Tag: Odysseus

I was playing this one again last week and think I got it pretty good, at least better than the other times I’ve posted it here on the blog. See the Oct 10, 20011 post and the sept 3, 2012 post. I keep working on the lyrics to this song, and I keep playing it slower and slower. Currently the words are:

We sailed the copper sea

We played out our destiny

We walked together in the sand

You were my woman and I was your man

Walk on, Walk on

The letters came a-tumbling from the sky

And the people walked away and didn’t wonder why

And the letters cast their shadows on the land

You were my woman and I was your man

Walk on, Walk on

We sailed the copper sea

There’s a song that you sang for you and me

And we crossed to the silver land
You were my woman and I was your man
Walk on, walk on

Here’s to brave Odysseus again
It’s an image, an archetype, that calls to us all. Such is the power of the classics.
The story of Oydsseus calls forth so many images – at least for me.
I’ve read the Illiad in the Lattimore translation and read The Odyssey in the Fitzgerald translation.
A good friend a long time ago recommended the Lattimore translation to me, and insisted that I needed to read the Illiad (and a good translation, he pointed out) in order to obtain a perspective on the rest of literature. He was quite right. The rest of literature pales in comparison.
The Homeric images, the feel from the book, are something that stays with you. Similarly the story of Jean Valjean is part of my personal world. Tolstoy’s characters as well. Let’s not be so hard on the rest of literature.