Conversation: Stephen Mitchell's New Translation of Homer's 'The Iliad'
"The rage of Achilles--sing it now, goddess, sing through me."That's the first line of Homer's "The Iliad" in the new translation by Stephen Mitchell, a poet and one of the preeminent translators and interpreters of ancient and modern classics. His works include "Gilgamesh," "Tao Te Ching," "The Book of Job," "The Gospel According to Jesus" and "The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke."I recently sat down with Mitc…