Sing to me, Muse, of the man of many turnings, driven far, after he sacked the holy citadel of Troy.

Homer, Odyssey I.1

The Greek is ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, πολύτροπον — “the man of many turnings,” πολύτροπος, the first word the poet gives his hero. It is a word that means many things at once: much-turned, much-traveled, of many wiles. This translation lets it keep its ambiguity.

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