Josquin wrote:Thanks for dropping by in my log! Yes, I already read Hrafnkels saga some time ago, when I first dealt with Icelandic and Old Norse. I think it was pretty straightforward and also comparably short. My dream would be reading Brennu-Njáls saga in the original, but I don't know if I have the stamina for that. It's really long.
Reading
Brennu-Njáls saga in the original was once a goal of mine, too, but I've lowered my sights to maybe someday reading it in parallel with an English translation.
Josquin wrote:Yeah, I don't yet know what to read once I've finished Reading Greek. There is a series of annotated readers, also by JACT, which have caught my interest. After that, I'll probably try to read some Plato. I'd love to read Homer in the original, but Homeric Greek seems to be pretty different from classical Attic. An annotated version of the Odyssey would be heaven!
The series of JACT annotated readers had not quite appeared when I finished the grammar and texts (or else I did not know about them). Now I would be inclined to go in that direction.
Systematiker mentions Steadman's selection from the
Odyssey. Any of Steadman's commentaries would be suitable. I've used 3 or 4 of them and found them all quite helpful.
For pure unadulterated Ancient Greek, the easiest to understand that I found is Apollodorus's
Library and Epitome, which you can find at Perseus.
Among historians, for ease of understanding I am reading the history by Diodorus Siculus, who unlike Herodotus doesn't wander off topic to discuss prostitution in Babylon and unlike Thucydides does not require the help of a committee of classical scholars to understand (though sooner or later you'll probably want to read them.)
Finally, there is the Bible, full of relatively easy Greek and full of stories in the first two books that are interesting in their own right whether or not one is a believer. But I know this is a delicate topic for some, so I will leave it at that.
I will finish by saying how impressed I am that you picked up on the musicality of Ancient Greek because of the vowels. It is something I had given only very limited thought to.
Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson