Digital-Lifestyles.info: Iliad Translated into Microsoft Messenger. End of Civilisation Obviously Nigh.

As a promotion for Microsoft's chat application, MSN has translated five books of Homer's Iliad into Windows "Messenger speak."

You heard right: five books are now condensed into 363 words and emoticons.

Here's an example, using the start of Book One from Robert Fagles's 1996 translation:

Rage --
Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
great fighters' souls, but made their bodies carrion,
feasts for the dogs and birds,
and the will of Zeus was moving towards its end.
Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,
Agamemnon lord of mean and brilliant Achilles.

Turns into this . . .

Ur right to still be ngry, Anchilles has m’ssed things up 4 da Grks wiv his rage

You can see it at TrIM Troy.