In addition to the problems of translating between languages the history of the text itself gives me serious pause when reading any Homer: the Fagles translation Preface I know discusses some of this history (every translation these days probably sketches this out in some way).
Btw, last time I read the Odyssey (the Fagles), two things emerged for me: First, I enjoyed Odysseus as a man of constant invention, where even Athena, his patron, seems kind of boggled by his nonstop lying/spinning. That seems to me to be a hub of the narrative, keeping an audience hanging on to find out what he tries next.
But then the poem on this reading also seemed so particular to its time and place and culture that I wondered why Western culture once claimed universality for it (though I know Homer was also a huge deal in the ancient world)? The place and the people, and the way in which they lived seemed just shrunken to me into something so particular to that time and place (also, the fantastic elements did nothing for me this time around) that I wondered how anyone got started blowing it up beyond its confines. I love both poems for many reasons, and will probably reread them again, but this reading surprised me.
