On Emily Wilson’s Translation of The Odyssey
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken
John Keats, “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”
In the introduction to her widely acclaimed translation of The Odyssey, Emily Wilson makes the commonsensical point that dressing up the epic in costumes of nineteenth century diction to feign an archaic look doesn’t make much sense given that the Victorian era is only a couple of hundred years closer to a poem that’s 3,000 years old. Instead, she said her “goal was to evoke an experience like the original, using the language of the people who will read it.”[1]
For example, after Athena’s been whining to Big Daddy Zeus about how he’s been neglecting poor Odysseus, we get this:
“Daughter,” the Cloud God said, “you must be joking.”
I’m only four books in, but I swear I’m identifying with the lines from John Keats’ sonnet quoted in the epigraph above.
Wilson brings that ancient world alive in a way I’d call thrilling.
Athena called a favorable wind,
Pure Zephyr whistling on wine-dark sea.
Telemachus commanded his companions
To seize the rigging, so they did, and raised
The pine-wood mast inside the rounded block,
And bound it down with forestays round about,
And raised the bright white sails with leather ropes.
Wind blew the middle sail; the purple wave
Was splashing loudly round the moving keel.
The gentle goddess rode the waves and smoothed the way.
The quick black ship held steady, so they fastened
The tackle down, and filled their cups with wine.
They poured libations to the deathless gods,
Especially to the bright-eyed child of Zeus.
All through the night till dawn the ship sailed on.
This is splendid blank verse, rhythmically propulsive, imagistically rich, a fucking pleasure to read aloud.
In my the-opposite-of-humble opinion, she has supremely succeeded in her attempt “to keep to a register that is recognizably speakable and readable, while skirting between the Charybdis of artifice and the Scylla of slang.”
So, fun ahoy! I’ve found a cure
for my postpartum just gave birth to a novel blues.
[1] Wilson’s quote is from Judith Thurman’s New Yorker article 11 September 2023
Emily Wilson
