I'm with you re. Achilles but thought the depiction of him by Brad Pit in the 2004 film Troy was spot on. On many levels the film didn't succeed but this performance echoed exactly my sense of this hero: spoilt, sullen, selfish, moody, resentful, demanding, grossly in love with himself and his muscles. In fact it struck me how closely Achilles resembles a stereotype of an over-indulged male Hollywood movie star.
We’re new contemporaries but I’ve been reading and rereading these almost long for my reading to have qualified for Medicare on their own. It took me a long time to warm to Achilles—I like Hector better. But I came around to a different view that reversed my perception. One is able to set aside his wrath for another, and the other sacrifices wife and child to save the skin of a worthless brother.
Thank you this is fascinating insight and the notebook too. I will read again and carefully.
I loved your translation of The Odyssey which I read as a journey each day. I’m plucking up the courage to take on The Iliad.
I’m wondering if you’ve come across Babel by NK Huang?
It’s the most fascinating novel with the skill of translation at its heart and so much to ponder about use of words and hat happens in the process of translation.
Grace, I think you mean Babel by RF (or Rebecca) Kuang? Just asking in case anyone wanted the right details to search for it. I really liked RF Kuang's Yellowface, novel about publishing and plagiarism, so I shall read Babel.
I don't speak Greek, and so do not understand your problems, challenges, puzzles directly. But I love your discussion of them! Some of my enthusiasm stems from being a writer. But I'm also a theorist and critic of various things, so meta talk, this is what we have to say about the matter at hand, is deeply pleasing. Anyway, great stuff. And I look forward to reading your translation.
While footnotes are not a particularly elegant solution, for what it's worth, my ideal translation-companion as a reader is 100% a little notebook filled with the considered and rejected alternate versions of every line. I would buy that book. That would be my new favorite book.
I can definitely imagine doing that with a shorter text, like if I ever do Sappho, and/or other fragmentary poets – or one could definitely do it for a few select passages – that's part of what these little essays are supposed to provide. For a whole 24 book epic, it doesn't seem realistic to me, though of course it would be fun: it would take decades, and require a published book of thousands of pages. The notebooks collectively are not little!
Steven Pinker in The Language Instinct discusses a similar phenomenon for machines that are learning language when he says the things that are easy for humans (eg, knowing whether "bass" refers to a musical instrument, a tone or a fish) are difficult for machines, and what's hard for us (eg, remembering the components of a long, recursive sentence with multiple clauses) is easy for machines. "What's hard is easy, and what's easy is hard," he writes (or something similar).
This is so, so cool. I've been doing some translation from French recently for my own Substack, and I 100% agree that it is the phrases that are so tossed-off and natural sounding in one language that are often most difficult to replicate in another. Has anyone else here learned to read Ancient Greek on their own, or as an adult? (And have any tips for those starting out...)
I don't know enough Ancient Greek to read a full play or long poem in the original, but I have just enough that occasionally I compare different English translations of a line and then read the original with the aid of an online dictionary. I find almost every translator introduces some words and concepts not in the original, and leaves out others that are, to bring out what they think Homer was trying to say, or even, sometimes, what they think he ought to have said, or what they would have said if they were Homer.
Hence, if anyone finds a particularly memorable line in one translation, or that seems to prove something about how people lived and thought in Ancient times, before quoting it, it is, if possible, worth checking a couple of other translations to see if they give a different perspective. (For the Odyssey and Iliad, there are many, although often old-fashioned, translations available for free on line, and videos on YouTube of people reading comparatively modern ones like Fagles and Lombardo.)
On the problems of translation, from personal experiences:
Years ago, when we had DVDs (younger readers - ask your grandparents what DVDs were), many of those sold here in Britain could be set to played either in English or dubbed in other languages, and with or without Subtitles in any of those languages. Hence, hoping to improve my French, I ended up watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Ally McBeal in French with English subtitles and then vice versa. While this did not improve my French as much as I had hoped, it made me realise that, even between 2 modern Western languages, about 5% of the meaning is lost in translation. E.g. there does not appear to be a French equivalent of the English verb 'to lurk'. One can say 'waited' or 'hid', but neither captures the vague, shadowy menace of 'lurked'. Also, while there are ways to say in French that we like an activity, or find it amusing, I am not sure there is an exact equivalent of our word 'fun', combining the ideas of informality and enjoyment.
I have also studied some Old English (Anglo-Saxon) which is like learning a foreign language. Translating that, as must also be the case with Ancient Greek, combines the problems of making sense of the words with making sense of a very different culture and values, and of trying to make something sound natural in Modern English that no one would normally say in Modern English. When we had to translate passages, I found it impossible to simultaneously preserve both the meaning and spirit of the original.
The experience made me think that translating Ancient or Medieval texts well must be immensely difficult, and quite unattainable to do in a way that pleases everyone.
I love your articles about the problems of translating and glad you find time from what must be a busy life and career to write them.
Easier to read in this form than splintered into a series of tweets, not that you are on X/Twitter anymore (did you leave for the less popular BlueSky in order to cut yourself off from the public, to punish them for voting for Donald Trump?)
Having spent years translating around 18,000 lines of Homer's epics into iambic pentameter, by the end did you find yourself absent mindedly composing shopping lists in iambic pentameter?
Thank you for sharing this, it was a fascinating look into the challenges of literary translation. I have one very basic question, once you decide which work you want to translate, how do you choose the particular text from which to translate? Is there some repository where all of the "approved" works reside in the original language?
I’m am 75 and finally getting “around” to reading what was put off for years.
I read your translations of Odyssey and Illiad.
Still wondering about Achilles, I think I do not “like him.” He is too self absorbed.
Lordie, I hope folks don’t say that about me behind my back 😂.
Your translations were my entry point into a wonderful new world for me. Thank you.
I'm with you re. Achilles but thought the depiction of him by Brad Pit in the 2004 film Troy was spot on. On many levels the film didn't succeed but this performance echoed exactly my sense of this hero: spoilt, sullen, selfish, moody, resentful, demanding, grossly in love with himself and his muscles. In fact it struck me how closely Achilles resembles a stereotype of an over-indulged male Hollywood movie star.
We’re new contemporaries but I’ve been reading and rereading these almost long for my reading to have qualified for Medicare on their own. It took me a long time to warm to Achilles—I like Hector better. But I came around to a different view that reversed my perception. One is able to set aside his wrath for another, and the other sacrifices wife and child to save the skin of a worthless brother.
Thank you this is fascinating insight and the notebook too. I will read again and carefully.
I loved your translation of The Odyssey which I read as a journey each day. I’m plucking up the courage to take on The Iliad.
I’m wondering if you’ve come across Babel by NK Huang?
It’s the most fascinating novel with the skill of translation at its heart and so much to ponder about use of words and hat happens in the process of translation.
Yes, loved Babel/1
And I’m five days into my Iliad journey.
Grace, I think you mean Babel by RF (or Rebecca) Kuang? Just asking in case anyone wanted the right details to search for it. I really liked RF Kuang's Yellowface, novel about publishing and plagiarism, so I shall read Babel.
I don't speak Greek, and so do not understand your problems, challenges, puzzles directly. But I love your discussion of them! Some of my enthusiasm stems from being a writer. But I'm also a theorist and critic of various things, so meta talk, this is what we have to say about the matter at hand, is deeply pleasing. Anyway, great stuff. And I look forward to reading your translation.
While footnotes are not a particularly elegant solution, for what it's worth, my ideal translation-companion as a reader is 100% a little notebook filled with the considered and rejected alternate versions of every line. I would buy that book. That would be my new favorite book.
I can definitely imagine doing that with a shorter text, like if I ever do Sappho, and/or other fragmentary poets – or one could definitely do it for a few select passages – that's part of what these little essays are supposed to provide. For a whole 24 book epic, it doesn't seem realistic to me, though of course it would be fun: it would take decades, and require a published book of thousands of pages. The notebooks collectively are not little!
My new favorite book, a 24-volume companion edition collector's set! Well, I can dream.
Steven Pinker in The Language Instinct discusses a similar phenomenon for machines that are learning language when he says the things that are easy for humans (eg, knowing whether "bass" refers to a musical instrument, a tone or a fish) are difficult for machines, and what's hard for us (eg, remembering the components of a long, recursive sentence with multiple clauses) is easy for machines. "What's hard is easy, and what's easy is hard," he writes (or something similar).
Not that it helps us in English, but I wonder if German, with its tendency to produce long compound nouns has an easier job of translation from Greek.
Btw, your article is fascinating, and really helps someone like me with minimal classical Greek get closer to Homer.
This is so, so cool. I've been doing some translation from French recently for my own Substack, and I 100% agree that it is the phrases that are so tossed-off and natural sounding in one language that are often most difficult to replicate in another. Has anyone else here learned to read Ancient Greek on their own, or as an adult? (And have any tips for those starting out...)
I don't know enough Ancient Greek to read a full play or long poem in the original, but I have just enough that occasionally I compare different English translations of a line and then read the original with the aid of an online dictionary. I find almost every translator introduces some words and concepts not in the original, and leaves out others that are, to bring out what they think Homer was trying to say, or even, sometimes, what they think he ought to have said, or what they would have said if they were Homer.
Hence, if anyone finds a particularly memorable line in one translation, or that seems to prove something about how people lived and thought in Ancient times, before quoting it, it is, if possible, worth checking a couple of other translations to see if they give a different perspective. (For the Odyssey and Iliad, there are many, although often old-fashioned, translations available for free on line, and videos on YouTube of people reading comparatively modern ones like Fagles and Lombardo.)
On the problems of translation, from personal experiences:
Years ago, when we had DVDs (younger readers - ask your grandparents what DVDs were), many of those sold here in Britain could be set to played either in English or dubbed in other languages, and with or without Subtitles in any of those languages. Hence, hoping to improve my French, I ended up watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Ally McBeal in French with English subtitles and then vice versa. While this did not improve my French as much as I had hoped, it made me realise that, even between 2 modern Western languages, about 5% of the meaning is lost in translation. E.g. there does not appear to be a French equivalent of the English verb 'to lurk'. One can say 'waited' or 'hid', but neither captures the vague, shadowy menace of 'lurked'. Also, while there are ways to say in French that we like an activity, or find it amusing, I am not sure there is an exact equivalent of our word 'fun', combining the ideas of informality and enjoyment.
I have also studied some Old English (Anglo-Saxon) which is like learning a foreign language. Translating that, as must also be the case with Ancient Greek, combines the problems of making sense of the words with making sense of a very different culture and values, and of trying to make something sound natural in Modern English that no one would normally say in Modern English. When we had to translate passages, I found it impossible to simultaneously preserve both the meaning and spirit of the original.
The experience made me think that translating Ancient or Medieval texts well must be immensely difficult, and quite unattainable to do in a way that pleases everyone.
I love your articles about the problems of translating and glad you find time from what must be a busy life and career to write them.
Easier to read in this form than splintered into a series of tweets, not that you are on X/Twitter anymore (did you leave for the less popular BlueSky in order to cut yourself off from the public, to punish them for voting for Donald Trump?)
Having spent years translating around 18,000 lines of Homer's epics into iambic pentameter, by the end did you find yourself absent mindedly composing shopping lists in iambic pentameter?
Thank you for sharing this, it was a fascinating look into the challenges of literary translation. I have one very basic question, once you decide which work you want to translate, how do you choose the particular text from which to translate? Is there some repository where all of the "approved" works reside in the original language?
The only verb I could come up with is “convoy.”