A beautiful translation: "The rage of kings is strong; they're nursed by the gods Their honor comes from Zeus; They're dear to Zeus--the god who rules the world." As far as I can tell with my limited Greek and the Perseus lexicon I have used to track down some of the words I was really interested in, the translation is a rare mixture of faithfulness and approachability. Although there's no shortcutting knowledge of the original Attic (poluphoiboi thalasses for the swells of ocean breakers--note the beautiful oceanic onomatopoeia in poluphoiboi ), this translation does a good job of reproducing every possible translatable effect. Ezra Pound, asked if there was any place in the world in which one could find all of poetry, by which was meant every species of the poetic, replied once that if one were willing to learn Greek, they would find it in Homer. I find that to be true: love poetry, battle poetry, philosophical reflection and theology, irony and humor, all await the reader who will venture this way. Read it slow and savor Fagles' own impressive poetry as he renders Greek poetics for the English ear.