I could be misremembering this but I think Lattimore and Lombardo were once good friends until they had a falling out. I think Lattimore was so bothered by Lombardo's translation of either the Iliad or Odyssey, that he set out to do his own translation of both.
At any rate Lattimore's translation of Odyssey is beautiful.
“How much you enjoy the prose” doesn’t really seem like the metric by which we should rank these? I’d prefer to read whatever’s most faithful to the original, which isn’t measured here.
Translation = words + intent. Literal translation frequently loses the intent encoded into the chosen language, especially for creative writing. If I translate "youre a real piece of work" literally into another language, Ive likely lost the entire point of the phrase. Should we prefer that translation instead of one that either spells out the underhandedness of the comment in the other language? Or which replaces it with its own approximately similar idiom?
Thiss is a very good example. Consider the difference between "he's hard working" and "he's hard work". My wife ran into this when some German co-workers were describing a colleague.
There are at least two possible meanings of “faithful,” which are “translates the literal meaning most accurately” and “evokes the same feeling most poetically.” Given that it’s Homer and not Aristotle, the vibes-based approach is probably the right criterion. It’s a bit hard to express but, having read a lot of Homer in Greek, I can say that some of these translations absolutely fail to translate Homer even if there’s nothing inaccurate per se.
They mean "a faithful translation" where "original" means whatever Greek version was chosen to be the source not "original" as in the first text from Homer.
Sorry this could be offensive didn't mean to be.. Any Greek speakers who studied Homer in school here can share what are your favourite English translations?
Prefer Lattimore or Fitzgerald as being closer to original?
Derek Thompson's Plain English podcast just had Emily Wilson on talking about comparisons between the translations, and quite a bit of the iconic lines of the Odyssey from the midcentury translations are kind of just made up. Like, "skilled in all ways of contending" from "man of many turns"; "the wanderer, harried for years on end" --- find that in the Greek?
"wine dark sea" is the best example of this. It's a poetic/literary leap by Chapman and Pope that then became a functional convention in most subsequent translations.
The alternative translations aren't any better though, at least in English.
The original is οινοπα ποντον which indeed is very close to wine-dark sea. Literally "wine-faced" where -faced is a metaphor for "having the appearance of".
Literally "wine-faced" or "wine-eyed", yes. The problem with the literal wine-faced/wine-eyed is it doesn't convey luminosity/depth to readers, so it kind of misses the point. The missing context is that ancient wine was often unfiltered and cloudy, and diluted before being served.
I’m not quite who you asked; I’m a native English speaker but I’ve read much more Homer in Greek than in English. (Say, I’ve read a little more than half the Odyssey in Greek.) Honestly none of the English translations really capture the magic, at least for me. Skimming through a bit, I’d say Fagles is the closest.
But it’s like saying: “Any Texans who ate BBQ growing up, can you share your favorite fast food places? Prefer McDonald’s or BK as being closer to the original?”
(Emily Wilson’s version is great but doesn’t feel like Homer at all, when I read it.)
Yours is the answer I didn't know I needed. Thank you.
The burger analogy is just right! It might sound dumb but as somebody who can't afford a Texan childood from the shop... BK, which happens to be a childhood staple of mine.. makes me feel like I could make a sweet sauce that actual Texans could like. Not MacDonalds.
To bring the analogy back: It does seem like Nolan's adaptation would be not be popular with you or your schoolmates. But a screenplay based off Fagles' might have a chance
I'm not really familiar with ancient or modern Greek, but according to https://speakgreektome.com/blog/ancient-vs-modern-greek/#hom..., people who can only read modern Greek need a translation too if they want to read Homer's works ("While reading, many words here and there will be familiar to a Greek or at least will make sense via etymological references, it’s impossible, though, for average folk to understand a text 100% without a translation and formal study, because many words that are key to the meaning will be incomprehensible.").
Yeap, that's true. I'm a native Greek and although we were taught ancient Greek in high school I barely remember any of it. Reading the original text from Homer I can probably understand or infer 20% of it. Only students who later followed a philologist path can still read or speak ancient Greek fluently.
Fagles was what I read when I first read the Iliad/Odysseus years ago, and I was happy to see him pop up as my revealed preference via the test. I'm also a big fan of Lombardo.
At this point I don't think I'll see the movie because I don't want it to ruin the good memories/scenes I have in my mind from the book I read a few years ago. Maybe someday but I think I'll reread the book before then.
Also, there was too much data n the linked article. :)
The movie is not a retelling of Homer's Odyssey. It's a retelling of Odyssey's return home after the Trojan war. The movie will be much better if you go into it thinking that.
>Emily Wilson argues that readers may mistake archaic language for authority or authenticity [..] Among translations published since 1960, it nearly disappears. Readers were not simply choosing the oldest-sounding English.
I don't think this necessarily follows, a translation written in 1960 can have a more contemporary English than one written in 1980.
That being said, I don't really understand why Wilson argues against an archaizing register---the poems themselves were archaizing. Homer or whatever bards actually composed it were writing about something that allegedly happened hundreds of years earlier and using language/style that was itself archaic at the time.
I think the archaic language is both an appeal and a barrier. The thing that got me into classics was a radio show of a standup doing comedy about classics[1] (I like roman/greek history, but more about buildings and things rather than culture.)
I should add that had it been a long dry slog with serious people talking seriously about greek grammar, then I wouldn't have bothered. However because its a comedy, ostensibly, it stuck for me.
Oh I totally agree there is a place for more accessible language, but my point is that Wilson argues that archaic language is no more faithful. Whether a translation should be faithful or not is another question.
>“Mild stylistic archaism is often accepted without question in translations of ancient texts and can be presented as if it were a mark of authenticity. But of course, the English of the nineteenth or early twentieth century is no closer to Homeric Greek than the language of today. The use of a noncolloquial or archaizing linguistic register can blind readers to the real, inevitable, and vast gap between the Greek original and any modern translation.”
However, I think this is mistaken if Homer himself was writing in an archaic style at the time (which seems to be the case looking at the literature). If he's writing in an archaic style, then a faithful English translation ought to try and capture that aspect of the poetry.
It's pretty wild that 99% of participants came from Instagram, Facebook, or Tiktok. It never escaped that bubble? The other platforms, Reddit, YouTube, word of mouth only amounted to 1%?
The Italian Donald Duck one from the 90s is the best.
I could be misremembering this but I think Lattimore and Lombardo were once good friends until they had a falling out. I think Lattimore was so bothered by Lombardo's translation of either the Iliad or Odyssey, that he set out to do his own translation of both.
At any rate Lattimore's translation of Odyssey is beautiful.
I got Robert Fitzgerald, wish it would tell me which passages were by which authors after I finished though
ah, it does, to an extent at least - about 2/3rds down the front page, ctrl+f for "opening"
[delayed]
“How much you enjoy the prose” doesn’t really seem like the metric by which we should rank these? I’d prefer to read whatever’s most faithful to the original, which isn’t measured here.
Translation = words + intent. Literal translation frequently loses the intent encoded into the chosen language, especially for creative writing. If I translate "youre a real piece of work" literally into another language, Ive likely lost the entire point of the phrase. Should we prefer that translation instead of one that either spells out the underhandedness of the comment in the other language? Or which replaces it with its own approximately similar idiom?
Thiss is a very good example. Consider the difference between "he's hard working" and "he's hard work". My wife ran into this when some German co-workers were describing a colleague.
There are at least two possible meanings of “faithful,” which are “translates the literal meaning most accurately” and “evokes the same feeling most poetically.” Given that it’s Homer and not Aristotle, the vibes-based approach is probably the right criterion. It’s a bit hard to express but, having read a lot of Homer in Greek, I can say that some of these translations absolutely fail to translate Homer even if there’s nothing inaccurate per se.
Faithful in meter and form? Faithful in semantic meaning? The two usually work against each other.
"Whatever’s most faithful to the original" would be done with research, not random folks blind ranking.
I think it's to their credit they frame it in terms of preference and enjoyment because that is more accurate to what they are doing.
Is there such thing as an original for a 3000 year old tale? The ancient Greek versions will be heavily edited and modified
They mean "a faithful translation" where "original" means whatever Greek version was chosen to be the source not "original" as in the first text from Homer.
Homer's original won a blind writing test.
Badoom-tish
Sorry this could be offensive didn't mean to be.. Any Greek speakers who studied Homer in school here can share what are your favourite English translations?
Prefer Lattimore or Fitzgerald as being closer to original?
Derek Thompson's Plain English podcast just had Emily Wilson on talking about comparisons between the translations, and quite a bit of the iconic lines of the Odyssey from the midcentury translations are kind of just made up. Like, "skilled in all ways of contending" from "man of many turns"; "the wanderer, harried for years on end" --- find that in the Greek?
"wine dark sea" is the best example of this. It's a poetic/literary leap by Chapman and Pope that then became a functional convention in most subsequent translations.
The alternative translations aren't any better though, at least in English.
The original is οινοπα ποντον which indeed is very close to wine-dark sea. Literally "wine-faced" where -faced is a metaphor for "having the appearance of".
Literally "wine-faced" or "wine-eyed", yes. The problem with the literal wine-faced/wine-eyed is it doesn't convey luminosity/depth to readers, so it kind of misses the point. The missing context is that ancient wine was often unfiltered and cloudy, and diluted before being served.
The Abundance guy has a literature podcast? The grift never ends...
Yes, how would the average classicist or modern Greek translate polymetis? Polytropos? Into current day American vernacular
I’m not quite who you asked; I’m a native English speaker but I’ve read much more Homer in Greek than in English. (Say, I’ve read a little more than half the Odyssey in Greek.) Honestly none of the English translations really capture the magic, at least for me. Skimming through a bit, I’d say Fagles is the closest.
