Stanley Lombardo

Stanley F. "Stan" Lombardo (alias Hae Kwang; born June 19, 1943) is an American Classicist, and former professor of Classics at the University of Kansas. He is best known for his translations of the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid. The style of his translations is a more vernacular one, emphasizing conversational English rather than the formal tone of some older American English translations of classical verse. Lombardo designs his translations to be performed orally, as they were in ancient Greece. He also performs the poems, and has recorded them as audio books. In performance he also likes to play the drums, much like Ezra Pound.

Quotes

Translations

Works and Days and Theogony (1993)

Works and Days and Theogony (Hackett Publishing Company, 1993), ISBN 978-0-87220-179-8

• We know how to tell many believable lies,
  But also, when we want to, how to speak the plain truth.
  • Theogony, lines 28–29

• Whoever escapes marriage
  And women's harm, comes to deadly old age
  Without any son to support him.
  • Theogony, lines 607–609

• There's no way to get around the mind of Zeus.
  • Theogony, line 617

Iliad (1997)

Iliad (Hackett Publishing Company, 1997), ISBN 0-87220-352-2

• Rage:
            Sing, Goddess, Achilles' rage,
  Black and murderous, that cost the Greeks
  Incalculable pain.
  • Book I, opening lines

• Human generations are like leaves in their seasons.
  The wind blows them to the ground, but the tree
  Sprouts new ones when spring comes again.
  Men too. Their generations come and go.
  • Book VI, lines 149–152; Glaucus to Diomedes.

• It was glorious to see—if your heart were iron,
  And you could keep from grieving at all the pain.
  • Book XIII, lines 355–356

Do lions make peace treaties with men? Do wolves and lambs agree to get along?

I have borne what no man who has walked this earth has ever yet borne.
I have kissed the hand of the man who killed my son.

• Ah, my friend, if you and I could only
  Get out of the war alive and then
  immortal and ageless all of our days,
  I would never again fight among the foremost
  Or send you into battle where men win glory.
  But as it is, death is everywhere
  In more shapes that we can count,
  And since no mortal is immune or can escape,
  Let's go forward, either to give glory
  To another man, or get glory from him.
  • Book XX, lines 333–342; Sarpedon to Glaucus.

• Don't try to cut any deals with me, Hector.
  Do lions make peace treaties with men?
  Do wolves and lambs agree to get along?
  • Book XXII, lines 287–289; spoken by Achilles.

• I have borne what no man
  Who has walked this earth has ever yet borne.
  I have kissed the hand of the man who killed my son.
  • Book XXIV, lines 541–543; Priam to Achilles.

Odyssey (2000)

Odyssey (Hackett Publishing Company, 2000), ISBN 978-0-87220-485-0

• And for yourself, may the gods grant you
  Your heart's desire, a husband and a home,
  And the blessing of a harmonious life.
  For nothing is greater or finer than this,
  When a man and woman live together
  With one heart and mind, bringing joy
  To their friends and grief to their foes.
  • Book VI, lines 183–189; Odysseus to Nausicaa.

• Don't try to sell me on death, Odysseus.
  I'd rather be a hired hand back up on earth,
  Slaving away for some poor dirt farmer,
  Than lord it over all these withered dead.
  • Book XI, lines 510–513; spoken by the ghost of Achilles.

Sappho's Poems and Fragments (2002)

Sappho's Poems and Fragments (Hackett Publishing Company, 2002), ISBN 978-0-87220-591-8

• Shimmering,
  iridescent,
  deathless Aphrodite.
  • Frag. 1

• Some say an army on horseback,
  some say on foot, and some say ships
  are the most beautiful things
  on this black earth,
  but I say
  it is whatever you love.
  • Frag. 31

• The moon has set,
  And the Pleiades.
  Midnight.
  The hour has gone by.
  I sleep alone.
  • Frag. 72

Aeneid (2005)

Aeneid (Hackett Publishing Company, 2005), ISBN 978-0-87220-732-5

• Your mission, Roman, is to rule the world.
  These will be your arts: to establish peace,
  To spare the humbled, and to conquer the proud.
  • Book VI, lines 1016–1018; Anchises to Aeneas.

Trust in Mind (2008)

Zen Sourcebook (Hackett Publishing Company, 2008), ISBN 978-0-87220-909-1

• The Way is calm and wide,
  Not easy, not difficult.
  But small minds get lost.
  Hurrying, they fall behind.

  Clinging, they go too far,
  Sure to take a wrong turn.
  Just let it be! In the end,
  Nothing goes, nothing stays.
  • The Hsin-hsin-ming of Seng-ts'an, lines 61–68

Inferno (2008)

Inferno (Hackett Publishing Company, 2008), ISBN 978-0-87220-917-6

• Through me is the way to the city of woe.
  Through me is the way to sorrow eternal.
  Through me is the way to the lost below.
  • Canto III, lines 1–3

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Stanley Lombardo on Wikipedia