Emily Wilson as Athena, age 8. (see "Growing up with the Odyssey," The Paris Review, August 7, 2017)
@EmilyRCWilson Scholia
Please subscribe to Professor Emily Wilson’s Substack page for insights about Homer and translation. She is also on Bluesky @EmilyRCWilson.
The Send Off (October 16, 2024)
“People often think that translation is difficult only for the long, fancy, unusual words – the ones like “polytropos”. But that is not true. Frequently, the most ordinary words and phrases – the ones that do not make the reader of the original pause or feel confused – are the hardest to render into another language.”
On Complicated... (September 16, 2024)
“Most Homeric characters have a small number of standard epithets, which can fit metrically with the name in different positions in the line. Achilles is "swift-footed" and "son of Peleus". Agamemnon is "lord of men" and "son of Atreus".”
Translation Comparison: The Odyssey Bed (September 15, 2024)
“The olive wood bed, manufactured by cunning, crafty Odysseus himself (as he declares insistently, repeatedly using the first person singular), represents his control over his own household, and his ability to construct an extraordinary technical marvel from his found environment.”
Translating the beginning of the Odyssey: 4 ways (September 2, 2024)
“My goal is not to rank them, nor to criticize my esteemed predecessors and colleagues, but to analyze in a more precise way, for the benefit of those who have not read the original, how each of these pieces of English echoes and differs from the Greek (as every translation must do).”
@EmilyRCWilson on Twitter (2017-2024)
Professor Wilson’s Twitter feed (@EmilyRCWilson) provided her readers with insights into the art of translation. In her posts, she analyzed the challenges a translator faces, with examples from the Odyssey, Iliad and Oedipus Tyrannos (Norton 2021). Wilson also used Twitter to compare short passages from different English translations of the Odyssey. She commented on how other translators have interpreted different words, phrases, and concepts from the original Greek into English.
In a blog post for The New Yorker, Dan Chiasson wrote about how "Wilson’s presence on Twitter is quietly revolutionary, a new kind of experience for readers, poets, translators, and really anyone who likes to watch knowledge take shape in an open format, its seams exposed" ("The Classics Scholar Redefining What Twitter Can Do", March 19, 2018).
Selected Twitter threads:
Hector and Andromache (June 30, 2023) [opens PDF of archived tweet]
“Andromache takes/welcomes her baby to her κόλπος.”
Languages Individuate the World Differently (May 11, 2022) [opens PDF of archived tweet]
“A classic translator's dilemma, … One language makes a distinction where another makes none.”
Hector’s Bird Omen (February 8, 2022) [opens PDF of archived tweet]
“In the Iliad, an eagle flies past the Trojans, dropping the snake he carried -- & so gets home empty-beaked and wounded.”
Ovid’s Metamorphoses (February 6, 2020) [opens PDF of archived tweet]
“If you are, for any reason, in the mood for a long poem about the abuse of power, I'd like to recommend Ovid's Metamorphoses.”
Some Challenges to Translating the Iliad (January 2, 2020) [opens PDF of archived tweet]
“Ideally, every choice has to make sense in itself & in the context of 10,000 other similar choices, in the larger quest to produce a text with a deep and detailed connection to the original, & with its own life and integrity in English.”
NOT The First Woman to Translate the Odyssey (October 2, 2019) [opens PDF of archived tweet]
“I put "NOT the first woman to publish a translation of the Odyssey" on my twitter-bio, after seeing it asserted for the gazillionth time.”
Juxtaposing Points of View in Homer (June 11, 2019) [opens PDF of archived tweet]
“One of the most powerful features (tropes? modalities?) of Homeric verse is the juxtaposition of one POV with another.”
“Find the Beginning” The Odyssey (Book 1, line 10) (March 19, 2019) [opens PDF of archived tweet]
“The Greek is this: τῶν ἁμόθεν γε, θεά, θύγατερ Διός, εἰπὲ καὶ ἡμῖν. My rendition is: '"Tell the old story for our modern times. / Find the beginning".”
The Impossibility of Translating Homer into English (March 8, 2019) [opens PDF of archived tweet]
“So that you can all feel my pain, here are a few more reasons why it's more or less impossible to translate Homer into English in a satisfactory way.”
