So lads, I'm thinking of unironically dabbling in the Greeks

>hesiod
>something lighter

shorter maybe

If you want to read the Greeks then start with Homer, he is foundational to greek thought.

>>8415438
But it's so long and I just know I'll spend forever deciding on a translation.

File: 51wZIir18IL._SX332_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg (47KB, 334x499px) Image search: [Google]

47KB, 334x499px

You can start with whatever you think is the best. Even if it's not, it won't be a lost of time because you would have learned something anyway.

What I think you should read first:

Iliad and Odyssey
Mythology by Edith Hamilton
Gods and Heroes of Ancient Greece by Gustav Schwab

After that, you can ready Plato, Thucydides, Herodotus... And you'll always find something else to read after you finnish something.

>>8415453
I'll choose for you

Fitzgerald

>>8415456
Forgot to say, Gustav Schwab's book has a really accurate description of the events of the Iliad and the Odyssey.

I suggest starting with Plato or with the tragedians and then going back to Homer. Homer's intimidating and difficult. Sophocles, for example, and Plato are better introductions for the modern reader and Socrates' constant quotations of Homer, for example, will help you to understand why Homer was important.

Basically, don't start with the hardest one. If you wanted to get into Thomas Pynchon and someone recommended that you read Gravity's Rainbow first, they'd be memeing you. Not to say that Plato's easy (he's not) but it's easier to get at least surface-level understanding of him than it is to get one of Homer.

>>8415461
But a hot classics professor once told me that the Lattimore translations are good for a beginner. But she also said that there are many translations, each with their own merits.

>>8415456
Won't some of those books spoil things though? Of course, I understand that some of the stories are so famous that I'm bound to know what happens in them, but I'd rather not have everything spoiled. That's just going to lessen my enjoyment of them.

Anyhow, I currently have these books, all part of the OWC collection:

>Theogony and Works and Days
>Greek Lyric Poetry
>The First Philosophers- The Presocratics and the Sophists
>Persians and Other Plays (Aeschylus)
>Oresteia (Aeschylus)
>Antigone, Oedipus the King and Electra (Sophocles)
>Classical Literary Criticism

On a side note, I also have "Myths from Mesopotamia" on my shelf but it looks rather daunting.

>>8415497
Fagles is the easiest one to read.

>>8415497
Lattimore is the best for students because it takes the fewest liberties with the text. Is it best for the general reader? Eh.

Also, Hesiod before Homer is fine, particularly Theogony if you aren't all that familiar with the gods. Remember, though, that it isn't scripture in the modern sense and its tales of the gods aren't more authoritative than others in circulation from the era.

Works and Days is about farming. Slice of life episode.

>>8415413
Homer is wayyyyy lighter than Hesiod. Seriously.

Hesiod is a fucking retard talking about boring genealogies of the gods and how to farm. Homer is actually talking about humans.

>>8415413
Herodotus.

TBQH Greek literature is overrated shit in a lot of cases, but they're second to none in embellished retelling of real events.

>>8415753
Eh, I'm reading a history book at the moment so I'd rather not start another history book immediately after.

>>8415778
Herodotus is fun. It's filled with whores and magical creatures and ethnography between the battles and shit.
You can also go the other route to sexy fun with Lysistrata by Aristophanes, if you don't mind reading plays. Fuck it, even if you do mind reading plays, it's good banter and better than you'll get from reading 4chan.

>>8415486
>Homer's intimidating and difficult
No way, both the Iliad and the Odyssey are entertaining, funny and stunningly beautiful even in translation

>>8415530
Nah try lambardo

>>8415413

if you want to laugh, try aristophanes and menander.

>>8415829
Will he have
some reasoned argument to demonstrate
he’s not a loose-arsed bugger?*

WORSE ARGUMENT
So his asshole's large—
why should that in any way upset him?

BETTER ARGUMENT
Can one suffer any greater harm
than having a loose asshole?

WORSE ARGUMENT
What will you say
if I defeat you on this point?

BETTER ARGUMENT
I’ll shut up.
What more could a man say?

WORSE ARGUMENT
Come on, then— 1400
Tell me about our legal advocates.
Where are they from?

BETTER ARGUMENT
They come from loose-arsed buggers.

WORSE ARGUMENT
I grant you that. What’s next? Our tragic poets, [1090]
where they from?

BETTER ARGUMENT
They come from major assholes.

WORSE ARGUMENT
That’s right. What about our politicians—
where do they come from?

BETTER ARGUMENT
From gigantic assholes!

WORSE ARGUMENT
All right then—surely you can recognize
how you’ve been spouting rubbish? Look out there—
at this audience—what sort of people
are most of them?

BETTER ARGUMENT
All right, I’m looking at them. 1410

WORSE ARGUMENT
Well, what do you see?

BETTER ARGUMENT
By all the gods,
almost all of them are men who spread their cheeks.
It’s true of that one there, I know for sure . . .
and that one . . . and the one there with long hair.

Gold comedy

>>8415530
Fagles is merely unreadable.

>>8415486
>Homer's intimidating and difficult.
for plebs he is. you'd have to be a serious pleb to think this. The Iliad was like a movie.

>unironically dabbing

>>8415413
You musn't do anything, but you may do whatever you wish.

>>8415497
If you want some fun you should read Aristophanes.

>No-one recommends Rieu
;_;
Honestly though the clouds is fantastic, who wouldn't want to read a play where he points out that everyone in the audience is gay?