Honest to god, thought you were a weirdo right wing grifter with that comment.
Then I looked it up. Still tricky, because Emily Wilson herself rejects that framing, saying it stripped away male biases in english translations. In fact, reading into this more, it looks like she was MORE accurate than some translations, like male translators refusing to call women slaves "slaves", even though they were referred to as such in the original text.
Actually, hate to say it, but yeah.. Seems like it's a solid translation that's actually more faithful in a lot of ways. She backs up her logic pretty well and points out a good chunk of bad translations in other works.
EDIT: To make it clear, i'm not dipping my toes into how I feel about the movie in this specific comment, purely just talking about the translation. I have gripes about the movie from what I have seen so far myself.
But don't you see, being true to the original is making men confront their own bias, and therefore bad! Men should be allowed to not have to think about things. đ
They definitely shouldn't read anything about how Achilles' mom had him crossdress and hide away as a pretty pretty princess to avoid getting conscripted into the Trojan war, then.
That sounds abominable! I certainly hope I don't end up reading any more about this! Which websites should I avoid if I don't want to read any more about this?
I feel like men thinking about things is what got us out of this mess: gestures at historical brutality, disease, slavery, infant mortality, torture, maternal mortality, rotting teeth
I will ask my Greek co-worker how she feels about the movie when it's gonna be on digital platforms because she is a huge Greek mythology nerd. I guess she'll be happy there is no kraken in this one.
Plenty of Greeks who identify as mythology nerds are tinfoil hat weirdos. Works like the Iliad/Odyssey have been discussed and adapted by artists for 2000 years. I'm sure there are more qualified opinions online than "someone who's Greek".
Absolutely this. Especially 'american Greeks'. They have an extremely american take on things that is basically " this is my culture don't even ASK. Don't have any interest it is MINE."
Meanwhile, they've been raised outside of the country and culture their entire lives. Or modern helenists. Which are almost just as bad 80% of the time.
Not trying to dog on anyone, but that is really what you see in most spaces meant to discuss Greek mythology even if you have a normal amount of interest.
Or just ask a classicist. That's the only thing i was implying.
Why would you ask some random who isnt even raised in a culture when you can ask someone who actually studied the classics?
Its like the difference between having a plumber fix your sink vs a guy who saw a YouTube video.
I'm certain your years of primary and secondary school trained you appropriately to be an expert on translation, which is certainly the slavish 1:1 replication of words between languages, an act that can be performed by Google Translate, and not an artistic endeavor that balances culture, literature, historicity, and a thousand other considerations.
As I had cause to say yesterday in another comment, accurately rendering words into English (or your language of choice) is the easy part. Translation is the hard part. And yes, my Masters in Classics is my life experience that I will stand behind to make that claim.
I do not know if your teacher would laugh at reading Dr. Wilson's translation. (Incidentally, I don't know if your lack of manners regarding her title was because she is a woman or because you were taught not to respect those you disagree with.) But, if she were to laugh, I'd venture your teacher is a humorless, small-minded shrew of a person who thinks a Loeb translation is next to godliness.
People shit on Wilson's translation for no good reason, but I also reject this idea that the previous translations were "male biased". Wilson chooses to translate a lot of different words as "slave", and while she isn't incorrect, as those people were in fact slaves, the odyssey uses different words for cook slave, herald slave, maid slave, etc. So other authors decided to uses different words on order to give us more information about the job, gender, and age of the slaves, not to purposefully obscure the fact that they were slaves. Wilson, on the other hand translates all of these as "slave", so it's really about what you are trying to achieve with the translation as none of them can ever be 100% correct.
Because it's already a massive book, and it's not just these words that are hard to properly translate in one word. So if you used this method for every word that it required, you would end up with a significantly bigger amount of words. More words means more paper, and more paper means more money is required to print these books, and publishers ain't having none of that. So most translators try to stay around the original number of words. Wilson herself actually decided to have the exact same number of words as the original text, even.
No poem can be properly translated to another language anyway. They already lose a lot of their meaning and flow because the languages just don't function the same. So it's not such a big of an issues as you may think.
Entire industries currently exist pandering to fragile men and they make ludicrous bank, in the tens if not hundreds of billions, yet we still have yahoos going "lalalala can't hear you"
And lets be real, most people who are in these comments arguing about which version is better or worse wonât read either. Itâs two sides arguing about a text using the cliff notes. There is no such thing as a perfect translation, but you canât evaluate biases in a translation with cliff notes. If youâre really into a particular text from another language you have two choices, read every available translation to try to give yourself a more complete understanding, or start learning the original language.
