Translation

I recently finished reading the Odyssey, which I have two versions of.

One is translated by S. H. Butcher and A. Lang. The other by Robert Fagles. Here is a representative sample from the former:

Therewith he spake to Hermes, his dear son: ‘Hermes, forasmuch as even in all else thou art our herald, tell unto the nymph of the braided tresses my unerring counsel, even the return of the patient Odysseus, how he is to come to his home, with no furtherance of gods or of mortal men.’ …

Now here’s Fagles’ attempt at the same passage:

With those words, Zeus turned to his own son Hermes. “You are our messenger, Hermes, sent on all our missions. Announce to the nymph with lovely braids our fixed decree: Odysseus journeys home–the exile must return. But not in the convoy of gods or mortal men.” …

I can’t argue the accuracy of translation (“fixed” is very different from “unerring”). But in every way, including using double quotes instead of single quotes, Fagles is more readable.

And the hard-to-read one was written that way ON PURPOSE. It was written in the early 1900s, way after people stopped talking like that. But apparently the translators thought that Homer should be noble, or something, and that noble stuff should use “thou” and “spake” and crap like that.

I disagree.

It would be one thing if the original was written in a high-class manner that was only meant for kings and priests. But this poem was for the masses.

Here’s a piece from a “modern” translation of Beowulf, which I found here

WENT he forth to find at fall of night that haughty house, and heed wherever
the Ring-Danes, outrevelled, to rest had gone. Found within it the atheling band
asleep after feasting and fearless of sorrow, of human hardship.

Now here’s the same passage from my bookshelf, translated by Seamus Heaney:

So after nightfall Grendel set out for the lofty house, to see how the Ring-Danes
were settling into it after their drink, and he came upon them, a company of their best asleep from their feasting, insensible to pain and human sorrow.

I don’t deny that the first example has a poetry and rhythm to it. “Asleep after feasting and fearless of sorrow.” Nice. The translator worked in alliteration and assonance at every turn. It was hard work.

But for a first-time reader (like me), the prose that’s easy to understand beats the poetry that isn’t.

What’s frustrating to me is that the difficult-to-read translations of Odysseus and Beowulf were both taken from the Harvard Classics series. This is a set of books that people buy in order to get all the great books of the world in one go.

In other words, these aren’t people who love The Iliad, then pick out this version because it’s beautiful. They’ve never read it. They figure they’ll get it along with 15 or 20 other really famous books, and they’ll give it a try.

But then they get these impossible translations, with a page or two of introduction and no notes, illustrations, maps, timelines, or family trees. How are they supposed to get anything out of them except a nice-looking library?

And then they give up, thinking that the works are really hard.

And they miss out on some really cool stuff! I should write a post about how cool it is to have read the Iliad and the Odyssey. It’s not about bragging rights, but about understanding references in paintings, plays, books and movies. And more.

Sigh.

The same thing goes for translations of the Bible, of course. But there are lots of modern English translations of the Bible, so I’m not as bothered.