The Odyssey

No matter how many times I read the Odyssey, I'm always surprised at how little space is given to Odysseus's meanderings between Troy and his captivity with Calypso. The lotus-eaters get about a dozen lines, the sirens even fewer; the Laestrygonians accomplish their cannibalistic, fleet-wrecking revenge in less than a page. Meanwhile we get four whole books of Odysseus living it up with the Phaeacians (not that I ever get tired of hearing about the succulent roast meat, bread and wine) and seven books of caginess, dissembling, loyalty tests, and general crafty plotting from when he finally lands back in Ithaca to when he announces himself with that badass arrow-shot through the axe-heads.

My favourite moment will always be at the end of show more Book V, where Odysseus at his lowest ebb, exhausted and bedraggled having gone twelve rounds with Poseidon and only still alive thanks to the attentions of a passing naiad, crawls ashore on Scherie and beds down under the twin olive trees, covering himself in dry leaves. Just profoundly peaceful. Respite from the ever-terrifying ungovernable winedark sea. And of course the old "my name is Nobody" pranking of Polyphemus, ho ho. show less

I love Emily Wilson's translation. It feels direct, letting the poet speak in my language. Where the story feels archaic, it is because of the story, not a layer of translation.

The introduction is really useful for understanding the story. Long, but worth it.

The last paragraph of the introduction is this invitation to the reader. Read this for her writing style but also for her approach to the book. The Odyssey is a book of hospitality and stories. Listen carefully.

There is a stranger outside your house. He is old ragged, and dirty. He is tired. He has been wandering, homeless, for a long time, perhaps many years. Invite him inside. You do not know his name. He may be a thief. He may be a murderer. He may be a god. He may remind your

show more

of your husband, your father, or yourself. Do not ask questions. Wait. Let him him sit on a comfortable chair and warm himself beside your fire. Bring him some food, the best you have, and some wine. Let him eat and drink until he is satisfied. Be patient. When he is finished, he will tell you his story. Listen carefully. It may not be as you expect.

show less

The second book in my Greek literature "Odyssey", I definitely got through this one quicker than the Iliad. There's less grand warfare and tragedy and pathos, and more fantastic adventure and happy endings. Everything works out in the end, the heroes get their reward and the villains their comeuppance.

It's interesting to observe that one of the oldest works of literature in the western canon is structured non-linearly - it feels like a pretty sophisticated literary device. But Homer is full of quirks of story-telling which would be at home in any modern novel or TV show: the dog who recognises his master after twenty years, the clever verbal trick Penelope uses to test her returning husband, the parallel storylines of Odysseus and his show more son.

On the other hand, there are moments which reveal the vast moral divide between modern society and the heroes of ancient Greece. Slaves play a prominent role in the story, and "good, loyal slaves" versus "bitter, disloyal slaves" is a major theme. The good slaves who remain loyal to Odysseus in his absence are fittingly rewarded (not with freedom of course, but with wives and houses of their own) while the disloyal slaves are punished...gruesomely. I can go along with our hero ruthlessly massacring the bullying, thieving suitors, but watching him mutilate and torture a slave is a bit much. Even his loyal slaves aren't fully safe. When the old nurse Eurtcleia recognises the returned Odysseus, he grabs her by the throat to prevent her from announcing his presence. The act shocked me...she may be a slave but she's also practically his grandma. And it's not the only time he treats her unkindly. I've seen that somebody has written this story from Penelope's perspective, but I'd be interested in this story from Eurycleia's point of view.

I imagine Homer had no interest in challenging the social structures of his time through his work. Thus, the slave's position in society is reinforced, good slaves lauded, bad slaves punished, and their owners rightfully have full power over their lives.

Another such moment is Telemachus's interactions with Penelope. His transition to manhood is another theme of the story, and to demonstrate this, the narrative has him begin to order his good mother around, on occasion even sending her to her room. While I presume this was originally intended to demonstrate his maturity by showing him taking his rightful position of authority in the household as an adult man, it's jarring to a modern reader who is likely - even as an adult - to treat their own mother with a certain degree of respect, especially when residing in her household.

In some ways dated, in others surprisingly modern, this read is an interesting adventure into the stories that have shaped our culture for over two thousand years. show less

Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey is my third; I read Robert Fagles' and Stanley Lombardo's before this. You can't go wrong with any of them - Fagles' is lyrical but modern, Lombardo's is admirably plain-speaking and fast-paced, and Wilson's is swift, smart and exciting. But Wilson's is my favorite now, and the one I'd recommend to someone dipping in for the first time.

