Repository path: workshop/translations/iliad-priam/R12-v1/translation.md · rendered 2026-09-09

T-iliad-priam-R12-v1 — Iliad XXIV.486–512, Priam to Achilles, under R12 (Arnold 1861)

• Source: Homer, Iliad XXIV.486–512 (Greek: Monro–Allen OCT via the Perseus canonical text tlg0012.tlg001.perseus-grc2, stored at workshop/experiments/E-20260802g-programme-divergence/materials/source-grc.json). Public domain.
• Why this locus. Arnold names three lines as "the most essentially grand and characteristic things of Homer" and two of the three are in it (XXIV.505–506, XXIV.525–526); of XXIV.543 he says "in the original this line, for mingled pathos and dignity, is perhaps without a rival even in Homer." Neither he nor Newman prints a verse rendering of any of it. The passage also contains ἁδινά (510), one of the words the two men argue about by name.
• Regime: R12 v1.0 (frozen this session, before the Greek was opened for translation).
• Declared dialect: British English (Arnold's, and A8's Bible is the AV).
• Translated by: the lead agent, as a labeled subject. Cost $0; not ledgered (charter §3, A4).
• Pair: T-iliad-priam-R13-v1, same locus, same session, R13.
• Contamination: suspected — measured clean, declared suspected on a known in-session exposure. See §Contamination.
• Evaluation: none. The lead never judges its own translation (charter §5).

The translation

Think of thy father, Achilles, thou that art like the immortals, Old as I am myself, and set on the threshold of old age. Him, it may be, the neighbours who dwell in the country about him Harry and wear away; and he has no one to keep off ruin. Yet, when he hears that thou livest, his heart within him is gladdened, And day after day he hopes that he yet shall look on his dear son Coming home out of Troy. But I am utterly luckless. Sons I begot, and the best, in the wide land of Troy; and of these now Not one, I say, is left me. Fifty were mine when the Achaians Came; and nineteen of them were of one mother, born of one womb, And the rest were borne to me by the women within my palace. Most of them furious Ares has brought down low in the battle; And he that alone was left me, and guarded the city and guarded us, Him thou hast slain but now, as he fought for the land of his fathers, Hector: and now for his sake I am come to the ships of the Achaians, Come to win him from thee, and I bring a ransom past counting. Nay, have awe of the gods, Achilles, and have pity upon me, Thinking upon thy father: and yet I am more to be pitied; I have brought myself to endure what no man on the earth has endured, To carry up to my lips the hand of the man who slew my child.

So he spake, and stirred in the other a longing to weep for His own father; and softly he took him by the hand, and put The old man away from him. And the two of them fell to remembering: Priam wept without stint for Hector the slayer of heroes, Crouching low at the feet of Achilles; and Achilles wept for His own father, and then at other whiles for Patroclus; And the sound of their sorrow went up through all the house.

27 lines for 27 Greek lines; 253 English words.

Contamination

Measured, then declared upward. The gate span Il. XXIV.552–570 was rendered first, from the Greek alone, and compared with two public-domain comparators (Butler 1898, Lang–Leaf–Myers 1883) by tools/dependence_check.py:

Zero twelve-grams against either comparator. The 8-token run against Butler is the stock formula "daughter of the old man of the sea" for ἁλίοιο γέροντος, which contains no proper name and is the ordinary English of the phrase.

But the declaration is suspected, not none, and the basis is specific. Two exposures happened in this session, before this rendering was written, and both are in the locus:

1. Arnold's own prose gloss of XXIV.505–506 — "And I have endured — the like whereof no soul upon the earth hath yet endured — to carry to my lips the hand of him who slew my child" — was read in Last Words, footnote 67. The last line of this rendering is materially Arnold's, and it was not independently arrived at. Under R12 that is the correct rendering of the site (it is the regime's author's own application of A5 and A6 to it), and it is reported rather than disguised by a manufactured variant.
2. Butler's and Lang's English of the gate span 552–570 was read during the gate extraction, as at S088. No published English of 486–512 was read before either rendering was written.

A contamination: none claim here would be measurable and defensible and would still be less honest than this.

Translator's log — frozen 2026-08-02, before any evaluation was designed

Decisions and alternatives. Rule codes from R12. A5 marks the established-possession test firing. SILENT marks a site the rule set does not decide. No quality claims; any evaluative sentence would carry internal-judgment-only and there are none.

1. 486 θεοῖς ἐπιείκελ' → "thou that art like the immortals". Options: godlike Achilles / peer of the gods / the periphrasis taken. A5: godlike is an established possession and would have been admissible; the periphrasis was chosen for A10 (the line needed the extra syllables) and not by A5. The rule set permits both. (A5 tested, did not fire; A10 decided.)
2. 486–487 μνῆσαι πατρὸς σοῖο … τηλίκου ὥς περ ἐγών → "Think of thy father … / Old as I am myself". A7: the Greek's τηλίκου hangs on πατρός across the line; the connection is marked more distinctly in English by making it a separate clause.
3. 487 ὀλοῷ ἐπὶ γήραος οὐδῷ → "set on the threshold of old age". A5: "on the threshold of old age" is an established English possession, so the live Greek metaphor may stand as a metaphor. ὀλοῷ (destructive) is dropped: A6, because "the destroying threshold of old age" is not possessed and reads as strain. The epithet is lost. (A5 fired to keep the image and A6 fired to drop its adjective — the two halves of Arnold's method in one site.)
4. 488 περιναιέται → "the neighbours who dwell in the country about him". A5: a coined compound (dwellers-round) is not possessed; A5 requires the natural equivalent even at the cost of five words for one. The compound is renounced — Arnold's own instruction for double epithets.
5. 489 ἀρὴν καὶ λοιγόν → "ruin", one word for the doublet. A2/A7. Alternative "bane and ruin" rejected: bane fails A5 for present-day verse.
6. 493 πανάποτμος → "utterly luckless". A5: all-hapless not possessed; luckless is. The intensive prefix survives as an adverb.
7. 495–497 the fifty sons → kept entire, including the arithmetic. A3: nothing added, nothing compressed; the plainness of the count is the passage's method.
8. 496 ἰῆς ἐκ νηδύος → "of one mother, born of one womb". νηδύς is belly as much as womb; A4 forbids belly here. The doubling "of one mother, born of one womb" is A7 (the Greek's contrast with 497's "the others" made explicit) and A10 (metre).
9. 498 θοῦρος Ἄρης → "furious Ares". A5: possessed. (A5 tested, did not fire.)
10. 498 ὑπὸ γούνατ' ἔλυσεν → "has brought down low in the battle". A5/A6: "loosed the knees under them" is a Homeric idiom for killing and is not an established English possession; A6 requires the natural equivalent. A calque is refused here that R13 takes. (A5 fired.)
11. 499 εἴρυτο δὲ ἄστυ καὶ αὐτούς → "guarded the city and guarded us". A1: the repeated verb keeps the movement forward instead of suspending it, as Arnold repeats fires for πυρά "without scruple".
12. 500 πρῴην → "but now". SILENT: no rule decides between lately, the other day, but now; A10 chose.
13. 502 ἀπερείσι' ἄποινα → "a ransom past counting". A5: boundless ransom / ransom untold both possessed; past counting chosen on A10.
14. 503 αἰδεῖο θεούς → "have awe of the gods". αἰδέομαι holds shame and reverence together; A7 (be more unambiguous than the source) forces one, and A4 prefers awe to shame in a supplication. The polysemy is closed deliberately.
15. 505–506 ἔτλην … ἀνδρὸς παιδοφόνοιο ποτὶ στόμα χεῖρ' ὀρέγεσθαι → "I have brought myself to endure what no man on the earth has endured, / To carry up to my lips the hand of the man who slew my child." Two A5 firings, both of them Arnold's own, published: (i) the compound παιδοφόνοιο is renounced for a relative clause — Arnold's gloss has "him who slew my child", not child-slaying; (ii) στόμα is lips, not mouth, because "the hand to my mouth" raises eating and A6 forbids the odd effect. See §Contamination: this line is materially Arnold's and was not independently reached.
16. 507 ὑφ' ἵμερον ὦρσε γόοιο → "stirred in the other a longing to weep for / His own father". A7: Homer's τῷ is a bare dative and the referent is supplied.
17. 508 ἦκα → "softly". SILENT.
18. 510 κλαῖ' ἁδινά → "wept without stint". The pre-registered site. ἁδινός is one of the words Newman lists as still doubtful and Arnold answers, in Last Words, that the reader "comes at last to form a perfectly clear sense in his own mind for every important word in Homer, such as ἀδινὸς … And this his clear poetical sense about the words, not his philological uncertainties about them, is what the translator has to convey." R12 therefore resolves the word. (A6, on Arnold's own explicit instruction for this word.)
19. 510 ἐλυσθείς → "Crouching low". A6: rolled up is the literal sense and reads as odd.
20. 509 Ἕκτορος ἀνδροφόνοιο → "Hector the slayer of heroes". A5: Arnold uses "Hector the slayer of men" himself; the postposed phrase is possessed where man-slaying Hector is his standing example of what is not. The epithet is kept, its compound form is not.
21. 512 κατὰ δώματ' → "through all the house". Homer says houses of what is a hut; A6/A7 keep house and do not correct Homer to hut, because the oddity is the Greek's and is not felt as one in English either.
22. Metre (A10) throughout. Six accentual beats a line, spondees against the dactylic default, no rhyme (A1). Lines 8, 19 and 25 are the weakest and required the most forcing; A10's own rule — that a line must read itself without moving an accent — is met, at the cost of some slack lines.

Coverage. 22 logged decisions. A rule of R12 decided 19; 2 are marked SILENT (12, 17); 1 (site 1) is a site where the rule set explicitly permits both options and metre chose. A5, the established-possession test, was tested at 9 sites and fired at 6 (3, 4, 6, 10, 15×2, 20).