Robert Fagles; Translated Classical Epics

Robert Fagles, 74, a Princeton University professor whose translations of the three great epics of the classical world -- "The Iliad," "The Odyssey" and "The Aeneid" -- have been recognized as enduring literary works in their own right, died March 26 of prostate cancer at his home in Princeton, N.J.

Dr. Fagles was one of the few scholars to translate all three epic poems, which are considered the fountainhead of Western literature. His translations, written in clear, simple English that retained the dignity of the Greek and Latin originals, became unexpected bestsellers.

His translations of "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" came out in 1990 and 1996, respectively. He then brushed up on his Latin for his translation of Virgil's "Aeneid," which was published in 2006. His versions of the three epics have sold more than 4 million copies worldwide and have become established as the definitive translations of our time.

Each new translation was greeted with more encomiums than the previous. In 1996, critic Paul Gray cited "the Fagles phenomenon" in Time magazine. In his 2006 review of the "Aeneid" translation in the Los Angeles Times, historian Thomas Cahill wrote: "It is magnificent. When you are faced with something incredibly complex yet beautifully simple, you must bow your head before inexplicable greatness. That's the case with Robert Fagles' translation."

The classic poems have been reinterpreted hundreds of times over the centuries, as each generation has found fresh meaning in the tales of the Trojan wars ("The Iliad"), Odysseus's struggles to return home from war ("The Odyssey") and the founding of Rome ("The Aeneid").

"In a sense, all translations are unfinished," Dr. Fagles told the Associated Press in 2006. "One thing I have learned is that no one will have the final say, that each generation needs its own translation."

Unlike some scholars, Dr. Fagles said he believed Homer's epics were written by a single poet of the eighth or ninth century B.C., not by an anonymous group.

"I don't want to think of 'The Odyssey' as having been written by a committee," Dr. Fagles said. "He composed his work at a time when a rudimentary alphabet was entering Greek culture. Homer was not essentially a writer. He was a singer."

Dr. Fagles, who published a collection of original poetry in 1978, set his translations in unrhymed six-beat lines that maintained "a sense of the sweep and the sonority of the original," classicist Mary Lefkowitz wrote in The Washington Post in 1990.

"I didn't want to be too literal. Or too literary," Dr. Fagles said in 2006, describing his "Aeneid" translation. "I want to tell you what Virgil says, but I want to write an English poem at the same time."

With "The Aeneid," he departed from the familiar opening phrase first translated by the 17th-century English poet John Dryden as "Of arms and the man I sing."

Dr. Fagles began his tale of Aeneas, the legendary founder of Rome, with a more humble tone: