — there are voices, and the right one depends on what you want. The atlas charts 233 translations, into 50+ languages, across 2,300 years; below are the openings of seventeen of them, so you can hear the difference before you commit.
Match the translation to the reader
| You want… | Read | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A first read, today's English | Wilson (2017) · Fagles (1996) | Wilson: strict line count, contemporary diction, quiet clarity. Fagles: momentum and muscle, built for reading aloud. |
| Closest to the Greek | Lattimore (1965) · Murray (1919) | Lattimore keeps Homer's line structure and repeated epithets; Murray's Loeb prose is the literal crib scholars still lean on — and it's free. |
| The poem as music | Fitzgerald (1961) | Supple free verse that made Homer read like a modern American poem in its own right. |
| Free, right now | Butler (1900) · Palmer (1884–91) | Butler is the plainest, most novel-like prose, free on Project Gutenberg; Palmer's supple, faintly rhythmic prose is free on the Internet Archive. |
| The story in prose | Rieu (1946) · Palmer (1884–91) | Rieu's unfussy prose was made for ordinary readers and sold about three million copies; Palmer's, free online, is the one that reads best aloud. |
| A period masterpiece | Chapman (1615) · Pope (1725–26) | Chapman kept Keats up all night; Pope's heroic couplets fixed the sound of Homer for the English eighteenth century. |
Wilson, Fagles, Fitzgerald, Lattimore and Rieu are still in copyright — library, bookshop, or ebook. Everything marked “Read free” below is public domain in the United States.
Hear the difference: seventeen openings of the same poem
Every translator answers the same opening line: Homer asks the Muse for the story of a single adjective — polytropos, the man "of many turns." What each one does with it tells you what the next twelve thousand lines will feel like. Each quotation is verbatim from the edition cited beneath it; follow the atlas links for each translation's full story, lineage, and where to read it.
Homer
ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰ
πλάγχθη, ἐπεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσεν·
Homer, Odyssey, Od. 1.1–2 (text: Perseus) — literally, “Tell me, Muse, of the man of many turns, who wandered far after he sacked Troy’s sacred citadel.”
George Chapman
The man, O Muse, inform, that many a way
Wound with his wisdom to his wished stay;
That wander’d wondrous far, when he the town
Of sacred Troy had sack’d and shiver’d down;
George Chapman, Homer’s Odysses, 1614–15, Od. 1.1–4
The first complete Odyssey in English — the book that kept John Keats up till dawn one October night in 1816 and yielded "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" by morning.
Thomas Hobbes
Tell me, O Muse, th’ adventures of the man
That having sack’d the sacred town of Troy,
Wander’d so long at sea; what course he ran
By winds and tempests driven from his way:
Thomas Hobbes, The Odysses of Homer, 1675, Od. 1.1–4 (text from Molesworth’s English Works vol. X)
The philosopher of Leviathan spent his final decade on Homer, publishing a complete Odyssey in 1675 as "the amusement of his old age" — plain, brisk, story-first verse.
Alexander Pope
The man for wisdom’s various arts renown’d,
Long exercised in woes, O Muse! resound;
Who, when his arms had wrought the destined fall
Of sacred Troy, and razed her heaven-built wall,
Alexander Pope (with William Broome and Elijah Fenton), The Odyssey of Homer, 1725–26, Od. 1.1–4
A workshop production behind a single glittering style — Broome englished eight books, Fenton four, Pope twelve — that fixed the sound of Homer for the English eighteenth century.
William Cowper
Muse make the man thy theme, for shrewdness famed
And genius versatile, who far and wide
A Wand’rer, after Ilium overthrown,
Discover’d various cities, and the mind
And manners learn’d of men, in lands remote.
William Cowper, The Odyssey of Homer, 1791, Od. 1.1–5
Conceived as the antidote to Pope: blank verse instead of rhyme, closeness instead of couplet glitter. Every later blank-verse Odyssey works in the space Cowper opened.
