I have now lived with this poem for some thirty-five years—rereading it, teaching it in the original and in various translations, and, now, rendering it into English. For the past six years, I have worked intensively on this translation. But even now, when I turn back to lines I have read hundreds of times already, I find that the raw power of the Greek still startles me, like Athena suddenly tugging Achilles by the hair to stop him in his tracks. Often, I am unable to read without goose bumps, tears, or both. Human mortality is at the center of it all. I know no other narrative that evokes
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