
The First Woman to Translate the ‘Odyssey’ into English - stablemap
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/02/magazine/the-first-woman-to-translate-the-odyssey-into-english.html
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slowmovintarget
My first reaction was "Harumph" being a fan of Robert Fagles' translation. I
sit corrected. I'll be buying a copy of Emily Wilson's too:

    
    
      Tell me about a complicated man. 
      Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost 
      when he had wrecked the holy town of Troy, 
      and where he went, and who he met, the pain 
      he suffered in the storms at sea, and how 
      he worked to save his life and bring his men 
      back home. He failed to keep them safe; poor fools, 
      they ate the Sun God’s cattle, and the god 
      kept them from home. Now goddess, child of Zeus, 
      tell the old story for our modern times. 
      Find the beginning.

~~~
thewayfarer
"Complicated" is an interesting translation for πολύτροπον rather than the
more literal "much-traveled." But then again, The Odyssey isn't some
children's adventure story. It's a story about the brutal, strange, post-war
Ancient Mediterranean and people lost, or without purpose, who have to
constantly adapt to the challenges of that world while still staying true to
their identity. It's all, well...complicated.

~~~
forapurpose
She addresses that word directly in the article:

 _“One of the things I struggled with,” Wilson continued, sounding more
exhilarated than frustrated as she began to unpack “polytropos,” the first
description we get of Odysseus, “is of course this whole question of whether
he is passive — the ‘much turning’ or ‘much turned’ — right? This was —”

“Treat me,” I interrupted, “as if I don’t know Greek,” as, in fact, I do not.

“The prefix poly,” Wilson said, laughing, “means ‘many’ or ‘multiple.’ Tropos
means ‘turn.’ ‘Many’ or ‘multiple’ could suggest that he’s much turned, as if
he is the one who has been put in the situation of having been to Troy, and
back, and all around, gods and goddesses and monsters turning him off the
straight course that, ideally, he’d like to be on. Or, it could be that he’s
this untrustworthy kind of guy who is always going to get out of any situation
by turning it to his advantage. It could be that he’s the turner.”_

EDIT: And later in the article:

 _“If I was really going to be radical,” Wilson told me, returning to the very
first line of the poem, “I would’ve said, polytropos means ‘straying,’ and
andra” — “man,” the poem’s first word — “means ‘husband,’ because in fact
andra does also mean ‘husband,’ and I could’ve said, ‘Tell me about a straying
husband.’ And that’s a viable translation. That’s one of the things it says.
But it would give an entirely different perspective and an entirely different
setup for the poem. The fact that it’s possible to translate the same lines a
hundred different times and all of them are defensible in entirely different
ways? That tells you something.” But, Wilson added, with the firmness of
someone making hard choices she believes in: “I want to be super responsible
about my relationship to the Greek text. I want to be saying, after multiple
different revisions: This is the best I can get toward the truth.”_

~~~
qbrass
The original may have intentionally chosen words to carry all those meanings
simultaneously.

~~~
Steuard
Well, yes: I think that's the point (or at least, the debate). How do you
translate such a multifaceted word when there is nothing with the same
collection of meanings and implications in the target language? It's a
brilliantly ideal word for its purpose in the original Greek, and impossible
to capture in (say) English without footnotes.

------
gallerdude
I had a class on _The Odyssey_ (and other epics) last year, and for some
reason it floored me.

A lot of things in this world are merely a knockoff of the original and
authentic thing. And for someone hugely into stories, _The Odyssey_ felt like
this hugely authentic and original thing. Maybe it's me being pretentious, but
it's all there: adventure & homecoming, cunning & humility, love & ignorance.
Also, the themes are just melded into the core of the story in a way I haven't
seen before. And the writing itself strikes an amazing balance between texture
and structure.

The Odyssey is on the far side of the bell curve, it's unlike anything I've
ever read. And I've only read one translation of it. Definitely going to be
checking this one out.

~~~
pjc50
Which translation did you read?

The Chapman translation (
[http://www.bartleby.com/111/chapman14.html](http://www.bartleby.com/111/chapman14.html)
) is famous enough to have inspired Keats to write about it:
[https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44481/on-first-
lookin...](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44481/on-first-looking-into-
chapmans-homer)

~~~
gallerdude
Fagles

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CalChris
I always liked Samuel Butler's idea in _The Authoress of the Odyssey_ that the
Odyssey was written by a woman. I'm looking forward to Wilson's translation.

[https://www.kenyonreview.org/2013/09/authoress-
odyssey/](https://www.kenyonreview.org/2013/09/authoress-odyssey/)

My favorite _Iliad_ is Lattimore. I've tried others (Fagles, Green, Lombardo)
and always come back to Lattimore. I remember when I first read it, my prof
said we didn't have to read the Catalog of the Ships. I actually love that
section now. It's like the opening credits.

My favorite _Odyssey_ is Fitzgerald. Fagles is good too.

Now if you want a deeply bad translation, a fraud really, Mitchell is the
worst. He leaves out chapters. Edward Luttwak ripped it apart.

[https://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n04/edward-luttwak/homer-
inc](https://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n04/edward-luttwak/homer-inc)

~~~
jrumbut
Lattimore's Illiad is incredible, it leaves some of those confusing words and
phrases in (famously, the numerous characters who speak "winged words") and it
reminds you this is the product of a civilization that isn't yours, who had
very different values yet remain very human.

~~~
dEnigma
Interesting, "geflügelte Worte"(winged words) is a quite common expression in
German (meaning, and I have to repeat myself here, "a commonly used expression
of literary or historical origin"), but I never realized it originally came
from the Illiad.

