l'Marquis has a great post of how maybe, just maybe, you might forget the movie and just go read the read the book. He suggests these translations of Homer by Stanley Lombardo. I agree wholeheartedly. They are now in my wishlist. Scroll down to s'always something... 5.21 for the worthy comments of L'Marquis.

Michael Leddy interviews
Stanley Lombardo

Leddy: Your Iliad and Odyssey have met with great praise from classicists. But they’re also ‘controversial’ — a characterization that seems to come only from Greekless readers. What expectations are such readers bringing to Homer? Lombardo: That because it’s a classical work, it should sound like Elizabethan English, or at least have some element of archaic diction — I think those are the expectations. I suspect that these expectations come, ultimately, from the King James Version of the Bible, and from Shakespeare. If Milton were read more, I would blame Milton. I don’t know of any classicist who has said anything negative about my translations. I’m sure there are some who don’t like them, but they’ve never said anything in public [laughs]. I think you’re right, that it’s Greekless readers who see them as controversial. Their only basis for comparison is other translations, which except for Fitzgerald and maybe T.E. Shaw, do have some of that archaic quality. So they think that must be the way Homer is. But for Homer’s audience, there’s no doubt that the poetry was an immediate, direct, vital experience, or it wouldn’t have survived, much less had the reputation that it had.

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Translations from the Greek
Stanley Lombardo

Iliad 19.379–end    Snow flurries can come so thick and fast    From the cold northern sky, that the wind    That bears them becomes an icy, blinding glare. So too the gleaming, polished weaponry— The helmets, shields, spears, and plated corselets— All the bronze paraphernalia of war That issued from the ships. The rising glare Reflected off the coppery sky, and the land beneath Laughed under the arcing metallic glow. A deep bass thrumming rose from the marching feet. And, like a bronze bolt in the center, Achilles, Who now began to arm.                                      His eyes glowed Like open furnace doors, and he grit his teeth Against the grief that had sunk into his bones, And every motion he made in putting on the armor Forged for him in heaven was an act of passion Directed against the Trojans: clasping on his shins The greaves trimmed in silver at the ankles, Strapping the corselet onto his chest, slinging The silver-studded bronze sword around a shoulder, And then lifting the massive, heavy shield That spilled light around it as if it were the moon.    Or a fire that has flared up in a lonely settlement    High in the hills of an island, reflecting light    On the faces of men who have put out to sea    And must watch helplessly as rising winds    Bear them away from their dear ones.

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