Date: July 16th, 2026 2:05 PM Author: appetizing useless public bath
would make a great IFNB epic if only Hollywood has the courage. think of the Iliad scenes with Achilles and Patroclus. or in this Nolan version of the Odyssey they could have the soldiers spending the evening with their pal Sinon only to discover that he is a man with a vagina.
Date: July 16th, 2026 2:06 PM Author: appetizing useless public bath
Emily Wilson (2018):"Tell me about a complicated man. / Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost / When he had wrecked the holy town of Troy..."Focus: Fast, modern, and strictly adheres to iambic pentameter. It directly translates the Greek word polytropos as "complicated".
Robert Fagles (1996):"Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns / driven time and again off course, once he had plundered / the hallowed heights of Troy..."Focus: Grandiose, cinematic, and highly poetic. It captures the epic scale while using "twists and turns" to describe Odysseus's wily nature.
Richmond Lattimore (1965):"Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways, who was driven / far journeys, after he had sacked the sacred citadel of Troy..."Focus: Academic and literal. It closely mirrors the original Greek sentence structure, making it a favorite for university study.
Robert Fitzgerald (1961):"Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story / of that man skilled in all ways of contending, the wanderer, harried for years on end, / after he plundered the stronghold on the proud height of Troy."Focus: Lyrical and theatrical, often compared to Shakespearean verse. It frames Odysseus as a master of both battle and wits.
Date: July 16th, 2026 11:30 PM Author: bespoke address
Whats wild is noone has ever translated it that way. In the surviving fragments of the livius andronicus translation from the third century BCE it says "Virum mihi, Camena, insece versutum" -- Tell me, Camena, of the resourceful man.
Date: July 16th, 2026 2:09 PM Author: appetizing useless public bath
that's why up above i said the issue was ... "complicated."
rather than praise Odysseus for his many-ways skills (polytropos) she goes with something you could almost hear her say in a feminist vocal fry: it's complicated.
Is There Really a Chronic Disease Epidemic? It’s Complicated.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants to return the nation to a time when he believes Americans were healthier. Not so fast, many researchers say.
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Supporting Iran in the World Cup? It’s Complicated.
June 26, 2026
By Bill Saporito
Mr. Saporito is an editor for Times Opinion who has attended seven World Cups — five men’s and two women’s — as a reporter and spectator.
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The White House’s report criticized Ms. Hartig for several exhibitions at the museum. They included the 2020 exhibition “Girlhood (It’s Complicated),” which had pages from a transgender child’s diary; the 2023 exhibition “Entertainment Nation,” which described Alexander Hamilton as “flawed,” in part because he owned slaves; and an initiative that had museum staff traveling to places including Mexico City to study the work of immigrant rights activists.
There are a lot of good ones. Fagles is the looser but more vivid classic, while lattimore is more stately, I would say. Not a classic, but I really like the recent one by stephen mitchell.
Do not, under any circumstances, read Wilson. Her Iliad is better, but not by much
Date: July 16th, 2026 3:12 PM Author: bespoke address
He has to be the greatest English versifier who ever lived. That said, it is really difficult for me to get into the Augustan style and register. Haven't been able to get through it. But I'm sure if you force yourself to adjust it's 180.
Date: July 16th, 2026 11:47 PM Author: Sick resort
I read a prose translation alongside it, so I'd read a book or half-book from that first, then the Pope. That way I knew what was going on and could focus more on Pope's use of language and stuff