David Grene, who died on September 10th aged 89, was a Dublin-born classical scholar and translator, whose remarkable intellect sustained a 65-year academic career at the University of Chicago, while also farming here and in the US for more than 50 years.
He was as much part of the rural farming community in Ireland as of the academic community in Chicago and Irish people found it as hard to imagine him as a professor of Greek as his academic colleagues found it hard to imagine him as a dairy farmer. He didn't feel the intellectual world was in any way superior to the task of providing food.
"He was an eccentric, yes," says Saul Bellow, a former colleague at the University of Chicago, "but he wasn't one of those eccentrics who called attention to himself. That's just the way he was."
William David Grene was born on April 13th, 1913, the eldest of the two sons of John Grene and his wife Rose (née Ellis) of Belmont Avenue, Donnybrook. He had a classical education, studying French and Latin from the age of eight and Greek from the age of 10. He attended St Andrew's College and his summers were spent on a cousin's farm in Dundrum, Co Tipperary. At the age of 15 he resolved to spend his life farming and studying Greek.
He won a foundation scholarship at Trinity College Dublin and was awarded a BA in 1934, winning a double gold medal in classics and ancient history. He received his MA two years later having taught and studied in Vienna and Athens.
In 1936, he went to the US to teach at Harvard, but he was unhappy there and moved to the University of Chicago the following year. Beginning as a junior lecturer in classics, his intention was to write a PhD dissertation under the renowned Aristotelean scholar Richard McKeon. However, he never received his PhD. He found himself at odds with McKeon, forcefully challenging the older man's most cherished theories. His outspokenness was frowned on by the university authorities and he was turned down for tenure by both the classics department and the undergraduate college.
He eventually found his métier with the foundation in 1947 of the Committee on Social Thought. An elite graduate department, the committee quickly established itself as an unorthodox centre of excellence, enabling students to undertake complex interdisciplinary projects.
Faculty members have included Hannah Arendt, Saul Bellow and Friedrich von Hayek; its successful PhDs include Allan Bloom, the Nobel laureate James Watson and Shirley Letwin. The unique and tolerant environment brought out the best in Grene and he was immensely popular with students. Retirement did not interrupt his teaching; he continued working almost until his death.
Arendt said that on two continents she had never known anyone with the innate sense of Greek that he had. He is best known for his translations of Greek tragedy. His translation of The History by Herodotus was described by Peter Levy in the New York Times as "a monument to what translation intends and to what it is hungry to accomplish". His translations of the Greek tragedies sold well over a million copies and he worked with his colleague, Wendy Doniger, to take them to the stage, also teaching on playwrights such as Shakespeare and Ibsen.
His strongest influence though was brought to bear most likely through his teaching. Students and colleagues remarked on the depth of his knowledge of and emotional relationship to, ancient Greek writers. According to Bellow: "He was on a first-name basis with Sophocles and Aristophanes, that was how he made you feel."
In addition to Herodotus, his other translations include Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes, Sophocles's Oedipus the King, Electra and Philoctetes and Euripdes's Hippolytus, all published in The Complete Greek Tragedies which he co-edited with Richmond Lattimore.
Grene always sought to link the world of the past with that of today. In his introduction to Thomas Hobbes's 1629 translation of Thucydides, he wrote: "We are very near the world of 5th-century Greece . . . For strangely enough, they faced something like our problems of the mass society - a society without respect for traditional standards of birth or conduct, with few restraints in religion or morality, with war past or war impending the most dynamic force in political life."
David Grene's bushy white mutton-chops whiskers, piercing blue eyes and trademark work boots made him instantly recognisable. The boots were not an affectation. A year after arriving in Chicago he bought a farm at Lemont, 20 miles from the city, stocking it with pigs and sheep and growing crops. There he lived with his first wife, the philosopher Marjorie Glicksman and their two children.
In 1952, the family moved to Ballinaclash, Co Wicklow, and Grene thereafter divided his time between teaching in Chicago and farming in Ireland, spending half the year in each location. In 1961, he and Marjorie Glicksman divorced.
He bought a farm at Derrycark, Belturbet, Co Cavan, and married Ethel Weiss with whom he had twin sons. The couple later separated.
Grene enjoyed horse-riding, was a keen huntsman and once took part in a show-jumping competition at the Dublin Horse Show. He took an occasional break from the classics to read the novels of Dick Francis.
He is survived by his first wife Marjorie Glicksman, his second wife Ethel Weiss, his companion Stephanie Nelson, daughter Ruth and sons Nicholas, Andrew and Gregory.
David Grene: born 1913; died, 2002