Odyssey Books 1-3 (trans. Wilson)

[cahn]

I have not read the Odyssey since I was in middle school, and (as will rapidly become clear) I remember basically nothing about the poem itself, although I'm familiar with all the elements of the story. Thanks to selenak, I'm reading the Emily Wilson translation, which I'm enjoying! I had a lot of fun with my Aeneid read a while back, and in the interest of spurring Classics salon discussion I am gonna semi-liveblog my Odyssey read too.

I have not yet read any of the copious intro notes (which I always enjoy) as I didn't want to be spoiled for this, uh, thousands-of-years-old epic. I'll read them at the end, remind me if I don't!


In these books, Telemachus is oppressed by the suitors for his mom's hand eating him out of house and home, and Athena appears to him periodically in the guise of older men to get him moving. Athena gets him to the point where in book 3 Telemachus visits Nestor, who gives him all the hot gossip on how everyone fared at the end of the Trojan War. (Alas, he does not know where Odysseus is.)

- Okay, so, I'm kind of impressed how little I remember about the Odyssey -- I kind of thought it would directly be about, you know, Odysseus? Who has not had any screen time at all so far, unless you count the very beginning where there's a little blurb where the gods chat about what he's been up to, and how he's (sadly... so they say...) chilling with Calypso right now while everything is going to pieces in Ithaca. It's the Telemachus show!

- I really like the translation so far. It seems to me to be very readable, and although I haven't really read large parts of it aloud, the bits I've read aloud (or aloud-inside-my-head) have worked well that way too. I had seen some talk about how "Tell me about a complicated man" isn't a good translation of the first line, but as English poetry I think it works.

- Athena/Mentes:
But I am sure that he [Odysseus]
is not yet dead. The wide sea keeps him trapped
upon some island, captured by fierce men
who will not let him go.

Heh, Athena/Mentes, not mentioning Calypso this time, are you?

- Boy, this poet is sure upset about Aegisthus killing Agamemnon. It's come up twice so far in reasonably large sections, and mentioned at least once more besides that.

- Other things that have come up twice: Telemachus saying (to Athena/Mentes in Book 1 and then Nestor in Book 3) that he believes his father won't come back, and the implication that it's not clear whether he's Odysseus's son (first Telemachus says it to Athena/Mentes in Book 1, and then Athena/Mentor says it back to him in Book 2). The first sort of makes sense to me, as it's presumably safer for Telemachus if he asserts that. The second idk, is this some kind of cultural thing? Is the idea that everyone is waiting to see if he turns out like his dad (whether or not, as Athena points out, it says anything about his biological status, as sons don't always turn out like fathers)? Anyway, seems tough on Penelope, either way...

- Poor Penelope, in general. Although we hear about how awesome she is (the whole weaving trick), the only bit of screen time she's gotten is where she asks the singer not to sing songs that remind her of her missing husband, and then her son yells at her. Not cool, Telemachus!

-So far Athena seems pretty reasonable, for a god. Hopefully that continues!

Comments

[cenozoicsynapsid]

I haven't read the Wilson translation--- for people who have read others recently, is it worth revisiting the poem for this translation alone?

The Aegisthus thing (my long-ago classics professor says in my head) is thematic because he's the guy who took up with Agamemnon's wife while he was away at the Trojan War. It's also entangled with Agamemnon sacrificing his own daughter in order to even get there. So he's an implicit reminder of how Odysseus's family *could* have turned out.

[watersword]

I love this translation so much I no longer recommend my beloved Fitzgerald, which I have adored for nigh-on twenty years.

cahn, I'm very excited for your liveblog, I read the Odyssey every year and no longer remember what bits were a surprise!

[cenozoicsynapsid]

Wow, Fitzgerald is easily the best of the ones I've read (I forget which others). Maybe it's worth getting the Wilson!

[watersword]

I love the Fitzgerald, and am less keen on Fagles; I can't stand Lattimore. Wilson made some truly inspired choices, and I also love her "scholia" threads (on Twitter, now on Substack), unpacking her process.

[cahn]

Ohhhhh I am really interested to see these threads, thank you for the tip!

[cahn]

I'm pretty sure I read the Iliad in the Fitzgerald translation! That was also a while back, though recently enough that at least I think I remember the structure of it, more-or-less.