Caroline convinced me to read Wilson's introduction, and I'm glad I did. It's a corker. She explains The Odyssey this way:

"We encounter a surprising range of different characters and types of incident: giants and beggars, arrogant young men and vulnerable old slaves, a princess who does laundry and a dead warrior who misses the sunshine, gods, goddesses, and show more ghosts, brave deeds, love affairs, spells, dreams, songs, and stories. Odysseus himself seems to contain multitudes: he is a migrant, a pirate, a carpenter, a king, an athlete, a beggar, a husband, a lover, a father, a son, a fighter, a liar, a leader, and a thief. He is a man who cries, takes naps, and feels homesick, but he is also a man who has a special relationship with the goddess who transforms his appearance at will and ensures that his schemes succeed."

As she says, this isn't the usual hero who saves the world or "at least changes it in some momentous way"; instead, "for this hero, mere survival is the most amazing feat of all". The story raises

"important questions about the moral qualities of this liar, pirate, colonizer, deceiver, and thief, who is so often in disguise, absent or napping, while other people - those he owns, those he leads- suffer and die, and who directly kills so many people."

This complexity is what continues to fascinate me, and has led me through three translations and re-reads.

What is so outstanding about this translation?

"The Odyssey is a poem, and it needs to have a predictable and distinctive rhythm that can be easily heard when the text is read out loud. The original is in six-footed lines (dactylic hexameters), the conventional meter for archaic Greek narrative verse. I used iambic pentameter, because it is the conventional meter for regular English narrative verse - the rhythm of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Keats, and plenty of more recent anglophone poets . . . my translation sings to its own regular and distinctive beat.

My version is the same length as the original, with exactly the same number of lines. I chose to write within this difficult constraint because any translation without such limitations will tend to be longer than the original, and I wanted a narrative pace that could match its stride and Homer's nimble gallop."

I can't speak to the original, but hers certainly has stride and nimble gallop. She also leans toward simplicity of language, "in a style that echoes the rhythms and phrasing of contemporary anglophone speech." She notes that "stylistic pomposity is entirely un-Homeric". Occasionally (rarely, really) this results in what to me is an odd word choice, e.g. carrying weapons in a "hamper" - really? But overall it succeeds beautifully.

Some examples:

At a light touch of whip, the horses flew,
Swiftly they drew toward their journeys' end,
on through fields of wheat, until the sun
began to set and shadows filled the streets.

Helen, on the events in Troy:

The Trojan women keened in grief, but I
was glad - by then I wanted to go home.
I wished that Aphrodite had not made me
go crazy, when she took me from my country,
and made me leave my daughter and the bed
I shared with my fine, handsome, clever husband.

Circe confronting Odysseus:

"Who are you?
Where is your city? And who are your parents?
I am amazed that you could drink my potion
and yet not be bewitched. No other man
has drunk it and withstood the magic charm.
But you are different. Your mind is not
enchanted. You must be Odysseus,
the man who can adapt to anything."

Odysseus and Athena are natural partners. As she says,

"To outwit you
in all your tricks, a person or a god
would need to be an expert at deceit.
You clever rascal! So duplicitous,
so talented at lying! You love fiction
and tricks so deeply, you refuse to stop
even in your own land. Yes, both of us
are smart. No man can plan and talk like you,
and I am known among the gods for insight
and craftiness."

He is such a liar! And it's so deeply engrained that he lies even when he doesn't need to. But his lies always carry a greater message: "His lies were like the truth/ and as she listened, she began to weep."

If you haven't read The Odyssey before, you probably know the basics of the story by osmosis. But that's nothing like experiencing this ancient yet so modern story. Emily Wilson has brought an intelligence, rhythm and excitement to it that to me is the best yet. Have some fun reading an old classic; it's a treat. show less

The Robert Fitzgerald translation of The Odyssey was my first introduction to Homer, way back in my freshman high school days, and although my study of ancient Greek in college led me to the opinion that his work is not the best Homeric translation available - see my review of The Iliad for more details about my devotion to Richmond Lattimore - it retains a special place in my heart. I can still recall how magical I found the story of Odysseus' homeward journey, after the Trojan War, the excitement of his many adventures, the terror of the many monsters he encountered. I still recall the thrill I felt, reading of Penelope's stratagems, and Odysseus' disguised return...

