Homer
The
Odyssey
Translated
by Emily Wilson
(Norton
2018)
[Selection from the Opening of the
Poem]
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 story for our modern times. 10
Find the beginning.
All the
other Greeks
who had survived the brutal sack of Troy
sailed safely home to their own wives—except
this man alone. Calypso, a great goddess,
had trapped him in her cave; she wanted him
to be her husband. When the year rolled round
in which the gods decreed he should go home
to Ithaca, his troubles still went on.
The man was friendless. All the gods took pity,
except Poseidon’s anger never ended 20
until Odysseys was back at home.
But now the distant Ethiopians,
who live between the sunset and the dawn,
were worshipping the Sea God with a feast,
a hundred cattle and a hundred rams.
There sat the god, delighting in his banquet.
The other gods were gathered on Olympus,
in Father Zeus’ palace. He was thinking
of fine, well-born Aegisthus, who was killed
by Agamemnon’s famous son Orestes. 30
He told the deathless gods,
“This is absurd,
that mortals blame the gods! They way we cause
their suffering, but they themselves increase it
by folly. So Aegisthus overstepped:
he took the legal wife of Agamemnon,
then killed the husband when he came back home,
although he knew that it would doom them all.
We gods had warned Aegisthus; we sent down
perceptive Hermes, who flashed into sight
and told him not to murder Agamemnon 40
or court his wife, Orestes would grow up
and come back to his home to take revenge.
Aegisthus would not hear that good advice.
But now his death has paid all debts.”
REVIEW COMMENT
Based on what I have read of Professor Wilson’s
translation (several passages available in preview), my first response is an
excited interest in what reads (and sounds) like a genuinely new modern voice
in the translation of this famous poem. The language is lean, direct, accurate,
and colloquial—with no hint of artificially aged olde-worlde English or of
modern slang—and the rhythm and syntax keep the poem moving throughout. Wilson
has apparently managed the very difficult feat of maintaining a linear fidelity
to the Greek without (as in so many other translations) sacrificing the clarity
or the momentum of the English. Anyone seeking a classroom text for the Odyssey should definitely have a long
look at this translation. The Translator’s Note—a clear and commonsensical
discussion of certain issues in translating Homer—is also well worth reading.
For an interesting,
challenging, and detailed review, use the following link:
Whitaker
For more detailed reviews of Wilson’s translation of the Odyssey try Kirkus Review and Bryn Mawr Classical Review
[List of
Published English Translations of Homer’s Iliad
and Odyssey]