In Print:

LESSON 2 - Second Part / First Part
ACHILLES' GRIEF - From Homer's Iliad

by George Valsamis

And here is how our sentence is finally translated:

 

"Thus spoke he, and a dark cloud of grief covered the other." 

 

Here is Butler's translation: "A dark cloud of grief fell upon Achilles as he listened". Much has changed - too much for the meaning to be rescued...

One of the most important is that while in the original the dark cloud first of all covers Achilles' name, Butler's translation treats the expression τὸν δὲ as a convention, which, of course, can be easily replaced by the name of the person implied.  

In the original there are two equal, primary, sentences.

The first is almost an oracle (φάτο / φημὶ is also connected with this sense), Patroclus' lying as a divine sentence, announced by Antilochus. The second primary sentence is the realisation of the oracle, making Achilles' face disappear into the dark cloud of grief, leaving Achilles' thirst (θυμός) naked, just like Patroclus was naked upon the ground.

Achilles' nakedness (a living one, not the nakedness of a corpse) is transformed into a grief which replaces his face. The meaning of covering here is replacement. Grief exists in the place where Achilles had his face, that is, in the place of Patroclus. Homer did not want to depict how grief falls upon a face, but what happens with the face. This is why he used the verb ἐκάλυψε, which Butler ignored.

However, there is one more detail, and this one can not be translated at all.

We said that in the Homeric sentense Achilles' name disappears. This is not absolutely correct, since in the original text "grief" is ἄχος, a word that starts with the very letters Achilles' name starts (Ἀχιλλεύς), which, in the genitive case (mainly a possesive case), contains all of grief's letters: Ἀχιλλῆος.

We now suspect that this covering is also a revealing of an inherent quality/destination of Achilles' nature, we now begin to understand that maybe this cloud is the ultimate, the most real, face of Achilles - a faceless face.

Butler's translation is, perhaps, good enough to express Achilles' sadness in a sentimental way, but all the elements that explain and describe this sadness, letting us know its roots and nature, are lost. Decades and centuries of such an irresponsible treatment of the texts have made them seem exchangeable by a translation.

Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/lessons/lesson2b.asp?pg=12