Homer's two epics, The Iliad and The Odyssey, are definitely works show more that I think every reader with an interest in the development of European literature should read, at some point. I feel fortunate indeed to have read one of them (The Iliad) in the original, but for those many who do not have that chance, the issue of translation is an important one. As mentioned, the Fitzgerald has a special place in my literary memory, and I find it a beautiful work, judged upon its own merit as poetry. English-language readers could do far, far worse than to pick it up. Fagles, I understand, is also widely (and justly) praised, although I have only read his translation of The Iiad. My own vote, for best translator, goes to Lattimore, and I think those readers wanting to get a translation as close to the original as possible, in both sense and structure, should give him a try. Still, this one by Fitzgerald will always pull at my heartstrings... show less

Rereading this I can't believe I once found Homer boring. In my defense, I was a callow teen, and having a book assigned in school often tends to perversely make you hate it. But then I had a "Keats conversion experience." Keats famously wrote a poem in tribute to a translation of Homer by Chapman who, Keats wrote, opened to him "realms of gold." My Chapman was Fitzgerald, although in this reread I tried the Fagles translation and really enjoyed it. Obviously, the translation is key if you're not reading in the original Greek, and I recommend looking at several side by side to see which one best suits.

A friend of mine who is a classicist says she prefers the Illiad--that she thinks it the more mature book. I love the Illiad, but I'd show more give Odyssey a slight edge. Even just reading general Greek mythology, Odysseus was always a favorite, because unlike figures such as Achilles or Heracles he succeeded on his wits, not muscle. It's true, on this reread, especially in contrast to say the Illiad's Hector, I do see Odysseus' dark side. The man is a pirate and at times rash, hot-tempered, even vicious. But I do feel for his pining for home and The Odyssey is filled with such a wealth of incident--the Cyclops, Circe, Scylla and Charybdis, the Sirens--and especially Hades, the forerunner of Dante's Hell. And though my friend is right that the misogynist ancient Greek culture isn't where you go for strong heroines, I love Penelope; described as the "matchless queen of cunning," she's a worthy match for the crafty Odysseus. The series of recognition scenes on Ithaca are especially moving and memorable--I think my favorite and the most poignant being that of Odysseus' dog Argos. An epic poem about 2,700 years old, in the right translation it can nevertheless speak to me more eloquently than many a contemporary novel. show less

I realise full well that arguing that I dislike the Odyssey and think it's bad is "not a good look" but I've been struggling with this. I kept dropping it and coming back and every time I come back I just think it's both 1) boring 2) infuriating. I don't think this is a translation issue.

I guess partly it's mismatched expectations and my own failings. I sort of had in my head that reading this would be fascinating as an insight into ancient Greek culture and just as a general historical interest. But I can't bridge the gap between them and me enough even to enjoy reading this and I'm just begging to give me back modern understandings of plot and characters. I also came in expecting elaboration on all the famous mythological stuff like show more the Sirens. The sirens get 10 lines, plus maybe 20 more saying "oh yeah they're dangerous, put some wax in". There's no conflict, we don't know anything about them, there's nothing interesting, it's a fantastical creature reduced to all the depth of a basic element on an obstacle course.

The biggest issue that turns it from merely "uninteresting to me" to "I can't stand this" is how much I realised I HATE Odysseus. We're constantly told he's so smart and the only thing he actually does is the whole "no name" trick with Polyphemus. Which is balanced out by 1) him leading his crew into the cave in the first place 2) after doing this, calling out his name so he and his crew can get cursed by Poseidon. He's not a nice character and he's not an interesting one. He's responsible for a big part of his crew getting killed. The times he has good things happen to him, it's the gods' doing. And to be fair, most of the time he has bad things happen to him it's the gods' doing too. Athena and Zeus are both 100% responsible for his predicament and also help him... and also continue to be unhelpful? They appear to only protect Odysseus but are very happy for all his crew and anyone who ever helps him to be killed for some baffling reason. An example story: Odysseus gets told an island has a god's cows on it, and if anyone of his crew eats one then all his crew will die. They get becalmed on the island - and this is clearly stated to be Zeus's doing - making it impossible to leave. They spend weeks going through their stores till they're about to starve. Odysseus goes off to pray and the gods put him to sleep instead. Then the men decide to kill a cow because they're either going to starve to death or be smited. Then after they do this Zeus suddenly lets them off the island... only to smite them with a storm that kills everyone except Odysseus I think in this specific case there was no motivating reason given. I appreciate that this is my failing. The gods are capricious. That's just how it is. But god, it's painful to read. show less