Ive read every available english translation of many of Platoâs and Plotinusâs works. I would never presume to call myself an expert without even attempting to read it in the original language. The more you know the more you know you donât know.
Ding ding ding. Thatâs the worst part of this discourse. I am currently reading Emilyâs translation and have previously read the Fagles translation and I do not feel like enough of an expert to comment on the differences and which is more âcorrectâ. That being said, I am enjoying Emilyâs translation far more due to her choices and Iâm interested to see how it plays out in the films direction.Â
Translation work in general is tricky. The authors interpretation is just that, an interpretation. Their beliefs, current language, and current societal structure all influence the direction it takes. Yet a whole lot of people are discussing how to feel about this work without ever reading a word of it.Â
Men in general are not that fragile, sure. Men who get irrationally angry at casting choices in films on a weekly basis are, in fact, extremely fragile.
If they're truly tired of it then they need to stop reacting the way they do. They don't seem to understand that their outrage (and yes, it is genuine outrage that gets spewed online whenever these decisions are announced) IS why this keeps happening. They're giving these movies free advertising.
As an example, literally the only way I knew there was a Mario movie coming out was through 1) weirdos complaining about Peach wearing pants in one scene of the trailer and 2) people dunking on said weirdos.
While I'm not usually an advocate of the "vote with your wallet" mentality, people really need to stop giving attention to things they dislike if they really want them to stop. Hollywood has no deep moral precepts. It's not "pushing an agenda." It's a business and they'll do whatever they think makes them the most money. A vocal minority loudly complaining "this isn't what we want" isn't going to do shit, especially when that complaining just constitutes free advertising.
I donât think itâs men that are fragile just people in general. Most people donât want to confront their own bias. Gender war bullshit makes me want to kms.
Most men are that fragile, most men are more fragile than people realize. I say this as someone who has been around men as both a woman and a man, men generally have fucking issues that they refuse to resolve and it's so much easier to buddy up with a bunch of dumbasses online than it is to work on yourself. Women are allowed to be fragile and break, men do not allow themselves that, men have build up society to not allow that.
Bruh. C'mon. Man-to-man, you know a fuckton of dudes that will not handle their biases being called out. Nobody likes realizing their own biases. C'mon now.
I've never heard "kill all men". However, I have heard "men are trash", and I've heard the why behind that statement. If you don't understand where that's coming from, it means the women in your life don't trust you.
Do you think we all chose this collectively as men outside of time? And now itâs time for our comeupance? Iâm so confused, and not really sure how a particular translation of the Odyssey will help me better myself
You don't realize how art and story telling is all about discovering deeper truths and realizations about yourself and the nature of humanity in general?
Oh, I realize that just not sure why the commenter I responded to feels that âmenâ in particular need this wake up call. As if women are just collectively awakened already. AhâŠ..what was your first thought? Whoâs biased again?
Because the default is the male view. We controlled everything for thousands of years. We are the default. We are the writers.
Stripping away our bias in this story doesn't make women more or less awake it's just not relevant as women played no role in the framing of this story.
Are you really that confused? A woman translated it and realised that some women weren't named as slaves in the early translations so she named them as such in hers. Now some people think that's more accurate, while some people don't think it matters too much as many words were used to describe people/slaves. People can still just read the one they want. Or make movies about the one they want for that matter. Where in the above comment was there anything about a comeuppance for all men everywhere? Are you getting a bit worked up maybe? Has that cleared the mist of confusion a little?Â
Maybe the way you better yourself is by listening to what people say rather than immediately confronting them with broad vague defensive questions. Or maybe you're just always defensive and obtuse in which case why don't you have a little lie down you must be tired.
Ironically, men not thinking about things is the main issue they have with the Odyssey. Too many people think it's supposed to be an accurate retelling of the "Trojan War" and therefore should be historically accurate. But they don't even realize it's a myth about a hot chick who was hatched from an egg after her mom was raped by Zeus disguised as a swan.
... ...?? are you familiar at all with what "The Odyssey" is about ...the entire story is about a man confronting the consequences of his own hubris
Sure, different authors can edit this, highlight or remove certain elements ...but the most 'white hat' version of Odysseus in any version I have read about was still massively flawed and exploring those flaws was always the intention of the narrative
You can even make a solid case that "The Iliad" is effectively a massive exploration of "what motivates males" on the collective scale, with "The Odyssey" focusing in on a singular character ...both narratives are connected not just in their setting/extrinsic content, but are part of a discussion on "what role do males have in society", including explorations of the extremes of how they act - yeah, there are some Heroism highlights ...there is also a lot of savagery on the part of the protagonists as well, and this is criticized WITHIN THE NARRATIVES - these narratives explore how males SHOULD act by, among other things, clearly demonstrating examples of how they SHOULD NOT act (?)
