The translation must have been a labor both of love and of Hercules. There are 1,403 endnotes for 564 ­pages of text—that is to say, 2.4836252 endnotes per page

The translation must have been a labor both of love and of Hercules. There are 1,403 endnotes for 564 ­pages of text—that is to say, 2.4836252 endnotes per page—to inform us of every literary allusion, and every geographical location mentioned, down to the number of a street: an admirable thoroughness that I should be tempted to call Teutonic if stereotyping were not so frowned upon these days.