Haha, the entire thing is surprising so far! I'm looking forward to reading more :)

[cahn]

Ahh, that makes a lot of sense, Agamemnon's family being the tragic foil to Odysseus's family. (But also, gosh, poor Orestes -- and Clytemnestra too, in this rendition!)

[landofnowhere]

I read The Odyssey in the version available on Gutenberg when I was a teenager, and haven't since. I liked Wilson's Iliad translation, and enjoyed it for a book that's mostly about men trying to kill each other in battle, so I will probably get around to this sometime.

[cahn]

Yeah, I read some kind of very prose translation of the Odyssey when I was a teen -- I don't know if it was the Gutenberg version (I got it from the library), but I imagine it was close to it.

I read the Iliad more recently (though still years ago) in the Fitzgerald translation and so far I'm enjoying the Odyssey much better, though I suspect a lot of that is in fact because, well, the latter is not (yet, I guess?) about men trying to kill each other in battle, and dying horribly!

[jenett]

I am looking forward to your comments! I read the Wilson translation in November and December and a bit of January (with a specific eye to something for writing), and loved it.

(Though comparing some of her choices with her Iliad, which she did second, is also fascinating.)

The pacing on the Odyssey threw me too (i.e. which scenes happen when, and where the focus is) though taken as an episodic poem where you'd expect specific chunks of it on a given night makes some of that make more sens.e

[dolorosa_12]

I was about to jump in and say jenett did a read-through of Wilson's translation with extensive commentary a few months back, and recommend that cahn read your posts, so I'm glad to see that you two know each other and you've already commented to that effect!

[jenett]

This deeply amuses me! (And if anyone's interested, the posts are locked, but I'm glad to add anyone, and they're all tagged for easy findability.)

[cahn]

Ahh, I'm glad you did say this, because I didn't happen to see those posts and I didn't assume from jenett 's comment that there was extensive commentary. I've now started browsing through -- they are great!

[cahn]

I'm super enjoying it so far! I started looking at your posts and haha they are much more detailed and awesome than mine, I love it <3

I've read the Iliad more recently so I'm not as surprised by that one at this point, but in retrospect I remember that that one surprised me too, when I first read it, in its focus and how it was set when the war was nearly over (and we don't even get to see the end of the war!)

[jenett]

My notes are very much in the "I am going to want to be able to find some amount of this when writing, getting it into a format I can search for specific things will be my friend" (this has proven true at least four times so far, besides my griping about various points.)

And yes! I first heard the stories as told by my father, who put them in a more narrative order, with, y'know, stuff like the actual fall of Troy in somewhat more detail. So going back and going "Wait, this epic stops not even with the death of Achilles, but before that? Wait, what are we doing here?" was a whole thing.

[cahn]

Ah, that's excellent!

Haha, yeah, we don't even get to see the death of Achilles??

[mildred_of_midgard]

The Neoanalysts would say that you do! Ask me about the Neoanalysts when we get to Classics salon .:D

[thistleingrey]

I haven't read either of Wilson's translations yet. Instagram surfaced bits (randomly to me a few weeks ago) from her recent visit to the Int'l Poetry Forum, though, and they're visible without an account: one, two, three.

[cahn]

Oh wow, these are marvelous, thank you! I hope she does an audiobook :D

[thistleingrey]

That would be amazing!

[selenak]

Oh, you‘re reading and posting about it! Awesome.

Re: Telemachus and the fact the epic opens with him and it takes some considerable time until Odysseus gets central focus - yes, that threw me the first time I actually read the Iliad (in a German translation) as opposed to an adaptation/retelling for kids (where the story was told in a linear fashion, i.e. we were following Odysseus from Troy and the Telemachus and Penelope sections didn‘t come until the last fourth or so, whereas really they open the poem and I think Odysseus‘ backstory (i.e. the actual adventures) which he‘ll later tell himself in Sicily only take about a third in flashback. (A structure the Aeneid pays homage to by letting Aeneas tell the story of the fall of Troy to Dido.) It‘a big contrast to the Iliad jumping in medias res right at the start (though the Iliad itself starts in the tenth year of the war).

