Nireus, Nireus, Nireus

Last night, I translated a passage in the Iliad that I thought I’d talk about here. It is one of the stanzas in Book II during the infamous catalogue of ships, during which Homer is listing every fleet that sailed to Troy, and all the captains commanding them. Below is the Ancient Greek text, followed by my translation in epic hexameter verse:

Νιρεὺς αὖ Σύμηθεν ἄγε τρεῖς νῆας ἐΐσας
Νιρεὺς Ἀγλαΐης υἱὸς Χαρόποιό τ᾽ ἄνακτος
Νιρεύς, ὃς κάλλιστος ἀνὴρ ὑπὸ Ἴλιον ἦλθε
τῶν ἄλλων Δαναῶν μετ᾽ ἀμύμονα Πηλεΐωνα:
ἀλλ᾽ ἀλαπαδνὸς ἔην, παῦρος δέ οἱ εἵπετο λαός.

Nireus next, who launched three balanced warships from Syme;
Nireus, son of Aglaea and Charopus, king of the island;
Nireus, the loveliest man that had come to Ilium with them,
second to none of the Danaan men after faultless Pelides.
But, he was little and frail, and few men sailed with Nireus.

Iliad II.671-675

This is a good passage to discuss because it brings up an interesting translation issue: the interplay of poetic devices used by Homer and those used by the translator. The most obvious poetic device in this passage is the anaphora (repetition at the beginning) in the first three lines. The anaphora is in the original text, and any poetic translation worth its salt would try to preserve it. However, you’ll notice that I added a fourth repetition of the name Nireus (two syllables, pronounced “NEYE-ryoos”) at the end of the stanza, which is not in the Ancient Greek. So here we have an interplay between Homer’s poetic device (anaphora) and one of my own; but I think my addition complements the thrust of the passage, as I’ll discuss.

The repetition of Nireus’ name at the beginning of three successive lines serves to build up his image in the eyes of the reader (or listener, as the case may be). The stanzas preceding this one successively introduce various peoples of Greece who had come to Troy: the Boeotians, the Minyans, the Phocians, the Locrians, and so on—each contingent gets its own section in the poem, and in each section the commanders of the corresponding people are named. But the stanza immediately preceding this one (II. 653-670) begins uncharacteristically with the ruler first, and then the people:

Heracles’ son Tlepolemus, big and bold and mighty,
launched the noble Rhodians out of Rhodes on nine ships:

Iliad II.653-654

Tlepolemus is described as “big and bold and mighty,” and fourteen lines of the poem are subsequently allotted to telling Tlepolemus’ story. So, coming off of that, perhaps we expect something big from the next captain, Nireus. Indeed, as with the preceding stanza, Nireus’ passage begins with the man instead of the people; and with each repetition of his name, Nireus seems to grow grander and grander. Finally, the fourth line goes almost over the top: Nireus is “second to none” but Achilles (Pelides) when it comes to beauty (loveliness).

But then, after puffing him up so much, the fifth line deflates Nireus: “But, he was little and frail, and few men sailed with Nireus.” The deflation is obvious in the Greek, which does not repeat his name a fourth time; but my addition of a final repetition of his name is like a nail in the balloon, as it were. Each time his name is repeated at the beginning of the first three lines, we inhale a little more, building and building to something grandiose—but with the final repetition, we exhale disappointingly. Thus by adding a little extra to my translation, I cling a little closer to the sense of the original (and as a bonus, the addition works well with the meter).

There are a few other interesting issues with this passage, which I’ll only touch upon. For instance, some of my diction (such as “sailed”) does not translate literally, but does carry over repetition from other lines in Book II. But I used “Charopus, king of the island” rather than “Lord Charopus” (which would have been more consistent with my rendering of the word ἄνακτος elsewhere) essentially to preserve the meter without significantly affecting the sense of the line (plus, it has a nice alliterative ring to it).

I rendered κάλλιστος as “loveliest” rather than “most beautiful,” even though I typically use “beautiful” for variations of that word. This substitution served three purposes:

1. It suits the meter.

2. It preserves a subtle element of femininity in the description of Nireus (which would be lost if I rendered it as “handsomest,” for example). The subtle femininity is introduced in the previous line, when Nireus is described first as “son of Aglaea,” his mother. Homeric heroes are typically (though not exclusively) introduced as their fathers’ sons first, and mothers’ second (if at all); but Nireus, it seems, is his mother’s son. For Homer (for whom masculinity often equates to strength), all of this subtly corroborates the final assessment of Nireus as “little and frail” (ἀλαπαδνὸς). Note that I’m not endorsing this viewpoint, but merely noting its presence in the subtext of the passage.

3. Finally, the latter half of line 673 exactly repeats the latter half of II.216, in which the poet describes Thersites (“This was the ugliest man that had come to Ilium with them”). The similar sounds and identical meter of the words “ugliest” and “loveliest” sets up a nice dialogue between the two nearly-repeated lines (though, it should be noted that the repeated words are a stock phrase, also repeated in II.492).

Well then, that’s kind of a lot for five lines, but these are the types of considerations running through my head as I translate this poem into English. There are other, more subtle considerations that I won’t cover here; but hopefully this gives you a glimpse at my process.