The Homeric Hymns: The Charles Boer Translation

This is one of the most remarkable translations of an ancient Greek text ever made. Scrupulously faithful to every line of Homer’s text, its language nonetheless sings and moves, evoking the mythic imagination of ancient Greece in a manner rarely captured before. By avoiding the conventions of academic style which afflict so many classical translators, Charles Boer’s verse delivers for us the world of Homer’s gods and goddesses as a fresh and stunning experience. Since 1972, this version of the Homeric Hymns—nominated for a National Book Award—has been acclaimed by the critics and public alike and has widely established itself as a classroom text.

"This new translation . . .is a very extraordinary achievement. Thanks to Charles Boer’s scrupulous and loving respect for Greek religious experience, and his own superb verse, we can see again a landscape that was always there, but which had unaccountably and inexcusably vanished from view . . . We are all very much in Boer’s debt, and we should all welcome the appearance of a new translator who possesses both the power of language and respect for that past that can restore us the secrets of our own lost or threatened humanity."
—William Arrowsmith