There is no single best translation of the Odyssey — only the best one for the reader you are, and the journey you came for. But if you want one default and no deliberation, begin with Emily Wilson's 2017 translation: swift, clear, and written in disciplined iambic pentameter, the easiest doorway into the poem that still keeps the music of verse. Everything below sorts the great translations not by rank, but by fit.
Best all-round starting point: Emily Wilson (2017) — modern, readable, and faithfully line-for-line with the Greek.
Best free option: Samuel Butler's public-domain prose (1900) — plain, clear, and hosted free right here.
Start with Emily Wilson (2017). Her Odyssey moves at the pace of a told story rather than a monument to be climbed, written in a plain, swift English that never asks you to translate the translation. She matches the Greek line for line — 12,110 lines — so you lose none of the poem's shape, and she was the first woman to publish a complete English Odyssey, a homecoming of its own kind for a poem all about return.
If you want more grandeur in the voice, the runner-up is Robert Fagles (1996). His free verse is dramatic and rhapsodic, closer to a bard performing aloud, and Bernard Knox's long introduction is one of the finest guides into the poem ever written. Think of Wilson as the clear-eyed companion and Fagles as the storyteller by the fire — a contrast we lay out in detail in Wilson vs Fagles.
For coursework, reach for Robert Fagles (1996) or Richmond Lattimore (1965). Fagles has been a classroom staple for decades — vivid enough to hold a roomful of readers, with Knox's introduction and notes doing real scholarly work — which is why it appears on so many high-school and undergraduate syllabi.
Lattimore is the companion for the student who wants to wrestle with the text itself. His line-by-line fidelity lets you point to the Greek behind the English, which is exactly what a close-reading seminar often demands. Many programs assign Fagles to be read and Lattimore to be consulted — the rhapsode in one hand, the scholar in the other. See Fagles vs Lattimore for the full contrast.
For the ear, choose Robert Fagles (1996). The Odyssey was sung long before it was read, and Fagles's free verse is built for the voice — propulsive, oratorical, alive with the rise and fall of a tale meant to cross a hall. Heard aloud on a long drive or a dark commute, the poem returns to its oldest home: the sounding of a story in the open air, the sea-voyage of the self narrated in real time.
For sheer beauty of language, Robert Fitzgerald (1961) stands apart. His is the lyrical, elegant American Odyssey — supple, image-rich verse that won the first Bollingen Prize for translation and shaped how generations of poets heard Homer. If you read for the spell a line can cast — the wine-dark sea as a threshold into the unconscious deep — Fitzgerald is the one to lose yourself in. (Weighing him against the bestselling modern verse? See Fitzgerald vs Fagles.)
If you want to stand as near the original as English allows, read Richmond Lattimore (1965). Famously literal and rendered line by line, it preserves the architecture of Homer's verse and the weight of his repeated epithets, holding the syntax of the Greek visible beneath the English. It is the scholar's choice — best for readers studying the poem closely, learning Greek alongside it, or simply unwilling to let an interpreter stand between them and Homer.
If Christopher Nolan's 2026 Odyssey is what drew you here, Emily Wilson (2017) is the most natural starting point — and the one Nolan himself singled out. In an interview with Empire, he pointed to Wilson's translation and its opening, "Tell me about a complicated man," describing Odysseus's cleverness and inventiveness as a large part of what drew him to the story. One honest caveat: Nolan has also said he studied several translations — Wilson, E. V. Rieu, and Robert Fagles among them — so the film is not adapted from Wilson's text alone. But her plain, modern, character-forward voice is the closest in spirit to the cunning, many-sided hero he describes.
You do not have to spend a cent to read the whole poem. Samuel Butler's 1900 prose is the best free starting point — clear, readable, and unintimidating, the Odyssey told straight through as a story; it is in the public domain and hosted free on this site. For readers who want grandeur over plainness, Alexander Pope's verse (1725) is the great free alternative: stately rhymed heroic couplets, a monument of English poetry in its own right.
Both are legal to read and download because their copyright has long expired, along with the stately Victorian prose of Butcher & Lang (1879). They are older voices — but the poem beneath them is the oldest voice of all, and these editions carry it faithfully home.
Read Wilson if you want it clear and modern, Fagles if you want it grand and spoken aloud, Fitzgerald if you want it beautiful, Lattimore if you want it closest to the Greek — and Butler if you want it free. You can't choose wrongly; every one of these leads home.
What is the best Odyssey translation overall?
For most readers, Emily Wilson's 2017 translation is the best default — modern, swift, and clear, while keeping the poem in disciplined verse and matching the Greek line for line. "Best" still depends on your aim: Fagles for drama, Fitzgerald for beauty, Lattimore for fidelity.
What's the best Odyssey translation for high school or students?
Robert Fagles (1996) is the most common classroom choice — accessible, vivid, and paired with Bernard Knox's excellent introduction and notes. For close work against the original, many courses add Richmond Lattimore's more literal version.
What's the easiest Odyssey translation to read?
Emily Wilson's is the easiest verse translation — plain, direct modern English with nothing archaic in the way. If you'd rather read it as a flowing story without line breaks at all, Samuel Butler's free prose is even simpler.
Is there a free Odyssey translation worth reading?
Yes — several. Samuel Butler's 1900 prose is clear and very readable, Alexander Pope's 1725 verse is a grand poetic classic, and Butcher & Lang's 1879 prose is stately and faithful; all are in the public domain and free to download on this site.