Recensione sul blog: http://thereadingpal.blogspot.it/2017/10/recensione-143-homeric-hymns.html


Questa è una recensione davvero molto personale. È raccomandato (anzi, quasi obbligatorio) per noi politeisti ellenici, approcciarsi ai testi antichi. L'ho fatto e lo sto facendo. Volevo comprare una copia degli inni da tempo, e non trovandola in italiano ho preso questa.
Gli "Inni Omerici" sono una serie di Inni agli dei ellenici, di cui potete leggere la storia sia online che in questo libro. Ovviamente non sono davvero scritti da Omero, ma hanno una metrica simile tra loro.
Gli inni sono davvero stupendi. La traduzione li rende vicini agli originali e da davvero la sensazione di essere vicini ai Theoi. Penso che la userò nei momenti di preghiera, perché la traduzione su theoi.com non mi piace granché, proprio come per gli inni Orfici. Anche quello da rimediare...
Lascio qui la traduzione dell'Inno ad Hestia, dea del focolare. È uno dei miei preferiti!

24. Hymn to Hestia
Hestia, you tend the sacred hearth
of far-shooting Lord Apollo in holy Phyto,
anointing-oil ever dripping from your braids-
come to this house, come, sharing your heart
with cunning Zeus: bestow grace on my song.



Molti inni sono brevi, alcuni invece sono lunghi, e molti versi sono mancanti. Spero che un giorno potremo leggerli completi. Davvero mi sento più vicina ai Theoi, e attraverso questi inni possiamo rivivere alcuni miti a loro legati. Miti che io adoro, e che contengono vari insegnamenti!
Uno dei miei preferiti è sicuramente il numero 2, dedicato a Demetra, e che potrebbe essere stato scritto da una donna. Riprende il mito del rapimento di Persefone e davvero pare da un punto di vista femminile. La disperazione di Demetra e di Persefone è quasi palpabile.
Mi domando come potevano davvero essere, cantati dagli aedi, e le sensazione che potevano suscitare.
Forse la cosa che mi ha lasciata un po' perplessa di questa versione è il fatto che non è presente il testo originale dell'inno. Personalmente credo che c'è sempre il bisogno di inserirlo, in modo che si possa controllare da sé la traduzione.
Un po' l'unica pecca è quella. Insomma, gli inni contengono molte informazioni storiche e culturali dei greci, e anche le persone che sono meno avezze a questo tipo di testi o al background storiografico trovano tutte le informazioni necessarie nelle note ai singoli inni. Note che sono parecchio interessanti e che mi hanno dato informazioni in più rispetto alla creazione e alla storia degli inni stessi.
La Rayor fornisce anche una biografia selezionata ed un glossario. Per quanto riguarda la bibliografia, spero di poter trovare quei testi e leggerli per conto mio, per sapere di più su questi testi sacri e sugli studi che li riguardano.
Nel complesso sono contenta di questo acquisto e sono felice di avere potuto leggerli! ( )

Beautiful translations.

Unfortunate that the majority of the hymns are so short as the longer ones are great. ( )

This easy-ro-read translation also has great notes and a pronunciation guide at the back. These poems/verses/hymns are to the point and make it much easier to remember more about the different gods and goddesses. It's all starting to fit together in my head! ( )

This is a beautiful addition to Penguin's compilation of texts from Greek antiquity. Alongside the Iliad, Odyssey, and Theogony, these hymns add another hue of perspective as to how the ancients related to the gods in the course of day to day public life (or, at very least, a glimpse into some of the traditions and beliefs that they followed).

Jules Cashford's translation aims principally for readability above literality. The result is a mesmerizing taste of another world, but yet a world that is that unlike of that of our own, where the wills and whims of powerful deities drag humanity into confusion, conflict... and meaning, and hope that an answer exists for the plight of human suffering. "As for human beings, I shall harm one and help another," says Apollo, "greatly bewildering the unenviable tribes of the human race." (541-542, p83) Evidently, we have been quite enthralled with the idea of "God's will" for a very long time.

29. The Homeric Hymns translated by Jules Cashford
with an introduction and notes by Nicholas Richardson
composition: Guesses are 600’s and 500’s bce, with the Hymn to Ares dating c400 ce
format: 208 page Paperback
acquired: December 2013 (influenced by review by StevenTX)
read: May 25-30
rating: 4.5 stars

I'm a little a loss to explain why I liked these so much or explain what I liked about them. Maybe I'm just fond of Greek mythology and any riff on them that made it through the vagaries of time will catch my interest. But there does seem to be something extra here. There is a reason Percy Bysshe Shelley translated so many of these, as did Chapman. Maybe it's just how the opening fragment to Dionysos says something to the affect: some people say you come of this place or that place, but, "I say they lie." Maybe is was the second poem on Demeter mourning lost Persephone, or just the brief description of Persephone grabbing the fated narcissus, "the flower shown so wondrously." Maybe it was the very ancient feel to the opening to Apollo's hymn describing him entering Olympus for the first time, arrow in bow, stretching the bow:

I shall remember,
may I not forget,
Apollo the archer.

The gods tremble at him
when he enters the house of Zeus,
they spring up when he comes near them,

they all spring up from their seats
when he stretches back his bow.
Only Leto waits beside Zeus who loves the thunder

She unstrings the bow, she closes the quiver,
taking it off his hands
off his strong shoulders,

...

But this excerpt is unique here. There is really nothing else in this collection that feels quote so ancient and bare as these first several lines to Apollo.

The Homeric Hymns don't have any clear origin. They follow the same poetic structure as the Iliad and the Odyssey, and there are apparent links to something like a school of Homer in the unreliable historical hints. But they have the feel of a collection of scraps leftover from something much more vast and mostly lost. Some of the poems are just a few lines, where as only five of them extend past 200 lines. The opening hymns to Dionysos and Demeter come from one text found in the 18th century and would otherwise be lost too - and most of that hymn to Dionysos is lost. They are a curious thing, a curious remnant. And they are also surprising resonant and often bring more color to these gods then Homer or Hesiod. There is a section on Hermes introducing Apollo to the lyre, in order to save his own skin, and Apollos first impression of this musical wonder. In another hymn Dionysos turns a boat in to a grape vine full of grapes...and the sailors into dolphins (hence to cover.) Ares's hymn appears to date from another era altogether, maybe 400 ad. But then he was no Greek favorite. Maybe they forgot him.

As I mentioned above, there are famous translations of these hymns and I suspect they put any modern, scholarly accurate translator to shame. Jules Cashford keeps it simple and, apparently, as accurate as she can. In doing so, she provided a nice intro and she preserves some aspects the texture of the texts. I think she did a very nice job. But then I also can't help thinking what a shame she didn't go farther. These poems really beg to be inspirations to poetry, not something merely to get translated right.

2016
https://www.librarything.com/topic/220674#5599452 ( )