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The Odyssey

By Homer

Translators and scholars have translated the main works attributed to Homer, the Iliad and Odyssey, from the Homeric Greek into English, since the 16th and 17th centuries. Translations are ordered chronologically by date of first publication, with first lines provided to illustrate the style of the translation.

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Project Gutenberg eBook #1727 — plain-text edition
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44 jurisdictions · latest check 31 Aug 2026

author (original classical Greek epic) Homer died -700; translator (English prose) Samuel Butler died 1902; writer of Preface to Second Edition / editor of the 1921 second-edition material Henry Festing Jones died 1928. All identified copyright-relevant edition contributors are beyond the conservative expiry cutoff applied from the cited jurisdictional duration rule as of 2026-08-31.

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The Odyssey

As soon as Euryclea had got the scarred limb in her hands and had well hold of it, she recognised it and dropped the foot at once. The leg fell into the bath, which rang out and was overturned, so that all the water was spilt on the ground; Euryclea’s eyes between her joy and her grief filled with tears, and she could not speak, but she caught Ulysses by the beard and said, “My dear child, I am sure you must be Ulysses himself, only I did not know you till I had actually touched and handled you.”

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