Homer: Iliad I-XII (Greek Texts)

My level: I'm reclaiming my undergraduate Greek after 50 years, and reading Homer with a few friends. This is a useful compact annotated edition; it doesn't provide the sort of linguistic help an absolute beginner needs (P.A. Draper's edition of Book I of the Iliad is superb, here), but it adds some depth and explanation to a reading. My big gripe is the way this book has been produced. The original edition, by MacMillan, is rather beautiful; large, open, highly legible typeface, well bound. One is grateful for a cheap reprint, and perfect binding is fine; reduced format is OK, but the actual printing is so poor (? rather ill-done offset litho) as to actually impact legibility. Still, it seems to be what there is, and it's worth the money.

This text provides notes very suitable for non-professional students of Homer, providing not only background information where necessary, but also grammar helps that anticipate well identification problems a beginning student of Homeric greek may have. Only a glossary of vocabulary could make this text better. (No matter, however, as Homeric dictionaries are easily available, both in print form and online.) If you want to read Homer in Greek, buy this book.

I'm judging this solely on the commentary; I do not have the BCP reprint (which has a bad typeface and cheap binding). The notes are not very helpful. It's rare that Willcock provides grammatical help, which would be understandable if the notes were intended more for a professional audience, but they are not; he often suggests translations of sometimes up to several lines which are in colloquial English and not close to the Greek at all. He will sometimes give vocabulary help, but don't count on not having to consult a lexicon every couple lines. All this being said, Willcock might be your best bet for an Iliad commentary, since there are no others that cover all 24 books. Mediocre commentary can be better than no commentary at all, though that depends entirely on your personal taste and your mastery of the grammar. As a note, W.B. Stanford's commentaries for the Odyssey (also in BCP reprints) are excellent, so you might consider starting with those if you want to delve into Homeric Greek.

I think that the main reason why one would choose to buy such an edition of Homer's 'Iliad' is to use it as a first reader, a book where you can write in, make notes, scribble, without worrying too much whether it is going to fall apart after you have read it. Also, it is portable, not too thick, neither full of variant readings at the footer, nor preceeded by a lenghty apparatus criticus in Latin. Just an unpretentious Homer text for the beginner. This book is all that, and the commentary at the end helps a lot, if it's the first time you are coming across Homer in Greek. That being said, there is however a major drawback that should not be overlooked: the Greek font used is hard on the eyes, both because it is is simply too small and also because it is blurred in various parts, making it difficult to tell apart smooth and rough breathings (especially those under the circumflex accent).This could be overlooked were the book writen in a familiar script, since readers are often able to recognize words by means of their shapes, but that is hardly ever the case with Ancient Greek, and after just two or three pages of reading one soon gets tired eyes due to fatigue arisen from the effort one has to employ in focusing on such small fonts. Also, the 'Introduction' is very basic and, perhaps, could have been dispensed with, the book being aimed at more advanced readers on the issue of homeric poetry. Considering all that, the price of the book does not match its quality, and I would recommend instead M. L. West (ed.) 'Ilias', edited by W. de Gruyter or H. van Thiel's 'Ilias' from Bibliotheca Weidmanniana, both excelent editions with an "apparatus criticus" and, most important of all, perfectly legible and comfortable typefaces.