War Music: Homer and His Iliad • Hacker News Board

Re: War Music: Homer and His Iliad

#31

Post by A_D_E_P_T » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 7:58 PM UTC

akkartik wrote: post #29

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #11

War Music is the name of an incomplete modern translation of the Iliad by Christopher Logue. It is without doubt one of the best poetic works of the past 100 years. "Achilles saw his armour in that instant And its ominous radiance flooded his heart. Bright pads with toggles crossed behind the knees, Bodice of fitted tungsten, pliable straps; His shield as round and rich as moons in spring; His sword's haft parked bet…

Who's Achilles looking at in this passage?

The scene: Achilles, having just about finished mourning Patroclus, and having agreed to fight once again on behalf of the Achaeans, wakes alone on the morning of battle.

I'll give you the pages just before and after that part. Here: https://docdro.id/puR412w

Re: War Music: Homer and His Iliad

#32

Post by coldtea » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 8:49 PM UTC

neaden wrote: post #10

Red_Tarsius wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree about Emily Wilson's Odissey. She translated the first line of the poem as "Tell me about a complicated man". She almost went with "Tell me about a straying husband". Neither complicated nor straying husband appear in the original text. Pope's description (The man for wisdom’s various arts renown’d...) is closer to the epithets we are taught at school (ricco d'astuzie or dal multiforme ingegno). πολύτροπος…

This complaint seems odd. First complicated is obviously not in the original text, it's in Greek. I guess what you mean is "No words I would translate as complicated are in the text" but then your complaint just becomes a tautology. Saying Pope's version from the 1700s is more like what you were taught in school is similar, it's probably the version you or your teachers read so it shaped what you were taught. Essenti…

>This complaint seems odd. First complicated is obviously not in the original text, it's in Greek. I guess what you mean is "No words I would translate as complicated are in the text" but then your complaint just becomes a tautology.

The parent's complaint is neither a tautology not odd in any way.

"Neither complicated nor straying husband appear in the original text" obviousy means "the meanings conveyed by those words are not the meanings found in the original text", not that the English words aren't in the original (I mean, duh!).

They translator is bizarrely translating a word that means "resourceful" to "complicated".

It's about Ulysses being like MacGyver, not like Dan Draper. It'anymore that Greek for fish ("ichthus") would make sense to translate as "

Re: War Music: Homer and His Iliad

#33

Post by akkartik » Thu, Aug 10, 2023, 2:43 AM UTC

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #31

akkartik wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who's Achilles looking at in this passage?

The scene: Achilles, having just about finished mourning Patroclus, and having agreed to fight once again on behalf of the Achaeans, wakes alone on the morning of battle. I'll give you the pages just before and after that part. Here: https://docdro.id/puR412w

Thanks! I'll be reading it and the other links in this thread while I wait for my copy in the mail.