Homeric Hymns

Overview

In this unique and finely-wrought collection, award-winning poet and scholar Peter McDonald gives us the first contemporary translation of the Homeric Hymns; a collection of 33 anonymous Ancient Greek hymns celebrating individual gods. From Zeus to Aphrodite, Apollo to Hermes, each hymn tells a story about a particular god, and every poem is a miniature epic in itself. As McDonald explains in his comprehensive introduction, 'Homer without the Hymns is less than Homer', and this translation revives the classic text for the 21st century reader, establishing its rightful place alongside copies of The Iliad and The Odyssey on the desks of students, scholars, and lovers of the classics worldwide.

Reviews

"Peter McDonald’s unsettling imagination occupies a middle distance between domesticity and wilderness... [his] disenchanted vision makes the moments of intimacy and tenderness, when they come, all the more affecting." —Michael Longley