Notices - S. García Blanco, L. M. Macía Aparicio: Homero Iliada II. Pp. xxii + 266. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1998. Cased. ISBN: 84-00-07750-4.

Abstract

The µrst modern Spanish translation of the Iliad, which achieved the status of a classic soon after its appearance, was published in 1908 by Luis Segalá y Estalella. It was reprinted successively and was, until the 1980s, basically the only one available. By the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s, circumstances had changed radically: now there were µve translations of the Iliad, all produced by well-known Spanish Hellenists, released by major publishers, and sold at a very good price. 1997 saw the (for now) last revised reprint of Segalá's translation. As part of this revitalizing impulse, García Blanco and Macía Aparicio, under the auspices of the Spanish National Council for Scientiµc Research, published in 1991 the µrst volume of their edition and translation of the Iliad, followed in 1998 by a second. Unfortunately, subsequent volumes seem still to be far away. Nevertheless, this edition, which is aimed at a scholarly audience, µlls a void which has lasted for too many years. The µrst volume included a very long introduction (268 pages), a bibliography and list of sources (another 34 pages), and the edition and parallel translation of Books 1-3. The second volume contains an edition and translation of Books 4-9. The authors declare in the introduction to the µrst volume that their µrst intention is to present a revised edition of the Iliad, one that takes into account the discovery of new papyri. Some of these papyri were included in the lists of Collart and Mette but had not yet been published, others were not included in the lists. The reading of the papyri has been accepted, even if it went against the manuscript tradition. For the present edition 676 papyri have been taken into account, of which 597 date from between the µrst and seventh centuries .. The rest belong to the period before our era. Seventeen papyri were not possible to date. Besides the 188 manuscripts that T. W. Allen used in his edition of 1931, the editors of the present text have included another fourteen from di ¶erent monasteries in Mount Athos. Greek edition and Spanish translation face each other. Underneath the Greek text there is a critical apparatus as well as a reference apparatus, which shows references and quotes of verses by ancient authors. Underneath the Spanish text there are notes to explain the formulary use of certain Greek words. The translation has been done line by line in order to respect as much as possible the formularity of the Greek. The translation has been done according to the hierarchized principles of accuracy, formularity, and rhythm. The authors intended to translate each Greek word by a unique Spanish one, but since semantic µelds in Greek and Spanish are not equivalent, this task was not always possible. The introduction to the µrst volume could well constitute a separate book about Homer. It questions (and provides convincing answers to) our ideas that Homer was an East Ionian poet of the end of the eighth century .. The introduction discusses in detail several aspects of the formation of t...