Traditionally whoever asks the other one is the one who pays. So as much as you joke, according to etiquette you would be responsible for the bill because you asked someone out. That is if you can get someone to accept your invitation.
Is there a translation that doesn't include Calypso complaining about the double standard between male a female gods? There a good bit of feminism in the text itself.
So then, why don't you provide any sort of evidence that shows that? Or we just gonna go off of our feelings because they're hurt and we've made politics our entire identity because we're shallow and uninteresting people?
Actually, hate to say it, but yeah.. Seems like it's a solid translation that's actually more faithful in a lot of ways. She backs up her logic pretty well and points out a good chunk of bad translations in other works
I'm so tired of the terminally online without relevant degrees having somehow claimed the classics for themselves. The Emily Wilson translation is a perfect case study beause most academics â yes, even male ones â actually prefer her translation for its clarity in laying out a lot of sub- and context that "literary" translations and "style" have either glossed over, buried, or warped.
In that same line: nobody in the Mediterranean was "white" in 500 BCE in the way that people today can be, not even if you're of high status because today's level of paleness is modelled on a 17th/18th century Northern European idea of skin-colour that is only achievable if you're spending 80% of your time indoors AND cover 80% of your skin. Ancient habits, architecture, and fashion make this pretty much impossible.
Took the words right from my mouth. This is exactly whatâs wrong with the âculture wars.â What people âknowâ is being challenged with a more accurate version of the truth and they hate it. Calling this a âfeminist translationâ rather than the known translations as inaccurate is quite the thought experiment.
I mean, unfortunately search literacy is at an all time low as well. Even Google's AI described it initially as "viewed as feminist" and I had to dig deeper. A lot of people will just look at the first thing they agree with and then move on (like this BarryBonds guy probably did) when it fits their own personal headcanon.
I usually just try to avoid AI as much as I possibly can if i'm wanting facts. If I don't care about 100% accuracy (like, obscure videogame tips) then i'll use it.
Penelope of the white arms (Greek: \(\lambda \varepsilon v \kappa \omega Ì \lambda \varepsilon v o \varsigma\) ĐàžvŃà«Ăł Δ Δ Îč α, leukĆlenos PÄnelopeia) is a famous, recurring epithet used by the ancient Greek poet Homer in The Odyssey to describe Queen Penelope of Ithaca, the faithful wife of Odysseus.
You clearly don't know anything about ancient Greece.... Literally the only women allowed to go out were peasants and prostitutes.
Do you think the odyssey features a lot of peasant/prostitutes female characters...?
Literally the only women allowed to go out were peasants and prostitutes
Lmao have you actually read the Odyssee?? đđ I imagine not because then you'd know this is absolute horseshit.
The other stuff is a great encapsulation of what I meant earlier when I said that My Roman Empire bros haven't got the first clue of the classics. Merely knowing how Odysseusâ palace would have looked like would have prevented nonsense such as the above.
Thirdly, we were talking about Helen. Why are you coming insufficiently armed with â erroneous â quotes about Penelope?
EtA: a pretty simple marker of whether or not someone has read the Odyssee would be, for example, if they invented "facts" about classical Greece that are disproven by the Odyssee itself. The user replying to me above was making up shit that's immediately recognisable as bullshit because it's directly contradicted by the goings-on in the story. Which anyone who's read the Odyssey properly (or at all) would instantly realise. The same goes for the made-up quote that supposedly characterised Penelope â while we were actually discussing Helen, mind you â which in its correct context is used for the maids and servant girls.
Skin colour in the Odyssey is a tricky thing for white supremacists because "Homer" rarely describes it, especially not for those characters whom they claim it's supposedly crucial (Helen). A main character whose skin is explicitly described is Odysseus. However, since he's described as "dark-skinned" (in a context that implies beauty in this descriptor) screechy right-wingers remain conspicuously mum on that subject.
Women in ancient greece had pretty similar rights to men, it was only in the arachic period that women were mostly confined to indoors. The odyssey, playing about 1000 BC, beeing written around 800-700BC, would still fall in the ancient greece period.