Re: the „am I not my father‘s son????“ stuff - I didn‘t take it as a serious questioning of his parentage but a cultural invocation, i.e. as a true son of Odysseus, he should be able to kick out the suitors and/or deal with them on his lonesome, instead of being essentially still treated as a child by both the suitors and his mother. Emily Wilson points out in the introduction that given Telemachus was already alive and a baby when the Trojan War started, he must now at least 20 years old by now. That in not only the Bronze Age (when the story is set) but also the time the epic was written was definitely adult. Adult enough to be a warrior and a father. And yet he‘s constantly referred to as a boy, and written as a boy (see also his reaction to the suitors) in this early section of the poem.

(Also, I can‘t quite remember the Shakespeare play where a character says something like „Don‘t tell me to be calm, if I‘m calm now every drop of my blood would proclaim me bastard and my chaste mother a whore!“ - which invokes the same cultural idea of masculinity and being his father‘s son Telemachus sees himself failing at.)

Aigisthus: see, I found it fascinating (as mentioned in my own post on reading this translation) of being reminded/noting that in the Odyssey, Aigisthus is still seen as the primary killer and Clytemnestra his helper, whereas by the time Aischylus, Sophocles and Euripides sharpen their pen some centuries later, Clytemnestra is the primary killer and Aigisthus just her loverboy, err, loverman sidekick. Either way, the reason why this keeps being brought up AGAIN AND AGAIN in this epic, I guess, is that this is the nightmare scenario all the men are afraid of and why Penelope‘s behavior is contrasted with - „their“ woman has found someone else, and instead of being welcomed, they‘re literally stabbed and replaced. (It‘s extremely patriarchal of course, since the lot of the Achaean warriors at Troy all kept sleeping with (or to call it what it is, raping) enslaved captives.)

[cahn]

Haha, I know it took a while (I was in a weird headspace for a bit with respect to being able to read stuff) but I have been excited about this! And even more now that I'm actually reading it :D

as opposed to an adaptation/retelling for kids (where the story was told in a linear fashion, i.e. we were following Odysseus from Troy and the Telemachus and Penelope sections didn‘t come until the last fourth or so

Yes, this! I've read retellings just like this, where you got Odysseus's various adventures with Circe and the Cyclops and so on, and then Telemachus and Penelope were at the end. So that was very surprising to me :)

as a true son of Odysseus, he should be able to kick out the suitors and/or deal with them on his lonesome, instead of being essentially still treated as a child by both the suitors and his mother.

Ahhhh that makes a lot of sense.

in the Odyssey, Aigisthus is still seen as the primary killer and Clytemnestra his helper, whereas by the time Aischylus, Sophocles and Euripides sharpen their pen some centuries later, Clytemnestra is the primary killer and Aigisthus just her loverboy, err, loverman sidekick.

Ah right, I remember you said that now! I had temporarily forgotten while reading, but I have read at least synopses of Sophocles and Euripides, so I definitely had in my head that Clytemnestra was the primary killer instead of someone who was just carried along by Aegisthus (though I couldn't remember at the time of reading whether I'd picked that up from modernist feminist retellings -- thinking of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Firebrand here (I know, I know) -- or from retellings that were closer to ancient source material). Anyway, I guess Odysseus should feel lucky that he had Penelope in his corner...

Either way, the reason why this keeps being brought up AGAIN AND AGAIN in this epic, I guess, is that this is the nightmare scenario all the men are afraid of and why Penelope‘s behavior is contrasted with - „their“ woman has found someone else, and instead of being welcomed, they‘re literally stabbed and replaced. (It‘s extremely patriarchal of course, since the lot of the Achaean warriors at Troy all kept sleeping with (or to call it what it is, raping) enslaved captives.)

Also. Dude. It's been literally TWENTY YEARS. (I guess only ten for Clytemnestra, but that's still a very long time!) I think the men would have moved on by then, even if they hadn't been raping the captives! looking at you too, Aeneas

[mildred_of_midgard]

Yay!

I know the big holdup on Classics salon is me, but if I can finish some of the stuff I'm working on now, then my next project is going to involve Alexander the Great, and having you and Selena involved will be very helpful! And fun!

[cahn]

Excellent! :D

*obligatory "Freeeeeedersdorf!" here*