William Cullen Bryant
Tell me, O Muse, of that sagacious man
Who, having overthrown the sacred town
Of Ilium, wandered far and visited
The capitals of many nations, learned
The customs of their dwellers…
William Cullen Bryant, The Odyssey of Homer, 1871, Od. 1.1–5 (text: Osgood printing, 1873)
America's senior poet, in his late seventies: grave, plain, unhurried — the major American poetic Odyssey of the nineteenth century.
S. H. Butcher & Andrew Lang
Tell me, Muse, of that man, so ready at need, who wandered far and wide, after he had sacked the sacred citadel of Troy, and many were the men whose towns he saw and whose mind he learnt…
S. H. Butcher and Andrew Lang, The Odyssey of Homer Done into English Prose, 1879, Od. 1.1–3
The Victorian standard, cast in deliberately King James-flavored English — for a generation this was simply how Homer sounded.
George Herbert Palmer
Speak to me, Muse, of the adventurous man who wandered long after he sacked the sacred citadel of Troy. Many the men whose towns he saw, whose ways he proved…
George Herbert Palmer, The Odyssey of Homer, 1884/1891, Od. 1.1–3
The Harvard philosopher published Books I–XII in 1884 and the complete poem in 1891, in supple, faintly rhythmic prose that reads well aloud. Houghton Mifflin kept it before generations of students — one of the most widely read American prose Odysseys.
William Morris
Tell me, O Muse, of the Shifty, the man who wandered afar,
After the Holy Burg, Troy-town, he had wasted with war;
He saw the towns of menfolk, and the mind of men did he learn;
As he warded his life in the world, and his fellow-farers' return,
William Morris, The Odyssey of Homer Done into English Verse, 1887, Od. 1.1–5
Homer as northern romance, thick with saga-flavored diction. Reviewing it in 1887, Oscar Wilde called it "a true work of art, a rendering not merely of language into language, but of poetry into poetry."
Samuel Butler
Tell me, O Muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy.
Samuel Butler, The Odyssey Rendered into English Prose, 1900, Od. 1.1–2
Butler wanted an Odyssey that reads like a novel — the plainest English version yet, written alongside his cheerfully heretical case that a young Sicilian woman composed the poem. Still one of the easiest Odysseys to find and read free online.
A. T. Murray
Tell me, O Muse, of the man of many devices, who wandered full many ways after he had sacked the sacred citadel of Troy.
A. T. Murray, The Odyssey (Loeb Classical Library), 1919, Od. 1.1–2
The twentieth century's standard scholarly crib: Greek on the left page, "a fairly literal translation" facing it. It still underpins the freely readable Odyssey on Perseus.
Atlas record · Read free (Internet Archive, vol. I) · Read free (Perseus)
T. E. Lawrence
O Divine Poesy, Goddess-daughter of Zeus, sustain for me this song of the various-minded man.
T. E. Lawrence (T. E. Shaw), The Odyssey of Homer, 1932, Od. 1.1–2
Lawrence of Arabia — then serving in the RAF as T. E. Shaw — translated Homer around service duties; the 1932 edition is counted among the most beautiful printed books of the century.
E. V. Rieu
The hero of the tale which I beg the Muse to help me tell is that resourceful man who roamed the wide world after he had sacked the holy citadel of Troy.
E. V. Rieu, The Odyssey (Penguin Classics), 1946, Od. 1.1–2
The first Penguin Classic ever published, on the gamble that ordinary readers wanted Homer in unfussy modern prose. It sold about three million copies — the paperback that taught postwar Britain to read the classics.
Robert Fitzgerald
Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story
of that man skilled in all ways of contending,
Robert Fitzgerald, The Odyssey, 1961, Od. 1.1–2
Homer as a modern American poem in its own right — supple, musical lines a generation knew by heart. The lyric pole of the great mid-century pair, opposite Lattimore.
Richmond Lattimore
Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways, who was driven
far journeys, after he had sacked Troy's sacred citadel.
Richmond Lattimore, The Odyssey of Homer, 1965, Od. 1.1–2
The scholar's counterweight: line by line, epithets and formulas intact — the version to read when you want to know, as nearly as English allows, what the Greek actually says.
Robert Fagles
Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
Robert Fagles, The Odyssey, 1996, Od. 1.1–2
The blockbuster Odyssey of the late twentieth century: a performance text built to be read aloud, over a million copies sold, the version that put Homer onto American high-school syllabuses.
