On First Looking Into Wilson's Homer

[mdlbear]

NOTE: This has been sitting, unfinished, in my pile of drafts for over two years. It got posted unintentionally during a test. So it's unlikely to be finished now. You can get some idea of where I was going from the notes.

I am no John Keats, and this isn't anything like a sonnet. But then, Emily Wilson's new translation of the Odyssey isn't anything like Chapman's, either. I think I know a little of how Keats felt, though, like some watcher of the skies / When a new planet swims into his ken. (Uranus had just recently been discovered when Keats wrote that.)

This book reads like a thriller. A page-turner. Plan on losing some sleep.

The original Odyssey consists of 12,110 lines of dactylic hexameter -- that's the natural rhythm of ancient Greek. The natural rhythm of English is iambic, and in particular iambic pentameter. That's what Wilson uses in her translation, keeping the same line count. And English is actually less compact than Greek in most cases. The pace is breathtaking.

OK, time for some examples. Here's how Chapman's translation -- the one that Keats was so impressed by -- starts out:

The man, O Muse, inform, that many a way Wound with his wisdom to his wished stay; That wandered wondrous far, when he the town Of sacred Troy had sack'd and shivered down; The cities of a world of nations, With all their manners, minds, and fashions, He saw and knew; at sea felt many woes, Much care sustained, to save from overthrows Himself and friends in their retreat for home; But so their fates he could not overcome, Though much he thirsted it. O men unwise, They perish'd by their own impieties, That in their hunger's rapine would not shun The oxen of the lofty-going Sun, Who therefore from their eyes the day bereft Of safe return. These acts, in some part left, Tell us, as others, deified Seed of Jove.

And here's Lattimore's version, which was considered the best modern translation when I read it in college half a century ago:

Tell me, Muse, of the man of may ways, who was driven far journeys, after he had sacked Troy's sacred citadel. Many were they whose cities he saw, whose minds he learned of, many the pais he suffered in his spirit on the wide sea, struggling for his own life and the homecoming of his companions. Even so he could not save his companions, hard though he strove to; they were destroyed by their own wild recklessness, fools, who devoured the oxen of Helios, the Sun God, and he took away the day of their homecoming. From some point here, goddess, daughter of Zeus, speak, and begin our story.

You'll notice he's using dactylic hexameter; it's only ten lines, the same as the original. Chapman uses seventeen lines of heroic couplets -- rhymed iambic pentameter. Here's what Wilson does with it (going halfway through the eleventh line in the process):

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.

Right from the start, you know you're in for a ride.

"Complicated", there, is Wilson's rendering of “polytropos” -- “poly-” (= "many"), “tropos” (= "turn"). You can see, in the quotes above, a few of the other choices. Palmer, in 1891, used "adventurous", and Alexander Pope in 1725 used The man for wisdom's various arts renown'd. It's also worth noting that Wilson says of Odysseus's men He failed to keep them safe. Odysseus isn't always what we think of as a hero -- among other things he lies repeatedly, takes unnecessary risks, cheats on his wife with Calypso and Circe (while expecting Penelope to remain faithful, of course), and can't resist sacking a few more cities on his way home. Scoundrel doesn't begin to cover it.

In an interview in The New York Times, Wilson says I wanted there to be a sense [that] maybe there is something wrong with this guy. You want to have a sense of anxiety about this character, and that there are going to be layers we see unfolded.

One also gets the sense that Odysseus might not be a reliable narrator. One wonders just how many of his adventures are real, given that most of them -- the Cyclops, Circe, Scylla and Charybdis, the Sirens, the bag of winds, the Underworld -- are recounted by Odysseus himself, in books 9-13. Margaret Atwood has a little fun with some of the more mundane alternatives in The Penelopiad, her retelling of the story from Penelope's point of view (which I highly recommend as a follower).

