Whoever reads "The Odyssey" carefully feels the great distance of space and time from its text. Nevertheless, gradually emerges the feeling that the poem, while traveling, comes and goes, approaches and recedes, sometimes smiling with sympathy and sometimes with irony.
The most important translational problem in this case has to do with the reform of the original rhythm, which is both stable and alternating. Stability is imposed by the continuity of the epic narrative, measured in hexameter from the first to the last verse. Resembling a huge snake that, as it evolves, never changes its articulated shape. However, its, often unpredictable, twists deviate from the external to the internal rhythm, as the movement of the narrative speech aligns elsewhere, curves elsewhere, accelerates elsewhere, decelerates elsewhere, suddenly suspends. This internal rhythm of the epic sought its own liberation, and thus the free verse of translation emerged.
The reader now holds an autonomous translation in his hands; without the support of the original text and the Selected, which themselves have become autonomous and circulate in a separate volume. At the same time, he reads a revised translation, sometimes secretly, sometimes more openly. Searching, as we say, for its definitive form - an elusive dream, but comforting and encouraging.