[https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geflügeltes_Wort](https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geflügeltes_Wort)

------
macintux
I figure there'll be a few for whom this is a pleasant surprise, so: if humor,
wonderful old-timey music, and a healthy dash of the Odyssey sounds like an
interesting combination, "O Brother Where Art Thou" is a great film.

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bambax
> _I struggled with this because there are those classicists. I partly just
> want to shake them and make them see that all translations are
> interpretations._

What is a translation, that's the heart of the matter. Many people argue that
translation is simply impossible, because the meaning of a text depends on its
connexions to a whole cultural world, and if you take that text out of its
cultural background and put it in another one, then it simply doesn't work
anymore. It's like a transplant, but more complicated; if you do a heart
transplant, at least all hearts are similar and connect to arteries in the
same way; a translation is like trying to transplant an organ across species.

For instance, it seems most readers of classic Russian literature are of this
opinion -- no other language renders Russian novels appropriately. (I don't
read Russian so I wouldn't know.)

And yet, transplants do work. To pursue the transplant metaphor, they work
when the organ performs the same function in the new organism as it did in the
original one. So I don't think the translator's work is simply to "interpret"
the source, if that word means "to understand deeply and then reproduce with
one's own personality and artistic biais".

The task of the translator is to produce a text for a new audience, that
produces an effect to that audience, as close as possible as the original text
on the original audience.

There's this retired English teacher who translated the first book of the
Harry Potter series in ancient Greek; it's different of course, since there
are no native ancient Greek speakers left, and so his "audience" is unclear;
but the description of the challenges he faced makes for a great and fun read:

[http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/harry_potter.htm](http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/harry_potter.htm)

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joeyo
I'm a fan of Lombardo's:

    
    
      Speak, Memory –
                                   Of the cunning hero
      
      The wanderer, blown off course time and again
      After he plundered Troy's sacred heights.
                                                           
      Speak
      Of all the cities he saw, the minds he grasped,
      The suffering deep in his heart at sea
      As he struggled to survive and bring his men home
      But could not save them, hard as he tried –
      The fools – destroyed by their own recklessness
      When they ate the oxen of Hyperion the Sun,
      And that god snuffed out their day of return.
                                  Of these things,
       Speak, Immortal One,
      And tell the tale once more in our time.
    

His Iliad is excellent too.

~~~
twoodfin
Seconded on Lombardo. I picked it up 17 years ago after seeing him on CSPAN
discussing his translation with a panel including Christopher Hitchens.
Thankfully still available:

[https://www.c-span.org/video/?160063-1/discussion-homers-
ody...](https://www.c-span.org/video/?160063-1/discussion-homers-odyssey)

------
SeanBoocock
This was so refreshing to read as someone who loves the classics and studied
Latin in high school. I very much agree with Emily Wilson that translation is
an active interpretation of the text, not some mechanical and uncreative
process. Look forward to reading her new version; the excerpts in the article
are striking.

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Ice_cream_suit
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_translations_of_Homer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_translations_of_Homer)

A list of over 73 translations of the Odyssey into English.

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DogestFogey
Alternative .onion link for those using the Tor Browser Bundle

[https://www.nytimes3xbfgragh.onion/2017/11/02/magazine/the-f...](https://www.nytimes3xbfgragh.onion/2017/11/02/magazine/the-
first-woman-to-translate-the-odyssey-into-english.html)

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rlongstaff
Surprised the article made no mention of the EV Rieu translation published by
Penguin Books. I would have thought that was one of the, if not 'the', most
well known one.

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emodendroket
I recently read Fagles' translations of the big three (Iliad, Odyssey, and
Aeneid), and the Odyssey is by far the most fun of all of them. They're all
masterpieces but it's the one I most enjoyed reading.

~~~
CalChris
Well, the first (Odysseyian) half of the _Aeneid_ is a LOT of fun. In fact,
the second (Iliadic) half after Dido dies is often skipped. To me, it's kind
of like _Romeo and Juliet_ ; after Mercutio dies it's just a bunch of teen age
yammering. Well, Aeneas just isn't that interesting (he's stoic!) and Dido is
(or was). And then Turnus is no Hector.

Fact is Vergil died without completing it. He wasn't happy with it and wanted
it burned. Augustus, who had heard chapters read and who was its sponsor,
countermanded that order. He had it edited but it wasn't Vergil's hand. It's
OK to be a little disappointed with the result.

BTW, Stanford iTunesU has a quite good 5 lecture podcast on the _Aeneid_ by
Susanna Braund. She knows everything.

~~~
emodendroket
I liked the Aeneid a lot and wouldn't write off the second half. But they
can't all be my favorite.

------
jccalhoun
This is a really interesting story and quite timely with some videogame fans
complaining about choices made in translating Japanese videogames to English.

------
bandrami
I find it difficult to believe that is true

~~~
gaius
Likewise. 2000 years ago in Roman Britain I am certain many people did it and
some of them would have been women.

~~~
emodendroket
Besides the fact that nobody spoke English at the time, you think a lot of
women literate in both Greek and Latin were running around Roman Britain?

~~~
gaius
Actually, yes. Learn some history.

~~~
emodendroket
I find it hard to find any support for your claim that ancient Roman women
would have generally been literate in Greek. Why don't you enlighten me if
it's so obvious? Am I being lectured to "learn some history" by a guy claiming
a translation into English might have happened before any Angles arrived in
Britain?

