Penguins on Parade: the Holland Herodotus!

Some Penguin Classics mark a melancholy succession, and works in translation are particularly vulnerable to this. The old cherished translations of great works – the Rosemary Edmonds War and Peace, the E. V. Rieu Homer, the Dorothy Sayers Divine Comedy, and so on – begin to feel almost imperceptibly dated around the edges. If they’re particularly beloved, the editors might attempt a facelift, bringing in some scholar to write a new Introduction and revise the old translation, maybe providing new notes. But such things are delaying actions only; generally speaking, every age tends to demand its own translations of the canon.

Which is an entirely healthy process, even I must grudgingly admit, but the ‘melancholy’ part comes in when the outgoing translation in question has been an old friend. And what older Penguin Classics friend do I have than the 1954 Aubrey de Selincourt translation of the Histories of Herodotus? As I’ve noted before here at Stevereads, I’ve lived and traveled with the de Selincourt Herodotus to such an enormous extent that the book feels like a part of me. Seeing it dropped from the Penguin Classic lineup can’t help but be shocking, even if it’s being replaced with something very good.

Luckily, in this case it’s being replaced with something very good. Something better, in fact, than I originally thought. When Tom Holland came out with his translation of Herodotus a couple of years ago, the thought that it might one day replace my Herodotus in the Penguin line perhaps made me a bit defensive. But I’ve had a chance to live with the Holland translation since then, revisiting it in part or in whole as a conscious schooling decision whenever my hand just automatically reached for the de Selincourt.

It’s grown on me, this Holland translation. I like it’s straightforward conversational style, which starts immediately in the Translator’s Preface:

Herodotus is the most entertaining of historians. Indeed, he is as entertaining as anyone who has ever written – historian or not. He has been my constant companion since I was twelve, and never once have I grown tired of him. His great work is many things – the first example of nonfiction, the text that underlies the entire discipline of history, the most important source of information we have for a vital episode in human affairs – but it is above all a treasure-trove of wonders.

And I like the way Holland’s dialogue (and Herodotus is simply crammed with dialogue – more, percentage-wise, than we get in War and Peace) is often more natural and less arch than the stuff de Selincourt so often produced in pages from memory. Take the poignant moment when Croesus, the beaten king of Lydia, gives the ravenous Persian King Cyrus some ironic insight:

Then he turned, watching as the Persians devastated the Lydian capital, and opened his mouth at last. ‘O King, should I say what has been on my mind, or is this not an appropriate time to speak?’ Cyrus told him not to be afraid, and to say whatever he wished. Croesus responded with a second question. ‘What are they doing, all these rampaging hordes?’ ‘Why,’ said Cyrus,’ they are tearing your city to pieces, and carting off your treasures.’ But Croesus turned this statement upon its head. ‘It is not my city they are tearing to pieces, not my treasures. None of it belongs to me any more. It is you who is being robbed.’

And if I needed any extra convincing, I certainly got it in the form of his gorgeous new Penguin Classics “Deluxe Edition” paperback designed by John-Patrick Thomas. Its pages, its binding, its lovely black and burnt orange color set … de Selincourt never looked this good. It seems a little too pretty to take along on travels, but those days are over too, so I don’t mind.