Repository path: workshop/translations/iliad-priam/R13-v1/translation.md · rendered 2026-09-09

T-iliad-priam-R13-v1 — Iliad XXIV.486–512, Priam to Achilles, under R13 (Newman 1856/1861)

• Source: as T-iliad-priam-R12-v1, same 27 Greek lines, same stored text.
• Regime: R13 v1.0 (frozen this session, before the Greek was opened for translation).
• Declared dialect: British English, with N2's licence for archaism and Scots.
• Translated by: the lead agent, as a labeled subject. Cost $0; not ledgered (charter §3, A4).
• Pair: T-iliad-priam-R12-v1.
• Contamination: suspected, on the same measurement and the same two exposures as its pair — see that page's §Contamination. Newman prints no English of this locus, so the Arnold exposure at 505–506 bears on R12 and not on this rendering; it is declared here because the pair is read together.
• Evaluation: none. The lead never judges its own translation (charter §5).

The translation

Bethink thee of thy father, thou god-like Achilles, being Of even such an eld as I, on Eld's destroying threshold. And him belike the dwellers-round, that compass him about, Do grind and wear; nor hath he one to ward off bane and ruin. Yet he at least, the while he hears that thou art yet in life, Is glad at heart, and looketh forth all his days to behold His own dear son from Troia come homeward. But I, all-hapless! For I begat me sons, and those the best, in broad-way'd Troia; And of them all not one, I say, is left me. Fifty were they, What time the Achaian sons came up; nineteen out of one belly Were mine; the residue to me the women in my halls bare. Of these the many rushing Ares loosen'd beneath the knees: And he that was mine only one, and shielded town and townsfolk, Him but the other day thou slew'st, warding away his fatherland, Hector: for whose sake now I come unto the Achaian galleys, To buy him back from thee; and bear ransom unmeasurable. Nay, have thou shame before the gods, Achilles, and have pity On mine own self, bethinking thee thy father: yet am I The pitifuller; and I have dared what none earth-treading mortal Ever yet dared: to my child-slayer's mouth to stretch mine hand forth.

So spake he; and he stirr'd in him the yearning of lamenting After his father; and he took his hand, and softly thrust The old man from him. And they twain remember'd: the one wept Thick-crowding tears for man-slaying Hector, rolled up before the feet Of Achilles; but Achilles wept his own dear father, and then Patroclus other-whiles; and up along the dwellings went The groaning of the twain of them.

27 lines for 27 Greek lines; 249 English words.

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

Rule codes from R13. N1 marks a feature retained because it is foreign. SILENT marks a site the rule set does not decide. No quality claims.

1. 486 θεοῖς ἐπιείκελ' → "god-like Achilles". N4: the compound stands as a compound. Note that this is the ordinary English of the epithet and R12 could have used it too. The rule sets do not conflict here.
2. 487 τηλίκου … γήραος οὐδῷ → "Of even such an eld as I, / on Eld's destroying threshold." N2: eld is exactly the word Arnold names as bad ("from Eld and Death exempted"), and Newman defends it in print — "excellent and noble … excellent even for Æschylus". ὀλοῷ is kept as destroying, where R12 drops it. N1.
3. 488 περιναιέται → "the dwellers-round". N4, coined compound, the single clearest N1 site in the passage: the Greek is a compound and English is made to take one.
4. 489 ἀρὴν καὶ λοιγόν → "bane and ruin". N1: the doublet is a peculiarity and is retained; bane is N2 archaism.
5. 493 πανάποτμος → "But I, all-hapless!" N4 compound; the exclamatory nominative is N1 (the Greek's αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ πανάποτμος has no verb either).
6. 496 ἰῆς ἐκ νηδύος → "out of one belly". N5, both halves. νηδύς is the physical word and belly is its physical English; the rule that admits it in a primary physical sense is the same rule that would refuse it as a moral metaphor. This is a site R12's A4 forbids.
7. 498 θοῦρος Ἄρης → "rushing Ares". N4/SILENT — furious and rushing both available.
8. 498 ὑπὸ γούνατ' ἔλυσεν → "loosen'd beneath the knees". N1, calqued. The Homeric idiom for killing is kept as an idiom about knees. R12 refuses this exact rendering under A5/A6.
9. 494/500 Τροίῃ ἐν εὐρείῃ, πάτρης → "in broad-way'd Troia", "warding away his fatherland". N7 by extension: the place-name keeps its Greek form (Newman's own Troia, three syllables); ἀμυνόμενον περὶ πάτρης is calqued as warding away his fatherland, which is not English government. N1.
10. 502 ἀπερείσι' ἄποινα → "ransom unmeasurable". N4.
11. 503 αἰδεῖο θεούς → "have thou shame before the gods". N6. αἰδέομαι holds shame and reverence together and the English is left holding both, where R12's A7 closes it to awe.
12. 505 ἐπιχθόνιος βροτός → "none earth-treading mortal". N4 compound.
13. 506 ἀνδρὸς παιδοφόνοιο ποτὶ στόμα χεῖρ' ὀρέγεσθαι → "to my child-slayer's / mouth to stretch mine hand forth." Two N-firings against R12: N4 keeps the compound (child-slayer against Arnold's "him who slew my child"), and N1 keeps στόμα as mouth against Arnold's lips. The word-order inversion is N11 (the caesura falls where it falls).
14. 507 ὑφ' ἵμερον ὦρσε γόοιο → "the yearning of lamenting / After his father". N4/N1: the genitive of the noun is kept as a genitive rather than resolved to an infinitive.
15. 508 ἦκα → "softly". SILENT — the same word R12 chose, by no rule on either side.
16. 510 κλαῖ' ἁδινά → "Thick-crowding tears". The pre-registered site. ἁδινός is on Newman's own list of words "still doubtful to us", and N6 requires that the English stay open where the Greek is. Thick-crowding takes the crowded/close sense without settling whether the crowding is of sound, of tears, or of the fit of grief. R12 resolves the same word to "without stint" on Arnold's explicit instruction about this word.
17. 510 ἐλυσθείς → "rolled up". N1: the literal sense of εἰλύω, against R12's crouching.
18. 509 Ἕκτορος ἀνδροφόνοιο → "man-slaying Hector". N4. The compound and its position are both Newman's habit and both are what Arnold names as the fault.
19. 512 κατὰ δώματ' → "along the dwellings", plural. N1: Homer's plural δώματα of what is a hut is a peculiarity and is retained as a plural.
20. Metre (N11) throughout. Four beats, caesura, three beats, feminine ending, unrhymed, no anapaests, Troia and Achaian given full syllable count. The last line is short of the pattern and is left short rather than padded.

Coverage. 20 logged decisions. A rule of R13 decided 18; 2 are marked SILENT (7, 15). N1 fired at 9 sites (2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 13, 17, 19) — an upper bound, per the regime's own stated limitation that N1 cannot be violated by a translator willing to plead inability.