TL;DR - Notes, links, and quotes:

  @ The Odyssey: Homer, Emily Wilson (solarbird)
  @ The Odyssey - Homer, Robert Fagles (haven't looked at this one yet)
  @ The Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson review – a new cultural landmark: Guardian
  @ How Emily Wilson Translated ‘The Odyssey’ – Chicago Review of Books
  @ The first English translation of ‘The Odyssey’ by a woman was worth the wait
  @ Emily Wilson's 'Odyssey' Scrapes The Barnacles Off Homer's Hull : NPR
  @ The First Woman to Translate the ‘Odyssey’ Into English - The New York Times
  @ ‘The Odyssey’ and the Other - The Atlantic
  @ Women Who Weave – Reading Emily Wilson’s Translation of the Odyssey With Margaret
    Atwood’s The Penelopiad - EIDOLON
  @ The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus): Margaret Atwood

  @ Heroic couplet - Wikipedia rhymed iambic pentameter
  @ Books by Homer - Project Gutenberg probably has most available translations
  
  @ On First Looking into Chapman's Homer by John Keats | Poetry Foundation
    On First Looking into Chapman's Homer - Wikipedia
    " Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, 
      And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; 
      Round many western islands have I been 
      Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. 
      Oft of one wide expanse had I been told 
      That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne; 
      Yet did I never breathe its pure serene 
      Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: 
      Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 
      When a new planet swims into his ken; 
      Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes 
      He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men 
      Look'd at each other with a wild surmise— 
      Silent, upon a peak in Darien. "
  @ The Odyssey by Homer (translated by Alexander Pope) - Free Ebook (1725)
    " The man for wisdom's various arts renown'd,
      Long exercised in woes, O Muse! resound;
      Who, when his arms had wrought the destined fall
      Of sacred Troy, and razed her heaven-built wall,
      Wandering from clime to clime, observant stray'd,
      Their manners noted, and their states survey'd,
      On stormy seas unnumber'd toils he bore,
      Safe with his friends to gain his natal shore:
      Vain toils! their impious folly dared to prey
      On herds devoted to the god of day;
      The god vindictive doom'd them never more
      (Ah, men unbless'd!) to touch that natal shore.
      Oh, snatch some portion of these acts from fate,
      Celestial Muse! and to our world relate. "
    Book 22:
    " Then fierce the hero o'er the threshold strode;
      Stripp'd of his rags, he blazed out like a god.
      Full in their face the lifted bow he bore,
      And quiver'd deaths, a formidable store;
      Before his feet the rattling shower he threw,
      And thus, terrific, to the suitor-crew:
        "One venturous game this hand hath won to-day,
      Another, princes! yet remains to play;
      Another mark our arrow must attain.
      Phoebus, assist! nor be the labour vain."
      Swift as the word the parting arrow sings,
      And bears thy fate, Antinous, on its wings: "
    ...
    " But thou sincere! O Euryclea, say,
      What maids dishonour us, and what obey?"
        Then she: "In these thy kingly walls remain
      (My son) full fifty of the handmaid train,
      Taught by my care to cull the fleece or weave,
      And servitude with pleasing tasks deceive;
      Of these, twice six pursue their wicked way,
      Nor me, nor chaste Penelope obey;	... "

  @ First Book. Chapman, George, trans. 1857. The Odysseys of Homer
    Full text of "The Odysseys of Homer: Translated According to the Greek" (1616)
    " The man, O Muse, inform, that many a way
      Wound with his wisdom to his wished stay;
      That wandered wondrous far, when he the town
      Of sacred Troy had sack'd and shivered down;
      The cities of a world of nations,                                5
      With all their manners, minds, and fashions,
      He saw and knew; at sea felt many woes,
      Much care sustained, to save from overthrows
      Himself and friends in their retreat for home;
      But so their fates he could not overcome,                       10
      Though much he thirsted it. O men unwise,
      They perish'd by their own impieties,
      That in their hunger's rapine would not shun
      The oxen of the lofty-going Sun,
      Who therefore from their eyes the day bereft                    15
      Of safe return. These acts, in some part left,
      Tell us, as others, deified Seed of Jove."
    And here's the start of Book 22, modulo some bad scanning:
    " The upper rags that wise Ulysses wore 
      ??? Cast off, he rusheth to the great hall door 
      and Up ???????? quiver full of shafts, which down 
      He pour'd before his feet, and thus made known 
      His true state to the Wooers . * This strife thus 
      Hath harmless been decided ; now for us 
      There rests another mark, more hard to hit, 
      And such as never man before hath smit ; 
      Whose full point likewise my hands shall assay. 
      And try if Phoebus will give me his day.'  
	He said, and off his bitter arrow thrust 
      Right at Antinous "