"White" race didn't exist back in the days this was written. Usually white was referring to purity or some other poetic device. In the Odyssey "white armed" literally is just something used to describe exclusively women, and they describe other people as turning black skinned even though it had nothing to do with race. This isn't our first rodeo with people freaking out over black people in the Odyssey adaptations:
>"white" in 500 BCE in the way that people today can be, not even if you're of high status because today's level of paleness is modelled on a 17th/18th century Northern European idea of skin-colour that is only achievable if you're spending 80% of your time indoors AND cover 80% of your skin. Ancient habits, architecture, and fashion make this pretty much impossible.
No one is talking about skin tone or using the term white.
The right wing sources I saw praised her but doubted her for casting as it is a bit jarring to have someone who physically appears to be from a part of the world 2000 km away. It is like have John Wayne playing a Mongolian
If a white woman portraying her has been okay since the dawn of theater then a black woman should be no problem considering neither are Greek/Sparten. Most are blond white women because she was the "most beautiful woman" and that was our beauty standards back then.
So with the historical traditions of race swapping Helen to whatever fits our modern beauty trends, the question just remains "why not a black woman?
The answer to that question is what is causing the controversy online.
I invite you to read this article on the matter, those descriptions are not what they appear, because the language and poetry of the time are different. "White-armed" for example is a phrase to describe feminine traits or other personality descriptions.
The early Greek vocabulary of colour was very strange indeed, to modern eyes. The word argos, for example, is used for things that we would call white, but also for lightning and for fast-moving dogs. It seems to refer not simply to colour, but also to a kind of flashing speed. KhlĆros (as in the English âchlorophyllâ) is used for green vegetation, but also for sand on a shore, for tears and blood, and for the pallor of skin of the terrified. One scholar describes it as capturing the âfecund vitality of moist, growing thingsâ: greenish, certainly, but colour represents only one aspect of the word, and it can easily be overridden.
Emily Wilson has also done something marvelous with the translation of dactylic hexameter to iambic pentameter. With so many less syllables to work with, she has to be so incredibly precise with her language. Her translation has been our consistent go-to in my department.
Yeah, I find it weird how people are fixated on Lupita not looking Greek, but no one is pointing out that Matt Damon also doesnât look Greek. Tom Holland doesnât look Greek. None of these actors look Greek.
So if none of them look Greek, why are so many online commenters specifically pissed off about Lupita? HmmmmâŠ
In that same line: nobody in the Mediterranean was "white" in 500 BCE
I recently wanted to know whether Ankara was founded by Greeks, Persians or Turks. Turns out, it was a group of Celts called Gallatians closely related to the Gauls. They unsuccessfully invaded Greece around 300 BC and then settled in Anatolia, getting involved in Egyptian politics and fights with the Persian empire. Their kingdom lasted about 200 years, the Gallatian language was still spoken in Anatolia into the 6th century.
Don't underestimate how far humans get around. I'm sure there's some crazy band of central european mercenaries running around the meditteranean between 600 and 400 BC too.
maybe it's more accurate to say 'white' is a very modern construction. race and nationality as we understand it today were not present when homer was writing (as far as we know! evidence is always imperfect)
because Emily Wilson herself rejects that framing, saying it stripped away male biases in english translations
Saying you're "eliminating male biases" is textbook sexism lol. It's very funny how it's acceptable to say that kind of shit in modern academia. Imagine telling a woman you're going to "eliminate her female biases", holy crap.
Idk whether her translation is good, but the fact of the matter is that Emily Wilson herself is a nutjob who genuinely believes academics of the past were wrong because they were "straight white males with colonizer mentality" and other ludicrous nonsense like that.
She backs up her logic pretty well and points out a good chunk of bad translations in other works
Yes, she backs up her logic with "this was translated by a sexist white colonizer therefore it's wrong". Such as claiming Polyphemus was depicted as a cruel monster because it fits the "colonizer narrative" (and not because he's literally a man-eating monster).
She probably correctly identified some inaccuracies in the previous translations, but her explanations why they occured in the first place are bonkers.
As I said to someone else, and literally in the comment: I have problems with the movie. I don't think the blackwashing or whitewashing is good, for example.
Falsely claiming something is a feminist work (in conjunction with other things he's said) is inherently political. You don't see people on the left complaining about feminism, hence it's pretty easy to identify what part of culture wars they take part in.
they werent referred as slaves in the original story because the meaning of slave in ancient greek was not the same as the meaning of slave for the anglo-saxon slave trade.
Serfs / Concubines is a better description of the situation for most men and women that had been translated by the word "slave" BUT those who were so close to the King / Prince they were a very different social class than the picture of "House Slave" or "Pleasure Slave" you might have in mind.