Stylistic "Equivalence"? (August 8, 2018) [opens PDF of archived tweet]
"A question that is always present, for any translator: What is stylistic "equivalence"?"
A Translator's Choices: Lines 1-2 of the Odyssey (August 6, 2018) [opens PDF of archived tweet]
"Why and how is translation so hard?"
Translating Oedipus Tyrannos (July 22, 2018) [opens PDF of archived tweet]
"Creon says he is not, or not yet, τοσοῦτον ἠπατημένος as to want anything other than good things that benefit him."
Is the Hanging of the Slave Women "Right"? (July 16, 2018) [opens PDF of archived tweet]
"After one of my recent "Conversation" interviews (in Sydney), someone asked me if the hanging of the slave women in the Odyssey is "right"."
Odyssey Text Comparisons:
“My exercise routine” from Odyssey 8.231-232 (June 11, 2019) [opens PDF of archived tweet]
“Sometimes, in my various translations from ancient texts, I've wanted the reader to have the surprise of realizing for a second: I can imagine myself among them.“
Telemachus (March 14, 2019) [opens PDF of archived tweet]
“One of the most fascinating and heart-rending characters in the Odyssey is Penelope & Odysseus' only son, Telemachus.”
Wordplay and Penelope’s Coinage for Troy (February 6, 2019) [opens PDF of archived tweet]
“She calls it "Kakoilion", "Badtroy". It's a striking verbal coinage, renaming the city in terms of her own perception.”
“So desire / would open up inside them like a sail.” (January 7, 2019) [opens PDF of archived tweet]
“The verb in the original, petannumi, is most commonly used in Homer for spreading sails, tho' also of opening doors; it is definitely a live metaphor; so I put the sail in, because the connotation wouldn't be there otherwise.“
Chapter Titles in the Odyssey (November 8, 2018) [opens PDF of archived tweet]
“Scholars debate whether the book divisions in Homer are themselves “original” (whatever that means), or the invention of Alexandrian editors.“
Pacing, Words, and Syllables (October 16, 2018) [opens PDF of archived tweet]
“[The Odyssey is] a long poem about a long process, and it's also about how long it takes to tell the story. Right now I am agonizing about how to convert 10K words into 5K without losing anything important. Is that possible?“
Argos the Dog (April 2, 2018) [opens PDF of archived tweet]
"One of the most famous and heart-breaking moments in the Odyssey is about Argos the dog, who has waited 20 years for his old master and is lying neglected, in the dung. He hears O's voice again, pricks up his ears, and then dies."
The Simile of the Slave Women (March 8, 2018) [opens PDF of archived tweet]
"I am thinking today, as often, about the slave women in the Odyssey, the ones who sleep with the suitors, who have been claimed by the wrong owners, who have the wrong memories. For Odysseus to claim back all power over his household, they need to be eliminated."
The Sirens (March 4, 2018) [opens PDF of archived tweet]
"The Sirens in Homer aren't sexy. e.g. we learn nothing even about their hair -- in contrast to other divine temptresses. The seduction they offer is cognitive: they claim to know everything about the war in Troy, and everything on earth. They tell the names of pain."
Anthropos (March 2, 2018) [opens PDF of archived tweet]
"Anthropos in Greek is the word from which we get "anthropology", the study of humans, and "misanthropy", the hatred of humans."
The Cyclops (February 11, 2018) [opens PDF of archived tweet]
"Polyphemos is defined as a country-dwelling or wild man (agrios/agrion -- someone who lives in the country as opposed to the town, with connotations of roughness or fierceness). But he is definitely human, according to the Greek text. "Am I not a man...?" "
Scolding the Slave (January 11, 2018) [opens PDF of archived tweet]
"Penelope scolds the slave Melantho, whom she has raised like a daughter. Melantho has been sleeping with a suitor. She speaks up, criticizing Odysseus. This may be the first moment in Western literature of a woman telling a woman to shut up."
Metaphor (January 8, 2018) [opens PDF of archived tweet]
"Translation issue of the day: metaphor; how and when to keep it."
Dawn (January 6, 2018) [opens PDF of archived tweet]
"Pope really wants "morn" to be doing the walk of shame."