I have no stomach to repeat a long story that has already been plainly told.

[Ἐχθρὸν δέ μοί ἐστιν
αὖτις ἀριζήλως εἰρημένα μυθολογεύειν.]

Homer (fl. 7th-8th C. BC) Greek author
The Odyssey [Ὀδύσσεια], Book 12, l. 453ff (12.453) [Odysseus] (c. 700 BC) [tr. Verity (2016)]
    (Source)

Original Greek. Alternate translations:

And, for me to grow
A talker-over of my tale again,
Were past my free contentment to sustain.
[tr. Chapman (1616)]

Nor do I love the same tale twice to tell.
[tr. Hobbes (1675)]

Enough: in misery can words avail?
And what so tedious as a twice-told tale?
[tr. Pope (1725)]

I told it yesterday, and hate a tale
Once amply told, then, needless, traced again.
[tr. Cowper (1792), ll. 530-31]

The wordy tale, once told, were hard to tell again.
[tr. Worsley (1861), st. 61]

Distasteful is it to me -- aye again
To harp on tales already clearly told!
[tr. Bigge-Wither (1869)]

It liketh me not twice to tell a plain-told tale.
[tr. Butcher/Lang (1879)]

And irksome 'tis to me
To tell again of matters that told out clearly be.
[tr. Morris (1887)]

And it is irksome to tell a plain-told tale a second time.
[tr. Palmer (1891)]

I hate saying the same thing over and over again.
[tr. Butler (1898)]

And it is hateful [ekhthron] for me to say the same thing over and over again.
[tr. Butler (1898), rev. Power/Nagy]

It is an irksome thing, meseems, to tell again a plain-told tale.
[tr. Murray (1919)]

It goes against my grain to repeat a tale already plainly told.
[tr. Lawrence (1932)]

It goes against the grain with me to repeat a tale already plainly told
[tr. Rieu (1946)]

Those adventures made a long evening, and I do not hold with tiresome repetition of a story.
[tr. Fitzgerald (1961)]

It is hateful to me
to tell a story over again, when it has been well told.
[tr. Lattimore (1965)]

I do not hold with telling over what has been well told.
[tr. Mandelbaum (1990)]

It goes against my grain to repeat a tale told once, and told so clearly.
[tr. Fagles (1996)]

To me it is hateful telling again some tale that has once been told to perfection.
[tr. Merrill (2002)]

It is tedious for me to repeat a tale already plainly told.
[tr. DCH Rieu (2002)]

It is annoying, repeating tales that have been told before.
[tr. Wilson (2017)]

I really dislike repeating a tale that's been clearly narrated on a previous occasion.
[tr. Green (2018)]

And it’s an irritating thing, I think,
to re-tell a story once it’s clearly told.
[tr. Johnston (2019)]


 
Added on 30-Jun-21 | Last updated 25-Dec-21
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