  @ The Odyssey of Homer : Homer : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive
    Palmer's translation; 1891.  Poor scan, not proof-read: I've cleaned it up a bit.
    N.b.: there's a clean version on Gutenberg
    " Speak to me, Muse, of the adventurous man who 
      wandered long after he sacked the sacred citadel of 
      Troy. Many the men whose towns he saw, whose 
      ways he proved ; and many a pang he bore In his own 
      breast at sea while struggling for his life and his men's 
      safe return. Yet even so, by all his zeal, he did not 
      save his men; for through their own perversity they 
      perished— -fools! who devoured the kine of the ex- 
      alted Sun. Wlierefore he took away the day of their 
      return. Of this, Ο goddess, daughter of Zeus, begin- 
      ning where thou wilt, speak to us also. "
    And here's the start of Book 22:
    " Then wise Odysseus threw off his rags and sprang 
      to the broad threshold, bow in hand and quiver full 
      of arrows. Out he poured the swift shafts at bis feet, 
      and thus addressed the suitors : 
      "So the dread ordeal ends! Now to another mark 
      I turn, to hit what no man ever hit before, will but 
      Apollo grant my prayer." 
      He spoke, and aimed a pointed arrow at Antinoiis. "
    and after the slaughter, he asks his old nurse,
                                        But name me now 
      the women of the hall, and tell me who dishonor me 
      and who are guiltless." 
      Then said to him his dear nurse Eurycleia : "Then 
      I will tell you, child, the very truth. Yon have fifty 
      women-servants at the hall whom we have taught their 
      tasks, to card the wool and bear the servant's lot. 
      Out of these women, twelve in all have gone the way 
      of shame, paying no heed to me nor even to Pene- 
      lope.

  : Lattimore's translation, which I enjoyed about 50 years ago in college, starts out:
    " Tell me, Muse, of the man of may ways, who was driven
      far journeys, after he had sacked Troy's sacred citadel.
      Many were they whose cities he saw, whose minds he learned of,
      many the pains he suffered in his spirit on the wide sea,
      struggling for his own life and the homecoming of his companions.
      Even so he could not save his companions, hard thouh
      he strove to; they were destroyed by their own wild recklessness,
      fools, who devoured the oxen of Helios, the Sun God,
      and he took away the day of their homecoming.  From some point
      here, goddess, daughter of Zeus, speak, and begin our story. "
    (transcribed by hand from Amazon's preview.)  Here's the start of Book 22:
    " Now resourceful Odysseus stripped his rags from him, and sprang
      up atop the great threshold, holding his bow and the quiver
      filled with arrows, and scattered out the swift shafts before him
      on the ground next to his feet, and spoke his word to the suitors:
      'Here is a task that has been achieved, without any deception.
      Now I shall shoot at aother mark, one that no man yet
      has struck, if I can hit it and Apollo grants me the glory.'
        He spoke, and steered a bitter arrow at Antinous.
      [...]
          'Now assemble here the women who are in the palace,
      both those who have done me no honor, and those who are innocent.
        Then the beloved nurse Eurykleia said to him in answer:
      You have fifty serving women here in your palace,
      and these I have taught to work at their own tasks, the carding
      of wool, and how to endure their own slavery.  Of these
      fifty, twelve in all have taken to immorality.

  : Now let's look at Wilson's translation:
    " 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. "
    ... and here's the start of Book 22:
    " Odysseus ripped off his rags.  Now naked,
      he leapt upon the threshold with his bow
      and quiverfull of arrows, which he tipped
      out in a rush before his feet, and spoke,
      "Playtime is over.  I will shoot again,
      towards another mark no man has hit.
      Apollo, may I manage it!"
                                 He aimed
      his deadly arrow at Antinous.  "
    ... and after the battle:
      But tell me now about the household women.
      Which ones dishonor me?  And which are pure?
        The slave who loved her master answered, "Child,
      I will tell you exactly how things stand.
      In this house we have fifty female slaves
      whom we have trained to work, to card the wool,
      and taught to tolerate their life as slaves.
      Twelve stepped away from honor...

Comments

[madfilkentist]

Wilson's is by far the most readable of the three translations, based on the passages you quoted.

To be fair to Odysseus, Calypso used magic on him and Hermes told him to take Circe to bed (or so he claims).

[mdlbear]

I'd meant to write more; see the note I added at the top. But anyway...

[amaebi]

Thank you so much. I will uy this translation.