he began with the first nine lines and a notebook of decisions: what to do with the verbs, what to do with the names, whether to keep the patronymics or quietly drop them. the notebook outgrew the translation within a year.
by the ninth winter he was no longer translating; he was reading the commentaries on what others had done and composing a long, never-finished introduction to his own version. the version itself stopped at line nine of book one, mid-clause — the word for "dogs" written then crossed out then written again.
he left the manuscript pinned beneath a glass paperweight on the desk by the south window, where he could see it without having to read it. the glossary grew. the translation did not. he refused, until the end, to call himself a translator — only a reader keeping notes.