His translation of Apollonius’s Jason and the Argonauts is a departure for Penguin Classics because it is written not in prose but in iambic pentameter, the lofty meter of English poets from Shakespeare and Milton to the present day. Many poets can write elegant iambic pentameter verse, but Poochigian has an outstanding gift for writing iambic pentameter verse of soaring grandeur that manages to capture the epic tone of the Ancient Greek hexameter while remaining fresh and accessible to today’s reader. It takes no special knowledge of poetry or Ancient Greek literature to enjoy the beauty and clarity of Poochigian’s verse, as in these opening lines of the poem: