I want to read the iliad & the odyssey but i have never read anything on greek mythology or anything by the greeks...

Google would have fixed it, who cares. Point is the dude made it readable instead of being in broken english.

I bet Richmond would care

Tell him to get a normal name and stop being a faggot then.

read the Theogony first faggot

Read this for background, it's really all you need.
pages.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan/arch/iliad/IliadGuide01.html

you spelled richmond wrong, and even if you had spelled it correctly, you would have still misspelled alexander pope.

I highly advise against you reading Illiad and Odyssey without any Greek knowledge.

Firstly, there are tons of references in the Illiad, many familiar to you but many also is not. You need some basic introduction to a lot of concepts.
Secondly, the epic poem was designed for those who knew the trojan event. Illiad is not about trojan war, it is about a spesific small time period, from the quarrel of achilles and agamemnon to the funeral of hector. You need to know what happened before, what will happen after etc, the average greek listener knew about Helen, the fate of Achilles etc, while listening to Illiad.

Therefore I do suggest you buy/download a book that has proper introduction, which tells you not only about the text about also the background and the future of the story, it also shoudl have proper footnotes or endnotes that explain whats going on, stylistic explanations is fine but more importantly it shoudl explani the characters, the cultural norms (importance of kleos etc) of the "homeric society"
I briefly skimmed Peter Greene's translation, I think it fit into this category, but as I said do check the introduction, do check the endnotes, is introduction compherensive? are the endnotes are explanatory? if so than buy it. I don't focus on which translation is best, maybe because I do know mediocre ancient greek (more focused on koine than homeric though) but I think explanation shoudl be above translation, you can always read it another time.

I highly believe both epics to be highly overrated in this regard. They should not be presented as introductory material. Xenophon's Anabasis is a much more easy and fun introduction than Illiad imho. But thats just me.

As long as you know who the different gods are you well be fine.

Just watch the simpsons episode on it.

>explanation shoudl be above translation, you can always read it another time.
>your whole post
Αυτοkτονίσου, πούστη.

It's a good starting place, but if you're really unsure, Linda Hamilton's Mythology is good if you want to brush up on greek myth. Honestly though you'll be fine, just be patient as a lot of people complain about the ship catalog (but it's really not that bad).

Ah yes, Linda Hamilton's greatest work.
Mythology.

oh user, i meant Edith, please forgive me

FITZGERALD

Personally I read Ovid's Metamorphoses first to get a hefty catalogue of the pantheon.

nooooooooooooooooooooo

Greek before Latin.

Doesn't matter desu. The important gods of the Iliad are just different skins, they still represent the same archetypes.

Did you get anything from your first read? I've read the Iliad, Odyssey, Greek plays, Hesiod and so on and still had a lot of problems processing all the different stories except a few that stuck out.

From the first read of Metamorphoses? (I figure that's what you're asking since the Iliad is pretty straightforward...). I would say it's the #1 book for someone with ADD, the amount of stories it contains is incredible and very few of them last for more than 10 pages before some seemingly minute detail of the last atory is used as the segue into the next story. It's actually one of my favorite pieces of literature on account of its diversity. Now if you asked me to tell you WHAT stories I liked, I could hardly name any for the plethora of characters involved, whereas I could still recall the themes of the stories that stood out to me. Some few I can recall just because of how ingrained those elements are in our society to this day like the story of how Hermaphrodite became what we came to know him as. But I also recall the story of Perseus with Medusa's head at a lit afterparty where a brouhaha erupts, or Phoebus son riding the turbonigger chariot and almost killing a bunch of people before Jupiter strikes his ass, and actually in specific relation to the Iliad: the story of Neptune and Apollo helping Laomedon to build the walls of Troy (which is actually why I read the Iliad right after). It's just such a good book, it just required that I had to keep physical note of so many characters/gods/families to accustom myself to the entire cast to really enjoy it and follow all the myths, but it's hardly a detraction because afterward I felt ready to tackle the meatier poetry.

I read Mandelbaum btw, it was alright as a translation goes. I kind of wish it didnt sound so contmeporary with its language, but that's inevitable since Mandelbaum was "our" contemporary.

Not the user you replied to but reading your post has encouraged me to read the Metamorphoses after the current book I'm reading. Thanks user, been meaning to read it for a while