Which Odyssey translation wins a blind reading test? • Hacker News Board

Re: Which Odyssey translation wins a blind reading test?

#61

Post by boredhedgehog » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 3:57 PM UTC

acabal wrote: post #60

al_borland wrote: post #9

Standard eBooks has a translation by William Cullen Bryant. I was hoping that would be in the rankings to see how it compared.

SE Editor-in-Chief here. We selected the William Cullen Bryant translation because we felt that, of the public domain translations , it was the one most accessible to modern readers. We also host his translation of the Iliad . Pope's is certainly very beautiful, but also very literary and written in a style of English that can be difficult for the average modern reader. I think that determination is well reflected in…

But why Bryant over Butler?

Re: Which Odyssey translation wins a blind reading test?

#62

Post by acabal » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 4:10 PM UTC

boredhedgehog wrote: post #61

acabal wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SE Editor-in-Chief here. We selected the William Cullen Bryant translation because we felt that, of the public domain translations , it was the one most accessible to modern readers. We also host his translation of the Iliad . Pope's is certainly very beautiful, but also very literary and written in a style of English that can be difficult for the average modern reader. I think that determination is well reflected in…

But why Bryant over Butler?

Butler's Odyssey and Iliad are prose translations, which we felt didn't fit the commonly understood image of those works as works of verse.

Re: Which Odyssey translation wins a blind reading test?

#63

Post by curo » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 4:50 PM UTC

faldor20 wrote: post #56

I enjoyed this but wanted to browse all the options. I made a site that has all the options for browsing and you can even play the game again selecting your favorite from all the options. https://odyssey.elidowling.com/

This page embeds the exact payload of the original including campaignVersion: "v5", candidateSetVersion: "mendelsohn-2025", all eight private excerpts, contexts, profile copy, and internal IDs. And it doesn't cite the original. I.e., infringement.

Re: Which Odyssey translation wins a blind reading test?

#64

Post by faldor20 » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 5:06 PM UTC

curo wrote: post #63

faldor20 wrote: post #56

I enjoyed this but wanted to browse all the options. I made a site that has all the options for browsing and you can even play the game again selecting your favorite from all the options. https://odyssey.elidowling.com/

This page embeds the exact payload of the original including campaignVersion: "v5", candidateSetVersion: "mendelsohn-2025", all eight private excerpts, contexts, profile copy, and internal IDs. And it doesn't cite the original. I.e., infringement.

It certainly does embed the original data, but that's a fair point. I made this in about 10 minutes for me and just thought others on this niche hackernews thread (who would have seen the original) might benefit.

I updated it to reference the original.

Re: Which Odyssey translation wins a blind reading test?

#65

Post by Ekaros » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 5:15 PM UTC

Chinjut wrote: post #4

Homer's original won a blind writing test.

I actually doubt that. My understanding is that original was not written work but oral...

Re: Which Odyssey translation wins a blind reading test?

#66

Post by interiorchurch » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 5:35 PM UTC

oliculipolicula wrote: post #2

Sorry this could be offensive didn't mean to be.. Any Greek speakers who studied Homer in school here can share what are your favourite English translations? Prefer Lattimore or Fitzgerald as being closer to original?

Former classicist here. When I taught Homer in translation, I always used Butler's prose versions. You have to turn Homer inside out to render him in English verse like most of the popular translations do, and I don't consider the results worth the effort.

Re: Which Odyssey translation wins a blind reading test?

#67

Post by slowmovintarget » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 7:50 PM UTC

Fagles' translation of The Illiad worked best for me, but his translation of The Odyssey was very dry. I landed on Rieu's translation (I read Lattimore's too, but kept going back to Rieu.)

According to the test, I should read Fitzgerald if I ever do a reread.

Re: Which Odyssey translation wins a blind reading test?

#68

Post by TheCoelacanth » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 8:31 PM UTC

As the least "flowery" translation, I suspect Wilson would do a lot better if the test was repeated with longer passages.

What seems good for a few lines can get very tedious after hundreds of pages.

Re: Which Odyssey translation wins a blind reading test?

#69

Post by Someone » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 8:47 PM UTC

JamesSwift wrote: post #34

npinsker wrote: post #7

“How much you enjoy the prose” doesn’t really seem like the metric by which we should rank these? I’d prefer to read whatever’s most faithful to the original, which isn’t measured here.

Translation = words + intent. Literal translation frequently loses the intent encoded into the chosen language, especially for creative writing. If I translate "youre a real piece of work" literally into another language, Ive likely lost the entire point of the phrase. Should we prefer that translation instead of one that either spells out the underhandedness of the comment in the other language? Or which replaces it…

> Translation = words + intent.

Plus style, plus, certainly in the case of the Odyssey, rhythm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre_(poetry) ). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey#Narrative_and_language:

“The epic has 12109 lines composed in dactylic hexameter, sometimes called Homeric hexameter—a metre with six metrical feet. The form of hexameter is catalectic, meaning that it lacks an expected syllable in the last foot. Each line has between twelve and seventeen syllables and generally forms a grammatically complete sentence.”

Re: Which Odyssey translation wins a blind reading test?

#70

Post by watwut » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 9:12 PM UTC

suddenlybananas wrote: post #29

>Do readers prefer archaic language? >Emily Wilson argues that readers may mistake archaic language for authority or authenticity [..] Among translations published since 1960, it nearly disappears. Readers were not simply choosing the oldest-sounding English. I don't think this necessarily follows, a translation written in 1960 can have a more contemporary English than one written in 1980. That being said, I don't re…

> whatever bards actually composed it were writing about something that allegedly happened hundreds of years earlier and using language/style that was itself archaic at the time.

How does that follow? When I read fantasy or legends, they tend to be written in contemporary language of the writer.

Why would a bard literally living from what listeners pay used words his listeners dont know?

This ballad was supposed to be part of oral tradition before being written. Remembering archaic language is harder then remembering something that flows.