Odyssey redux

I recently read an article in The New Statesman claiming that last year’s The Odyssey – Homer by Daniel Mendelsohn “will probably be the authoritative translation for years to come”.

Having finally made its acquaintance, I can see why some might believe this, but how can they avoid the Emily Wilson steamroller? For example, when questioned about “The Odyssey”, Google’s AI Overview doesn’t even mention Mendelsohn. It certainly should.

Sheer poetry

Mendelsohn has gone to enormous lengths to render The Odyssey in as faithful a version as possible, maintaining something of the feel of the original, both rhythmically and stylistically.

Not only has he retained the six-beat rhythm of the original dactylic hexameter in his line-by-line version, but he makes every effort to reproduce Homer’s alliteration and assonace. The effect is simply wonderful.

My favourite epithets

In stark contrast to Wilson (pictured here), Mendelsohn has also realized the crucial importance of Homer’s repeated formulaic epithets — “Odysseus, that man of great cunning” (πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς, polymêtis Odysseus), for example, or “Penelope, clear-thinking woman” (περίφρων Πηνελόπεια, perifrôn Pênelopeia) — epithets that Wilson mostly omits entirely in her drive to simplify.

Omits them, or elides them into her narrative. For instance, in conversation with Kalypso, Mendelsohn’s “ever-inventive Odysseus” (πολυμήχανος Ὀδυσσεύς, polymêkhanos Odysseus) is simply “Odysseus”. And when “Odysseus of the many ruses replied to her in turn” (Mendelsohn’s six-beat line — try it), Wilson simply reports that “Odysseus with tact said ...”

Omits, elides, or, worst of all, twists them, as when Mendelsohn’s “Odysseus, that man of great cunning” (see above) becomes, for Wilson (in the opening line of Book 9), “wily Odysseus, the lord of lies”! (She really doesn’t like her protagonist.)

But then, in the same Book 9, “the Cyclopes, an arrogant, lawless lot” (in Mendelsohn’s translation) become, for Wilson, “high-minded Cyclopes, the mavericks”. (Homer’s two adjectives are ὑπερφίαλος — hyperphialos, “arrogant” — and ἀθέμιστος — athemistos, “lawless”, just as Mendelsohn wrote.) Many more of Wilson’s anomalies could be mentioned.

Interestingly, Mendelsohn (pictured here) argues for “Athena of the bright owl-eyes” (γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη, glaukôpis Athênê), which I have always believed should be “grey-eyed Athena”. Mendelsohn conjectures that γλαυκός (glaukos, “shining”) is derived from γλαύξ (glaux, “owl”), and refers to that creature’s unnerving stare. I’m not entirely convinced — the logic seems to miss a step —, but I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Homer’s text

My thoughts also turned to the source text, not only for Mendelsohn and Wilson, but for all the many translations and versions that fill our bookshops. Whenever I read an ancient text, I like to know whose authority I am relying upon. This is important when dealing with texts that have few source manuscripts: the discovery of a new one can throw everything into disarray. However, The Odyssey (like that other venerable text The Holy Bible) is based on a myriad of original manuscripts, ancient and medieval (the Oxford editor Thomas Allen’s list, published in 1908, runs to two-and-a-half pages). So the appearance of a variant at this late date is vanishingly unlikely.

Meanwhile, as pundits of all kinds seek to benefit from the appearance of Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster movie this month, the University of Manchester’s John Rylands Library have taken the opportunity to reveal their ownership of a truly ancient copy of The Odyssey: An incomplete parchment codex from around AD 300, in which 79 of the (estimated) original 207 leaves have survived with varying levels of damage. Initially acquired in Egypt at the turn of the twentieth century and published in 1911 as P. Rylands I.53, the codex, containing parts of Books 12–15 and 18–24, was probably the second of a two-volume set — ancient precursor of the Loeb edition!

The Manchester Odyssey

Pictured here is the front face (or recto) of folio 81. Carrying lines 140–171 of Book 22, it matches a single page of the Loeb edition almost exactly.

We are near the end of the story. The scene is the megaron hall of Odysseus’ palace in Ithaka. Having revealed himself by stringing the mighty bow and shooting an arrow through the axe-heads, the hero turns on the crowd of suitors. His son, Telemachus, brings weapons for himself, his father, and two loyal bondsmen (the swineherd Eumaeus and the cowherd Philoetius). But he has left the door to the storeroom ajar.

As this page begins, Melanthius the disloyal goatherd runs to Odysseus’ storeroom (you can see the name Ὀδυσεὺς in the middle of the second line — Melanthius’ name is below it in the third line) and seizes twelve sets of weapons for the suitors.

Eumaeus spots him returning for more weapons and asks Odysseus whether he should try and kill him or capture him. On the last line of the page, Odysseus replies that he and Telemachus (you can see the name Τηλέμαχος halfway along the bottom line) will keep the suitors occupied, while the two bondsmen capture Melanthius.

Pictured here is the recto of folio 82, with lines 238–271 of Book 22. With Melanthius captured and trussed up, Odysseus (named in the top line) and his three companions stand with spears ready against the remaining suitors. Six of the boldest suitors now decide to throw their own spears, but all miss their mark. (Their names appear on the badly damaged fourth, fifth, and sixth lines of the page.)

The heroes, in turn, target four others. “Taking careful aim” (in the three six-beat lines of Mendelsohn’s translation) “Odysseus hit Demoptolemos” (Δημοπτόλεμον μὲν Ὀδυσσεύς), “Telemakhos hit Euryades, the swineherd hit Elatos” (Εὐρυάδην δ᾿ ἄρα Τηλέμαχος, Ἔλατον δὲ συβώτης), “and the man who had charge of the cattle was the one to slay Peisandros (Πείσανδρον δ᾿ ἄρ᾿ ἔπεφνε βοῶν ἐπιβουκόλος ἀνήρ).

“So all of them together bit the dust of the wide-spreading ground”. I feel that Mendelsohn’s translation, with its six-beat line, is so much more Homeric (as in so many other places) than Wilson’s weak version: “They all fell and bit the earth”. I can well imagine that, reading Wilson, “Odysseus would cover his head and start lamenting once again” (Book 8, line 92). For we miss the great beauty of Mendelsohn’s Odyssey, which truly deserves to be “the authoritative translation for years to come”.