When I first read the Odyssey, I felt I was there in a Mycenaean palace bound in silent enchantment as the bard sang the tale, listening to the rhythmic chanting and lyre, while torches flickered in the smoke-filled shadowy halls.

Now, having read it multiple times in Greek, I feel I have finally been initiated into an ancient bardic ritual, a performance of the Odyssey at first hand within my own imagination. A desire to share this wonder and enchantment drove me to translate this poem, a deeply painful and personal account of a hero’s suffering and endurance.

The Odyssey is one of the two surviving tales sung by the ancient bards in the palaces of the great lords during the dark ages of ancient Hellas (Greece) after the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization. As bardic performances they were sung by generation after generation of bards and in the process were honed into arguably the finest poetry Western civilization has produced.