>>>>Who is your favorite mythical character, and why?
>>>>
>>>>Mine is probably Procrustes. He ruled a forest and trespassers were punished by being tied to a bed of a certain length. If they were shorter than the length of the bed, they were stretched out until they fit. If they were taller, some of them was chopped off. We still see references to Procrustean bed arguments.
>>>>
>>>>Honorable mention: Icarus, the boy who flew too close to the sun.
>>>
>>>I'm actually surprised that no one mentioned Homer's Odysseus yet.... how I hated reading those books in school! :o)
>>
>>Oddly enough, a new translation sold a lot of copies a few years ago. I don't know if they were all read or just bought ;-)
>
>Probably because it was finally in verse. I was astonished that the previous translation, with wrapped text, was ever on the market. Half of the fun is in the rhythm of the verse.
>
>BTW, I never read Iliad. But I did read Odyssey - the cunning guy who's been around the world was more to my liking than the warriors and the bloodshed. Also, there was the terrific Italian series then, with Yugoslav actor Bekim Fehmiu (great guy, died this year) as Ulysses. And then, of course, I just had to read Joyce, without ever catching onto the formal parallel between the episodes, only the "Bloom is Ulysses of our times and he gets those 20 years in a single day".

The version I read in college was in verse. This was back in 1980...