Translated from the Greek
This translation works directly from Homer’s ancient Greek, with the best and latest AI tools for accuracy and authenticity, using the standard Perseus text. Samuel Butler’s 1900 prose translation sat open beside it as a cross-check, useful for confirming hard lines.
Plain modern English
The aim is clarity: the poem in language that reads cleanly today, with nothing dumbed down and nothing sanitized. The Odyssey is violent and raw in places, and this edition keeps it at full strength rather than tidying Homer into something tamer than he wrote. The setting stays ancient: no modern slang, no anachronism.
Faithful, not infallible
Every translation is a chain of judgment calls. This is an attempt at a faithful, readable rendering of the poem, made against the source and supported by more than two hundred endnotes. If you find an error, tell us and we’ll correct it.