Translation is Treason

[sdi]

Akhilles returns to the killing-fields of Troia. Apollon encourages prince Aineias to step up and fight him but Akhilles's armor, newly-forged by Hephaistos himself, is impervious to his blows. Akhilles is just about to kill Aineias when Poseidon spirits him away from battle. Akhilles raves (Iliad XX 344–352):

ὢ πόποι ἦ μέγα θαῦμα τόδ’ ὀφθαλμοῖσιν ὁρῶμαι:
ἔγχος μὲν τόδε κεῖται ἐπὶ χθονός, οὐδέ τι φῶτα
λεύσσω, τῷ ἐφέηκα κατακτάμεναι μενεαίνων.
ἦ ῥα καὶ Αἰνείας φίλος ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖσιν
ἦεν: ἀτάρ μιν ἔφην μὰψ αὔτως εὐχετάασθαι.
ἐρρέτω: οὔ οἱ θυμὸς ἐμεῦ ἔτι πειρηθῆναι
ἔσσεται, ὃς καὶ νῦν φύγεν ἄσμενος ἐκ θανάτοιο.
ἀλλ’ ἄγε δὴ Δαναοῖσι φιλοπτολέμοισι κελεύσας
τῶν ἄλλων Τρώων πειρήσομαι ἀντίος ἐλθών.

Here is how Samuel Butler translates it:

Alas! what marvel am I now beholding? Here is my spear upon the ground, but I see not him whom I meant to kill when I hurled it. Of a truth Aeneas also must be under heaven's protection, although I had thought his boasting was idle. Let him go hang; he will be in no mood to fight me further, seeing how narrowly he has missed being killed. I will now give my orders to the Danaans and attack some other of the Trojans.

This is hot garbage. It's slow, it's flat, and it conveys none of Akhilles's fury or personality. (His own best friend, Patroklos, called him "a dreadful man, who would be quick to blame even the innocent!") My favorite, W. H. D. Rouse's, is a little better but still not very good:

Confound it all, here's a miracle done before my eyes! There lies my spear on the ground, and not a trace can I see of the fellow I meant to kill! Aineias must have some friends in heaven. And I thought his boasting was all stuff and nonsense! Let him go to the devil. He won't have a mind to try me again after this happy escape from death! All right, I will round up our people and have a try for some other Trojans.

Rouse argued vehemently, and I agree, that Homer wasn't trying to be high literature: the Iliad was meant to be a rousing story told over beer. Sure, it contains dignified history and theology, but it was not, itself, meant to be dignified—it was meant to be exciting enough to buy the bard another day's meal and lodging. But I think Rouse dropped the ball, here.

Here's how I'd translate it:

What the fuck kind of magic is this!?
Here's my spear lying on the ground, but I can't
see the man I meant to kill with it.
So Aineias really is dear to the immortal gods!
I thought he was just bullshitting me.
Eh, fuck it: he won't have the guts to face me
again, happy to have cheated death once.
Come on, I'll rally the bloodthirsty Danaans
to go and try some other Troian face-to-face.

Compared to the others, it may look like I'm taking liberties, but it's nearly word-for-word...

(If you don't like his language, let me remind you we're talking about Akhilles and not, say, Diomedes or Hektor!)

Comments

[k_a_nitz]

That definitely sounds more real!

[jprussell]

Reminds me of Stanley Lombardo's approach, where he's a bit freer with how to translate the words due to a goal of translating the feel - always a risky approach, but there's something to be said for it when handled by someone knowledgeable enough to do it right.

(To be fair, my Greek is far enough beyond rusty that I'm not sure how direct your translation is, so my apologies if you achieved the vividness by the opposite tack of going as accurate word-for-word as possible).

It also reminds me of the scene in the Odyssey where Polyphemos picks up some of the companions and brains them against the wall of the cave. The passage describes it as "like picking up a sack of puppies and smashing it against a wall." Very gruesome, as was the description of the blinding of Polyphemos.

Cheers,
Jeff

[sdi]

I was trying to hew pretty close to word-for-word while still capturing what I perceive as Akhilles's personality! "ὢ πόποι" is, by the dictionary, "an expression of surprise, anger, distress, etc." with no literal meaning; thus Butler's "Alas!" seems no more accurate than my "What the fuck!" "μὰψ εὐχετάασθαι" is, by the dictionary, "to declare without aim or object;" thus Butler's "idle boasting" or Rouse's "stuff and nonsense" seems no more accurate than my "bullshitting." "ἐρρέτω" is, by the dictionary, "go your own way" (as a command) but "fuck it" will do just as well, etc.

I remember that scene when I read the Odyssey to my daughter! I was cringing but she was super into it—you can see that she's far more cut out for the world than I am!

[causticus]

Man, I really do like your translation, if even this is just a tiny snippet of what is possible for the entire work. I think it much better captures the spirit of a Bronze Age Collapse pirate tale, as opposed to using something like a haughty High Victorian style English. Also, I think your style be very fitting for a graphic novel version of the Iliad.

Honestly, I think a lot of problems with reading the classics in our current era is a problem of translation. And, that much can be done to make translations more relatable.

[sdi]

Thank you!

It feels like something really weird happened at least to classics scholarship around 1920 or so. It went from high-quality-but-stodgy-puritanical-Victorian to pathetic-and-almost-willfully-blind within a few years. Maybe mass media turned everything stupid around then. Maybe the loss of a generation of young men was too great a blow for scholarship to survive. Maybe the Iliad's psychic pull is fading as we enter a new age. Maybe it's just my personal prejudice! But in any case, I'm with you, this stuff is only really accessible if A) you learn Greek or B) you learn Victorian English; and neither of those are very easy...

[thinking_turtle]

There is a more obvious explanation, that Achilles was fighting air. The only place Achilles was fighting Trojan princes was in his imagination.

[sdi]

Oh, I don't think so. This sort of thing happens a lot in the Iliad (in fact, it happened three times to Aineias specifically, the gods really loved him), and in each case, the narrator describes what happened to both sides of the magical intervention afterwards.

[thinking_turtle]

Thanks for your reply! I've heard men boast, but I've not seen men mysteriously disappear from beneath a spear. So I think it's unusual for Poseidon to intervene on the physical plane.

[sdi]

Maybe you just haven't met anyone as pious as Aineias? ;)

[thinking_turtle]

Your remark that The Iliad was meant as "a rousing story told over beer" reminded me of Dio Chrysostom's 11th discourse. I find Dio totally convincing.

Now Poseidon is the god of Water, and he rescues Aeneas by splashing water on Achilles' face, waking him up.

[duskpeterson]

I wish some publisher was reading this, so that the world could be gifted with your translation of The Iliad. :)

[sdi]

Ha! Thank you, see you in 20 years :)

[duskpeterson]

:)