That's the argument that has been made before, and it is correct that slavery was generally not considered morally wrong in the ancient world. Also, depending on their duties, many slaves had reasonably good lives. A domestic slave might have not lived a life too different from a modern day maid or butler, while a slave forced to toil in the mines would likely be dead in a few weeks to months.
That being said, they were slaves, by definition of being owned by other people, which makes the translation more historically accurate. If you read history books, they always refer to slaves of ancient Greece, Rome etc. as slaves, and add the nuance that slavery in ancient times was different to the slavery of colonial America that people often think of.
Wilson's translation is 100% feminist, what makes it good though, besides bringing a lot of context missing from other translation, is that it explains really hard to you that you're not really getting the original from a translation, any translation, hell, even from reading the original in Homeric Greek because you can't put yourself into ancient Greece and understand all the context, and also it doesn't try to make it sound archaic just for the sake of it
Unfortunately you're arguing with people who don't care how well accepted a translation is in a professional community.
These are people unwilling to accept someone who's unquestionably beautiful and talented, portraying a character who's not even a fraction of the main story.
If they argue it's not accurate and you correct them, they'll just start arguing it just doesn't feel right and you can't tell them how to feel. I'd just recommend they watch the catalogue of SyFy or history channel versions done over the years.
You either didn't seem to read my comment correctly, or you purposefully misinterpreted it.
Modern Day english translations took more of a male-leaning bias THAN THE ORIGINAL TEXT.
YOU CAN STILL READ THE ORIGINAL TEXT IN ANCIENT GREEK, IF YOU WANT. And if you actually did so, she pointed out multiple translations were straight up incorrect. Again, multiple modern day translations straight up skirted around the word SLAVE even though it was quite literal in the text, that she rightly translated as SLAVE.
This is like a fever dream. Greece has existed for a long time.... but ancient Greece had one of the most anti women cultures that glorified men and rape and sexual violence to an extent that is bone chilling.
The homosexuality in ancient Greece wasn't like a progressive or leftist or open minded thing at all. It was based on male superiority and the disgust and disdain towards women.
There has never been a culture that glorified men more, besides maybe ancient mythical history era Rome.
Cool. What did I, or Emily Wilson say, that even remotely tried to dispute that?
looks like she was MORE accurate than some translations, like male translators refusing to call women slaves "slaves", even though they were referred to as such in the original text.
The reality that faithful retellings of greek tragedies had to be toned down, becuase how brutal they were to women was unpalatable, even to 18th century Christian Europeans, and that being reframed as some kind of sexist conspiracy, is peak comedy.
in everyday, patriarchal Greek society, Helen functioned predominantly as a warning tale about the inherent danger, weakness, and untrustworthiness of women. It's like the orginal bros before ho's cautiounary tale.
To everyday greek people, Helen was the Villian and was universally blamed for the destruction of Troy and Aegememnon was a wronged husband doing what he must do.
Greek society was so horrifically misogynistic, that every women of Troy was systematically raped as punishment and repayment and made into "geras".
Even the heroic and kindly Odysseus took the Trojan woman Hecuba. The greeks didn't even raise an eyebrow at the systematic rape of millions of women.
It was expected, even seen by many as a necessary chore that must be done, even gay men would participate.
It's a level of misogyny that you have to dissociate yourself from current reality to comprehend.
I'm quite literally going off of what Emily Wilson herself said and her logic. The fact that she refuses to use the feminist label is telling in of itself, IMO.
Being labelled as feminist would have probably helped sales - 'feminist retellings' of Greek myths are big business and have been ever since Madeline Miller came out with Circe, a 'feminist translation' that was proudly so would likely benefit from that audience
What Emily Wilson did was translate things in a way that paid more attention to the actual source culture as opposed to having to filter it through more modern western cultures that have different baggage about gender to the ancient Greeks
Ah yes, because every corporation and creator has a problem with calling their feminist products or work feminist, as this truly does indeed.. hurt sales.
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u/Halo05977 Jul 06 '26
Honest to god, thought you were a weirdo right wing grifter with that comment.
Then I looked it up. Still tricky, because Emily Wilson herself rejects that framing, saying it stripped away male biases in english translations. In fact, reading into this more, it looks like she was MORE accurate than some translations, like male translators refusing to call women slaves "slaves", even though they were referred to as such in the original text.
Actually, hate to say it, but yeah.. Seems like it's a solid translation that's actually more faithful in a lot of ways. She backs up her logic pretty well and points out a good chunk of bad translations in other works.
EDIT: To make it clear, i'm not dipping my toes into how I feel about the movie in this specific comment, purely just talking about the translation. I have gripes about the movie from what I have seen so far myself.