But it’s like saying: “Any Texans who ate BBQ growing up, can you share your favorite fast food places? Prefer McDonald’s or BK as being closer to the original?”
(Emily Wilson’s version is great but doesn’t feel like Homer at all, when I read it.)
Yours is the answer I didn't know I needed. Thank you.
The burger analogy is just right! It might sound dumb but as somebody who can't afford a Texan childood from the shop... BK, which happens to be a childhood staple of mine.. makes me feel like I could make a sweet sauce that actual Texans could like. Not MacDonalds.
To bring the analogy back: It does seem like Nolan's adaptation would be not be popular with you or your schoolmates. But a screenplay based off Fagles' might have a chance
Childhood card-holding Texan here: can confirm the king's flavor is closer to that of country mesquite smoked BBQ than McDonald's.
I mean, it is comparing burgers and briskets, but if we're going for which translation is the most "faithful" ...
I'm not really familiar with ancient or modern Greek, but according to https://speakgreektome.com/blog/ancient-vs-modern-greek/#hom..., people who can only read modern Greek need a translation too if they want to read Homer's works ("While reading, many words here and there will be familiar to a Greek or at least will make sense via etymological references, it’s impossible, though, for average folk to understand a text 100% without a translation and formal study, because many words that are key to the meaning will be incomprehensible.").
As someone who's only studied Ancient Greek I can say the reverse is true as well, not much use of my 5 years in HS when I'm in Greece.
[delayed]
Yeap, that's true. I'm a native Greek and although we were taught ancient Greek in high school I barely remember any of it. Reading the original text from Homer I can probably understand or infer 20% of it. Only students who later followed a philologist path can still read or speak ancient Greek fluently.
Fagles was what I read when I first read the Iliad/Odysseus years ago, and I was happy to see him pop up as my revealed preference via the test. I'm also a big fan of Lombardo.
Useful and interesting but it is not the primary purpose of a translation to read the most pleasantly.
Different translations have different goals. I wouldn't read a translation that had boring prose.
At this point I don't think I'll see the movie because I don't want it to ruin the good memories/scenes I have in my mind from the book I read a few years ago. Maybe someday but I think I'll reread the book before then.
Also, there was too much data n the linked article. :)
The movie is not a retelling of Homer's Odyssey. It's a retelling of Odyssey's return home after the Trojan war. The movie will be much better if you go into it thinking that.
>It's a retelling of Odyssey's return home after the Trojan war
I think Odyssey is a pretty cool guy. Eh kills siutors and doesnt afraid of anything.
I'm curious, why do you think the movie will ruin your good memories?
Curiosity killed the cat
It was fun going through the comparisons. My results settled on Lattimore.
I read the article and I still dont understand what a blind reading test is.
You did not know who wrote each text sample you assessed, did you?
Standard eBooks has a translation by William Cullen Bryant. I was hoping that would be in the rankings to see how it compared.
Were those all poetry versions? Were any prose?
Fagles. Maybe Wilson if you like plainer writing.
Fagles narrated by Ian McKellen is peak.
>Do readers prefer archaic language?
>Emily Wilson argues that readers may mistake archaic language for authority or authenticity [..] Among translations published since 1960, it nearly disappears. Readers were not simply choosing the oldest-sounding English.
I don't think this necessarily follows, a translation written in 1960 can have a more contemporary English than one written in 1980.
That being said, I don't really understand why Wilson argues against an archaizing register---the poems themselves were archaizing. Homer or whatever bards actually composed it were writing about something that allegedly happened hundreds of years earlier and using language/style that was itself archaic at the time.
ITs a hard call.
I think the archaic language is both an appeal and a barrier. The thing that got me into classics was a radio show of a standup doing comedy about classics[1] (I like roman/greek history, but more about buildings and things rather than culture.)
I like the poetic archaic english in excerpts.
BUT
a whole book if it, thats hard.
[1]https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001brj5
I should add that had it been a long dry slog with serious people talking seriously about greek grammar, then I wouldn't have bothered. However because its a comedy, ostensibly, it stuck for me.
Oh I totally agree there is a place for more accessible language, but my point is that Wilson argues that archaic language is no more faithful. Whether a translation should be faithful or not is another question.
>“Mild stylistic archaism is often accepted without question in translations of ancient texts and can be presented as if it were a mark of authenticity. But of course, the English of the nineteenth or early twentieth century is no closer to Homeric Greek than the language of today. The use of a noncolloquial or archaizing linguistic register can blind readers to the real, inevitable, and vast gap between the Greek original and any modern translation.”
However, I think this is mistaken if Homer himself was writing in an archaic style at the time (which seems to be the case looking at the literature). If he's writing in an archaic style, then a faithful English translation ought to try and capture that aspect of the poetry.
It's pretty wild that 99% of participants came from Instagram, Facebook, or Tiktok. It never escaped that bubble? The other platforms, Reddit, YouTube, word of mouth only amounted to 1%?