The Iliad

A.) "In the day of your distress, when your men fall dying by the murderous hand of Hector, you shall not know how to help them, and shall rend your heart with rage."

B.) "And you in your despair will be powerless to help them as they fall in their multitudes to man slaying Hector of Troy."

C.) "Nor will you be able to help them at all, no matter how grieved you are, when man-killing Hector is cutting them down by the dozen. Then, I say, you'll rend your heart with wrath and remorse."

These three lines are, unless my good sense misleads me, all viable translations of a single line from the Iliad. Which do you prefer? In my opinion, B is the best. It lends to it the greatest amount of excitement, and puts it in understandable language. A seems to me the dullest of the three, and C is abominably wordy.

So here's why I ask: At Stian's recommendation, I bought A from Borders. Lovely book, Hard Cover with a design and title in gold on dark navy. I thought it was dreadfully boring, that perhaps something was wrong with me and I couldn't get into it. After 7 long pages, I reached the above line. Little bells went off in my head, and I suddenly remembered Stian quoting that line from B, his translation. Obviously, his was a lot better. Then I understood; quality of the translation was everything. So I went to the store, and at Barnes and Noble they had it cheap cheap, so I looked up that line and found C. It seemed better to me, somehow I didn't notice the "Then, I say"'s, but anyway it is a little more exciting. So I bought it too. And now what? I think I just read C as if its a story being told to me, sacrificing a little eloquence for a bit too much colloquiallization (not a word, as far as I know. ;)). But gah! Stian, what brand did you buy and why do mine all suck?