Ian Johnston
Muse, speak to me now of that resourceful man
who wandered far and wide after ravaging
the sacred citadel of Troy. He came to see
many people's cities, where he learned their customs,
Ian Johnston, The Odyssey, online 2002 / book 2006, Od. 1.1–4 (public domain since January 2024)
Plain-spoken modern verse, paced for reading aloud — and in January 2024 Johnston released it into the public domain, free to download, share, and adapt.
Emily Wilson
Tell me about a complicated man.
Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost
Emily Wilson, The Odyssey, 2017, Od. 1.1–2
The first complete published English Odyssey by a woman: 12,110 lines of iambic pentameter matching her chosen Greek text line for line, opening with a quiet shock that reset the public argument over what a contemporary Odyssey should sound like.
Common questions
What's the best Odyssey translation for a first-time reader?
Wilson (2017) or Fagles (1996). Wilson's line-for-line iambic pentameter and plain syntax read fast and clean in contemporary English; Fagles's driving, irregular verse was built to be read aloud and put Homer onto American high-school syllabuses. Fitzgerald (1961) is the lyric classic of the previous generation. If you would rather ease in with prose, Butler (1900) is the plainest, and it is free. The honest answer is the one this page is built around: read the openings above and pick the voice you want in your head for twelve thousand lines.
Which Odyssey translation is closest to the Greek?
Lattimore (1965). He renders Homer line by line in a loose six-beat rhythm and keeps the repeated epithets and formulas of the oral poetry — the version to read when you want to know, as nearly as English allows, what the Greek actually says. A. T. Murray's 1919 Loeb prose is the literal scholarly crib, and it is free to read online. Wilson's 12,110 lines match her chosen Greek text line for line, in contemporary idiom.
Which Odyssey translations are free to read?
Everything on this page published in 1930 or earlier is public domain in the United States: Chapman (1614–15), Hobbes (1675), Pope (1725–26), Cowper (1791), Bryant (1871), Butcher & Lang (1879), Palmer (1884–91), Morris (1887), Butler (1900) and Murray (1919). Butler and Butcher & Lang are one click away on Project Gutenberg; Bryant, Palmer, Morris and Murray are on the Internet Archive. Ian Johnston released his modern verse translation into the public domain in January 2024. The atlas has a "Free to read" filter that shows which translations carry a link to a free text.
Should I read the Odyssey in verse or prose?
Verse keeps the fact that the Odyssey is a poem — rhythm, momentum, formulaic repetition. Prose reads like a novel and tends to be faster for story-first reading. Samuel Butler produced his 1900 prose precisely because he wanted an Odyssey that reads like a novel, and Penguin launched its Classics list in January 1946 on E. V. Rieu's prose on the same bet — it sold around three million copies. If you are torn, Wilson gives you the poem without the archaism.
Is there a good Odyssey audiobook?
Samuel Butler's 1900 prose is free on Project Gutenberg in text and in audio — the easiest Odyssey to start listening to at no cost. Ian Johnston's verse translation, public domain since January 2024, was issued as a Naxos audiobook in 2007. This guide rates translations, not recordings: pick the voice first from the openings above, then find it read aloud.
How many times has the Odyssey been translated?
The Skald Odyssey Translation Atlas records 233 translations, into 50+ languages, across 2,300 years — every one of them an answer to the same opening line.
Who first translated the Odyssey, and who was the first woman to publish one in English?
Livius Andronicus made the oldest known translation — the Latin Odusia, late in the third century BCE, of which about 46 fragmentary lines survive. Anne Dacier's learned French prose Odyssey of 1716 became the standard French Homer of the eighteenth century. Emily Wilson's 2017 version is the first complete published English Odyssey by a woman.
Or don't choose — compare them
The differences above aren't trivia; they're the pleasure. In the Skald: Odyssey app you can set Homer's Greek beside translations from Chapman to Johnston and switch voices mid-line, with museum art, the voyage map, and a glossary built in. Books I, II and IX are free in full; a one-time unlock opens the rest. No subscription, ads or accounts.